A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms wrapped up its first season last night with some closure for our beloved hedge knight and his scrawny squire. But as Dunk and Egg rode off, excitedly contemplating new adventures in the seven (or nine, depending on who you ask) kingdoms, the HBO series made a sly change to the ending that George R.R. Martin book readers immediately noticed.
It makes sense given the story’s leap to TV—and with a second season already on the way. But what does it mean for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ future?
Martin’s novella, “The Hedge Knight,” follows the conversation between Prince Maekar and Dunk pretty closely. Maekar says he doesn’t want his son sleeping in ditches and eating hard salt beef; Dunk makes the point that Maekar’s worthless older sons, Daeron and Aerion, never did either. The implication, of course, is that if Maekar wants to have any hope of seeing Egg turn out differently, he should let him have different experiences.
The book then goes to the scene where Egg appears as Dunk is preparing to depart Ashford Meadow and says, “My lord father says I am to serve you.” The story ends with Dunk sternly reminding Egg he should address him as “ser” and the pair talking about Dorne having good puppet shows.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms‘ sixth episode, “The Morrow,” added more; we got a nice scene between Dunk and his loyal pal Ser Raymun Fossoway—as well as a farewell from the ghostly presence of Ser Arlan of Pennytree. But most notably, we saw Maekar trotting around the Targaryen contingent, very irritated that Aegon has once again slipped his grasp.
That dangling thread hints that season two, which will be based on Martin’s second Dunk and Egg tale, “The Sworn Sword,” won’t be as self-contained as the stories, which contain almost no overlapping characters beyond Dunk and Egg.
In interviews tied to the season one finale, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms showrunner Ira Parker talked about why the change was made and what it means for future installments.
“I would say we are attempting to be as compartmentalized as possible,” Parker told Entertainment Weekly. “That’s the nature of the novellas. It’s not that there are uncertain strings that are pulled all the way through, but every season Dunk and Egg are in a new place, we set up a story, we tell you the story, and we close out the story. So this is a little bit of a thread, but I don’t want to start getting into two big ripple effects that change the nature of the story we’re allowed to tell in [season] two that make it too big. It will be addressed, but hopefully it will not detract from anyone’s enjoyment of ‘The Sworn Sword.’”
“It will be addressed,” suggests that Maekar or one of his representatives will pop up in season two; the fact that Egg made an unsanctioned departure suggests he might not have secret proof of his Targaryen identity tucked into his boot, something that becomes a big plot point in subsequent stories.
Speaking to Winter Is Coming, Parker elaborated on what went into the decision.
“It fits within [Egg’s] character, obviously, what we know about it … he ran off before, so he runs off now,” Parker said. He also aimed to make it somewhat uncertain whether Maekar had actually forbidden his son from going with Dunk or not.
“I can actually … wrap my head around both versions of Maekar saying no and Maekar saying yes, which I think is a wonderful position, and hopefully the audience will appreciate that … this is how we create on this show, by taking very little thin threads and trying to run with them. That’s the best way to write it.”
As for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms‘ future, HBO has greenlit season two. If that goes well, there’s a third novella, “The Mystery Knight,” all ready for season three. After that, though, just because there aren’t any more published stories doesn’t mean the show couldn’t potentially continue.
In an interview with Polygon, Parker sounded optimistic about the show’s future prospects, saying that Martin “is writing a fourth one at least that he has some good ideas for.”
Martin fans know he’s been promising more Dunk and Egg stories for a while now. They also are well aware of how slow the author’s writing process can be. But Parker has spoken before about how A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms won’t run into the same problem Game of Thrones did in its later seasons should it continue past Martin’s published work to date.
“George and I have talked about very loosely that if it ever came to that, we would just go through and break seasons together, that he has a lot of ideas and we can bounce ideas off of each other,” Parker told Polygon. “Obviously, I don’t want to take him away too long from his day job, but it’s amazing how much can be accomplished in a quick amount of time with him and a couple of his favorite authors in the room. We were pretty good for season one, so I think we could continue that and come up with some good stuff.”
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Source: gizmodo.com
