In Martin’s “The Hedge Knight,” Dunk offers to take Egg under his wing while traveling across the realm.
Egg’s father, Maekar, is offended by the very suggestion. Egg is a crown prince, after all; he can’t wander around Westeros, bald and vulnerable, trailing after a hedge knight he met less than a week ago. After Dunk delivers his final pitch, Maekar takes a long pause, then walks away without saying a word.
In the next scene, Egg suddenly materializes and says that he’s gotten his father’s blessing to squire for Dunk.
The novella is told from Dunk’s perspective, so the reader is left to speculate about why Maekar changed his mind.
In the show, however, it’s made explicit that Egg lied. He defied his father’s wishes, choosing to follow Dunk rather than return with his family to their comfy royal life.
“He’s failed with his eldest two sons. Aegon is his last chance to create a legacy that is fit for the throne,” Sam Spruell, who plays Maekar, said of the change. “[Egg] leaving is a kind of rejection of that.”
Parker also said it was a natural extension of Maekar’s character. Thus far, Maekar has proven incapable of raising his children, but he’s still a prideful man who can’t bear to cede control.
“I actually do think he really does love his children. I do think he cares about them, even though he’s not able to raise them well, he still wants to,” Parker said of Maekar. “The idea of letting Egg go off with someone else just felt like too much for me. It felt like he could reasonably say no in this moment, even though he knows it would be better for Egg.”
