Baelor Targaryen fights by Ser Duncan the Tall’s side in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Season 1, Episode 5, and it doesn’t go as you might’ve expected. The decision by Baelor to join Dunk’s team for the trial of seven was a surprising one, given it meant he’d be fighting against his brother and nephews. At the same time, it was about him doing what was right and honorable, even if that came at a cost. Warning: Spoilers from this point on for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Episode 5.
That cost was higher than Baelor would’ve imagined, as doing the right thing came at the expense of his life. Initially, it seems as though Baelor has made it out relatively unscathed. While the two Ser Humfreys – Beesbury and Hardyng – were killed, the prince emerges among the victors after Dunk forces Aerion to yield. And yet, when his helm is removed, it’s revealed that the back of his head has been caved in, and in the show’s most shocking, Game of Thrones-esque moment to date, the heir to the Iron Throne dies.
Did Maekar Really Kill Baelor (& Was It On Purpose)?
Image via HBO
As far as we know, Maekar did indeed kill Baelor. It was his mace that crushed the back of his skull during the battle, and both book and show put the blame on him, with nothing to contradict it. In George R.R. Martin’s The Hedge Knight, Maekar himself acknowledges this, telling Dunk:
“Some men will say I meant to kill my brother. The gods know it is a lie, but I will hear the whispers till the day I die. And it was my mace that dealt the fatal blow, I have no doubt. The only other foes he faced in the melee were three Kingsguard, whose vows forbade them to do any more than defend themselves. So it was me. Strange to say, I do not recall the blow that broke his skull. Is that a mercy or a curse? Some of both, I think.”
The blow is hard to spot amid the chaos of the battle in the TV show, which is grim, dirty, and largely focused on Dunk fighting against Aerion. But one shot towards the end of the fight does show someone wildly swinging a mace as they turn to fend off an attack, and connecting with the back of the head of a person behind them, which is likely the exact moment that Maekar dealt his brother the killing blow.
That would allow support Maekar’s claim that it was not deliberate, since he clearly didn’t mean to kill his brother, and that makes sense. It’s more cruel, and thus powerful, if this is a tragic accident, and while Maekar does stand in his brother’s shadow and is nowhere near as honorable, there’s no indication he would’ve actually wanted him dead, nor would he have envisaged having much to gain from doing so, especially as being a kinslayer is a terrible reputation to carry.
Why Baelor Targaryen Was Killed In A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms
Image via HBO
Baelor’s death is pure George R.R. Martin, and something akin to this story’s version of Ned Stark’s beheading: a shocking twist of fate for someone who is truly honorable and does not deserve to die. This may be a fantasy world, but it doesn’t subscribe to the more traditional tropes of the good guys always coming out on top, and certainly not without a cost. Dunk claims victory, but it’s a bittersweet one because of the loss of Baelor. With seven men fighting seven others, people dying is realistic, whether it’s a hedge knight or a prince.
This serves as an important lesson to Ser Duncan of what it takes to do the right thing. That sometimes it can result in death, but that if even the great Prince Baelor Targaryen can accept that risk in the face of injustice, so too must he. It also highlights to Dunk that he has been given a gift, a chance to perhaps do something greater and ensure that Baelor’s death was not for nothing, as he says in The Hedge Knight in conversation with Maekar:
Dunk could see the truth in that. “If I had not fought, you would have had my hand off. And my foot. Sometimes I sit under that tree there and look at my feet and ask if I couldn’t have spared one. How could my foot be worth a prince’s life? And the other two as well, the Humfreys, they were good men too.” Ser Humfrey Hardyng had succumbed to his wounds only last night.
“And what answer does your tree give you?”
“None that I can hear. But the old man, Ser Arlan, every day at evenfall he’d say, ‘I wonder what the morrow will bring.’ He never knew, no more than we do. Well, mighten it be that some morrow will come when I’ll have need of that foot? When the realm will need that foot, even more than a prince’s life?”
Who Becomes Heir After Baelor’s Death?
Image via HBO
Baelor’s death does not make Maekar the new heir to the Iron Throne: as he’s the fourth son of King Daeron II, and Baelor had sons of his own, then he’s nowhere close to being king. And yet… he does end up there, after several years and several deaths.
In the immediate aftermath of Baelor being killed, his son, Valarr (whose armor he was wearing during the trial) becomes King Daeron’s heir. However, just a few months after the tourney at Ashford, a great sickness spreads across Westeros, and kills Valarr, his younger brother Matarys, and the king himself. Thus the line of succession that ran through Baelor is ended, and his oldest surviving brother, Aerys, becomes king. He did not have any children of his own, so acknowledged four different heirs:
- His brother Rhaegal, the third eldest of Daeron II’s sons and the last one above Maekar.
- When Rhaegal died in 215 AC, choking on a pie, his son Aelor was named as heir.
- Aelor then died in 217 AC due to an accident caused by his twin sister (and wife), Aelora, who then became Aerys’ heir.
- Aelora took her own life due to grief over what happened to her brother/husband, so Maekar became the next in line to the Iron Throne, and became king in 221 AC, 12 years after Baelor’s death.
The Season 1 finale of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms will release on Sunday, February 22nd at 10 pm ET on HBO and HBO Max.
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