Things went from bad to worse for poor Ser Duncan in last week’s double dose of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, as our hedge knight hero earned the ire of the House of the Dragon itself. But Dunk’s method of justice took a bit of a swerve from what we’ve previously seen of trials by combat in Game of Thrones‘ past—putting the spotlight on another old piece of Westerosi history.
What *Is* a Trial of Seven?
Trials by combat have existed as ways for the elites of Westeros to settle issues for thousands of years, but the Trial of Seven is rooted in another ancient aspect of Westeros’ past, the migration of the Andals from Essos into Westeros thousands of years prior.
The Andals brought with them what would eventually become the dominant religious order of the Seven Kingdoms, the Faith of the Seven, which, in contrast to the numerous Old Gods worshipped by the First Men, believed in a singular god with seven aspects. Each “face” of the Seven Who Are One represented a different facet of faith, and thus the number seven was enshrined in a number of religious practices across Westeros—the concept of trials by combat included.
A Trial of Seven differs from typical trials by combat in that instead of a one-on-one duel, it’s a 14-person melee, with the accused and accuser (or their denoted champions) fighting alongside six combatants each, believing that God would be more inclined to influence judgment in the trial in seeing the seven honored. Although the seven participants on a given side didn’t have to reflect the different faces of God, each side demanded that seven combatants must participate—failure to find the full complement of required participants would see the accused declared guilty by default, as Dunk almost found out.
Have There Been Trials of Seven Before?
© HBO
There’s a reason Maekar Targaryen blurts out obscenities in confusion when Aerion demands that Dunk’s right to a trial by combat be a Trial of Seven: although the concept has existed for, presumably, as long as the Faith has, Trials of Seven are extremely rare in recorded Westerosi history. In fact, before the tourney at Ashford Meadow, only one Trial of Seven of significant note had occurred before it. And it too involved House Targaryen—in fact, one of the most infamous Targaryens to have ever lived.
Roughly 170 years prior to the events of Knight of the Seven Kingdoms in 42 AC, Aegon the Conqueror’s second son, Maegor (eventually known as Maegor the Cruel), became the third Targaryen to rule the Seven Kingdoms. Maegor came to the Iron Throne in a time of great discontent: aside from the sudden death of his older half-brother, King Aenys I Targaryen, a growing divide between the church and the royal family had been brewing ever since Maegor took a second wife in defiance of scripture years prior, as well as the marriage between Aenys’ young children, Prince Aegon and Princess Rhaena, leading to an open uprising by the warrior order of the Faith, the Faith Militant, by the time Maegor returned from exile to claim the Iron Throne in defiance of the laws of inheritance.
Facing a proclamation by Maegor’s mother, Queen Visenya, to challenge her son’s claim, the Faith Militant invoked the Trial of Seven to challenge Maegor. The accuser, Ser Damon Morrigen, led six other members of his chapter of the Faith Militant, the Warrior’s Sons, against Maegor. Traditionally, royals facing trials by combat would have the Kingsguard act as their champions, but with the Kingsguard away from King’s Landing at the time, Maegor recruited a mix of soldiers and knights from the gathered crowds: Dick Bean, a man-at-arms in service of House Targaryen, was the first to volunteer and was eventually joined by Lucifer Massey, lord of House Massey, as well as the knights Ser Bernarr Brune, Ser Bramm of Blackhull, Ser Rayford Rosby, and Ser Guth Lothston.
Everyone save Maegor perished during the trial, and Maegor himself was grievously injured in the process, slipping into a month-long coma as the last of the Warrior’s Sons opposing him fell. The conclusion of the trial in Maegor’s favor cast doubt on the Faith’s argument against his right to the Iron Throne, but hostility between House Targaryen and the Faith would bubble over into open conflict when Maegor emerged from his coma and promptly burned the Warrior’s Sons’ base of operations, the Sept of Remembrance, to the ground from atop Balerion the Black Dread.
Why Did Aerion Call a Trial of Seven Instead of a Regular Trial by Combat?
© HBO
Just as his father Maekar questioned, there are a few potential reasons why Aerion invoked the obscure Trial of Seven against Dunk. Practically, while Aerion was a competent fighter, squaring off against a humongous opponent like Dunk, even if he was a lowly hedge knight, would’ve been a daunting prospect regardless of Dunk’s own skill.
Secondly, and perhaps more true to Aerion’s character, is that his obsession with dragons and the believed divine legacy of the Targaryens led him to see a kind of kinship with Maegor. Although it was just shy of two centuries after Aegon I conquered Westeros, in the time since, House Targaryen had already been heavily rocked from its powerful position as the House of the Dragon, losing its clutch of dragons entirely in the wake of the Dance of Dragons, with the last dragon dying 60 years prior to the tourney at Ashford Meadow.
Aerion, fashioning himself as the Brightflame and almost a living dragon himself, was particularly obsessed with trying to return the Targaryens to their glory years as dragon masters and infuriated by his family’s long decline—after all, as we saw previously, the inciting incident that leads to the trial in the first place was born from Aerion’s perceived belief that Tanselle’s performance of the legend of Serwyn of the Mirror Shield was a slight on the Targaryens themselves. It only makes sense that someone so driven by his House’s grand past would, in this instance, be reminded of Maegor’s own defiant response to the denial of the blood of the dragon and think he could fashion a similar legend for himself.
We’ll have to wait for the last two episodes of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms to see how that goes for him, however.
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.
