HBO’s latest expansion of George R.R. Martin’s Westeros adapts his novella A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, a smaller and more intimate tale than its sprawling predecessors. Inspired by subversions of medieval chivalric literature, the series follows a budding knight, Ser Duncan — “Dunk” — the Tall, played by the appropriately towering Irishman Peter Claffey, a former professional rugby player cast with uncanny precision. Among the overlooked triumphs of the broader Game of Thrones franchise is its knack for discovering talent rather than leaning on established names, and Claffey continues that tradition triumphantly.
His physical presence is imposing, but his performance is marked by restraint and a lightly comic awkwardness. Claffey’s Duncan is demure and reticent, a man of quiet charisma who, despite lacking refined swordsmanship, earnestly strives to live up to the ideals of knighthood. He comports himself with such refreshing authenticity that it makes him a natural leader. He is kind, instinctively protective, and stubbornly decent — virtues which, in the cruel and transactional world of Westeros, seldom yield dividends. In Duncan’s case, they culminate in his punching a (deserving) Targaryen prince squarely in the face.
The world of Game of Thrones has long been fascinated by the nascent tyrant. The original series gave us the sociopathic Joffrey Baratheon; House of the Dragon introduced the decadent and resentful Aegon Targaryen. The Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (set approximately 75 years after House of the Dragon) offers another iteration in Aerion Targaryen, whose entitlement and cruelty continue the dynasty’s ominous tradition of cruel heirs. But this series is the first to linger on the more sociological and underlying question of whether such princes are born monstrous, or if they are nurtured into it by insulation, adulation, and absolute power.
Dunk’s journey provides the counterpoint. Newly knighted and adrift after the death of the hedge knight — a pejorative term for a wandering knight without land or title — he long squired for, Duncan travels to an unassuming village hoping to enter a jousting tournament and make a name for himself. The setting is deliberately small in scale. In contrast to the warring dynasties and political chess matches that framed the original series, Knights offers not even a glimpse of the vaunted Iron Throne or the king who occupies it. Instead, we are given a quaint and deeply personal hero’s journey, anchored by a likable protagonist and the litany of difficult moral decisions he faces (take notes, Hollywood).
An early scene encapsulates the show’s ethos: after burying his master, the newly knighted Duncan briefly contemplates selling his horses to live lavishly (however fleetingly) off the proceeds — before reminding himself of his vocation and turning away from such transient temptation.
The show’s most resonant thread, however, is Duncan’s relationship with Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell), a sharp-tongued boy drawn to Dunk’s genial nature and palpable integrity who begs to squire for him. Finding an honest and humble knight in Westeros is something akin to seeking rectitude in Congress. Their dynamic recalls one of the best tangential arcs in Game of Thrones — Arya Stark and Sandor “The Hound” Clegane — though here the mentor-mentee bond is the emotional engine of the story.
As the season unfolds, Duncan and Egg’s journey echoes Heath Ledger’s William Thatcher in A Knight’s Tale (2001), another lowborn aspirant determined to “change his stars.” The enduring appeal of the idea that even within rigid and hierarchical societies, one is not irrevocably bound by birth, remains distinctly American. Without divulging key plot points, both Duncan and Egg, in their own ways, strive to chart courses outside the guardrails imposed upon them by inheritance and expectation.
The spinoffs from Game of Thrones have proven markedly stronger than the flagship series’ final seasons — further evidence that writers fare best when remaining close to Martin’s prose. Few franchises maintain such consistency in their ancillary tales. Unlike expanded universes that dilute themselves into perfunctory cash grabs or surrender storytelling to diversity mandates, HBO’s Westeros continues to find fresh angles on power and patrimony. Where dragons and vast armies once dominated the frame, The Knight of the Seven Kingdoms narrows its gaze to something subtler: the possibility that free will, not bloodline, can determine fate.
Harry Khachatrian (@Harry1T6) is a film critic for the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a software engineer, holds a master’s degree from the University of Toronto, and writes about wine at BetweenBottles.com.
