The Last Kingdom veteran joins Game of Thrones prequel A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

The second season of House of the Dragon has ended and we probably won't be watching the third for a couple of years. We're in for another long wait, but HBO doesn't want us to go too long without visiting Westeros again. As we speak, it's filming the first season of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, based on the Dunk & Egg novellas by George R.R. Martin, and will very likely air them next year.

The Dunk & Egg novellas are much lighter than Game of Thrones or House of the Dragon. They follow a knight named Ser Duncan the Tall and his diminiutive squire Egg. The first novella, The Hedge Knight, takes place almost entirely during a tourney at Ashford Meadow in the Reach, where the wandering knight Dunk runs into various characters, some of them members of the Targaryen family.

The cast is growing as we watch. Here's who we know about so far:

• Peter Claffey as Dunk
• Dexter Sol Ansell as Egg
• Finn Bennett as Aerion "Brightflame" Targaryen, a dramatic, half-mad Targaryen prince
• Bertie Carvel as Baelor "Breakspear" Targaryen, Aerion's much more level-headed uncle
• Sam Spruell as Maekar Targaryen, Aerion's dad
• Tanzyn Crawford as Tanselle, a puppeteer at the tourney
• Daniel Ings as Lyonel Baratheon, one of the participants in that tourney
• Steven Calvert as a Stormland knight
• Rowan Robinson as Rowan
• Abigail O'Regan in an unknown role

Aerion is definitely the trouble-maker in this particular story. And thanks to Redanian Intelligence, we know of another supporting player: Ross Anderson, who played the role of Prince Domnal in Netflix's historical fiction series The Last Kingdom as well as in the follow-up movie Seven Kings Must Die, will play Humfrey Hardyng, who fights Aerion Brightflame early in the tourney, and later joins with Dunk in opposing the Targaryen prince after things get heated.

Again, we don't know exactly when A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms will premiere, but HBO will want it to plug the gap between new seasons of House of the Dragon, so we should expect it sometime in 2025. The first season will consist of six episodes, will feature no dragons (unless HBO goes seriously out of pocket), and will hopefully serve as a tonic to all the doom and gloom going down on House of the Dragon.

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