‘Game of Thrones’ Prequel Succeeds by Ditching the Dragons

Having triumphantly turned back the Game of Thrones clock with House of the Dragon, HBO tries the trick again with A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.

The new show, premiering Sunday night Jan. 18, is a short-form prequel—running a mere six episodes, each a half-hour long—based on The Hedge Knight, the first of author George R.R. Martin’s Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas.

It may be an addendum, but it’s proof that there’s plenty of Westeros terrain left to explore.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms sets up its less-than-serious tone via an opening sequence of bodily expulsions that goes far beyond Games of Thrones’ grossest moments.

Under ominous storm clouds, squire Dunk (Claffey) buries his master Ser Arlan of Pennytree (Danny Webb), a “hedge knight” who roamed the countryside in search of innocents to defend. Having been saved from orphanhood as a child by Ser Arlan, a tough guardian who’s like a crazier, more errant Don Quixote, Dunk finds himself alone and sleeping beneath whatever tree will afford him the most shelter from the elements.

With his three trusty horses in tow, he ventures onward toward Ashford, where a tournament is about to be held, during which he might prove himself a knight. The thing is, Dunk can’t really lay claim to that title, and his efforts to convince others that he’s worthy of entry in the competition are less than wholly successful, due to his lack of credentials, his farmer’s garb, and his general oafishness.

A burly nomad whose lumbering gait and muted intellect mark him as something of a rustic man-child, and whose towering height leads him to assume the (fake) title “Ser Duncan the Tall,” Dunk initially comes across as a humorous buffoon.

At a remote inn where the sole patron is a drunken Targaryen (Henry Ashton), Dunk meets a young bald boy nicknamed Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell) who asks to accompany the traveler to the tournament. Dunk rejects this request and heads off on his own, only to discover that in order to participate in the contest, he must verify his knighthood via the testimony of a fellow warrior who can corroborate Ser Arlan’s identity.

This is more difficult than he imagines, as Dunk is disparaged and spurned at every turn, be it from womanizing Manfred Dondarrion (Daniel Monks) or boozy Lyonel Baratheon (Daniel Ings), both of whom view Dunk as a veritable clown—until, that is, Dunk shares an inebriated dance which endears him to the latter.

There are colorful characters galore in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, as well as—courtesy of vistas of Dunk riding across sun-streaked plains and through lush forests—a potent sense of this magical world’s pastoral beauty.

Dan Romer’s quaint score, punctuated on a couple of occasions by the iconic Game of Thrones theme, helps establish a rambling, rollicking atmosphere, as does Claffey, whose good-natured comportment is nicely attuned to the material’s ambling pace.

Co-creators Parker and Martin fill in their protagonist’s backstory with punchy, jokey quick-hit flashbacks, upping the jovial mood. Yet they never push things into outright silly territory, considering Dunk with a degree of empathy that pays dividends as the season unfurls and the would-be hero’s plight becomes less of a laughing matter.

Despite leaving the pesky kid behind, Dunk is soon rejoined by the chrome-domed Egg, who’s eager to demonstrate his squire skills. Not simply hunting, cooking, and cleaning, but loyally serving his superior in his quest to enter the tournament.

In scenes of armor-clad competitors clashing in fearsome jousts, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms delivers the grimy and gruesome combat for which the franchise has long been known. Dunk’s attempts to face off against his fellow knights eventually put him into contact with additional Targaryens: brothers Prince Baelor (Bertie Carvel), Prince Maekar (Sam Spruell), and Prince Aerion (Finn Bennett), the last of whom is a nasty twerp cut from a classical Joffrey Baratheon/Ramsay Bolton mold.

It also has Dunk falling for Tanselle (Tanzyn Crawford), a Dornish puppeteer whose stage shows feature fire-breathing dragons, and running afoul of Steffon Fossoway (Edward Ashley), a belligerent knight who’s unkind to his friendly cousin and squire Raymun (Shaun Thomas).

Claffey and Ansell share likably combative chemistry, and as A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms moves beyond its introductory passages, it gives the former opportunities to reveal unexpected layers to Dunk, who’s ambitious, courageous, and virtuous (and whose origins are laid out in a lengthier rewind to his street-urchin youth).

In this rough-and-tumble world, the cost of being an honorable man is high, and the 29-year-old Irish actor does a winning job turning the wannabe knight into an endearing crusader.

Ansell, meanwhile, makes Egg a uniquely off-kilter sidekick, his diminutive size at odds with his big mouth and bold disposition. And the revelations about his lineage create complications that play out in surprising and thorny fashion, culminating with a challenge that involves Dunk having to recruit strangers to his cause (or suffer dire consequences), and squaring off in a battle that boasts crushing first-person POV brutality.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms doesn’t aspire to Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon’s grandeur, and there’s no denying that its story is an aside more than a vital piece of A Song of Fire and Ice lore.

Nonetheless, that modesty is a plus, allowing the series to prize emotion and detail over larger-than-life action. A detour into a heretofore-unseen corner of Martin’s universe, it’s a bite-sized tangent designed to whet the appetite of those eagerly awaiting the return of its bigger prequel brother later this year.