Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Finale Title Change, Dorne Explained
SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for the Season 1 finale of “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” now streaming on HBO Max.
The dust has settled from the trial of the seven, the wounded are patching up their injuries and “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” Season 1 has come to an end.
Dunk (Peter Claffey) is pretty banged up after his knights won in their down-and-dirty fight against Aerion Targaryen’s (Finn Bennet) team. Even though Dunk was victorious, he feels guilty after Baelor Targaryen (Bertie Carvel), his teammate and heir to the Iron Throne, died after an accidentally fatal mace to the head from Baelor’s own brother Maekar (Sam Spruell).
After Baelor’s funeral, Maekar asks Dunk to serve under him and take his son Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell) as his squire, but Dunk says he’s done with princes after all this. As the tourney wraps up and he’s visited by the ghost of his mentor Ser Arlan of Pennytree (Danny Webb), Dunk soon reconsiders and decides to take Egg away from the malevolent influence of his Targaryen family. Against Maekar’s wishes, Dunk and Egg ride away together as knight and squire. Dunk honors Ser Arlan’s tradition by nailing a penny to a tree before they depart, and Arlan’s ghost rides with him then sets off on his own path.
On their new journey, Dunk and Egg discuss heading to Dorne, the southern, desert-covered region of Westeros. In the final scene, Maekar searches for Egg as his wagons take off — hinting that there may be some Targaryen crossover next season.
Speaking with Variety, co-creator and showrunner Ira Parker reveals that Season 2 will cover George R.R. Martin’s second “Dunk and Egg” novella “The Mystery Knight,” why Martin shot down one of the original titles of the show — and more.
Steffan Hill
To start off, what’s up with the “A Knight of the Nine Kingdoms” title at the end?
That’s maybe me getting a little too jokey. People may hate it or crucify me for that, but there’s a bit of a lighter touch to these shows. And I’m going to learn some things. People are going to have a reaction to it, and and I’m going to have a reaction to it after not seeing it for a few months. And we’ll see. I like it. Enough of the wonderful creatives that I worked with liked it, too. It came from an honest place. It’s all true. It’s nine kingdoms at that point. We want to make Westeros a fun place to hang out, even when terrible, terrible things are happening and everyone’s sad, just like real life. You can still make jokes at a shiva, and it’s OK. We need that relief. So even in a bad spot, Dunk and Egg are still Dunk and Egg again.
Speaking of titles, was the show ever going to be called “The Tales of Dunk and Egg” like the novellas?
Early on, George was like, “Just don’t call it ‘Dunk & Egg’ — it sounds like ‘Laverne & Shirley.’ It sounds like a sitcom.” I said, “Oh, absolutely fine.” As it got really late in the game when we were putting the final touches in the post-production process, I did sort of waver a little bit. I said, “Everyone’s just gonna call it ‘Dunk & Egg,’ so why don’t we call it that?” Then I was talked down by my assistant that it wasn’t a wise idea. And I agree. It’s nice to see a show called “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” and come there to find out that it is just a little lighter and has some fun, rather than setting people up with “Dunk & Egg” and you sort of know what you’re gonna get. I hope.
Are Dunk and Egg going to Dorne in Season 2?
They do go to Dorne. How much of that we cover, I’ll leave up to people to tune in for Season 2. I don’t know if I’m supposed to talk about it yet. For the most part, we’re following the books. So Season 1 was “The Hedge Knight.” Season 2 is “The Sworn Sword.” Hopefully, if we get to Season 3 it’ll be “The Mystery Knight.”
The novellas are each their own separate story, but will we see any of the Season 1 characters returning for Season 2? It looks like Aerion and Maekar could be looking for Egg at the end.
The one thing about this show, the nobles, the kings and queens are all terribly interesting. So many times you want to go and write for them, but the truth is that’s not what this show is. There are a lot of shows, within this world and other worlds, that definitely cover that part. And we’re not that. We are bottom-up. We are in Dunk’s POV. Even minor lords and ladies, we don’t allow ourselves to go behind the scenes in their POVs. For better or for worse, that is the storytelling lens that we have set up for this show. Whether or not somebody will come in and out of Dunk’s world again, I would say probably. Westeros is a — yeah. Yes. That’s all I’ll say. Yes.
Will Season 2 also be six episodes?
Yeah. It really was the perfect amount for us. Honestly, HBO was wonderful. They said anywhere between 30 minutes and 60 minutes is fine, which gives us a very large target to hit. We could let them be what they needed to be based on the source material.
How much of the Blackfyre Rebellions will we learn about in Season 2?
The Blackfyre Rebellions are in and out of their lives for Dunk and Egg, all the way up until pretty late I’d say. The Second Blackfyre Rebellion factors in pretty heavily into one of the books, and obviously we make a few mentions to it in Season 1. But I’d say it’s important background and informs a lot of the characters that they come in contact with. Essentially, we are 15 years outside of a massive civil war, and so there’s still a lot of those lingering resentments. There are certainly a lot of open wounds left. One of the promises I made to George very early on is that I really wouldn’t create story. We are adding to the character and the world. We’re writing this TV show as if George had written a novel instead of a novella. So we’re just filling out things that he naturally probably would have done.
But we don’t send people on any side quests, and 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. Even if we do take two years between seasons, there are no cliffhangers. We’ve told a story and wrapped it up. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed it, and you can come back and see their journey next time.
This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.
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