Right now we're in the midst of watching the first season of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, HBO's brand new Game of Thrones spinoff based on George R.R. Martin's beloved Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas. While Westeros shows are usually wrought with deadly politics, betrayals, and fire-breathing dragons, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is a different sort of affair; it has a smaller scale, smaller stakes, and is firmly focused on the odd couple relationship between the hedge knight Ser Duncan the Tall (Peter Claffey) and his diminutive squire, Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell).
So far, we've been enjoying the season immensely — and if I'm being honest, I've seen all six episodes of it and think people are only going to fall more in love with the series in the weeks to come. This is by far the most faithful adaptation of one of George R.R. Martin's works that has made it to the screen, and the result speaks for itself.
To date, Martin has written three Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas: "The Hedge Knight" (1998), "The Sworn Sword" (2003), and "The Mystery Knight" (2010). But he's hinted many times at having more Dunk and Egg stories planned; he just has to get that other little book, The Winds of Winter, off his back first. With the new show out, chatter about more Dunk and Egg novellas has grown even louder, with some surprising new details coming to light.
George R.R. Martin has been working on new Tales of Dunk and Egg books
Martin first dropped new hints about more novellas during the pre-premiere A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms episode of HBO's Game of Thrones podcast, where hosts Jason Concepcion and Greta Johnsen interviewed the author about the series. Near the end of the interview, Martin mentioned that, "If I have the time, there's more stories to tell Dunk and Egg and their education and what's going to befall them in future years."
Another clue came earlier this month when The Hollywood Reporter dropped a bombshell interview with Martin that got into everything from The Winds of Winter to his drama with House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal and, of course, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. There, Martin revealed not only that he has more Tales of Dunk and Egg stories planned, but that he's actually been working on some of them. These additional novellas are important, because if A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms continues to get renewed and release a new season per year, it will quickly outpace what Martin has published.
“The big issue is that I have only written three novellas, and I have a lot more stories about Dunk and Egg in my fucking head,” Martin told THR. “I’ve got to get them down on paper. I began writing two at various points in the past year. One is set in Winterfell and one set in the Riverlands …”
While Martin has referenced other Dunk and Egg stories before, especially the one set in Winterfell, which has the working title "The She-Wolves of Winterfell," this is the first time I can recall him saying he's actively been writing on any. And while he did tell THR that, "It’s been made clear to me that Winds is the priority," presumably by his publishers, The Tales of Dunk and Egg are much shorter, much simpler books. If Martin actually does get on a tear with one, I could see him finishing it.
But there's another angle to all this news about The Tales of Dunk and Egg books that I think is even juicier: the series will presumably span the characters' entire lives.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms showrunner has seen GRRM's outlines for future books
Back before the A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms show was first greenlit, Martin revealed that he hoped to write "seven or eight or ten more" novellas about the characters. Now that he and showrunner Ira Parker are making the press rounds for the show's first season, more details are coming out.
Exhibit A: Parker recently told Variety that he has seen details for the rest of The Tales of Dunk and Egg books that Martin has planned. "There’s a document that few people have read. He works all offline. His computer is not connected to the internet, so things have to be printed out and passed around that way. I’ve seen the plan for 12, 13, 14, 15, maybe, of these novellas. It would be fantastic, but I don’t want to get carried away here. Let’s see if people watch the show."
15 Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas?! That would be a lot of adventures for our earnest hedge night and his young squire; I daresay enough that Egg would be well into manhood by the end of it. And that's another exciting revelation: the books Martin has planned for the duo span their entire lives.
Up until now, we really didn't have much information about future Dunk and Egg books. I've generally assumed most of them would be the young adventures of these characters, before they go on to become gigantic figures in the lore of Westeros, but that assumption has now been soundly proven wrong. MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD for the novellas, and by association, the HBO show.
GRRM's planned Tales of Dunk and Egg books span the characters' entire lives
As revealed in The World of Ice and Fire book, as well as small snippets of lore throughout A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones, Dunk and Egg eventually go on to become massively important to the realm at large. Egg, a.k.a. Aegon V Targaryen, becomes King of the Seven Kingdoms, where he bears the moniker Aegon the Unlikely because of how far down the line of succession he was as a child. When Egg ascends the Iron Throne, he makes Dunk the Lord Commander of his Kingsguard, and there are more than a few important tasks that the former hedge knight will do on behalf of his king through Egg's reign.
I'd always assumed that The Tales of Dunk and Egg would primarily focus on the younger years for these characters, before Egg grows up and they're forced to place the good of the realm over their penchant for wandering adventures. But it sounds like Martin has the opposite approach in mind, chronicling their entire journey. And that's a method Parker sounds interested in bringing to the HBO show, should it be wildly successful enough to get many more seasons.
"The planned books that George has take Dunk and Egg through their whole lives," Parker told Variety. "I’ve joked about this with HBO, to which I’ve definitely got some eye rolls, but I would love to do three, four or five seasons with Egg the boy and then come back in five or 10 years and do a few more with Egg the prince. Then come back in five or 10 years from then and do him at the end of his life — Linklater method. They go off, do whatever they want to do in between, they can have lives, then we come back and get the crew back together and we tell a little bit more of the story because I think it would be really interesting. The idea of taking two people on a journey through their lives, I haven’t seen a lot of that."
Parker seems pretty grounded about what a long shot the idea of following Dunk and Egg in the show for their entire lives would be, but it's fun to imagine — especially knowing that it fits with Martin's vision as well.
How would A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms handle the end of Dunk and Egg's story?
Of course, there is one big snag to this: if A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms goes on long enough, it will eventually find its way into more tragic material, as most all Game of Thrones stories do. I don't even consider this true spoilers for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, because it happens decades after the material in Martin's published books and the chances it ever makes it into the show are extremely slim...but in the lore of the books, Aegon V Targaryen does not die of old age, comfortable in his bed. Rather, he dies during a fire at the Targaryen retreat of Summerhall, when he tries to encourage dragon eggs to hatch through extreme heat. The fire consumes a number of important family members, as well as Aegon's loyal bodyguard, Ser Duncan the Tall.
The tragedy at Summerhall is, in part, what paved the way for the eventual ascension of Aegon's grandson, Aerys II Targaryen — also known as the Mad King. It's a crucially important event in Westeros' history, but the only way we'll ever see it in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is if the show goes on well past Martin's written works, for many years to come.
As such, this backstory about what awaits Dunk and Egg is more of a curiosity than anything, and could add a little bit of weight to certain moments if the show decides to foreshadow it. But for now, we've got many adventures to come with young Egg and Dunk — and hopefully, more books featuring them as well.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms premieres new episodes Sunday at 10:00 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max. We're covering the series extensively, including breaking down each episode on our Take the Black podcast as soon as they're done airing. Come back and enjoy this latest journey to Westeros with us in the weeks ahead!