Ser Humfrey Hardyng
A knight of skill and iron nerve, one of the five champions of Ashford Meadow ÔÇö a man who answers treachery by demanding the right to face it in the lists.
A soul born at The Vale.
The fuller tale
Season One
The champions take the field: Lord Ashford's two sons, Ser Humfrey Hardyng, Ser Tybolt Lannister, and Prince Valarr Targaryen, the Young Prince. In The Lists ÔÇö A champion unhorsed by treachery ÔÇö his leg crushed under his dying horse. Ser Humfrey Hardyng unhorses Aerion Brightflame ÔÇö and Aerion's answer is a lance through his horse's neck, leaving Hardyng broken-legged under a dying animal. In A Trial of Seven ÔÇö Carried to the lists rather than miss his answer to Aerion.
Ser Humfrey Hardyng, broken leg and all, demands a place against the prince who killed his horse. Ser Humfrey Beesbury and Ser Robyn Rhysling stand with him. Ser Humfrey Beesbury dies in the press; Ser Humfrey Hardyng takes wounds no broken-legged man should bear. Ser Humfrey Hardyng succumbs to his wounds; the meadow that hosted a wedding-feast tourney buries its dead instead.
Where they stand. Ashford Meadow.
How it ends for them
On the screen. Died of wounds from the trial of seven (S1┬ÀE6)
A champion of Ashford Meadow, crushed beneath the horse Aerion Brightflame deliberately killed under him ÔÇö and still he demanded his place in the trial of seven, carried to the lists with his leg in splints. He fought from the saddle he could not rise from, and died of his wounds when it was over.
On the page. Died of wounds from the trial of seven (THK, ch. 10)
Unhorsed by treachery when Aerion's lance killed his mount, he was carried to the trial of seven with his leg in splints and fought anyway. His wounds finished what the dying horse began.
Fighting from a saddle he cannot properly rise from, his leg still splinted from AerionÔÇÖs deliberate treachery days earlier, Ser Humfrey Hardyng takes his place in the trial of seven and does not survive it ÔÇö not struck down outright in the melee, but worn past what his already-broken body could bear, dying of the combined wounds once the fighting has ended. His death, alongside Ser Humfrey BeesburyÔÇÖs, is part of the price the trial extracts even from the side the gods ultimately favor.
Their chapters, book by book
The Hedge Knight 2 chapters that name them
Where the page and the screen part
Ross Anderson plays Ser Humfrey Hardyng in the showÔÇÖs first season, and the characterÔÇÖs insistence on fighting despite his injury ÔÇö carried into the trial rather than excused from it ÔÇö remained one of the more visibly emotional beats critics highlighted from the seasonÔÇÖs climactic episode.
Their journey
Where the two tellings send them to the same place the road runs whole; where they part, the screen keeps the left and the books the right.