The first trailer just dropped for HBO’s second Game of Thrones prequel series A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, and let’s just say, there’s going to be a lot of chainmail, a lot of rain, a lotta mud and a lotta jousting in the series, which is now set for January 18, 2026 premiere on HBO and HBO Max.
And that’s intentional per series architect George R.R. Martin (though he prefers the title of “gardener”‘ because nothing in the Game of Thrones universe is ever planned).
“I always love Medieval tournaments in other pictures. We had several tournaments in Game of Thrones, they were in the background, but not the center. I wanted to do something set during a tournament. I sent (the TV writers) a challenge: Let’s do the best jousting sequences that were ever done on film. My favorite was 1952’s Ivanhoe,” Martin said today on a New York Comic-Con panel for The Hedge Knight.
“There’s a jousting scene at night, which is badass,” showrunner Ira Parker said.
Blurb for the series reads: “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 last dragon has not yet passed from living memory, great destinies, powerful foes and dangerous exploits all await these improbable and incomparable friends.”
Technically speaking, in the GoT timeline A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms takes place 72 years after House of the Dragon and 100 years before Game of Thrones. The Targaryens don’t have their dragons anymore, which begs the question: Why are they in charge? Which leads up to jousting.
While Martin started GoT with seven point of views, he opted for two viewpoints in the Dunk and Egg stories.
Also on today’s panel were actors Peter Claffey and Dexter Sol Ansell. Claffey said the hardest part of making the show for him as Duncan the knight was “the horse riding,” even though he did a little bit on Season 3 of Vikings.
Martin regaled how he never imagined these Game of Thrones stories would ever hit the screen. He paused TV writing in the 1980s-1990s as he would write stories that “were too big, too expensive.” Hence, the reason turned to fantasy novel writing as it gave him the opportunity to have a border-less canvas.
Ansell shot the series when he was 9, and now he’s 11, the young actor said onstage today. The entirety of Ashford was built in Northern Ireland in Glenaran. “There were more wasps than people,” said Claffey. “That was a problem,” added Ansell.
The two bonded on set by playing Super Mario Kart in their downtime.
On his blog, Martin has said that the prequel series will be “much shorter” than Game of Thrones or House of the Dragon, “with a much different tone.” In terms of world-building, the author also said, “it’s still Westeros, so no one is truly safe.”
Parker said that “our guiding light on this show was to follow Dunk in terms of tone and point of view and the mud and the dirt. We wanted the audience to feel what he feels. We want to be with him as closely as possible.”
“It’s not big sprawling Game of Thrones that we’ve come to know and love; it’s close and it’s hard,” the showrunner said. “We kept flooding this field with mud and dirt and sh*t .. .the pain, the agony, the irritation, the closeness; as soon as you put on a mask, it changes the way you breathe. We’ re going to feel every grit of that,” Parker added.
Key art dropped the other day with Ser Duncan the Tall (aka Dunk, played by Peter Claffey) and his bald, young squire, Egg (Emmerdale’s Dexter Sol Ansell). The tagline on the one sheet reads, “A tall tale that became legend.”
Martin and Parker teased that episode 6 is a pivotal one for the characters, so look out for that. Martin hopes to adapt the second Dunk and Egg novel, The Sworn Sword.
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