No One Knows Ser Arlan of Pennytree
Grief and mild feelings of insanity
It makes you feel a little crazy. When someone you love dies, they flicker in and out of your mind every few minutes. The part of you that knows they are gone for good falls silent, just long enough for the other part to enjoy a sweet memory, to see their face again, to make-believe for a moment that nothing has changed.
This is where grief feels truly surreal, even driving you a bit mad, is realizing that most of the people around you at work, the gas station, in line at the grocery store; they don’t know…..”How could they not know?!…Timothy Donovan Kent, Father of Stephen Donovan Kent, has DIED?!”
In A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Ser Duncan is mucking about a jousting tournament and looking for anyone that might be able to vouch for his knighthood, which would have been handed down by his master, Ser Arlan of Pennytree.
He asks and asks, but no one knows the name.
It’s deeply heartbreaking to watch. Duncan is confused by Arlan’s obscurity.
Ser Arlan was a hedge knight (roaming, low-class knight), a drunk ( he “whored”) and not particuraly well-known by the nobles of Westeros. To Duncan, however, Arlan was a hero. When Duncan was a boy living in the slums of King’s Landing, it was Ser Arlan who saved his life from attackers and eventually allowed Duncan to squire for him on the road.
Duncan learned everything he knows about horses, combat, honor and a knight’s duty to protect the weak and innocent.
That’s what it’s like when someone is a giant in our eyes.
The joke my siblings and I would always tell about Dad was that it seemed like we always ran into people who knew him. We’d be on beach vacation, a cruise, in some random town in Tennessee, and someone would know my Dad. Our go-to line on this was that we’d one day be shipwrecked with Dad, wash up on a lonely island in the middle of the sea, and the indigenous people would find us there on the shore….and say…. “It is Tim! He who saved our island many years ago, he has returned!”
The locals would throw a feast in his honor and celebrate till dawn his return to the island—in our goofy imagined story.
Dad really did have his admirers though. Since his death I’ve been to numerous gatherings of his friends and “fans”, meeting to swap stories and valorize the man in their own way. It’s been so encouraging. When I’m in those rooms of men and women assembled to talk about Tim Kent, I feel less insane. But what I’ve found is that it’s hard to go to those events, knowing that when they’re over, you’re right back in the asylum. I don’t live near any of Dad’s friends. If I were in North Carolina, I’d meet people from his life every other day, most likely.
I have to find courage and steadiness in what I know and in what I remember of his impact on my life. Story time is comforting, but the real work now is taking action in ways that remind me of Dad, not simply reflecting on him.
In the finale of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Ser Duncan finds himself having to fight a 7-on-7 duel in order to save his life. He needs one more fighter willing to join his team, to risk everything, for chivalry. No one will stand to fight for him.
He mounts his horse and addresses the audience, beseeching the men present to be brave, to stand for virtue and honor, like Ser Arlan would have. But again, the name is unknown, no one cares. It’s a scene worth watching and rewatching.
Of course, in the end, one man recalls Arlan (only briefly), and he’s inspired to fight by Duncan’s side. He does so not because of any particular love for Arlan, but because of how impressed he is by Duncan….you’re that lost person’s representative long after they’re gone.
Nothing says, “I remember Ser Arlan” like what Duncan did here. When people see you do exemplary things and take worthwhile stands, they’ll wonder: Where did he/she get that from? And they might ask. Maybe the answer will be a book, God, a mentor or a parent, maybe it’ll be a movie that inspired you growing up—either way—we keep our loved ones alive by living as they lived (hopefully, in the best ways).
This is my second entry on Grief and Ser Duncan The Tall. If you want to read the first, you can find that here: