Ser Kyle the Cat

Ser Kyle the Cat of Misty Moor: a good-natured, threadbare hedge knight of Dunk and Egg's road, hoping a gift of a cat to Lord Butterwell will land him a place. Hedge knights hope; it is most of what they own.

The fuller tale

A good-natured, thoroughly threadbare hedge knight of Misty Moor, Ser Kyle the Cat travels the road to Lord Butterwell’s wedding in company with Dunk and Egg, carrying with him the one gift he believes might finally win a lord’s favor: an actual cat, offered in the hope that Lord Butterwell’s household will find room for one more hopeful, unremarkable knight in exchange for it.

The gesture is modest almost to the point of comedy, and entirely sincere — Kyle’s whole career amounts to a long series of small hopes like this one, chasing a patron, a position, anything more permanent than the road itself. Hedge knights hope, the tale observes of him with a certain fondness, because hope is very nearly all they have left to spend.

The page and the screen

Ser Kyle the Cat has not yet appeared in any aired season of the show, his role belonging to The Mystery Knight rather than the already-adapted Hedge Knight, and no casting has been announced. His modest, hopeful presence would offer the production a gentle counterpoint to Whitewalls’ grander conspiracies whenever a future season gets there.

Their fate — if death has found them, it is written here. Open at your peril.

The chronicle records no death for this soul — they are living when the tale leaves them, or their ending is a page the maesters have yet to turn.