Every time ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ hinted at that big Egg reveal

Well, the cat’s out of the bag. Or, should we say, the Egg’s out of the… chicken? Whatever idiom you go with, one thing is clear: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms has revealed Egg’s (Dexter Sol Ansell) true identity.

Up until episode 3, Egg has been the sassy yet worldly squire to hedge knight Ser Duncan “Dunk” the Tall (Peter Claffey). But he isn’t a member of the Westerosi smallfolk. Instead, he’s none other than Aegon Targaryen, son of Maekar Targaryen (Sam Spruell), and grandson of King Daeron II Targaryen.

The reveal comes at the end of episode 3, when Dunk attacks Prince Aerion Targaryen (Finn Bennett) as retribution for harming Dornish puppeteer Tanselle (Tanzyn Crawford). As Aerion prepares to stomp all of Duncan’s teeth out, Egg storms in and demands the guards — whom he addresses by name — not to injure Dunk any further.

“If they do, they’ll answer to my father,” he says.

Aerion isn’t outraged by Egg’s intrusion the way he would have been had another member of the smallfolk interfered with his torture of Dunk. Instead, he’s annoyed and addresses Egg informally, wondering what happened to his hair.

“I cut it off, brother,” Egg replies. “I didn’t want to look like you.”

The exchange confirms Egg’s Targaryen nature, but there have been plenty of other hints at his true identity. Whether you already knew the truth as a book reader, called it as a new audience member, or you were totally caught off guard and want to catch any clues you might have missed, we’ve got you covered. Here are the five biggest clues from A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms that Egg is really Aegon.

The Targaryen sigil coin at the pub

In A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms‘ first episode, Dunk crosses paths with a drunk man at a pub who pays with a coin that bears the Targaryen sigil of the three-headed dragon. Moments later, he runs into Egg.

The coin suggests a Targaryen presence at the pub, and it also gives us a hint at the drunk man’s identity. Up until the Egg/Aegon reveal, the chatter around Aegon has been that he was meant to attend the tournament with his brother Daeron, but the two never showed up. Now we know where one brother is, but where is Daeron? It’s likely that he’s the very man Dunk encountered in the pub, as Daeron’s heavy drinking has earned him the nickname Daeron the Drunken.

Egg’s shaved head

As we learn in House of the Dragon, Targaryen and Velaryon bastards like Alyn of Hull (Abubakar Salim) shave their heads to avoid drawing attention to their Valyrian blood. Egg’s freshly bald head hinted from the start that he was trying something similar. Unlike Alyn, though, Egg is trueborn. Still, he seems reluctant to associate with his family, and who would blame him when he’s got a tyrant like Aerion for a brother? Speaking of…

Egg’s panicked reaction to Aerion at the tourney

Egg has an intense reaction to Aerion’s joust against Ser Humfrey Hardyng (Ross Anderson) in episode 3, yelling at Humfrey to “kill him.” Screaming for the death of a Targaryen would be considered treasonous — just look at what Aerion does to Tanselle’s dragon-killing puppet show! — so a member of the smallfolk likely wouldn’t engage in that conduct. But a Targaryen prince who wouldn’t face consequences certainly would. Plus, Egg’s vehement reaction to Aerion suggests a deeper personal tie, hinting at their tense brotherly history.

Egg’s fortune that he will become king

In episode 3, Dunk and Egg cross paths with a fortune teller. She tells Dunk he’ll find great fortune and riches, and she tells Egg that he’ll be king… oh, and that he’ll die a painful death to the joy of many. Of course, Dunk thinks it’s a load of rubbish and laughs good-naturedly at the fortune teller’s work. But the words are terrifying to Egg because, as a Targaryen, it’s likely that he could one day become king. That fact adds a new layer to his frightened reaction, because those words may very well be his actual future.

Egg calling Dunk “My Lord”

When a disguised Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) becomes Tywin Lannister’s (Charles Dance) cupbearer in Game of Thrones Season 2, he teaches her a valuable lesson: She addresses him as “my lord,” when in reality, a lowborn girl would refer to him “m’lord.” The too-proper language betrays her noble origins. The same goes for Egg in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, who refers to Dunk as “my lord.”

That’s not all, though. Egg’s entire way of speaking is incredibly formal, and it’s riddled with knowledge that few people in Westeros would expect a young peasant to have. Case in point: His knowledge of the inner workings of tourneys, which he displays in episode 3. If Arya had made any of these slip-ups during her time disguised as Arry, she would definitely have been caught and killed. But unlike Egg, she was on the run during wartime, and her father had just been executed as a traitor. Egg, by comparison, is disguising himself during a period of peace. There’s certainly a dangerous element to his actions, but he’s also got more leeway to have a little fun with it.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is now streaming on HBO Max, with new episodes Sundays at 10 p.m. ET.