HBO has released the first teaser trailer for “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” as part of the show’s panel and festivities at New York Comic-Con. The “Game of Thrones” spinoff is based on George R.R. Martin‘s “Tales of Dunk and Egg” novel series, which is a kind of pocket universe within the larger “Thrones” mythos.
If that sounds like a “for diehards only” kind of adaptation, you wouldn’t be wrong. And HBO is doing everything in this teaser trailer to emphasize the relatability and accessibility of this story. First off, they’re telegraphing that the series, created by Ira Parker and Martin himself and starring Peter Claffey as Dunk and Dexter Sol Ansell as Egg, is as lore-free as possible.
You don’t need to catch up by reading “Fire & Blood” or any of the main “A Song of Ice and Fire” books to “get” anything about this one. It’s simply a character study, a relationship piece between the Dunk, a.k.a. Sir Duncan the Tall, and his squire Egg. It’s a buddy comedy with a few dramatic notes that just happens to be set in Martin’s medieval fantasy world. And fans of medieval fantasy worlds in general can see shades of the Arthurian legends here in the fact that Egg is secretly a prince.
There’s also plenty of what “Game of Thrones” and “House of the Dragon” fans have come to expect of the series: stilted medieval dialogue, crude moments related to bodily functions (look at how that one guy hacks up a handful of spit), and liberal use of anachronistic profanity. When someone asks Dunk if he’s Baelor Targaryen — a high role — and Dunk says no, the rude bastard says to him, “Then would you get the fook out of the way?”
Beyond that, though, there’s a lot not shown here that one imagines would confuse newcomers, starting with the very concept of this show. It’s set 100 years before “Game of Thrones” but about 100 years after “House of the Dragon,” right in the middle of both. It’s a period of time that’s totally been unexplored before now.
But that may be a lot to untangle for fans of “Game of Thrones,” who expect that the Targaryen kings might have already fallen by this time (they haven’t) or “House of the Dragon” fans who think that the conflict of that series — one Targaryen fighting another — is still going on. It isn’t. In that regard, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” kind of has the relationship of something like “Star Wars: Rebels” or “The Bad Batch” to that saga’s original and prequel trilogies. Something that the already-converted will enjoy, but it may be harder to reach new audiences.