Last week, HBO greenlit another Game of Thrones prequel series in addition to House of the Dragon. The new show is called A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight. It will adapt George R.R. Martin’s Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas, which take place 90 years before the Song of Ice and Fire saga. They’re about a knight named Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire Aegon Targaryen, aka Egg, a young Targaryen prince so far down the line of succession that no one in his family particularly cares if he gallivants around Westeros with a random dude named Dunk.
Martin has published three Dunk and Egg novellas to date: The Hedge Knight (1998), The Sworn Sword (2003) and The Mystery Knight (2010). Judging by the title of the show, the first season will adapt the first Dunk and Egg novella, with future seasons possibly focusing on subsequent ones.
House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal is on board as an executive producer, with Ira Parker and Martin himself writing scripts for the show. Martin has plans to write more Dunk and Egg novels that take the titular characters into the later parts of their lives, but given how slow he’s been to finish The Winds of Winter, it’s anybody’s guess as to whether they will ever materialize. Should this new series make it past The Mystery Knight, I think it’s most likely that Martin’s ideas for the rest of the novellas will simply get adapted to TV before Martin writes them in print.
Beware SPOILERS for the Dunk and Egg novellas below
Years after the events of the third novella, Egg grows up to become the King of Westeros, and he appoints his friend Duncan the Tall as the Lord Commander of his Kingsguard. Assuming the series this far, this means many familiar characters from Game of Thrones could eventually show up in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Here are some of the likely candidates.
1. Maester Aemon
In Game of Thrones, Maester Aemon is the calm and courteous Maester of the Night’s Watch who serves as a mentor to both Samwell Tarly and Jon Snow. At the time of A Song of Ice and Fire, Aemon is about 100 years old. In the first season, Jon learns that Aemon is a Targaryen. In fact, he is Egg’s older brother.
During the time of Dunk and Egg, the king is Daeron II Targaryen, Egg’s grandfather. Egg is the fourth son of Daeron’s fourth son Maekar, meaning there are a lot of people ahead of him in line to inherit the Iron Throne. Aemon is also pretty far down the line of succession, so rather than groom him for the throne, Daeron sends him to Oldtown to study and become a maester.
Later, Maekar becomes king and summons his sons to court, including Aemon and Egg. Maekar wanted his son to serve him on the small council, but Aemon did not want to displace the Grand Maester and instead opted to serve his older brother Daeron on Dragonstone. Daeron and Maekar both eventually died, leading to a succession crisis.
Thanks to Egg spending so much time with Dunk on the road, many viewed him as being “half a peasant.” This led to Aemon being viewed as the likely choice to ascend as king, which would require him being released from his sworn vows as a Maester. However, Aemon refused the call and advocated for Egg to become king. When Egg ascended and became Aegon V Targaryen, Aemon chose to join the Night’s Watch out of fear he would be used in a plot to usurp his younger brother from the throne. Aegon had the King’s Landing dungeons emptied out, with its prisoners serving as new recruits in the Night’s Watch. Duncan the Tall was sent to escort the group to the Wall, where Aemon remained until he leaves with Samwell in A Feast for Crows (on Game of Thrones, he dies at the Wall).
Aemon was tested many times during his tenure at the Wall, the hardest being when he heard about the destruction of his house at the hands of Robert Baratheon. Aemon was one of the few Targaryens alive during A Song of Ice and Fire and he will most likely be included in the Dunk and Egg prequel show at some point since he is the brother of one of the two main characters. Between the first and second novellas, Dunk and Egg’s adventures take them to Dorne where they fight a group of pirates. After they leave the desert kingdom, they stop in Oldtown to see Aemon. Perhaps the new show will show us that encounter.
2. Brynden Rivers, aka Bloodraven
One of the most intriguing figures in all of Westerosi history is Brynden Rivers, also known as Bloodraven. On Game of Thrones, we know him as the Three-Eyed Raven Bran meets beyond the Wall, although how he got there no one knows. Perhaps this show can fill in the blanks.
Bloodraven earned his nickname for the red birthmark on the left side of his face that was shaped like a bird. With albino skin that was sensitive to light, Bloodraven typically donned dark and hooded clothing. He was born in King’s Landing, one of several bastards to King Aegon IV; his siblings included Aegor ‘Bittersteel’ Rivers, Shiera Seastar and Daemon Blackfyre. Bittersteel and Bloodraven hated each other because their mothers came from the rival houses of Blackwood and Bracken respectively. The half-brothers were also both in love with their sister Shiera, who chose Bloodraven.
Aegon IV was a terrible king whose decrees fostered deceit and hatred throughout the realm. His final act as king was to legitimize all of his bastards, which led to the bloody Blackfyre rebellions. Upon Aegon’s death, Daemon Blackfyre took up arms against the trueborn heir Daeron II. Bloodraven remained loyal to Daeron when this first Blackfyre rebellion broke out, using his private longbowmen company the Raven’s Teeth to defeat and kill Daemon alongside his twin sons in the Battle of the Redgrass Field. Bittersteel, who fought with Daemon, culminating in a duel with Bloodraven where the latter lost an eye but the former lost the battle. Bittersteel fled across the Narrow Sea and founded the Golden Company.
Soon after, Bloodraven became the Hand of the King and master of whisperers under his nephew King Aerys I. During this time, Bloodraven effectively ruled the realm alongside his paramour Shiera Seastar, and many of the small folk hated him for his harsh punishments.
Bloodraven uses thousands of spies to collect information on everybody. We see him work in The Mystery Knight, the third Dunk and Egg novella. While attending a tourney at a castle called Whitewalls, Dunk and Egg realize that many of the lords present are supporters of the rebel Blackfyre faction. Eventually a knight named Glendon Ball is forced to joust Daemon II, and he plants the rebel into the ground. After Daemon is defeated, Bloodraven arrives with an army of thousands of men to quash the rebellion before it begins. Daemon meets Bloodraven and demands a one-on-one fight, but Bloodraven just arrests him and the treasonous lords since nobody wanted to support Daemon after he lost the joust.
Bloodraven was also around for the third Blackfyre rebellion, and advocates for the execution of Bittersteel after he is captured. However, the weak Aerys I decides to send Bittersteel to the Wall, which he leaves for Essos.
When another succession crisis hits the realm, Bloodraven callS a great council to pick a new king. Ever the Blackfyre hater, Bloodraven disingenuously invited Aenys Blackfyre to participate in the council only to execute the man once he arrived. After Egg is chosen to become king, his first act is to arrest Bloodraven for his role in Aenys’ death. When Aemon decides to join the Night’s Watch, Bloodraven is among the prisoners sent with him.
Bloodraven is eventually elected the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch and serves in that position for over 10 years. However, he disappearS in a ranging beyond the Wall about 45 years before the events of Game of Thrones. Bran Stark finds him decades later in a cave with weirwoods trees growing in and out of his body. Bloodraven teaches Bran how to use greensight and skin changing-magic, but some think that the old sorcerer’s intentions are malicious.
3. Aerys II Targaryen
Depending on how long the shows lasts, we may even get to see a young version Daenerys Targaryen’s father the Mad King Aerys.
Aerys’ father Jaehaerys was seemingly keen on the Prince Who Was Promised prophecy, which foretells that a great hero will save the realm from darkness; we heard a version of it in House of the Dragon. Because a woods witch told him that the Prince Who Was Promised would come from his line, Jaehaerys had his son Aerys and his daughter Rhaella marry each other against their will, and much to the chagrin of his own father Egg. Egg did not approve of the Targaryen incest practice but Jaehaerys and Shaera did not care.
Egg’s rule was difficult. Many of the lords of Westeros were angry with Egg because he gave the smallfolk more rights and privileges. During a difficult winter, Egg also sent food and supplies to the North, which angered the rest of the realm.
When the winter ended, the fourth Blackfyre rebellion sprouted, prompting Egg and his sons to meet the rebels in battle in 236 AC. Daemon III Blackfyre invaded the mainland alongside the longtime Blackfyre ally Aegor ‘Bittersteel’ Rivers. This rebellion was put down with relative ease, but Egg was angry that Westeros kept pushing back against his decrees. Egg started to seek a way to make them bend to his proclamations. This line of thinking resulted in Egg becoming obsessed with hatching dragon eggs. At this time there were no more dragons in Westeros, but Egg saw the creatures that put his family on the thrown in the past as the only way to keep them there in the present.
This all culminated with the tragedy at Summerhall, the details of which are purposely ambiguous because a big reveal is supposedly slated for a future story. Perhaps the Dunk and Egg show will get to this point where we see the events at Summerhall. What we know is that Egg gathered his family at Summerhall, which was a sort of vacation home for the Targaryen family. It it theorized that Egg attempted to perform a dragon hatching ritual involving seven dragon eggs, pyromancers and wildfire. It is implied that Egg, his son and heir Duncan the Small and Dunk all died in the fire with possibly many more perishing in the flames. It is also heavily implied that before Dunk died, he saved a pregnant Rhaella from the tragedy and she subsequently gave birth to Rhaegar while Summerhall burned.
This tragedy led to the ascension of Aerys’ father Jaehaerys II as king, but he only lasted a short while before succumbing to illness. In 262 AC, Aerys climbed the steps of the Iron Throne, thus beginning the reign of the final Tagaryen king before Robert Baratheon toppled the dynasty.
4. Olenna Tyrell
One of the main themes of Egg’s reign as king is the constant refusal of his sons to marry whom Egg wants them too. His oldest son and heir Prince Duncan the Small refuses multiple high-born matches that Egg makes so he could marry the low-born Jenny of Oldstones, the daughter of a woods witch. Egg himself marries a girl named Betha Blackwood for love, but tries to make political marriages for his children. That includes his second son Jaehaerys and his daughter Shaera, fall in love with each other and get married in secret despite Egg’s dislike of the Targaryen practice of incest. By the time Egg finds out, his children have already consummated their marriage, effectively forcing Egg to accept the match.
Egg tries to buck this trend by having his wife Betha betroth their youngest son Daeron to Lady Olenna Redwyne when Daeron is just 9 years old. Daeron follows in his siblings footsteps when he turns 18 by breaking his betrothal to Olenna, preferring the companionship of a knight named Jeremy Norridge. Olenna eventually marries the heir to Highgarden, Luthor Tyrell. Her son Mace becomes lord after him.
Olenna doesn’t have a ton to do in this story, but it would be fun to get a brief cameo to remind us about Diana Rigg’s masterful performance in Game of Thrones.
5. Old Nan
By the time we meet her on Game of Thrones, Old Nan is, well…old. It is said that she is the oldest person in Winterfell and has served the Starks for decades. She apparently came to Winterfell to nurse Brandon Stark…but there have been a lot of Brandon Starks over the years and no one knows which is the one she nursed.
We spend the most time with Old Nan when Bran Stark is recovering after Jaime Lannister throws him out a tower. She watches over Bran while she knits and tells him old stories with surprisingly creepy undertones.
Martin has said that a future Dunk and Egg novella will take place in Winterfell when Old Nan was a young woman. There is a theory that while Bran is using weirwood magic to peer back in time in A Dance With Dragons, he sees a young Old Nan kissing Ser Duncan the Tall. “Then there came a brown-haired girl slender as a spear who stoop on the tips of her toes to kiss the lips of a young knight as tall as Hodor,” the book reads. Does this explain Hodor’s immense size? Duncan wasn’t called “the Tall” for nothing.
Old Nan’s sons apparently died during Robert’s Rebellion and her daughters all moved away from Winterfell and died. Hodor is her great-grandson and her only living relative. When Ramsay burns Winterfell, he takes the women and children as prisoners to the Dreadfort. That presumably includes Old Nan. Due to her age, Arya and Theon think that Old Nan is likely dead.
6. Melisandre
On Game of Thrones, it is confirmed that Melisandre is much older than she appears and uses glamor magic to mask her elderly body. It is not known exactly how old she is, but given that magic can keep someone around for a very long time, it’s probably centuries.
It is not exactly clear how she would show up in the Dunk and Egg show, but she was definitely around (she’s around during the time of House of the Dragon too, incidentally). We know that she is obsessed with the Prince Who Was Promised prophecy, just like many members House Targaryen. Perhaps before she came to believe that Stannis Baratheon was Azor Ahai, Melisandre served the Targaryens and pushed for them to fulfill the prophecy. Maybe Melisandre and Jenny of Oldstones are the same person, as some fans theorize.
This is all highly unlikely, but it would be fun to see Melisandre threaded back into the story somehow. All we are really told of her seemingly centuries-long past is that she was sold to a Eed Temple at an early age and practiced magic in Asshai.
7. Walder Frey
During The Mystery Knight, Dunk and Egg witness a wedding at the castle of Whitewalls, where Lord Butterwell marries a daughter of Lord Frey. Lord Frey has a four-year-old son named Walder; this is the same Walder Frey we will see in Game of Thrones 90 years later.
After Egg interacts with the young Walder Frey, he says that he is snot-nosed, hideous, had the most irritating laugh and that he wants to thrown the child down a well. Just think of what Egg would have done if he was around for the Red Wedding.
I think I speak for everyone when I say that these exact lines need to make it into A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms so we can all share in the Walder Frey hate one more time. Later in the book, Walder’s father turns out to be an informant for Bloodraven, showing that Frey loyalty has always been fickle.
To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.
Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels