‘A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms’: Dunk, Egg, And The Return Of Westeros
- Maddy Maguire
- Mar 10
- 3 min read
Most disheartening about the reception to Game of Thrones’ final season was what it seemed to mean for future on-screen adaptations of George R.R. Martin’s work. With spinoffs being announced and then cancelled left, right and centre, and Martin himself beginning to openly blog about his own feelings of disappointment, fans began to take any A Song of Ice and Fire news with a pinch of salt. For a while, the legacy of one of fantasy’s most influential works seemed to hang in the balance.
Enter Ira Parker.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is Martin and Parker’s joint love letter to hardcore fans and casual watchers alike. It’s funny. It’s charming. It’s brilliant. There is endless praise to be given, and it feels oh-so-good to give it. Those strange few who yearn for explicit depictions of lovemaking and the endless use of CGI dragons should tread carefully perhaps, but lovers of whimsy and joy will find themselves precisely where they need to be. In short, Westeros is back and better than ever before!
Hot with the youth right now is the question of how faithful on-screen adaptations need to be to their original work—and here is a TV series that hits the nail on the head. It is Parker’s astute understanding of what must be kept, removed or added for the sake of a visual audience which makes A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms such a solid book-to-screen success. Martin provides the meat and Parker brings the bones, so to speak. There’s a clear respect and love for the source material (in this case, Tales of Dunk and Egg) which shines through not only in Parker’s choices as a writer, but also in the attention paid to casting, costuming, and set design. It would be easy, dealing with such a cultural behemoth as Game of Thrones, to churn something half-decent out and hope association alone keeps things afloat. This is not, however, that.
In fact, there’s little allusion to the main series at all. The main title makes an appearance in Episode 4, and Dan Romer provides a score which is rather reminiscent of GOT’s sound. There are also plenty of Targaryens running around—so it’s unmistakably located within Martin’s world. But there is no ‘90 years before Jon Snow’, nor any demand for the viewer to be elbow-deep in lore. Everything begins with the hedge knight Dunk, played beautifully by Irish actor Peter Claffley, and from there a very medieval, endearing tale of honour and heroism unfolds. It’s difficult to find fault with it, to be honest. It’s one of those rare gems of the screen where the target audience truly is everybody. And whilst lacking the fantasy some may expect, the magic is still present in the form of heart. Mum and Dad can share fun facts about Westeros they found on Facebook (Did You Know?: Brienne of Tarth is a descendant of Duncan the Tall), and teenage siblings can read Tumblr fanfiction about Prince Valarr Targaryen, as portrayed by Oscar Morgan, of Gotham Knights and heterochromia fame. What would life be without a little romanticisation of the Middle Ages from time to time?
There are many fantastic performances given by many up-and-coming (and many British) actors. Of course, Dexter Sol Ansell, starring as Egg alongside Claffley, steals the show a little bit. He’s cute, he’s bald, and he’s outrageously talented for somebody who was born in 2014. Then there’s Finn Bennett, very much having his ‘moment’ over on TikTok, who hones what now seems to be an aptitude for playing alluringly evil men as Aerion Targaryen. Shaun Thomas and Tanzyn Crawford, appearing as Raymun Fossoway and Tanselle respectively, also provide compelling performances. Generally, there’s a lot of ‘watch this space’ going on—as in, these are faces it wouldn’t be surprising to see popping up all over the place in years to come. Bravo to the casting department for assembling such a promising ensemble.
Overall, it’s refreshing to have something so overwhelmingly good, for once. If you haven’t already rushed to NOW, where all six episodes of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms are currently streaming, let Martin’s recent optimism and praise be the final push. If it’s good enough to make the man with the world’s most infamous case of writer’s block start talking about how much he enjoys writing again, that’s praise beyond words. And with a second season already confirmed, things can only get better. So thank you, Ira Parker, for reminding us what Westeros looks like when done right. It’s looking like a Medieval Revival Summer, and Dunk and Egg are leading the charge.
Edited by Hannah Tang, Co-Editor of Film & TV
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