Max has greenlit a show based on George R.R. Martin’s wonderful Tales of Dunk and Egg series. What actors would fit the characters? Let’s dreamcast!
It’s official: HBO Max’s rebranded streaming service Max is moving forward with a new Game of Thrones spinoff based on George R.R. Martin’s Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas, titled A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight. This story is told through the eyes of the stalwart knight Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire Egg, a Targaryen prince, and takes place around 90 years before the events of Game of Thrones. Martin has written three of these shorter tales to date: The Hedge Knight (1998), The Sworn Sword (2003), and The Mystery Knight (2010), all of them collected in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (2015).
In some ways, Dunk and Egg is the most logical Game of Thrones spinoff HBO could make, since they’re the only other real stories Martin has written in the Song of Ice and Fire universe apart from the mainline books. The only other spinoff we’ve gotten, House of the Dragon, is based on Fire & Blood, which is a “fake history” book that details the reigns of the Targaryens. Dunk and Egg has all the excitement, betrayal and politicking that made Game of Thrones so engrossing, but with an intimate focus on characters which was missing from Fire & Blood.
There are still concerns, namely that Martin hasn’t finished writing the Dunk and Egg novellas so it’s possible we may end up with another Game of Thrones situation where the show overtakes the books. Martin had previously said he was against the idea of a Dunk and Egg adaptation for this very reason, since he had plans for “seven or eight or ten” more Dunk and Egg stories.
Regardless, it seems he came around on it; Dunk and Egg was actually one of the very first spinoffs that Martin pitched to HBO, alongside a Dance of the Dragons show which eventually became House of the Dragon. Hey, maybe exploring further Dunk and Egg tales onscreen could be a way for Martin tell some of those extra stories without taking him away from The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring?
For now though, let’s just take a few minutes to dream about what A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight could look like. Who would play heroes like Ser Duncan the Tall and Baelor Breakspear? Loathsome villains like Aerion Brightflame, Lucas the Longinch, and Lord Gormon Peake?
From here on, there will be SPOILERS aplenty from all three Dunk and Egg novellas. We’ll be sticking mainly to the major players from those stories. That being said, I do hope that the show would explore some of the time between the tales. Dunk and his squire Egg spend a year and a half traveling across Dorne and sailing to Oldtown between The Hedge Knight and The Sworn Sword, having no shortage of adventures and encountering beloved characters like Maester Aemon of the Night’s Watch when he was studying at the Citadel as a young man. A similar amount of time passes between the second and third novellas. Filling in those spots could create enough episodes to fill multiple seasons. Spending more time in Dorne and Oldtown would also give the show an opportunity to address the story’s lack of diversity, which could become problematic if it sticks exclusively to Martin’s written works. (You’ll see what I mean.)
So! All that being said, let’s dive in and start dreamcasting…beginning with the main man himself.