After each episode of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Slate writers gather to answer a crucial question: Who is the worst person in Westeros? This week, senior staff writer Rebecca Onion and staff writer Nadira Goffe answer the call.
Rebecca Onion: Nadira! We have a cathartic penultimate episode this week, as the Trial of Seven—which our main guy Dunk is facing as a result of defending puppeteer Tanselle from Aerion Targaryen’s wrath—has gone from concept to actuality. Dunk has gathered his team of seven with help from his squire Egg, and now we’ll see how this hedge knight with no combat experience fares in, well, combat.
Because most violent deeds in the episode take place in the ring, sanctioned by the bloodthirsty morality governing Westeros, it’s hard to assign blame to combatants—even Aerion, that perennial brat. But when Dunk blacks out after being stuck with a spear, the writers seize the chance to insert a flashback to Dunk’s origins in Flea Bottom—and we get several candidates for this week’s Worst Person.
Nadira Goffe: Rebecca, this flashback was everything I didn’t know I needed. We meet young Dunk, a scrawny kid running with a crew of fellow orphans, looting battlefields for survival. His friend Rafe—played with heartbreaking vulnerability by Chloe Lea—is the light of their little found family. She’s the one with dreams, the one who believes they’ll escape the gutter.
And then a City Watchman kills her.
Not in combat. Not in self-defense. He catches them looting, and when Rafe freezes—she’s just a child, terrified—he runs her through without hesitation. Dunk watches his best friend die, and the Watchman doesn’t even register it as noteworthy. That’s the horror: to this man, Rafe’s life had no value at all.
Rebecca: That scene gutted me. And it reframes everything about Dunk—his fierce protection of the vulnerable, his insistence on honor even when it’s impractical, his refusal to look away from injustice. He became the man who would face down a Targaryen prince for a puppeteer because he once couldn’t save Rafe.
So who’s worse? Aerion, whose petty cruelty set this whole trial in motion? Or that Watchman, who snuffed out a child’s life and probably slept fine that night?
Nadira: For me, it’s the Watchman. Aerion is a product of his upbringing—Targaryen exceptionalism, absolute impunity, a family culture that rewards ruthlessness. He’s awful, but he’s also a cautionary tale about what absolute power does to people.
The Watchman had no divine blood, no dragon, no exceptional status. He was just a man with a badge and a spear who decided a scared child didn’t deserve to live. That’s not systemic evil—that’s personal, intimate cruelty. He’s the kind of person who exists in every society, in every era, the one who chooses violence when he could choose mercy.
Rebecca: And Dunk carries that moment forever. When he regains consciousness in the present, still bleeding from his trial wounds, you can see it in his eyes—he’s fighting not just for himself, but for every Rafe he couldn’t save. The episode gives us deaths, yes, but more importantly, it gives us the reason Dunk has spent his whole life trying to be good in a world that rarely rewards it.
Nadira: This week’s Worst Person in Westeros is the Flea Bottom City Watchman. May his name be forgotten, even as his cruelty echoes through Dunk’s story.
Next week: The season finale. Will Dunk survive? Will Aerion get what’s coming to him? And who will claim the title of Worst Person in Westeros?
