Egg is Prince Aegon Targaryen, the future King Aegon V. In A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, he travels with the hedge knight Ser Duncan the Tall under a childhood nickname, hiding his royal identity from the people they meet. His story takes place generations before Game of Thrones.
Who is Egg in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms?
Egg is Aegon Targaryen, the fourth son of Prince Maekar and a member of the royal family. He is not a commoner who later joins the Targaryens: he is a prince from the start. “Egg” is his boyhood nickname, while “Aegon V” is the name by which he is known as king.
The official television-series description presents Egg as Dunk’s squire, while the book’s publisher describes his true name as hidden from those he and Dunk encounter. Warner Bros. Discovery’s series page and Penguin Random House’s book description frame the same central premise: a young companion traveling beside a hedge knight is secretly royal.
Why does Aegon hide his identity?
Aegon’s disguise lets him travel with Dunk without announcing that he is a prince. At Ashford, Aegon was meant to squire for his older brother Daeron, but Daeron was absent. Aegon’s distinctive silver-gold hair had been shaved, helping conceal his identity. He also kept a signet ring from Maekar hidden while traveling.
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Dunk first encounters him at an inn and mistakes him for a stableboy. Impressed by Dunk, Aegon follows him; Dunk eventually accepts him as a squire. The disguise is practical and temporary: it changes what others know about Aegon, not who he is or his place in the royal family.
How does Egg become King Aegon V?
Aegon’s path to the throne is unexpected because he is a younger son, not the obvious heir. After Maekar dies, a Great Council passes over other candidates. Aegon’s elder brother Aemon refuses the throne, and Aegon is selected. That unlikely route explains his later epithet, “Aegon the Unlikely.” It is a description of his succession, not another name for Egg.
Aegon V is listed as the fifteenth Targaryen king, reigning from 233 to 259 AC. His friend Dunk later serves in Aegon’s Kingsguard and becomes its Lord Commander. Those later roles belong to the adult king and the knight he once traveled with, not to their early adventures as squire and hedge knight.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How do the Dunk and Egg stories relate to Game of Thrones?
The Dunk and Egg stories are prequels set nearly a century before A Game of Thrones, according to the publisher. Their focus is the relationship between Dunk, a hedge knight, and Egg, the disguised prince at his side—not the central conflicts of the later series.
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The three published novellas are The Hedge Knight, The Sworn Sword, and The Mystery Knight. They are collected in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which Penguin Random House describes as containing these official prequel stories. The television series adapts the same broad setup, but screen-version choices and depictions should be distinguished from events established in the books.
For readers who want Egg’s story in its original form, the collected volume is the direct starting point: it brings together the three published Dunk and Egg novellas in story order.
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