Why It Will Be GREAT - A Knight of The Seven Kingdoms

A Knight of The Seven Kingdoms is almost here and I think it’s going to be a total palette cleanser for those of us who maybe have had some issues with House of The Dragon or Game of Thrones. Now that could be a good thing or it could also be not such a great thing and I’ll explain why here just a moment.

First off, I want to say that I have a lot more optimism for this first season of A Knight of The Seven Kingdoms than maybe any series in the Game of Thrones franchise. From what I’ve read in interviews with showrunner Ira Parker and author of the Dunk & Egg novellas George RR Martin, it appears that this show will try to do it’s best to be a faithful adaptation of the first book The Hedge Knight.

When I say this will be sort of a palette cleanser, what I mean is that A Knight of The Seven Kingdoms will be a much more intimate and personal story in comparison to Game of Thrones and House of The Dragon. Each of the 6 episodes are expected to be around 30 minutes long and I don’t imagine this is going to be as much as an ensemble type of story as much as it is much more focused on telling a story about a single character Dunk, who along his journey in this story is soon accompanied by his companion Egg.

In the books, Dunk is a young man with no lands or titles. He’s an orphan from Flea Bottom with no direct ties to any noble houses. However, along his story, much of Dunk’s inner monologue is the conflict of what is right, and what is wrong. What is honor, and what is a true knight, and are those two ideals compatible.

It’s much like the inner conflicts that we experience with Jaime and Brienne in the 4th book in George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice & Fire series. And in Game of Thrones Brienne’s AFFC story mostly rewritten and essentially discarded. But I think it is important to understand these elements when you think about what kind of story A Knight of The Seven Kingdoms, specifically The Hedge Knight is truly all about.

Like Brienne, Dunk wants to be a great knight. However, being a great knight and being honorable is always a bit messy when you involve the chain of power and politics in Westeros. Sometimes to be rewarded and regarded as a knight to serve the realm is not always viewed in a way that aligns with our character’s moral compass. And when I think of the story I hope they tell in A Knight of The Seven Kingdoms, I really hope that this aspect of character development is truly explored for all that it is worth. It all goes back to George RR Martin quoting William Faulkner as his guiding principle when writing, “The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself.” And this is at the core of the story for Dunk in the Hedge Knight, where he’s confronted with what he should or shouldn't do based on the established powers of westeros, and defending what he believes is right, but doing the right thing still has consequences.

You see this is a smaller story compared to Game of Thrones and House of The Dragon. And yet the heartbeat of both of those stories can be compared to A Knight of The Seven Kingdoms. No matter how big the story is, at it’s core what George RR Martin is challenging his characters with is oftentimes the simple question of what is right and what is wrong, what is in the best interest of the most people.. But both shows that come before A Knight of The Seven kingdoms can kind of lose track of this basic question due to the scale of the story and the insistence of spectacle and dragons, or ice zombies. A Knight of The Seven Kingdoms will ask very similar questions of a character’s moral compass but on a much smaller and intimate scale.

Now I said this would be like a palette cleanse for those coming from Game of Thrones and House of The Dragon, and while for me, I think this is a good thing, the reason why I worry that it COULD be a bad thing is without all the spectacle, will this still be appealing to your more casual audience. Will character exploration between Dunk & Egg feel too slow or less exhilarating to those audiences hoping to experience another dragon show or large scale battle?

Now don’t get me wrong, everything that we see in these trailers suggest that the action that we do get will be of the highest quality.

#aknightofthesevenkingdoms #gameofthrones #houseofthedragon #asoiaf #georgerrmartin