Ser Duncan the Tall doesn’t have a Targaryen family tree. No page on this site can show you his parents or his siblings, because nobody — including Duncan himself — ever knew who they were. What he does have is something rarer: the friendship that shaped a king, and a legacy that still echoes through the Targaryen family tree a hundred years later. This is who Ser Duncan the Tall really was, how a nameless orphan from Flea Bottom ended up mentoring the boy who became Aegon V, and how his story connects to House Targaryen without ever being part of it by blood.
Who Was Ser Duncan the Tall?
Ser Duncan the Tall — called “Dunk” by nearly everyone who knew him — was a hedge knight who lived roughly a century before the events of A Song of Ice and Fire. He towered over most men (Maester Aemon once measured him at just an inch shy of seven feet), fought with more strength than polish, and spent most of his life with barely two coins to rub together. None of that is why he matters to this family tree. He matters because, for the better part of a decade, he was the closest thing to a father figure and best friend a young Targaryen prince had — a prince nobody expected to inherit the throne — and because he shaped that prince into the king he became.
Ser Duncan the Tall Family Tree: Why There Isn’t One
Duncan was born around 193 AC in King’s Landing and raised as an orphan in the slums of Flea Bottom, running with other street children and, by his own admission, surviving on petty crime. He never learned his parents’ names. He once speculated, darkly, that his father might have been a criminal — but it was only ever a guess. There is no House Duncan, no sigil, no seat, and no blood tie to House Targaryen anywhere in his story. That absence is the point: everyone else covered on this site is connected to the Targaryen family tree by birth or marriage. Duncan is connected to it by loyalty, and by the boy he raised.
The closest thing Duncan has to a bloodline of his own is a twist confirmed decades later by author George R.R. Martin, who revealed that Brienne of Tarth descends from Ser Duncan the Tall — though the exact line connecting them has never been fully spelled out.
From Flea Bottom Orphan to Hedge Knight
Around age five or six, a wandering hedge knight named Ser Arlan of Pennytree found young Dunk chasing a pig through the streets and took him on as a squire. Arlan raised him, fed him, and taught him swordwork for the better part of ten years, dragging him across nearly every region of Westeros except the North in service of a string of minor lords. Arlan was fond of calling him “Dunk the lunk, thick as a castle wall” — but the boy grew into a genuinely dangerous fighter, especially with an axe or a mace in his hands.
Meeting Egg: The Squire Who Was a Prince
In 209 AC, Ser Arlan died on the road to a tourney at Ashford Meadow, leaving Duncan alone, unknighted in any formal sense, and without a master for the first time in a decade. At an inn along the way, he crossed paths with a bald-headed boy who insisted on becoming his squire. Believing the boy was just another orphan like himself, Duncan agreed — only to discover that night that “Egg” was actually Prince Aegon Targaryen, a younger son of Prince Maekar. Rather than hand the prince back to his family, Duncan decided to keep him on as a squire and stay exactly what he was: a broke hedge knight. He figured it would do the prince some good to learn what an ordinary life actually felt like — and it did. Years later, that same boy would take the throne as King Aegon V Targaryen, remembered as one of the more reform-minded and well-liked kings the Targaryen dynasty produced.
The Ashford Tourney and the Trial of Seven
To even enter the Ashford Meadow tourney, Duncan claimed — questionably — that Ser Arlan had knighted him before dying. He competed anyway, and disaster followed almost immediately: when Prince Aerion Targaryen attacked a puppeteer named Tanselle, Duncan intervened and struck a member of the royal family in the process. Aerion twisted the incident into a treason charge, and Prince Maekar demanded a trial of seven — a brutal champions-versus-champions combat rarely invoked even in that era. Duncan survived it and was acquitted, but the trial was costly: Humfrey Beesbury and Humfrey Hardyng were killed, and Prince Baelor Targaryen died from wounds inflicted, tragically, by his own brother Maekar. It’s the same confrontation that later defined Aerion’s reputation for cruelty — the reputation that, years afterward, helped cost his own son the throne in favor of Egg.
Adventures Across Westeros with a Future King
For years afterward, Duncan and Egg traveled Westeros together as an ordinary hedge knight and his squire, taking work wherever they could find it. Their journeys took them through Dorne, down the Greenblood by poleboat, into the service of the impoverished knight Ser Eustace Osgrey at Standfast, and eventually into the middle of a near-revival of the Blackfyre Rebellion at a mystery-knight tournament in Whitewalls — where Duncan jousted in disguise as the “Gallows Knight,” uncovered a plot involving a stolen dragon egg, and helped stop a second Targaryen civil war before it could properly begin. The full story of those years, and exactly how they connect back to the wider Targaryen family tree, is covered in Dunk and Egg: Targaryen Family Tree, Explained.
Kingsguard, Lord Commander, and the Fire at Summerhall
Duncan eventually did what he swore for years he wouldn’t: he joined the Kingsguard, first documented in the role by 236 AC, the same year he personally slew the pretender Daemon III Blackfyre during the Fourth Blackfyre Rebellion. In 239 AC, once Egg had become King Aegon V, Duncan served as his champion in a trial by combat against a rebellious Lord Lyonel Baratheon, ending that rebellion outright. By 253 AC he had risen to Lord Commander of the Kingsguard — the same year, fittingly, that a teenage Barristan Selmy unhorsed him in a tourney, a defeat proudly recorded in the White Book. In 259 AC, Ser Duncan the Tall is recorded as having died alongside King Aegon V and Prince Duncan Targaryen in the Tragedy of Summerhall, a catastrophic fire that killed much of the royal family — though his valor is credited with saving several lives that night, and persistent (if unconfirmed) rumors suggest he may actually have survived.
FAQ
Is Ser Duncan the Tall actually a Targaryen?
No. He was a nameless orphan from Flea Bottom in King’s Landing with no known royal blood — the opposite of nearly everyone else on this family tree.
Who was Ser Duncan the Tall’s squire?
Prince Aegon Targaryen, nicknamed “Egg,” whom Duncan trained for years before Egg unexpectedly inherited the throne as King Aegon V.
What happened between Duncan and Aerion at the Ashford Tourney?
Duncan struck Prince Aerion Targaryen while defending a puppeteer, which triggered a trial of seven — a deadly champion combat Duncan survived, though it cost several lives, including Prince Baelor’s.
Did Ser Duncan the Tall ever join the Kingsguard?
Yes. He was serving in the Kingsguard by 236 AC and rose to Lord Commander by 253 AC.
Is Brienne of Tarth related to Ser Duncan the Tall?
George R.R. Martin has confirmed that Brienne of Tarth descends from Duncan, though the exact line connecting them hasn’t been revealed yet.