A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Darkmatters Guide

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Episode 1: “The Hedge Knight”

Darkmatters Blog Review (spoiler-tempered, fire-forged by Matt @Cleric20 Adcock)

The Game of Thrones universe has grown so vast that its edges now fold back upon themselves like wings of a great, burning wyrm, and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is the newest fractal in that mythic flame. Where its predecessors Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon barbed us with politics and dread, this prequel premieres not with an Iron Throne forged of swords but with a pair of misfits marching straight into the mud and sun of Ashford Meadow.

Episode 1, titled “The Hedge Knight,” opens on a man burying his past and tripping into his future. Ser Duncan the Tall (played with guileless gravity by Peter Claffey) is a towering figure of noble ideals in a world that treats ideals like worn coin. Fresh from the funeral of his mentor, Dunk sets off toward a tournament, not because he thirsts for glory, but because dignity feels like the last decent sword left in his scabbard.

And then there’s Egg (who looks like he's escaped from The Last Airbender) a bald, quick-witted lad who clings to Dunk’s heels like a shadow that knows too much. Their meeting is less destiny and more accident, but as with all great myths, accidents tend to be omens in disguise.

The tone is… odd but brilliant. Not whimsical exactly, Westeros remains a land where fate bites hard but unmoored from the relentless doom of its forebears. This is Game of Thrones without the siege towers, or at least with siege towers replaced by amusement-park-level absurdity: tavern mishaps, tournament pageantry, and a physical comedy cadence that gives Monty Python a polite nod from beyond the grave.

Yet beneath the lightness, there’s grit: swords clash, horses sweat, and the first seeds of legend take root in stubborn soil. Dunk is a knight because he refuses to yield his sense of right, even when life nudges him toward cynicism. Egg’s secret...hinted, not handed to you like a gaudy bauble, promises greater truths to come.

In pure Darkmatters terms: this is Westeros with its armour off, sitting around a tavern fire, eating cold beef, telling each other the same old stories about dragons and king, except this time, the jokes are crude and the humanity is all too close to the bone. It doesn’t roar like wildfire; it simmers like broth on a hearth. Some will call it slow. Some will call it small. But under its modest surface flows the deep, dark river of what it means to be more than a sword in a kingdom that despises the humble.

Series Source Material... Tales of Dunk and Egg: Darkmatters Guide

To truly taste what this show is biting into, you have to crack open the soil of the Dunk & Egg novellas, the narrative bedrock of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. These stories, set nearly a century before Game of Thrones, chronicle the unlikely, unforgettable duo: Ser Duncan the Tall and his young companion Aegon V Targaryen, known as Egg.

The Novellas (Collected as A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms)

The Hedge Knight

The root from which all this sprouted. A hedge knight is a knight in name alone — no lands, no gold, no retinue, just rusted steel and stubborn pride. Dunk shows up at a tourney with hopes bigger than his coin purse, earning laughs, bruises, and an apprentice with secrets that could shake thrones.

The Sworn Sword

After their debut, Dunk and Egg’s path takes them to the turbulent marches between mighty houses. Here honour and duty clash with politics and pride, and our duo learn that vows mean little when the powerful lust for leverage.

The Mystery Knight

A feast of intrigue and betrayal. A wedding tourney becomes the perfect gilded stage for plots both subtle and savage. Old grudges, buried secrets, and unsettling truths about nobility’s appetites come to the fore.

These novellas feel lighter than the dense tomes of A Song of Ice and Fire, but don’t mistake levity for innocence: Martin’s world still bites, bleeds, and burns. Beneath the camaraderie are searing reflections on honour, legacy, and what it costs to be decent in a world that rewards cruelty.

Where the Show Fits in the Larger Mythos

The series unfolds roughly 90–100 years before Game of Thrones... a time when the dragons are gone but their memory still haunts every spire and keep.

Dunk is poised on the threshold of knighthood, Egg harbours a royal secret, and the stakes are human before they are epic.

Future seasons are likely to adapt The Sworn Sword and The Mystery Knight, deepening both the friendship and the political undercurrents that make Westeros bleed.

If Game of Thrones was song, majestic, thunderous, and often tragic, then A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is a ballad: modest, plaintive, but rich with melody and heart. 

Out of a potential 5, you have to go with a Darkmatters:

ööööö

(5 -  promising and funny where you might expect grimness, and quietly poised to deeply move you.)

>>> Imagine a world where the earth is becoming hell? One man with powers and his robot sidekick might be our only hope...

Click banner below to hear a FREE 5 mins sample of my audiobook which is becoming a graphic novel too)...