History Characters / ASongOfIceAndFireHedgeKnights

-->''"Dunk the lunk, thick as a castle wall."''

* MadeOfIron: Oh, he can (and does) get seriously hurt. But, he continually makes his opponents reconsider the wisdom in fighting him simply by how long he can keep going with obvious, multiple injuries that'd have them curling into balls if their roles were reversed.
** In ''The Mystery Knight'', a knight is paid to kill Dunk by hitting him square in the head during a joust. All that does is put him out of commission for four ''hours''. He then spends the rest of the story as if nothing is wrong.

* NeverLearnedToRead: Unsurprising, given his background.
* OddFriendship: The Hedge Knight originally from Flea Bottom and the Targaryen Princeling -- you can't really get an odder relationship. They might occasionally exasperate each other to the point of steam jutting out of various ears (particularly Dunk's), but they really do rub along and complement each other's strengths and weaknesses. As Egg points out, they ''are'' both from King's Landing... In the rest of the Kingdom, that's actually something in ''common''.

* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Interesting variation. Egg assumes that Dunk is short for Duncan but Dunk himself considers this and notes that he's been called Dunk for so long he's not sure if it was a shorter version of an older, more elegant name. Nonetheless he decides to style himself "Ser Duncan the Tall" when he enters his name in the Ashford Tourney and the rest is history.

* PosthumousCharacter: He's been dead for about 40 years in ''A Song of Ice and Fire'', but is the POV character of the prequel series ''Tales of Dunk and Egg'' and their adventures together are still ongoing.

* WorkingClassHero: One of the straighter examples of this trope in this series. He was a street kid at Flea Bottom who became a hedge knight and eventually rose to the become Lord Commander of Aegon V's Kingsguard.

-->''"Another day done, and who knows what the morrow will bring us, eh, Dunk?"''

* BornLucky: It's astonishing how often things just go right for Dunk, even though he exhibits a level of HonorBeforeReason that would make even Ned Stark blush. Notably, during the Ashford Tourney, after being forced to find six other knights to help him prove his innocence in a trial by seven, Dunk manages to get 5 knights overnight simply because his opponent is such a jerk that everyone has a score to settle with him. Then, as it turns out, Dunk is prophecized to kill a Targaryen during the trial, so one of his Targaryen opponents just agrees to throw the fight so he wouldn't end up being Dunk's victim. On the day of the trial, one of Dunk's knights betray him, so his team is forced to knight a squire to replace him. The problem is, Dunk is strongly implied to have faked his knighthood, so he doesn't actually know how to conduct the knighting ceremony. Just as he's about to be exposed as a fraud, he's summoned by the tourney master, giving him an excuse to make one of his companions do the ceremony instead. However, even with the squire joining him, his team is still short a member, forcing him to futilely ask for a volunteer among the spectators. Just as when all hope seems lost, none other than the crown prince of the Seven Kingdoms himself steps in to join his side, giving his team a tremendous advantage as the Kingsguards on the other team wouldn't even dare touch a hair on this guy's head. During the trial itself, Dunk is quickly unhorsed and thrown to the ground because he's not a real knight and doesn't know how to fight properly. Fortunately for him, his opponent makes the stupid mistake of [[BondVillainStupidity dismounting and approaching him to personally deal the killing blow]], allowing Dunk to wrestle him to the ground and use his superior streetfighting ability (the one thing he's good at) to beat the guy into submission, thus winning the trial and proving his innocence.

** ''Oak and iron guard me well, or else I'm dead and damned to hell''

* CelibateHero: Less by choice and more by circumstance. Most noble ladies would never deem to lower themselves to being with a Hedge Knight, and by the time he's of a high enough status as a member of the Kingsguard, he is sworn to celibacy -- and unlike other knights of the Kingsguard, Duncan is the sort to rigidly stick to his oath. WordOfGod states that he ''did'' leave descendants and at least one of them has appeared in the book series already, [[http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/US_Signing_Tour_Dayton_OH/ claiming he'd given "a pretty strong hint" as to who it was.]] [[spoiler: Later Martin flat out confirmed that [[https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/4llng2/grrm_confirms_longheld_fan_theory_spoilers/ Brienne of Tarth is descended from Duncan.]] ]]

* ContrastingSequelMainCharacter: Serves as this to pretty much the entirety of ''A Song of Ice and Fire's'' cast. Instead of multiple rotating [=POVs=], Dunk is the only POV character. Whereas all of them are highborn, many of them raised as nobles in luxurious conditions, and with the finest education and training for the skill-sets they were expected to have, Dunk is a commoner, grew up homeless in the WretchedHive of Flea Bottom, and is totally uneducated because of his humble beginnings ''and'' IncompletelyTrained as a knight to boot thanks to the death of his master. Whereas ''ASOIAF'' characters are involved in the game of throne, retaliating against other Houses for slights, and reaching people of great importance and influence, Dunk is concerned with considerably smaller-scale matters, like maybe getting hired by some minor lord to get lodgings or winning just one or two jousts in a tourney to make some money for a bit of decent food for the night, armor, or clothes. His brushing up against major political figures and events is accidental, and he has zero interest in using his princely squire to make any plays.

* AcquiredSituationalNarcissism: Refused to speak with Jory Cassel on account of him being just a guard captain and tells him that if Lord Eddard Stark wants questions asked of him that then Ned would have to come to do it himself. Never mind the fact that Jory is both older and more experienced than him (and a minor noble to boot) while Hugh was just made a knight because his lord died.

* HeroWithBadPublicity: Due to the fact that a robber knight is just a hedge knight on a bad day, even heroic hedge knights like Dunk and Kyle the Cat are generally distrusted by smallfolks and nobles alike. This is best seen in the third novella, where Dunk is shooed away from an inn because the innkeeper distrusts hedge knights.

* HeroWithBadPublicity: Due to the fact that a robber knight is just a hedge knight on a bad day, even heroic hedge knights like Dunk and Kyle the Cat are distrusted by smallfolks and nobles alike.

* HeroesWithBadPublicity: Due to the fact that a robber knight is just a hedge knight on a bad day, even heroic hedge knights like Dunk and Kyle the Cat are distrusted by smallfolks and nobles alike.