A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms Leans On Game Of Thrones' Forgotten Best Element
This article contains spoilers for "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" season 1, episode 1 — "The Hedge Knight."
Remember when "Game of Thrones" used to be fun? "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" does. Right in the beginning, we see that the show isn't planning to take itself too seriously when "The Hedge Knight" makes a tactically low-brow jump cut from the classic "Thrones" theme swelling up to Dunk (Peter Claffey) finding himself in an extremely compromising position. The rest of the episode goes much the same way: interesting character moments, small character-establishing jokes, and party scenes that early-series Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage) would be right at home in.
From everything that's wrong with the final season of "Game of Thrones" to the looming big battle of "House of the Dragon" season 3, fans would be forgiven for forgetting that "Game of Thrones" used to feature a whole bunch of fun stuff like this. In fact, I'd go as far as to argue that "Game of Thrones" was always at its best when it balanced its big drama beats with the smaller stakes and brutal humor that characters like Tyrion and Bronn (Jerome Flynn) excelled at. The fact that "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" brings this unserious atmosphere back is a fresh breath of air for a franchise that has often been too stuffy for its own good.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms focuses on the fun parts of Game of Thrones, and it's great
With "House of the Dragon" often leaning on the high and mighty side of the "Game of Thrones" equation, it's nice that "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" has love for the road less traveled .. or rather, more traveled. After all, the most entertaining "Game of Thrones" storylines were often the road buddy arcs where wildly incompatible characters like Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) and the Hound (Rory McCann) were stuck traveling together and getting into trouble. "A Knight of Seven Kingdoms" seems to run nigh-entirely on this fuel, eschewing all that dragons-and-thrones stuff in favor of the mundane world-building and the small touches that played a crucial role in making "Game of Thrones" so great.
"A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" is based on George R.R. Martin's "Tales of Dunk and Egg" novellas and takes its name from their combined edition. Perhaps tellingly, the show also shares its name with "Game of Thrones" season 8, episode 2 — the character-driven semi-bottle episode that /Film once called one of the all-time best "Game of Thrones" episodes. (It's the one that spends its entire runtime on wonderfully awkward pre-battle character interactions in Winterfell). If this is the direction the franchise is heading, count me in.
"A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" season 1 is streaming on HBO Max.