The next season of House of the Dragon, HBO's big-budget, pack-full-'o'-dragons Game of Thrones prequel series, won't air until next year. However, to make sure fans don't have to wait too long before paying another visit to the Seven Kingdoms, the network is readying a new Game of Thrones prequel coming out much sooner: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which is due out later this year.
The new show is based on the Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas by author George R.R. Martin, who has seen all six episodes of the first season and loved them, a refreshing change after he publicly criticized House of the Dragon last year. The new show is set decades after the events of House of the Dragon but decades before Game of Thrones. The story follows the adventures of a knight named Dunk (Peter Claffey) and his precocious squie Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell). “You’re going to be so impressed by Peter Claffey and Dexter Sol Ansell as Dunk and Egg, the two leads, the sort of brotherhood, the paternal nature between Dunk and this young man,” HBO executive Francesca Orsi told Deadline.
Martin has written three Dunk and Egg novellas so far: "The Hedge Knight," "The Sword Sword" and "The Mystery Knight." Obviously, the first season of the show will be based on the first novella, and HBO is already has plans to adapt the rest. "[W]e’re already planning on how do we build this for the three seasons in total," Orsi said. "We’re not picking it up officially, but it’s looking very good. We’re looking at it as a holistic piece, Seasons 2 and 3, because there’s three novellas.”
It's great that HBO has enough faith in the series to talk openly about continuing it, even if there hasn't been an official renewal. “The role of Egg only spans not even a year, so you have to roll into it season to season pretty quickly, because this little kid will grow up too quickly if we wait too long,” Orsi said. “So we’re thinking about that in terms of pickups.”
Although we don't know how well the show will perform, I imagine the show will do well enough to get renewed, both because the Game of Thrones universe remains popular and because A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is relatively cheap to make. There are no dragons at this point in Westerosi history, so there's one budget-eating monster slain. I know that six episodes doesn't sound like a lot, but this story is much smaller in scale than what fans are used to, much more focused on character, much lighter in tone. Honestly, I think networks and streaming services could benefit from making more shows like that, instead of trying to make everything into the epic to end all epics. I have a feeling that A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms will feel very refreshing when it premieres in the back half of the year.
It might feel so refreshing that three seasons doesn't feel like enough. If Martin writes more novellas, Orsi is open to making more seasons, and he does have plans for more stories starring these two characters...but given that he's taken well over a decade at this point to deliver the long-awaited sixth book in his Song of Ice and Fire series, The Winds of Winter, I don't know how much stock you want to put in that. Depending on how good the show is, I'd be open to showrunner Ira Parker and his team working off Martin's notes and crafting more seasons on their lonesome, but I guess we'll cross that bridge when and if we come to it.
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