Origins and Background: A Squire from the Junior Branch

Raymun Fossoway was born into a cadet branch of House Fossoway, placing him perpetually in the shadow of his cousin Steffon, the heir to the family seat at Cider Hall. Steffon is described — both in Martin’s source material and in HBO’s adaptation — as a bully who frequently reminds Raymun of his subordinate status. His favorite taunt is that Raymun is like an apple that has not yet ripened, a jab that carries more weight than its speaker intends. In the television series, Shaun Thomas portrays Raymun as stocky and square-faced, with a warm, engaging presence that makes him immediately likable and distinct from the haughtier knights who populate the tourney grounds.

From the outset of the series, Raymun is established as a character who possesses more moral clarity than his station would suggest. While Steffon uses the tourney as an opportunity to display dominance — defeating Raymun in a brutal sparring session that is witnessed by Duncan the Tall — Raymun responds not with resentment toward the hedge knight but with genuine curiosity and warmth. He apologizes to Duncan for urging him on against Steffon and invites him to feast in Lyonel Baratheon’s tent. This act of civility from a squire toward a hedge knight, a man of considerably lower social standing, signals at once that Raymun Fossoway is not a conventional Westerosi noble.

At the Tourney: Friendship, Honor, and Anti-Targaryen Sentiment

The friendship that forms between Raymun and Dunk — as Duncan the Tall is commonly known — develops over cider in the Fossoway pavilion, and it is during these quieter scenes that the television series allows Shaun Thomas to deliver some of its most memorable performances. Raymun invites Dunk to drink and gossips freely about the state of House Targaryen, voicing opinions that in Westeros would be considered dangerously outspoken. His contempt for the ruling dynasty is candid and sharp, and the show uses his perspective to reinforce a broader thematic point: that by 209 AC, the Targaryens have already begun to lose the respect and fear they once commanded across the realm.

It is during one such conversation in Season 1, Episode 3 — titled “The Squire” — that Raymun casually references the third son of Prince Maekar Targaryen, describing him as so useless that his family planned to ship him off to the Citadel to become a maester. Long-time Game of Thrones fans immediately recognized the reference as a nod to Maester Aemon, the beloved and ancient figure who would eventually serve at Castle Black and become a trusted mentor to Jon Snow. It is a subtle piece of world-building, delivered through Raymun’s irreverent commentary, and it exemplifies the kind of connective tissue that makes A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms rewarding for dedicated viewers of the franchise.

Raymun’s role expands significantly when Prince Aerion Targaryen — a genuinely cruel and dangerous young prince — assaults a Dornish puppeteer named Tanselle and Duncan intervenes physically. The confrontation sets off a legal crisis: Aerion invokes a Trial of Seven, a rare and deadly legal mechanism requiring each side to field seven knights in combat, with the gods determining justice through the outcome. Duncan is imprisoned at Ashford Castle, and his ability to survive depends entirely on assembling seven champions willing to fight on his behalf against a royal prince.

The Trial of Seven: Betrayal, Knighthood, and the Birth of the Green Apple

The Trial of Seven that dominates Episodes 4 and 5 of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is the pivotal sequence of the entire season — and it is here that Raymun Fossoway’s character arc reaches its most dramatic peak. Ser Steffon initially pledges his sword to Duncan’s cause, swearing loyalty before witnesses and departing to recruit additional knights. Raymun, who doubts his cousin’s sincerity, watches and waits. His instincts prove correct: the morning of the trial, Steffon informs Raymun that he has switched sides, taking Prince Aerion’s offer of a lordship in exchange for his betrayal. Duncan is suddenly short two champions.

The revelation destroys what little remained of Raymun’s loyalty to his cousin. He immediately renounces his status as Steffon’s squire and pleads with Duncan to knight him so that he may fight in the trial. Duncan hesitates — knighting a man moments before combat is irregular and the responsibility weighs heavily on him — but Lyonel Baratheon, Lord of Storm’s End, intervenes and grants Raymun his knighthood on the spot. Prince Baelor Targaryen himself fills the seventh slot, rounding out the roster.

Before the combat begins, Raymun takes one more defiant act. To distinguish himself from his traitorous cousin fighting on the opposite side, he paints the red apple on his shield — the traditional sigil of House Fossoway — green. It is a calculated rebuke of Steffon’s longtime mockery. Where Steffon had always called him unripe and green, Raymun now wears the color proudly, declaring through his shield that he would rather be green than rotten. The moment is quiet and deeply symbolic, and it marks the precise origin point of what would become House Fossoway of New Barrel, the green-apple branch of the Fossoway family that persists all the way through the events of the original Game of Thrones.

In Combat: Valor, Survival, and the Cost of the Trial

The Trial of Seven itself is a brutal affair. Raymun, newly knighted and facing seasoned warriors, manages to survive the initial cavalry charge and stay mounted — no small feat for a squire-turned-knight with almost no formal combat experience at this level. He assists Duncan during the latter’s individual duel with Aerion, knocking the prince away from his friend at a critical moment. Later, Raymun is unhorsed and engages Steffon directly in single combat, gaining the upper hand and tackling his treacherous cousin into the mud. By the time the trial concludes, Raymun is still standing — battered but alive — while others are not so fortunate.

The most devastating consequence of the Trial of Seven is the death of Prince Baelor Targaryen, who sustained a fatal head wound during the combat. Baelor was widely regarded as the most just and capable of the Targaryen princes, next in line for the Iron Throne, and his death — caused indirectly by a dispute involving a hedge knight and a cruel prince — sends shockwaves through the realm. Raymun was present as Baelor’s final moments unfolded, having been asked by the prince to help remove his helm, only to reveal the grievous injury beneath. Duncan cradled the dying prince in his arms. It is a sequence that the television series handles with considerable gravity, and Raymun’s presence throughout underscores that this man — barely a knight for a matter of hours — has already witnessed enough history to fill several lifetimes.

The Season Finale: The Kindest Act in Westeros

If the Trial of Seven established Raymun as a knight of honor, the Season 1 finale of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms transformed him into something rarer: a symbol of uncomplicated human decency in a universe that rarely allows for it. In the sixth and final episode of the season, as Dunk reels from guilt over Prince Baelor’s death and prepares to leave Ashford, Raymun walks beside him through the encampment — not offering solutions or recriminations, but simply offering companionship during his friend’s darkest hour.

The crowning gesture comes when Raymun presents Dunk with Sweetfoot, the horse that had belonged to Dunk’s late mentor, Ser Arlan of Pennytree. Dunk had lost the animal weeks earlier, and Raymun had secretly purchased her back — a sacrifice of considerable personal and financial cost, made entirely without expectation of recognition. He believed Dunk was heading to Storm’s End to take service with Lyonel Baratheon, and he wanted his friend to have a worthy mount for the journey. When Dunk corrects him and reveals he is going elsewhere, Raymun accepts it without complaint, noting cheerfully that Sweetfoot will suit an orchard just as well.

Slate magazine, in its season-ending column tracking the “best and worst” persons in Westeros, declared Raymun’s act of generosity to be the purest act of kindness in the entire Game of Thrones universe — and named him the best person not just of the week but possibly of all time. The response from fans and critics was immediate and enthusiastic, with social media filling with tributes to Shaun Thomas’s portrayal and the character’s unlikely emergence as the moral conscience of the series.

The finale also reveals a deeply personal dimension to Raymun’s story. A young woman named Red, with whom Raymun had formed a relationship during the events of the tourney, is revealed to be pregnant with his child. Showrunner Ira Parker noted that Raymun, being the kind of man he is, accepts this news without hesitation and marries her immediately, doing what he believes is right without agonizing over the social implications. Red subsequently becomes Lady Rowan Fossoway, and their union marks the formal founding of the green-apple branch of House Fossoway — a line that, as the wider franchise confirms, will endure for over a century, producing knights and lords who fight in the great conflicts of Westeros including the battles involving the Baratheon siblings during the War of the Five Kings.

Legacy: From New Barrel to the War of the Five Kings

The legacy of Raymun Fossoway’s choices at Ashford Meadow reverberates across the entire Game of Thrones continuity. House Fossoway of New Barrel, founded on the green-apple sigil Raymun adopted in the mud of that trial, is eventually recognized as an official cadet branch of House Fossoway of Cider Hall. In George R.R. Martin’s original novels, the green-apple Fossoways appear repeatedly throughout the War of the Five Kings, fighting under the banners of Renly Baratheon before shifting their allegiance to Stannis after Renly’s assassination. Ser Jon Fossoway of the green-apple branch and his wife Lady Janna Fossoway appear in King’s Landing during Joffrey Baratheon’s reign. Brienne of Tarth spots the green-apple badge among the dead at Duskendale. The house endures.

Crucially, the Baratheon connection is itself a piece of elegant narrative architecture that rewards attentive viewers. Lyonel Baratheon — the Lord of Storm’s End who knighted Raymun during the Trial of Seven — is the ancestor of the very Baratheon siblings whose conflict drives much of the original Game of Thrones. Over a century later, both the green-apple and red-apple Fossoway branches lend their support to Baratheon claimants, a loyalty that traces directly back to the day Lyonel Baratheon gave a scared young squire the knighthood he needed to fight for his friend. Screen Rant noted that this is precisely the kind of layered, interconnected storytelling that makes prequel narratives like A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms compelling: small decisions made by minor characters ripple outward across generations.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms was confirmed for a second season in November 2025, and fan speculation has already turned to what role, if any, the newly established Ser Raymun Fossoway might play in future episodes. His story at Ashford Meadow appears largely complete in terms of its narrative arc, but the broader adventures of Dunk and Egg — which span multiple novellas by Martin — offer ample opportunity to revisit characters who survive the first installment. Whether or not Raymun appears in Season 2, his first-season arc has secured his place as one of the most beloved characters the Game of Thrones universe has produced in years.

Shaun Thomas: The Actor Behind the Green Apple

Much of Raymun Fossoway’s impact on audiences is attributable to the performance of Shaun Thomas, the British actor cast in the role. Thomas, who had previously appeared in various film and television projects before landing the role in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, brings a naturalistic warmth to the character that makes Raymun’s decency feel earned rather than sentimental. His scenes with Peter Claffey, who plays Dunk, have been singled out by critics as among the most emotionally grounded in the series — a quiet counterpoint to the more heightened drama surrounding the Targaryen princes and the mechanics of the trial itself.

Thomas’s portrayal navigates the inherent challenge of playing an honorable character in a franchise that has historically delighted in subverting audience expectations of nobility and virtue. In the world of Game of Thrones, good men tend to die badly, and the franchise built its early reputation on the willingness to punish idealism. Raymun Fossoway survives, and his goodness is rewarded — not with lordship or glory, but with genuine friendship, a new family, and the quiet immortality of a house that will carry his green apple forward for generations. Thomas delivers all of this with a subtlety that makes the character feel like a person rather than a symbol, which is ultimately why audiences responded to him so powerfully.

Conclusion

Raymun Fossoway began A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms as a minor supporting character — a squire from a junior noble family, pushed around by a bullying cousin at a tourney few outside of Westeros would ever remember. He ends it as one of the most celebrated figures the Game of Thrones franchise has produced in years: a newly-minted knight, a loyal friend, a founding father of a noble line, and, according to at least one major publication, the best person in all of Westeros. His arc from squire to Ser Raymun of the Green Apple is compact, emotionally resonant, and thematically rich, embodying a vision of honor that asks nothing of the powerful and everything of the individual. In the broader tapestry of the Thrones universe — where dragons and prophecy and political machination dominate — it is the quiet choice of a stocky young man to paint his shield green and stand beside his friend that endures as the season’s most indelible image. As the story of Dunk and Egg continues into a second season and beyond, the legacy of Raymun Fossoway — etched into every green apple banner that flies across Westeros — stands as proof that in the most honorable acts, no choice is ever truly small.