House of the Dragon delivered a muted season finale that, sadly, was in line with the overall second season inertia involving more chess pieces moving around the board while pushing flashier dragon battles to the third season. At least we received plenty of Aemond in Daemon-mode while Daemon was stuck in an endless hallucination loop at Harrenhaal. Westeros creator and author George R.R. Martin made no secret of his disappointment in how certain pivotal sequences were handled, but he has revealed himself to be thrilled with how the next Game of Thrones prequel series is going.
That would be A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, a dragon-free show formerly called The Hedge Knight and that might not have an official name yet, although we’ll see the series on HBO next year. Hopefully, there is a title by then, but fortunately, there are set-in-stone things to expect, too:
Plot
Before we get to GRRM’s palpable excitement, let’s get his sense of humor over the show’s title out of the way, from his Not-A-Blog site:
“Yes, I am talking about the newest GAME OF THRONES spinoff show. It’s an adaptation of ‘The Hedge Knight,’ the first of my Dunk & Egg stories. There were two more after that, ‘The Sworn Sword’ and ‘The Mystery Knight.’ They have all been collected in a book called A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS. That’s probably going to be the title of the show as well… unless we go with THE HEDGE KNIGHT. That’s still under discussion.”
Martin also raved about his set experience, which arrived with “a much smaller budget” (dragons are expensive, yo), and “[n]inety per cent of the story is set in a field, surrounded by tents, we would not need the huge sets the other shows had featured, but it couldn’t look fake or cheap either, and the costumes and the heraldry and the fights all had to be splendid, and… I was so so happy when I got there, and saw what Ira and his team had built.”
It’s a hearty endorsement with photos as well from GRRM’s set visit. As for actual plot details, this prequel takes place about 100 years before A Song of Fire and Ice books (whereas HotD takes place 300 years before) that formed the backbone of Game of Thrones. The Targaryens are still kind-of around, and a handful of them will be featured in pivotal roles. However, they are barely hanging onto some power after Aegon III’s rule saw dragons essentially go extinct (until Daenerys performed the blood ritual at Drogo’s funeral).
The protagonist of this new show shall be Ser Duncan the Tall, who will inadvertently pick up a sidekick who is far more important to Westeros than one could imagine by looking at him. From HBO’s official series description:
A century before the events of Game of Thrones, two unlikely heroes wandered Westeros … a young, naïve but courageous knight, Ser Duncan the Tall, and his diminutive squire, Egg. Set in an age when the Targaryen line still holds the Iron Throne and the memory of the last dragon has not yet passed from living memory, great destinies, powerful foes and dangerous exploits all await these improbable and incomparable friends.
GRRM is executive producing this one for HBO, which might explain why his stressed-out rants about HotD began to disappear from his website. Here’s to hoping that he, and the Westeros-loving audience, will be more content with this next series’ pacing, which is probably what is weighing HotD down (three seasons would have worked better than a dragged-out four).
In any event, Egg looks pretty adorable as shown on Instagram.
Cast
No flying reptiles will be seen, but I honestly don’t think anybody would mind seeing a cardboard dragon sliding through the background as a Starbucks cup-like Easter egg.
On a more serious note, Ser Duncan the Tall will be portrayed by the 6’5″-tall Peter Claffey (Vikings: Valhalla), who is as towering as Reacher in his books but not quite as lofty as the seven feet in GRRM’s source material. Surely, people can suspend belief for a few inches, but Dexter Sol Ansell authentically (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes) will portray Egg and shaved his head to hide his own Targaryen-reminiscent blonde locks.
The cast further includes Sam Spruell as Maekar Targaryen, Finn Bennett as Aerion Targaryen, and Bertie Carvel as Baelor Targaryen, along with Tanzyn Crawford as Tanselle and Daniel Ings as Ser Lyonel Barotheon.
Release Date
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms will debut in 2025 (likely in the spring, via GRRM) with HoTD to follow with a second season in 2026.
Trailer
Official teaser footage is no longer available from legit channels on YouTube, but George R.R. Martin has of course spoken at length about the process of writing the Dunk and Egg stories. That includes this interview where he goes into detail on a famous battle scene: