New Game of Thrones spin-off looks nothing like the original show – thank god
If I were to ask you what the essential ingredients of a Game of Thrones show are, think about what you would say.
Fire-breathing dragons and grand battles would likely feature. As would the relentless political backstabbing that makes what happens in the backrooms of Westminster look tame.
Or maybe you just really, really like pointy chairs.
Well I have to tell you that the upcoming Game of Thrones spin-off, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, doesn’t have any of that stuff.
Okay, that’s not quite true – this is Westeros after all, there’s always some plotting going on – but based on the recently released trailer, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms looks like a very different show to Game of Thrones and the first official ‘Song of Ice and Fire’ spin-off House of the Dragon.
And while others might be unhappy with that – frankly I’m thanking the Father, the Mother, the Maiden, the Crone, the Warrior, the Smith, and the Stranger for that.
The show will be based on the Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas by George RR Martin.
These books follow Ser Duncan the Tall (Dunk to you and me), a low-born minor knight and his squire Egg, a young boy hiding a king-sized secret that I won’t spoil here.
Anyway, the TV show will adapt the first book, The Hedge Knight, which tells how Dunk and Egg met and became the Seven Kingdom’s best known double act since Tyrion and Bronn.
As a Game of Thrones fan, I’m excited for the show to debut but not because I want to see more political (and literal) mud wrestling, wars, and undead armies.
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web
browser that
supports HTML5
video
No, I’m excited about A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, because it doesn’t have any of that nonsense.
There’s a lightness to the trailers (I’ll refrain from joking about the literal darkness of the final Thrones episodes) that demonstrates this series has a sense of humour.
I like seeing characters make jokes and trade barbs with each other, without the relentless threat of disembowelment, wedding day betrayals, or ice zombies.
That already separates it from the drudgery of later Game of Thrones seasons and the pompous self-importance of House of the Dragon.
There’s a time and a place for those darker themes, of course, but for a franchise to survive, you need light too.
It can’t all be unmitigated misery like Game of Thrones season 8 or House of the Dragon season 2 (don’t even get me started on Daemon’s weeks-long Harrenhal acid trip) it has to have shades of black and white.
That’s reflected in the casting as well. Thrones and House have both pretty much drawn from the same well when it comes to casting.
There are a lot of old thespians and dramatic actors in both series – I’m thinking those stalwarts of hard-hitting cinema and TV like Sean Bean, Diana Rigg, Paddy Considine, Charles Dance, and Jonathan Pryce.
Knight, meanwhile, has gone a different way with its cast.
Peter Claffey, who plays Dunk, got his start in comedies like Bad Sisters and Wreck, while Bertie Carvel, who’s playing Crown Prince Baelor, won an Olivier Award for playing Miss Trunchbull in the Matilda musical.
We haven’t even mentioned Daniel Ings, who’s been in classic comedies like Peep Show, Pete Versus Life Psychoville, W1A, Sex Education, and The Gentlemen.
It all just suggests we’re going to see a side of Westeros we haven’t seen before, and that gets me as fired up as Robert Baratheon at an all-you-can-drink bar.
I mean, perhaps it’s just me, but I’m sick of non-stop stories about the end of the world and cataclysm.
There’s enough cataclysmic drama in the world without the fear of being executed for high treason (although in Westeros, this is probably a reasonable concern), and judging by the trailers, it looks like this show will show us a side of Westeros outside exclusively scheming high lords and houses.
It’ll show us how that nobility interacts with some of the rabble, offering insight into a world the previous shows have only touched on and help me understand how society in this weird place I love functions.
I want to see a more human, less brutal Westeros, and this show looks like it’s going to do that.
I’m also impressed by how faithful to the books, which similarly have a lighter tone and tell those slice-of-life stories, the show looks.
As a fan of the Tales of Dunk and Egg stories, I’ve always wanted to see them done justice on the big screen, and it looks like those working on the show feel the same way.
They’ve not made Dunk a cool, collected, swashbuckling knight. They’ve kept him an out-of-his-depth goofball.
It looks like the writers even managed to avoid crowbarring in an origin story for some minor Game of Thrones character no one cares about. Looking at you, Tyland Lannister.
Heck, they didn’t even show us the Iron Throne, which shocked me most. It all suggests a confidence in the same-but-different source material that gives me a lot of faith in this project because they know not to meddle with what already works.
And what works about these books ultimately is Dunk and Egg, two people who prove that dragons and civil wars aren’t the only reasons you need to visit Westeros.
The show is a month away, and unlike House of the Dragon, rumoured sequel projects, or even a rewatch of the main series, I can honestly say this is one chapter in the Game of Thrones canon I can’t wait to see.
Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk.
Share your views in the comments below.