For the most part, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms wasn’t a typical Game of Thrones series. It was more light-hearted, showcasing the odd friendship between would-be knight Dunk (Peter Claffey) and his squire Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell). The series featured nice banter between the pair as Dunk attempted to make a name for himself at a tournament.
The big moment was the end of Episode 3 when Dunk discovered Egg was really Aegon Targaryen, the younger brother of Aerion (Finn Bennett) and Daeron (Henry Ashton), who was aptly named “Daeron the Drunken.” Accused of kidnapping Egg, Dunk is forced to take part in the “Trial of Seven,” where he and six others battle Daeron and Aerion’s allies.
That sets up the epic Episode 5, “In the Name of the Mother,” as the two sides go at it. Speaking to GoldDerby, director Owen Harris broke down the challenges of the fight and was delighted by the reaction.
“We've been blown away by the reaction to the whole show. We went for a very specific tonality for that seven-on-seven trial, and how sticking close to Dunk could have gone two ways. Maybe people want to see more of what's going on, but we wanted to be in there with him, and feel the weight, the mud, the pain, everything, and feel the blow with him. We were really happy with the way people reacted to it.”
Obviously, directing a huge medieval battle in the mud and rain has a score of challenges. But one of the most notable was how part of the battle is seen from Duncan’s point of view inside his helmet. Harris detailed how they cooked up what they literally called “Helmet Cam.”
“When we were designing this sequence, I remember sitting in with Ira and Rob Inch, the stunt director, going through how we were approaching things. You always want to have a lot of fun with a sequence like this, in terms of the stunts and the action. At the same time, it was so important that we didn't get carried away to the point where we left behind what was working so well for us — the integral heartbeat of the show, which was this single-person POV. And in a way, it led us through that whole battle sequence. For the Helmet Cam, how much can you even use that and how many times can you repeat it? You don't want to spend the whole time inside that. So it's just figuring out the dance of keeping it entertaining with this claustrophobic view of the world that really put you inside his head.”
Harris actually tried to stay out of the social media discussion about the episode, though he did hear about the strange battle with Breaking Bad fans. He was also proud of filming the death of Prince Baelor (Bertie Carvel) and cited the ordeal of filming the scene as something that made his passing look more powerful.
“What was amazing was that we did it at the end of the battle, and it was like Peter had been in a fight," Harris recalled. "Not only was he in the mud and in this heavy armor, but he was acting nearly dead for so many days. He is in agony, and he is on his last legs, and it was toward the end of the shoot. We had that on one side, and it felt really, really real. And then, you have this very iconic moment, where Baelor appears in this archway, and there's this sense that something's not right. It was just, how long can you tease that out, and how do we hold the reveal back as much as we can?”
All of Harris’ hard work paid off in what many are calling not just the best episode of AKOTSK but one of the best in the entire GOT franchise. Harris deserves much of the credit for that and seems ready to deliver more drama in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms' second season.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms season 1 is streaming now on HBO Max. Season 2 is currently filming, and is slated to release sometime in 2027.
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