"A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" Episode 5 put the Trial of Seven right at the front and showed one of the toughest fights in the "Game of Thrones" world.
A lot of the episode took us back to Dunk's past, when he was growing up in Flea Bottom before joining Ser Arlan.
This helped explain how the battle in the trial played out. The fight was really hard and exhausting from the start. Showrunner Ira Parker told TheWrap he wanted viewers to feel how tired and scared Dunk got, even though he was bigger than his opponents.
Parker said, "Because we're only seeing things from Dunk's point of view, I wanted everyone to feel what it's like to wear armor and a helmet."
He added, "Dunk isn't going to be great at this. Even though we might think, 'Oh, he's big and the hero, he's going to kick some ass,' the first thing he does is get a spear in his gut and fall off his horse."
Sam Spruell in "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" (Credit: HBO)
Getting thrown off his horse made Dunk rely on the skills he had before he met Arlan.
Fighting like a knight and fighting like a beggar or thief from Flea Bottom, Peter Claffey explained to TheWrap that this difference was important. It was Dunk's toughness and determination in tough situations that gave him an edge over his size.
Claffey said, "That's pretty much how the book wrote it too, from the fight in 'The Hedge Knight'—George's words, this isn't Sir Duncan the Tall, this is Dunk from Flea Bottom.
The hardship and grit he had to face to survive and overcome, and he uses all of that against this highly skilled, high-born prince—a Targaryen who thinks he's a dragon. In the end, it's that grit and fight that overcomes and defeats him. It was really important to show that."
Although Dunk is bigger, Aerion is more trained and better protected.
He's also quicker on his feet than Dunk. It was important to Parker that despite Aerion being a annoying Targaryen prince, he was still very skilled and a real threat to Dunk.
Parker said, "Aerion, even though he's much smaller, is very skilled and very quick, and has been trained by the best people in the world.
So Dunk is in some trouble. We wanted viewers to feel that all the way up until Dunk lands one big hit late in the game. That hit is really important. All of a sudden, Aerion's little shield is broken, and he just says, 'I've been pretty seriously injured here.'"
Those big hits were a key part of the episode.
The stunt coordinators made sure each of Dunk's punches against Aerion—and vice versa—felt really hard. This was a messy, brutal fight in the mud, not a proper knightly battle. The moment had to feel real—either rising or falling to the occasion.
Claffey said, "When we talked with Florian [Robin] and C.C. [Smiff], the stunt coordinators, we had to throw these almost ground-and-pound punches.
It was cool because I felt like it was almost a tribute to Jon Snow getting his final revenge on Ramsey Bolton after he kidnapped his brother. It really does symbolize that grit and ground and pound in the dirt. It's like what you'd do to survive and eat in Flea Bottom."
Finn Bennett remembered shooting the trial battle.
Director Owen Cooper told him and Claffey that showing how both Aerion and Dunk were getting tired as they fought each other would make the fight more real. That was easy for Bennett to remember because of how hard those days were.
He said, "It was just rolling around.
I remember being dragged through the mud, on a pulley, and Pete had one of my legs and was dragging me. I remember looking around and thinking, 'Remember this moment, this is a good thing happening to you.'"
He finished, "You really do get a sense of how brutal things are.
I remember Owen saying, 'What's really going to sell this moment is how tired you both are. You start standing up and look at each other again when you're going back to fight again. Like, how exhausting. I'm really proud of that section."
