Choose your fighter: a markedly tall, naive and newly-dubbed knight, or a surprisingly worldly and deeply animated child. Welcome to “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” a prequel to “Game of Thrones” that takes place about a century earlier and feels more like a buddy comedy with Robin Hood and Little John than a high fantasy epic.
Set in the world of Westeros, we follow Ser Duncan “Dunk” the Tall (Peter Claffey) from when his mentor dies shortly after knighting him. He travels to a tournament to compete in as his first foray into knighthood and along the journey, he stumbles across Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell). Presumably a stableboy, Egg convinces Dunk to be his squire.
“A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” follows Dunk and Egg’s exploits amid the tournament, with jousting, melees and puppet shows to boot. Dunk just wants to be a knight, and Egg desperately wants to be a squire: no high-stakes politics, powerful families and the occasional dragons that the franchise is known for.
“We try not to get too bogged down in history. These are nice, little contained journeys. It’s an action adventure series, almost. It’s Dunk and his squire having fun and adventures, getting into trouble… Hopefully you’ve enjoyed it, and you can come back and see their journey next time,” showrunner Ira Parker said in an interview with Variety.
The show is told from Dunk and Egg’s perspective, which is part of what makes the show so engaging. Ansell is a highlight — seeing his bald little head (shaved for reasons we find out later) bobbing across a field as he practices handing off lances for the joust and weaving through sheep he’s about the same size as only brushes the surface of his charm.
Despite being out of his depth at an event that heavily favors strength, Egg makes up for it in heart: hanging on with both his arms and legs to a tug of war rope and rattling off swear words when the situation calls for it.
Reminders of his youth in asking how magic tricks work and dressing up in Dunk’s armor (which he’s nearly drowning in) add nuance to this child in a very adult world, and Ansell portrays that nuance deftly.
Claffey also handles Dunk’s blind courage of a young knight beautifully. He gives off the impression that insults from nobles and other knights perpetually go over his head (which is hard to do, considering Claffey is 6 foot 5). To Dunk, this tournament isn’t just his first joust; it’s proving that he deserves to be a knight. With no House and no one else to vouch for his knighthood, Dunk struggles to even enter the tournament.
Despite the doubt cast over his actual title, it’s not for lack of honor, at times to a fault. That honor leads him to believe that knights always do what is right — which isn’t always the case, and Claffey makes your heart hurt with the realization that the world isn’t as good as he thought it was.
Where he believes the various lords should remember his mentor because he was wounded in service for them, those very same lords have no recollection of him, and they don’t lose any sleep over it. That recurring let-down from the world bubbles up to an epic monologue in episode four and Dunk finds steady ground in a foreign social sphere, ironically, on the muddy jousting field.
The relationship between Dunk and Egg is what makes the show, and it is a reversal of the typical roles of the trope: a less experienced but politically savvy character guiding a lowborn but honorable and physically imposing knight, and they’re adorable. Egg teases Dunk for his lack of everything — tent, armor, etc.
“I think one of my favorite (parts) is Dunk and Egg imitating each other. That wasn’t written in the script. We just asked them on the day of filming to do that, and that’s what Peter and Dexter turned out,” Parker said in an interview with AV Club.
Egg being the brains of the operation is also amusing; the wiser among the duo is a child barely reaching 5 feet tall. Yet, he still looks at Dunk like he hung the moon and the stars, even when Dunk threatens to give him “a clout on the ear.”
The magnetism of the characters in this show doesn’t end with these two, with standouts being Lyonel Baratheon (Daniel Ings), a lord at the tournament, and Aerion Targaryen (Finn Bennett), a prince of Westeros. The wild, dizzying feel that Ings exudes makes you feel as though you’re being reeled into a second coming of the dancing plague, and the regal cruelty Bennett emanates (aptly physicalized through his perpetually mussed crew cut with the Targaryen signature platinum blonde hair) makes him the clear antagonist of the show, yet his unpredictability gives him staying power.
“A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” eases you into the provincial countryside of Westeros and previews the powerful families that take a larger role in the other two shows. If you’re looking to get into this franchise, this newest addition wouldn’t be a bad place to start, and it’ll leave you ready to take the pledge of knighthood and be charged to be brave, just and to defend the innocent.
