‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ Cast and Creator on Episode 5’s Shocking Demise

Gizmodo · Feb 17, 2026 · Collected from RSS

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A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms has just one episode to go in its first season, and the penultimate installment, “In the Name of the Mother,” paved an exceptionally brutal path to the finish line. As fans of Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon already know, it’s best not to get too attached to any characters, even ones you think are too heroic to be taken out of the story. Especially them, actually. As the fog lifts over Ashford Meadow and Dunk must face the future after all that’s happened, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms showrunner Ira Parker and a couple of key Targaryens took a moment to look back on episode five’s most shocking twist. After going against his own family and entering the Trial of Seven to fight on Dunk’s side, Baelor Targaryen—the heir to the Iron Throne, the Hand of the King, and the most level-headed and honorable Targaryen we may have ever met on any George R.R. Martin show—succumbed to a terrible head wound he knew was delivered by his own brother, Maekar. “We did slightly different versions of culpability, I guess; whether it was [an] accident or whether he meant to kill his brother,” Sam Spruell, who plays Maekar, told Entertainment Weekly. “I think that was really exciting for me to experiment with … there is that kind of deep, deep desire to be number one in Maekar that might be realized by the death of his brother. So all the guilt or all the sadness or all the grief he feels is kind of bracketed by this realization that this means he’s next in line to the throne.” Baelor’s decision to back Dunk isn’t something he undertook lightly, Parker explained. “At so young in his life, he became this war hero, this savior of the kingdom and the realm,” the showrunner told EW. “Because of his nature, everybody’s telling him how honorable he is and how he’s gonna make the greatest king that Westeros has ever had since the Conqueror. And then finally a moment comes for him to actually put up when his honor is tested in truth. Virtue untested is no virtue at all.” With his death—honorable though it was—Westeros history is changed forever; that’s something Maekar and Dunk (Peter Claffey) are both well aware of. Speaking to Collider, Carvel explained why we don’t actually get to see Maekar landing the ultimately fatal blow on the back of Baelor’s helmet: so that agonizing death scene would also have a gut-punch element of surprise. “In this story, we very much stay with Dunk, and so I guess you see that sequence through Dunk’s eyes,” Carvel said. “There was a moment where it was like a fleeting moment that we shot, which was the moment where Maekar strikes Baelor, and the moment just leading up to that with the brothers … I think they probably chose not to show that because it sort of spoils what’s about to come next. But we’re not really with Baelor, in that sense, we’re with Dunk.” We’ll find out what happens now that Baelor is dead—but Dunk has survived his trial, against all odds—when A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms airs its season one finale Sunday on HBO and HBO Max. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.