In A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Egg is around 10 years old. A major reveal comes midway through the season when we learn the scrappy little squire is actually Aegon Targaryen. He is a few notches down the line of succession, but the Iron Throne looms in his future. By contrast, our other misfit hero, Dunk, hails from humble Flea Bottom. His life plan is to roam Westeros, being a hedge knight.
If you’ve only watched A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, you wouldn’t know much more than that. But George R.R. Martin book readers have a lot more context for both characters. And with one offhand remark, Dexter Sol Ansell—who plays Egg—swiftly upended some of that long-held lore.
As you can see in this talk show clip, Ansell and Peter Claffey, who plays Dunk, are asked if they’ve been told anything about their characters’ futures. Ansell answers—maybe too freely.
Dex Sol Ansell, who plays Egg in #AKnightOfTheSevenKingdoms, gives out a MASSIVE spoiler to the ending of his character regarding Summerhall and who survives as told to him by George R.R. Martin
This wouldn’t be the first time GRRM told actors in the show their character’s fate pic.twitter.com/mV6tRRR2n2
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms viewers will recall that in episode three, “The Squire,” the pair happen upon a woman who offers to read their fortunes. For Dunk, she says, “You shall know great success and be richer than a Lannister,” which seems so far-fetched Dunk laughs it off.
For Egg, though, she says, “You shall be king and die in a hot fire, and worms shall feed upon your ashes. And all who know you shall rejoice upon your dying.” This prediction comes before Dunk realizes Egg could be king and again he laughs it off. Viewers, however, can see Egg is spooked.
Fans of Martin’s books know that Egg does eventually become King Aegon V, long after his boyhood adventures in the Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas. They also know of something referred to as “the tragedy at Summerhall,” a great inferno that destroys one of House Targaryen’s castles—maybe, probably, caused by the king’s attempts to bring dragons back to life.
It’s always been said that’s how Egg will die as an older man—and that Dunk, who becomes his Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, also perishes there.
Until, well, this new bit of information. “I do know a bit about when Egg’s trying to make dragons in Summerhall, and then there’s a huge fire,” Ansell tells the interviewer in the above clip. “We know from George…”
Here, Claffey interrupts and talks over Ansell: “We don’t know if that is exactly what happens.”
Ansell continues. “We know Dunk survives. But we don’t know if Egg survives yet.”
Claffey makes a playfully frantic “Cut him off!” hand gesture and reiterates, “We don’t know exactly what happens. Let’s just get this season one out of the way, and we’ll see.”
Dunk and Egg forever! Maybe that fortuneteller was just blowing smoke after all. If anyone’s going to retcon this one, Martin is clearly the guy to do it, even if he might want to be more careful who he shares spoilers with moving forward.
New episodes of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms arrive Sundays on HBO and HBO Max.
Along with A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, we’re getting more House of the Dragon this year. HBO hasn’t shown much of the latter show’s upcoming third season so far, but it’s been talked about lately, namely because author George R.R. Martin’s been vocally unhappy with showrunner Ryan Condal’s many changes from his books.
HBO head Casey Bloys was asked about this rift by Deadline, where he praised both parties: he’d have liked Martin’s thoughts to “stay behind closed doors,” but otherwise considers the author “a great partner to have.” As for Condal, Bloys noted that Martin had introduced him as the right person to lead the show, and he has since been “an excellent showrunner and really great collaborator. We embrace his vision and his creative choices, or we wouldn’t have done it.” He even noted the first two Dragon seasons are well-regarded on Rotten Tomatoes.
“Some of this comes with the territory,” Bloys continued. “The idea that [George] is going to agree with every creator or showrunner that is either developing or producing—two artists are not always going to agree.”
Martin has since moved on to Kingdoms and wasn’t as involved with the third season of Dragon as he normally would’ve been, and Bloys didn’t touch on whether he’d get back involved for season four. As far as that season goes, Bloys reiterated the fourth would be the last, with Condal currently working with the writers to figure out how many episodes will make up that season. However many it gets, expect that season to function as a “natural end to this particular history of that House of the Targaryens.”
A Knight of the Seven Kingdomskicked off its run with a makeshift funeral: Dunk (Peter Claffey) buries Ser Arlan of Pennytree (Danny Webb), his longtime master, on a muddy hillside. It’s a turning point for the former squire, who decides to take Ser Arlan’s sword and head to the nearby tournament at Ashford to try his luck. After all, he’s a real knight now. Or… is he?
It’s unclear if Ser Arlan actually got around to knighting his protégé before he passed. But Dunk’s nervousness when he’s teased by the steward at Ashford—who jokingly (but convincingly) warns him of the hideous torture that awaits any man who pretends to be a knight—suggests maybe the ceremony didn’t quite come to pass.
Later in episode one, “The Hedge Knight,” Dunk blurts out that the sword he carries is rightfully his, a statement so odd even self-involved Ser Steffon Fossoway takes note of it.
But, in the grand scheme of things, does it really matter if Ser Arlan knighted Dunk—or are the life lessons and innate heroism that “Ser Duncan the Tall” carries within him more important? A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms showrunner, Ira Parker, makes a solid point for the latter.
Speaking on the official Game of Thrones podcast (via Winter Is Coming), Parker said it’s more important to consider what makes a good knight, rather than whether or not an official ceremony happened.
“It’s not like it’s an easy thing to do. It’s not like anyone can just stand up and say, ‘I am a knight; here we go.’ You need things. You need horses, you need armor, you need to be able to fight … These guys are professional fighters,” Parker pointed out.
He continued. “I think that’s ultimately, hopefully, what it comes down to, whether or not you have the name and the arms and the armor… you don’t even have to be a good person; you don’t even have to be a moral person. But if you try and help out in the immediate vicinity, you don’t have to go off and change the entire course of history in the realm. You just have to help the guy next to you that’s struggling at the moment. And I think Dunk… as we will see, sort of takes that as his guiding light, and you know, maybe gets him in a little bit of trouble.”
You can check out the full interview here; it starts around 24 minutes in:
Follow that trouble when new episodes of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms arrive Sundays on HBO and HBO Max.
The George R.R. Martin profile in yesterday’s Hollywood Reporter is full of fun tidbits about the author, including his excitement over A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, his thoughts on whether or not that Jon Snow Game of Thrones sequel series will ever happen—and a tiny drop of tea about his feud withHouse of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal. But anytime Martin sits down for questions, the inevitable subject will always arise: what’s the latest on The Winds of Winter?
First things first. Martin is still smarting over that fan who asked him at last year’s WorldCon if he’d allow another author to finish the long-awaited next A Song of Ice and Fire book, given Martin’s advancing age (he’s 77). It was insulting back in August, and it still is now: “I really didn’t need that shit. Nobody needs that shit.”
However, it’s clear that Martin shares his fans’ awareness of the ruthless passage of time. He told THR he has 1,100 pages—yes, that’s the same number he cited back in 2022 and 2023, though it sounds like the content of those pages has shifted somewhat.
“I will open the last chapter I was working on and I’ll say, ‘Oh fuck, this is not very good.’ And I’ll go in and I’ll rewrite it. Or I’ll decide, ‘This Tyrion chapter is not coming along, let me write a Jon Snow chapter.’ If I’m not interrupted though, what happens—at least in the past—is sooner or later, I do get into it,” he told THR.
Even without interruptions, it’s slow going. During the pandemic, Martin retreated to an isolated cabin for some focused writing time; though he told THR that resulted in lots of new material, it also opened the door to second-guessing. “I wrote a Tyrion chapter I just loved. Then I looked at it and said: ‘I can’t do this, it will change the whole book. I’ll make this into a series of dreams. No! That doesn’t work either …’”
But he is still very determined. Giving up on The Winds of Winter is not an option. “It would feel like a total failure to me. I want to finish,” he said.
However, that WorldCon fan’s question also re-entered the interview here. Martin isn’t going to engage another writer to finish the book. That will not happen.
But what if Martin does die—or become incapacitated in some way—before he completes the story? Well, then, “My work won’t be finished,” he said, and offered Charles Dickens’ unfinished last novel as a point of comparison: “It’ll be like The Mystery of Edwin Drood.”
Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that! And while you wait (and wait) for the next Winds of Winter update, check out A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms—premiering January 18 on HBO and HBO Max.
The success of Game of Thrones—divisive last season notwithstanding—naturally inspired HBO to go back for more. House of the Dragon arrived in 2022, a prequel about warring royals patterned so closely after Thrones that it uses the same theme song. But A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which premieres January 18, is cut from a different cloth. A rougher, stinkier cloth. It’s an approach that perfectly suits the source material, George R.R. Martin’s Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas—and it makes for a wonderfully entertaining TV show that explores Westeros from an entirely new point of view.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms—co-created by Ira Parker and Martin, and showrun by Parker—takes place between the events of House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones, which are themselves separated by 200-odd years. The new show, therefore, takes place generations after the Dance of the Dragons but generations before the Mother of Dragons. The Targaryens are still very much in power at this point, something that’s of zero concern to A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ protagonist… until it suddenly becomes his biggest problem.
When we first meet Dunk (Peter Claffey), he’s burying his master, the very recently deceased Ser Arlan of Pennytree (Danny Webb). A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms takes place far away from the castles we’ve seen in the previous Westeros shows. Instead, it shows us how people not born with fancy titles get by on the day-to-day—including hedge knights and their squires. It is a life of rain, mud, and sleeping under trees; dealing with buzzing flies and unpalatable food; and not owning much more than your horse, your sword, and the clothes on your back.
Being a knight gives a man a certain status, but there are limits to that. As Dunk—“Ser Duncan the Tall” is the plainly descriptive name he chooses for himself—is made to understand again and again, a dirt-poor hedge knight is the lowest rung of the ladder. That’s brought into clear focus when he ambles to Ashford Meadows, intent on entering a tournament where the other competitors include highborn lords and princes. He’s got close to no money, and this is a place where loyalty tends to be intertwined with whoever’s paying the highest price.
As A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms explores over its six episodes (all of which io9 was able to view for review), being a knight—sworn by oath to “protect the innocent”—and being an honorable man are not always the same thing. In fact, as the unintentionally blundering Ser Dunk discovers, there’s often a deep divide between the two. Even worse, the people with the most power can sometimes be the most despicable of them all, a timeless lesson that Dunk learns in the hardest way possible.
Deciding to check out the tourney at Ashford Meadows is literally Dunk’s first move after Ser Arlen’s passing. And he’s not on his own for long; though he resists the idea, he’s worn down by a bald-headed little oddball named Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell) who really, really wants to be his squire. No spoilers here, but even if you haven’t read Martin’s novellas, close viewing of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms will reveal Egg’s secret before the narrative comes right out with it.
And that narrative is a compressed one, especially compared to the sprawling likes of Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon. Though there are flashbacks to add important details—since Martin’s stories rely heavily on Dunk’s internal dialogue, this frees the show from needing any voice-over—A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms basically takes place over a couple of days in a single location.
But the stakes are still sky-high. They’re life or death both in the jousting ring, where men compete knowing the considerable risks, and also in the rowdy camp that springs up around the tourney. There, Duncan sees firsthand what an angry, impulsive, bratty Targaryen prince is capable of—bolstered by the confidence that comes with being above the law simply because of who his family is.
House of the Dragon fans are well familiar with that signature Targaryen trait, but you don’t need to have seen that show or even Game of Thrones to enjoy A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Previous Westeros know-how is a bonus, since you’ll recognize certain names and have a working familiarity with the kingdom and its tumultuous history. But with Dunk—an unconventional, immediately likable protagonist—as its entry point, the perspective here is much more immediate and intimate.
That extends to the supporting characters, who enter the story naturally as part of the bustle of the tournament and make an immediate impression, thanks to the show’s consistent blend of clever writing and wonderful performances. Claffey and Ansell are a fantastic leading pair, but the character actors who fill the rest of the cast are also memorable, whether they’re playing sleazy villains, sleazy guys just trying to get ahead, or sleazy good guys. That latter group includes Daniel Ings as the raucous, terrifying yet endearing Ser Lyonel Baratheon, as well as Webb’s craggy old Ser Arlen; the more we learn about Dunk’s time with him, the more it becomes a surprisingly touching backbone to present-day events.
Touching and full of deep ruminations on personal integrity? Yes. Gruesome violence? Indeed, lots of it. But also, bawdy humor and fart jokes? You better believe it. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is confident enough to embrace all of the above. It’s as self-contained as any Martin-adapted Westeros work could ever be, with an almost anthology format set down by the Dunk and Egg novellas. (This first season draws entirely from his first story, “The Hedge Knight.”) And while it takes place in a world Martin fans already know and love, it’s got its own flavor.
One example that illustrates this quite well: while its most recurring musical cue is a whistling motif that underlines the story’s Western feel, it also brings in that famous Game of Thrones theme in two important places.
One is a stunningly heroic, goosebumps-raising moment. The other is a cheeky-as-hell invocation—followed by the show’s first display of ridiculously crude humor, a tactic used sparingly but effectively throughout the series. This show takes its characters and situations seriously, but it doesn’t take itself too seriously, and that makes all the difference.
It’d be easy to complain that A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is too short, because we’d love to spend more time hanging out with Dunk and Egg. But six episodes is actually pretty perfect—much like the show itself ends up being. Thank the Seven there’s already a season two on the way.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms premieres January 18 on HBO and HBO Max, with a weekly rollout of new episodes.
He’s Ser Duncan the Tall—but if, like Dexter Sol Ansell’s pint-sized Egg in this new featurette for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, you’ve never heard of him, you soon will. If this glimpse at Peter Claffey’s endearing performance is any indication, he’ll also soon shoot to the top of your list of favorite Game of Thrones-adjacent characters to ever stomp around Westeros.
We’ve seen Dunk in action in trailers so far, but this is our best look yet at the hero of George R.R. Martin’s Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas—at least until the show hits HBO in a couple of weeks.
Claffey recalls nervously barfing at his first rehearsal and feeling embarrassed about it—only to be told “That’s great, that’s just like Dunk!” by showrunner Ira Parker. Claffey describes Dunk as a “typical underdog” at the start of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, learning to make his way through Westeros without his mentor, the recently deceased Ser Arlen of Pennytree.
His first stop is a nearby tournament, where he’s soon snarkily classified as a hedge knight—”like a knight, only sadder“—and as Claffey explains, Dunk’s journey will involve squaring that awkward naivete with the feeling that maybe he could be a “glorious knight” if he wanted to.
Claffey also briefly touches on the show’s stunts and unexpected sense of humor—and calls working on A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms “the greatest experience of my entire life.” The show premieres January 18 on HBO, and a season two is already on the way.
For the past few years, HBO has kept Game of Thronesgoing by looking back further in its history. While that’s not changing for the rest of the 2020s, creator George R.R. Martin revealed the TV franchise knows it has to move forward, and indeed plans to do just that.
At a recent event in Iceland attended by Los Siete Reinos, the author revealed some of the “five or six” other spinoff projects in the works he’s involved in. Of those, “some” are sequels that’ll pick up where the original series left off back in 2019. HBO certainly seemed poised to continue the stories of Arya and Jon specifically, and he even had a spinoff announced. Those plans eventually fell through, while Martin teased last year that something could be percolating with Arya’s actor, Maisie Williams.
Beyond the just-renewed House of the Dragon and A Knight of Seven Kingdoms, Martin has previously talked up spinoffs for Aegon the Conqueror, the animated Nine Voyagesfocused on Corlys Velaryon, and a prequel focused on Queen Nymeria. (There might even be a movie too, remember?) A lot of Thrones, the apparent move on HBO’s end being to fill fans with enough prequels to soften them up for whatever’s next in Westeros. Has everyone moved on from hating the ending to where that’s possible? We’ll find out if such a follow-up ever actually gets announced, much less made.
BEVERLY HILLS, CA – SEPTEMBER 21: Writer George R. R. Martin attends the HBO Luxury Lounge featuring Motorola and PANDORA Jewelry in honor of The 65th Primetime Emmy Awards at The Four Seasons Hotel on September 21, 2013 in Beverly Hills, California.
Apparently, Game Of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin isn’t happy with the way that HBO has adapted the Thrones prequel, House Of The Dragon. In a blog post that has since been deleted, Martin discussed what he felt went wrong in the show’s season 2, noting specific variations from his book, Fire & Blood, which the show is based on.
He was annoyed that House of the Dragon eliminated one character, a young child, Prince Maelor, from the story.
What Did George R.R. Martin Say?
The post read, per Variety, “When [showrunner] Ryan Condal first told me what he meant to do, ages ago (back in 2022, might be) I argued against it, for all these reasons… I did not argue long, or with much heat, however. The change weakened the sequence, I felt, but only a bit. And Ryan had what seemed to be practical reasons for it; they did not want to deal with casting another child, especially a two-year old toddler. Kids that young will inevitably slow down production, and there would be budget implications. Budget was already an issue on HOUSE OF THE DRAGON, it made sense to save money wherever we could. Moreover, Ryan assured me that we were not losing Prince Maelor, simply postponing him. Queen Helaena could still give birth to him in season three, presumably after getting with child late in season two. That made sense to me, so I withdrew my objections and acquiesced to the change. I still love the episode, and the Blood and Cheese sequence overall. Losing the ‘Helaena’s Choice’ beat did weaken the scene, but not to any great degree. Only the book readers would even notice its absence; viewers who had never read FIRE & BLOOD would still find the scenes heart-rending. Maelor did not actually DO anything in the scene, after all. How could he? He was only two years old. There is another aspect to the removal of the young princeling, however.”
He added, ““He is a small child, does not have a line of dialogue, does nothing of consequence but die… but where and when and how, that does matter.” He notes that without that death, some of the characaters actions either make less sense or carry less weight.
Does This Happen Often?
Occasionally, authors take issue with the way their books get adapted for the screen. It’s fairly well known that Stephen King did not like Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining, saying, “I feel the same because the character of Jack Torrance has no arc in that movie. Absolutely no arc at all. When we first see Jack Nicholson, he’s in the office of Mr. Ullman, the manager of the hotel, and you know, then, he’s crazy as a s— house rat. All he does is get crazier. In the book, he’s a guy who’s struggling with his sanity and finally loses it. To me, that’s a tragedy. In the movie, there’s no tragedy because there’s no real change.”
Brian has been working in pop culture and media for about three decades: he’s worked at MTV, VH1, SiriusXM, CBS and Loudwire. Besides working as a writer and an editor-in-chief, he’s also appeared on air as a pundit, guested on radio shows and hosted podcasts. Over the years, he’s interviewed the surviving members of Led Zeppelin, the members of U2, Beyonce, Pink, Usher, Stevie Nicks, Lorde… and is grateful to have had the chance to interview Joe Strummer of the Clash and Tom Petty.
Of all the deaths in the Game of Thrones pantheon—the beheadings, stabbings, poisonings, drownings, suffocations, flayings, suicides, burnings, beatings, explosions, and zombie attacks—very little beats the intensely traumatic, harrowing childbirth of Aemma Arryn, wife of King Viserys, in the series premiere of HoD. It is the most realistic of any Game of Thrones death, an unforgettable depiction of the brutalities of childbirth. Aemma’s labor becomes complicated, and it quickly becomes evident that both her life and that of the unborn child are in grave danger. King Viserys, desperate for a male heir to secure the Targaryen succession, faces an excruciating decision when he is informed that the only way to potentially save the baby is through a risky and primitive cesarean section, which would almost certainly result in Aemma’s death. Torn between his love for his wife and his duty as king, Viserys decides to proceed with the procedure. Needless to say, you won’t soon shake the grim sights and sounds of it all.
Depicted with graphic detail and emotional intensity, Aemma is forcibly held down as the maester makes the incision without anesthesia. She dies in agony, begging for her life, grimly aware of the fate that’s been chosen for her. That the baby doesn’t survive is almost beside the point (though it sets in motion the internecine war within House Targaryen). Both GoT and HoD are, if nothing else, odes to the horrors humans inflict on one another. But very little compares to the brutalities inherent in simply living.
House of the Dragon has been teasing a terrible civil war in Westeros since the foundations were laid in season one—and now, with House Targaryen bitterly divided, battles are just over the horizon. This week, in episode three, “The Burning Mill,” we see one last attempt at reconciliation—as well as the beginnings of a few journeys, a mysterious new character, and some spooky-castle shenanigans.
You Should Really Watch The Last of Us
Ah, the Riverlands. A place of green fields, picturesque windmills, and generations-long feuds between adjacent houses, as we see when young knights from House Bracken and House Blackwood get in each other’s faces at the border dividing their lands. These days, current events are bolstering their anger: one side’s loyal to Queen Rhaenyra, the other calls her a “babekiller” and “kinslayer” and takes the side of Team Green. Insults lead to shoving, shoving leads to swords, then the scene cuts and we see a full-on battle has taken place between the houses. The land is riddled with bodies, and that quaint windmill is now a burned-out husk.
Speaking of bodies, there’s a double burial happening on Dragonstone: the Cargill twins, reunited in their grave. As a somber Rhaenyra ponders her next move—a furious Jace wants to keep the cycle of revenge going—Rhaenys, who correctly senses that Otto Hightower has been shoved aside and that the assassination attempt was the work of “hotter blood,” sidles in with a suggestion, delivering the killer lines we’ve heard in House of the Dragon trailers. “There may be another way: Alicent Hightower … she knows war is coming and that it will be savage beyond all compare,” Rhaenys says. “There is no war so hateful to the gods as a war between kin. And no war so bloody as a war between dragons.” Alicent could be their last hope to prevent a terrible war. Rhaenyra’s skeptical, but Rhaenys’ words make her think of the raven that came from King’s Landing bearing a message from her old friend after Luke was killed… which she has yet to read.
Cole (Fabian Frankel) after reading your opinions about him on social media.Image: Ollie Upton/HBO
Speaking of King’s Landing, Ser Criston Cole–now Hand of the King, in addition to being Lord Commander of the Kingsguard–is dawdling before a Small Council meeting. When he gets there, war is (unsurprisingly) the main topic, with Aemond updating everyone about the Bracken-Blackwood battle, and King Aegon bitchily asking what their next move is. There are many suggestions, to the point where everyone is talking over each other and Alicent speaks sharply about the Council’s lack of discipline, but Cole opines that the Riverlands are the key to winning the war, and that Harrenhal is the key to the Riverlands. He’ll lead the army there himself, he says—this is a guy who really does not want to attend any more of these meetings—with Aemond, but not Vhagar, who is needed on the home front defending King’s Landing. “I’ll come too, with Sunfyre,” King Aegon pipes in, an idea nobody supports; you get the sense it’s partially because they want to travel without drawing too much attention (something a dragon always brings), but also because, let’s face it, nobody wants Aegon in the mix.
Back on Dragonstone, before a gorgeous sunset view featuring a lone dragon flapping around in the distance, Rhaenyra is having a chat with Mysaria—who, having been given her freedom in last week’s episode, turned back at the last minute when she realized a certain ill-meaning twin had just arrived on the island. Mysaria, who says she’s still surprised that Rhaenyra was willing to let her go, would like a reward: a place in Rhaenyra’s court. She has valuable information about the inner workings of the Red Keep, and no love for the Hightowers; she’s also here to advocate for the smallfolk, and figures Rhaenyra is the ruler most likely to show them mercy. “One turn for another, then,” Rhaenyra says, and we can see a mutual respect of sorts forming between these two very differently positioned women.
Inside the castle, we finally spend more than a few passing seconds with Rhaena: Daemon’s daughter, and the younger sister of Baela. (In George R.R. Martin’s text, they’re twins, but she’s definitely positioned as the second sibling here.) Rhaenyra has a task for her, involving the younger Targaryens: she’ll take Joffrey (Rhaenyra’s youngest dark-haired son) and his dragon to the Vale, where he’ll become the ward of Lady Arryn; then, Rhaena will become the de facto mother figure for Rhaenyra’s blonde kids with Daemon (Aegon and Viserys, and yes the repeated names are confusing), taking them to Pentos for safety. As we’ve seen, no cute little kid is safe in this particular war. “Make this sacrifice willingly, for all of us,” Rhaenyra urges her. Rhaena isn’t happy about it, but if there’s one thing women in Westeros know about… it’s making sacrifices.
That’s “Your Grace” to you. Matt Smith as Daemon.Photo: Ollie Upton/HBO
And now, at last, we pick back up with Daemon as he flies through howling night winds into Harrenhal, the biggest castle in Westeros and also, need we remind you, the spookiest. It’s also incredibly damp, thanks to all the damage it’s taken over the years, and Daemon stomps through puddles and flurries of bats indoors, killing a guard on the way just because he can. If this was a vintage horror movie, he’d encounter Lon Chaney Jr. lurking in the dark, but since this is House of the Dragon and not House of Dracula, instead he meets… Ser Simon Strong, played by British stage legend Sir Simon Russell Beale, having dinner in one of the castle’s few vaguely cozy rooms.
Ser Simon has no objection to ceding control of Harrenhal to Team Black—he’s no fan of his cunningly murderous great-nephew, Ser Larys—though Daemon’s skeptical of his hospitality, and snaps at him for mistakenly calling him “my Prince” instead of “Your Grace.” For his part, Ser Simon thinks Daemon’s plan to raise an army in the Riverlands is a dubious one; the region’s liege lord, Lord Grover Tully, is a frail old man unlikely to comprehend what’s at stake. What’s the endgame here, Ser Simon wonders? This very droll exchange follows.
Daemon: “We march on King’s Landing and take the throne.”
Ser Simon: “The throne?”
Daemon: “It’s a big chair… made of swords.”
In King’s Landing, Cole’s army prepares to march with a new face in tow: Ser Gwayne Hightower, Alicent’s brother. He meets Cole with a polite but frosty attitude (Gwayne’s not thrilled Cole took Otto’s place as the Hand), and things get a little weird when Cole says goodbye to Alicent, asking for her favor (which takes the form of a handkerchief she pulls out of her cleavage) as he departs, and Gwayne looks on quizzically. The camera pulls up as the host rides out, and in the foreground we see one of the rat catcher corpses from last week, looking a bit more decayed, and with a crow making short work of its eyes.
Rhaenys (Eve Best) and Corlys (Steve Toussaint)Photo: Ollie Upton/HBO
On Dragonstone, the tension is rising along with the anticipation of this army—which Team Black has yet to spot, but knowsmust be forming; the fact that Daemon hasn’t sent any updates since he flounced away isn’t helping. Rhaenyra’s Small Council wants her to act, be that by sending dragons to burn all who oppose her, or hiding herself away and letting the council (another way of putting that is “the menfolk”) rule in her stead. After Rhaenyra departs in disgust, Rhaenys has another notable quotable to share, reminding everyone that “their Queen wears the crown of my grandsire, Jaeharys the Conciliator, a prudent ruler, the wisest of Targaryen kings, whose reign outlasted every other, even Aegon the Conquerer’s.”
But Rhaenys knows there’s trouble afoot, and she doesn’t correct Corlys in the next scene, in a rainy Driftmark rendezvous, when he refers to the Small Council as “the ditherers of Dragonstone.” The interaction between husband and wife, like so many of their meetings, is shot through with affection as well as subtle disagreements, including that old question of who should inherit Driftmark (currently, it’s little Joffrey, who’s about to be spending the rest of his childhood far from the sea). There’s a new urgency to their talk of heirs, a tumultuous subject—as we saw last season, when Corlys suffered a great injury and it seemed Lucerys Velaryon (RIP) would be inheriting Driftmark sooner than expected. “We are at war,” Rhaenys reminds the Sea Snake, and worries that something might happen to him.
On nearby Dragonstone, Rhaena bids farewell, preparing for her journey with small children and small dragons in tow. She’s resentful; Baela, who’s not only older, but has her own dragon to ride, gets to stay behind and take an active part in the war effort. But there’s a softening when Rhaenyra shows Rhaena that she’ll also be caring for a clutch of precious dragon eggs; if the worst happens in Westeros, she’ll be an important source of hope for the Targaryen future.
Rhaena (Phoebe Campbell) and Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy)Photo: Theo Whiteman/HBO
After Rhaenyra says good-bye to her sons (except Jace, he gets to stay), we cut to King’s Landing, where Alicent and Heleana have a poignant conversation about motherhood, grief, and loss. And the elephant in the room comes out: “I forgive you,” Heleana tells her teary-eyed mother, and we all know she means her mother’s forbidden affair with Cole. In a nearby chamber, King Aegon (“the magnanimous”) is being fitted with… Aegon the Conquerer’s own snazzy armor. He’s planning to fly into battle, despite everyone else agreeing it’s a terrible idea. Ser Larys appears, as always armed with a bit of information that’s secretly manipulation in disguise, and says there’s talk that Aegon has been tricked into going into battle because that’s what his Small Council, including Alicent, wants, so that she and Aemond can rule in his absence. As Aegon is taking this in, he makes another impulsive appointment, naming Larys his Master of Whisperers.
And it works! Aegon decides that rather than going to battle, he’ll… spend another drunken night out on the town instead. In a scene that immerses us in King’s Landing after hours, we meet a new character. It’s a brief moment, but it’s important, since this is the bastard son of Baelon Targaryen—which makes him Daemon and Viserys’ half-brother, and Rhaenyra’s uncle. Why he’s sharing this information with random strangers (look closely; one is Samson Kayo from Our Flag Means Death) in a tavern isn’t clear, and we learn no more for now because just then King Aegon, who’s unaware of the man’s identity, shows up ready to party his face off.
King Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney) is the comic relief so far this season, in a truly awful way though.Photo: Ollie Upton/HBO
Awkward family reunion averted–until Aegon walks in on Aemond snuggled up with his favorite lady of the night, to Aegon’s hooting, taunting delight. Aemond’s reaction is to stand on the table—classic Game of Thrones-style full-frontal nudity alert, though there’s tasteful shadowing—and stalk out of the room (wearing not a stitch, not even his eye patch), pretending he’s totally unbothered.
On Dragonstone, a contemplative Rhaenyra decides that now, at last, is the moment to open her message from Alicent. We can’t read the message, but the word “mother” definitely appears.
En route to the Riverlands, Cole and Ser Gwayne Hightower continue to not like each other. Gwayne has decided to take his lieutenants to a nearby tavern so they can enjoy some creature comforts, while Cole’s men are all camped on the hard ground. “We will rendezvous with your army at first light,” Gwayne says breezily, as the camera tilts up to show us the current position of the sun, and—hey now, what’s that in the sky? Dragonnnnnn! Cole, Gwayne, and Gwayne’s men gallop for the safety of nearby tree cover as Baela, riding Moondancer, swoops in overhead. She’s there merely to observe, not engage, but you can see in her face she’s got a bit of that season-one Rhaenys “I want to set you all on fire” urge in her, and she gives the men a good scare. Ser Gwayne, for one, looks like he might have peed his pants a little, and finally admits Cole might know what he’s doing after all. Stealth is now the way forward for this army—“and no fucking inns,” Cole hisses.
When Baela reports back to Rhaenyra and her Small Council, again they urge it’s time to take action. Past time, really. She takes it in and says she’ll consider their arguments, as we cut to Rhaenys—and can tell she’s realizing Rhanyra is finally going to take her advice.
But first, you may be wondering, as the Small Council on Dragonstone certainly has been: what the hell has Daemon been up to? Wandering around the ruins of Harrenhal, it turns out—a place full of dripping water, barricaded doorways, and whispers from the past. He encounters an impossible tableau: young Rhaenyra, played by a returning Milly Alcock. “Always coming and going, aren’t you,” she sighs at Daemon. “And I have to clean up afterwards.” As the camera comes around we see she’s stitching little Jaehaerys Targaryen’s head onto his neck. In an instant, the vision is gone, and a strange woman—someone we saw earlier alongside Ser Simon—appears and says “You will die in this place.”
With that uneasiness lingering, we return to Dragonstone; there’s no sneaking into King’s Landing without the advice of Mysaria, so Rhaenyra gets all the intel she needs to engineer a face-to-face encounter with Alicent. This includes what disguise she’ll need (a septa; it’s not the first time this episode, nor this season, that someone points out most smallfolk won’t recognize a royal out of context) and where she’ll be able to find the Dowager Queen alone (in the Great Sept of Baelor, saying her prayers). And then, it happens: a scene between Rhaenyra and Alicent, something we were not expecting to see at all this season.
Alicent (Olivia Cooke), a nice church-going lady.Photo: Theo Whiteman/HBO
And it’s quite a powerful moment. Alicent’s shock when she realizes who’s come to call is one thing; it levels up when she realizes Rhaenyra isn’t there to kill her. Rhaenyra opens with a memory we all share: the tournament that kicked off in season one. “Men trained for battle are eager to fight,” she reminds her old friend. “I know you do not have that desire within you.” But Alicent knows the Dance of the Dragons is past the point of no return. There are no terms they can come to. Too much has happened now.
As they whisper-argue over Luke and Jaeharys, the real meat of the conversation comes to the fore: what did the dying King Viserys say to Alicent that made her think he’d changed his mind about Rhaenyra being his heir? Rhaenyra can’t believe her ears when Alicent, who steadfastly believes she was honoring her husband’s wishes, says he muttered about “Aegon” and “the prince that was promised to unite the realm.” Rhaenyra knows, as we did when we saw it last season, that Viserys was referring to the Song of Ice and Fire, a dream that Aegon the Conquerer had. Wrong Aegon, Alicent! Wrong Aegon. But for Alicent, it’s too late, no matter how much Rhaenyra protests that there’s been a mistake. “There’s been no mistake,” Alicent insists. Otto’s been kicked out of court, Cole is on the march, “you know what Aemond is,” and it’s too late. As Alicent stalks away, Rhaenyra sets her jaw. Time to go to war. At last?
New episodes of House of the Dragon arrive Sundays on HBO and Max.
Last night’s second season premiere of Game of Thrones’ spinoff House of the Dragon tackled one of George R.R. Martin’s most infamous deaths—in a new way that surprised the fandom.
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In an interview with Variety, showrunner Ryan Condal explained the reasoning for the Max show’s departure from Martin’s original recollection of an event known by readers of Fire and Blood—the author’s historical explanation of Targaryen history in Westeros— as “Blood and Cheese,” named for two assassins who are responsible for the murder of Jaehaerys Targayren. In “A Son for a Son” Blood and Cheese take center stage, hired by Daemon (Matt Smith) to retaliate for the death of Rhaenyra’s (Emma D’Arcy) son Lucerys at the end of last season. We pick up on the duo’s journey to do the dastardly deed which, in the show, is much more directly orchestrated than in Fire & Blood, having Rhaenyra call for Aemond’s (Ewan Mitchell) death.
“One of the things that’s challenging about adapting Fire & Blood is that there is this intentionally conflicting narrative in the book where there are often these three different viewpoints on the history that don’t line up with one another,” Condal explained, “so it’s our job as adapters to try to find the objective line through this to bring the audience into the narrative as we see it having been laid out.” In the book, it’s a whole lot more messy—Blood and Cheese weren’t given a specific target, just Daemon’s orders for “an eye for an eye, a son for a son,” and so try to kill the first boy they find.
“It felt like Rhaenyra, despite being in grief, she’s looking for vengeance, but she would choose a target that would have some kind of strategic or military advantage,” Condal continued. “Of course, if you did take out Aemond, not only would he be punished directly for his betrayal and murder of Luke, but it would eliminate the rider of the biggest dragon in the world, and immediately create an advantage for their side.” Jaehaerys still dies in House of the Dragon, but it’s presented more as due to Blood and Cheese’s incompetence—instead of finding Aemond, the assassins stumble upon his sister and wife, Queen Helaena, in her room with her twin children.
In the books, Helaena actually offers up her youngest son, Maelor (who isn’t included in House of the Dragon due to how the show has condensed the timeline of Fire and Blood), only for Jaehaerys to be killed by Blood and Cheese anyway—but in the show, Helaena is forced instead to sacrifice him to save her daughter. “We knew it would be horrifying and brutal—we didn’t want it to be gratuitous or over the top,” Condal said of the murder. “The idea of that sequence was to dramatize a heist gone wrong. So we move off the center narrative of Daemon, Rhaenyra, Alicent and Aegon’s world, and suddenly, we’re following these two characters that we’ve just met in an alley in Flea Bottom. Daemon’s given them an assignment to go in and find Aemond Targaryen, and we’re following them, and we’re following them, and we’re not cutting away and we’re not going back to the other narratives—‘oh, God, what’s going to happen?’”
A Song of Ice and Fire is, of course, the basis of the HBO (now Max) series Game of Thrones. Like the TV series, A Song of Ice and Fire tells the story of the embattled land of Westeros, in which lords and rightful monarchs battle for control of the Iron Throne.
The first book in the series, A Game of Thrones, first came out in 1996. The novel told the story of Ned Stark (played in the TV series by Sean Bean), who pushes back against House Lannister’s efforts to seize the throne. Meanwhile, the exiled queen Daenerys Targaryen (played in the series by Emilia Clarke), comes into her power and makes plans to take her rightful place as Westeros’ ruler.
There are currently five books in A Song of Ice and Fire: A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, a Feast For Crows, and A Dance With Dragons, which was published in 2011. Martin has reportedly been at work on the penultimate volume, The Winds of Winter, for about 14 years. According to IGN, Martin reported in December 2022 that he had 1,100 pages of the book written. However, when asked about his progress in November 2023, Martin said that the total number of pages was still at 1,100, with some characters’ stories complete but other storylines unfinished.
That means that, as of this writing, there’s no solid release date for The Winds of Winter.
Meanwhile, the Game of Thrones TV series wrapped up in 2019, with Martin serving as an executive producer. Season 2 of the show’s spin-off series, House of the Dragon, is currently in production.
Julia Glassman (she/her) holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and has been covering feminism and media since 2007. As a staff writer for The Mary Sue, Julia covers Marvel movies, folk horror, sci fi and fantasy, film and TV, comics, and all things witchy. Under the pen name Asa West, she’s the author of the popular zine ‘Five Principles of Green Witchcraft’ (Gods & Radicals Press). You can check out more of her writing at <a href=”https://juliaglassman.carrd.co/”>https://juliaglassman.carrd.co/.</a>
Based on the Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas by George R. R. Martin, A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knightis an upcoming fantasy action drama series. A spin-off to Game of Thrones, the series takes place a century before the events of the original series and seven decades after House of the Dragon. The plot revolves around the adventures of Ser Duncan the Tall, a hedge knight, and his squire, Egg or Aegon, a Targaryen prince. If you are wondering when the series is coming out, this is what we have discovered.
Here’s all the A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight release date information we know so far, and all the details on when it is coming out.
Is there A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight release date?
A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight’s release date is expected to arrive by late 2025.
In January 2021, various outlets reported that a TV adaptation of Martin’s novellas was in early development at HBO. The network officially greenlit the series in April 2023. David Zaslov, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, revealed during the February 2024 earnings call that the show was in pre-production. He also stated that the show will premiere sometime in late 2025.
Tales of Dunk and Egg has three entries as of February 2024. The Hedge Knight came out in 1998, The Sworn Sword in 2003, and The Mystery Knight in 2010. So, the viewers can expect the upcoming series to have at least three seasons. A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight is one of the three GoT spin-offs to enter pre-production after Bloodmoon and House of the Dragon. In an April 2023 blog post, Martin explained why the series isn’t titled Dunk and Egg.
“The working title will be A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS: THE HEDGE KNIGHT,” the renowned author explained. “Whether that will be the final title, I can’t say for sure… beyond saying that no, it won’t be called TALES OF DUNK & EGG or THE ADVENTURES OF DUNK & EGG or DUNK & EGG or anything along those lines. I love Dunk and I love Egg, and I know that fans refer to my novellas as ‘the Dunk & Egg stories,’ sure, but there are millions of people out there who do not know the stories and the title needs to intrigue them too. If you don’t know the characters, DUNK & EGG sounds like a sitcom. LAVERNE & SHIRLEY. ABBOTT & COSTELLO. BEAVIS & BUTTHEAD. So, no. We want ‘knight’ in the title. Knighthood and chivalry are central to the themes of these stories.”
HBO has not revealed the cast of A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight yet. The production will reportedly begin in the spring of 2024. Ira Parker will serve as the creator, with Martin attached to the production as writer and executive producer.
This date is an estimation based on the information we have at the time of this writing.
Where is A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight coming out?
A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight is anticipated to come out on HBO and HBO Max on late 2025.
This is because the network is developing the series like other projects in the Game of Thrones franchise. ComingSoon will provide an update when the network announces the show’s exact release date.
The official synopsis for A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight reads:
“A century before the events of “Game of Thrones”, two unlikely heroes wandered Westeros… a young, naïve but courageous knight, Ser Duncan the Tall, and his diminutive squire, Egg. Set in an age when the Targaryen line still holds the Iron Throne and the memory of the last dragon has not yet passed from living memory, great destinies, powerful foes, and dangerous exploits all await these improbable and incomparable friends.”
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In April 2023, HBO announced it had ordered another Game of Thrones prequel titled A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight. Ordered to series in April 2023, the prequel is based on novellas written by George R.R. Martin. During the Warner Bros. Discovery February, 2024 earnings call, CEO David Zaslov revealed the prequel is currently in preproduction.
“A century before the events of Game of Thrones, two unlikely heroes wandered Westeros… a young, naïve but courageous knight, Ser Duncan the Tall, and his diminutive squire, Egg,” reads the logline. “Set in an age when the Targaryen line still holds the Iron Throne and the memory of the last dragon has not yet passed from living memory, great destinies, powerful foes, and dangerous exploits all await these improbable and incomparable friends.”
How is A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight related to Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon?
Chronologically, it is set about 72 years after House of the Dragon and about 100 years before GOT.
HBO
Is A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight based on a book by George R.R. Martin?
Yes. There are three Dunk & Egg fantasy novellas, as they are known to fans. The Hedge Knight is the first of them.
Why isn’t the TV series called Dunk & Egg?
Martin explained that: “I love Dunk and I love Egg, and I know that fans refer to my novellas as “the Dunk & Egg stories,” sure, but there are millions of people out there who do not know the stories and the title needs to intrigue them too. If you don’t know the characters, Dunk & Egg sounds like a sitcom. Laverne & Shirley. Abbott & Costello. Beavis & Butthead. So, no. We want “knight” in the title. Knighthood and chivalry are central to the themes of these stories.”
Is George R.R. Martin involved in the A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight series?
Yes. Martin is writing and executive producing. After the show was announced in 2023, Martin said the pilot script had already written. He called it “terrific.”
George R.R. Martin
Amy Sussman / Getty Images
Who is creating A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight?
Ira Parker, a writer on Season 1 of House of the Dragon, will also write and exec produce — He wrote the pilot script. On House of the Dragon, Parker wrote the fourth episode, titled “King of the Narrow Sea.” According to Martin, “That’s the one where Prince Daemon returns to King’s Landing after conquering the Stepstones, and takes Princess Rhaenyra down into the stews of Flea Bottom.”
House of the Dragonshowrunner Ryan Condal is also an executive producer, which is a good sign for the show. Condal succeeded where others failed — out of half-dozen or so writers who took a stab at co-creating the first Game Of Thrones prequel with Martin, Condal’s House of the Dragon was the one to make it to series at HBO.
Will A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms be true to Martin’s work?
Yes, according to Martin.
“The Dunk & Egg novellas are fully-fleshed narratives more like the novels of A Song of Fire & Ice than the imaginary history of Fire & Blood,” wrote Martin in 2023. “The stories are right there on the page, and our goal is to produce faithful adaptations of those tales for the screen.”
Who has been cast in A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight?
No one, officially, though those announcements should come soon since the show is in preproduction and likely soon to begin shooting. HBO CEO Casey Bloys said in November, 2023 that production on the latest prequel is scheduled to get underway this spring.
How much will The Hedge Knight cost to produce?
Per Deadline reporting, Season 1 of House of the Dragon cost nearly $200 million and was the subject of HBO’s biggest marketing campaign ever, valued at over $100M in media spend (that’s a combo of ad spot value and hard cash shelled out).
One would expect a similar investment this time around, but Martin said in 2023 that he thought Season 1 of The Hedge Knight might be six episodes. House of the Dragon S1 had 10 episodes, so this latest adaptation of Martin’s work might be a little less costly.
‘House of the Dragon’
HBO
A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knightwas announced a year ago, and there was already a pilot script. Why isn’t it further along?
Martin has stressed that the development of the adaptations of his books takes time. He said that back in 2016 he pitched HBO two ideas, “the Dance of the Dragons, which in due time became House of the Dragon… and Dunk & Egg. That was seven years ago. (I can hardly believe it myself). The lesson there is that development takes time.”
What’s more, while Martin said in April, 2023 that writing on the first season was “well underway,” production on Knight of the Seven Kingdoms was shut down for five months last year due to the dual Hollywood strikes.
How can I watch The Hedge Knight?
It will, of course, be on Max once the series is ready. The service has three price tiers: Max Ad Light, which goes for $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year and allows two concurrent streams; Max Ad Free will be priced at $15.99 a month, or $149.99 a year, and will also allow two concurrent streams; and Max Ultimate Ad Free which costs $19.99 a month, or $199.99 a year, and allows access to four concurrent streams.
In addition, WBD’s other current epic literary adaptation, House of the Dragon, is available not only on the company’s streaming service, but also to cable subscribers on HBO.
When Will A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight be released?
Zaslov said on the earnings call that The Hedge Knight will debut on Max in “late 2025.” That gives the streamer with GOT-related series in back-to-back years, with House of the Dragon Season 2 set to premiere this summer.
Will the other Dunk & Egg novellas be adapted?
There are two more novellas, The Sworn Sword and The Mystery Knight, that were published in various anthologies. All three of the narratives were later published together under the collective title A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.
There’s no official word on The Sworn Sword and The Mystery Knight from HBO or Time Warner Discovery but, Martin has said, “If The Hedge Knight turns out as well as we hope it will, our hope would be to go on and adapt The Sworn Sword and The Mystery Knight as well.”
Warner Bros. Discovery is hungry for more. In a November, 2022 earnings call Zaslav stressed, “We’re going to have a real focus on franchises,” before going on to name check the Game of Thrones/House of the Dragon juggernaut as “a big example of that.”
Will there be more Dunk & Egg stories written?
Yes. A lot of them, if Martin has anything to say about it. And we even have titles and some idea of what they’re about.
“Before we reach the end of the published stories,” the author said of production on the TV series, “I will need to find time to write all the other Dunk & Egg novellas that I have planned. There are… gulp… more of them than I had once thought. There’s The Village Hero and the Winterfell story, the one with the She-Wolves [The She-Wolves of Winterfell w/t], and maybe I need to write that Dornish adventure too to slip in between The Hedge Knight and The Sworn Sword, and after that there are… ah… more.”
“More” includes stories with working titles such as The Sellsword, The Champion, The Kingsguard, and The Lord Commander, according to the author.
Inspired by a recent screening of Netflix’s animated series “Blue Eye Samurai,” “Game of Thrones” creator George R. R. Martin penned a new blog post praising the work of Amber Noizumi and Michael Green. And while he was in a sharing mood, Martin decided to drop a little news about his own up-and-coming animation aspirations.
“‘Blue Eye Samurai’s’ very much its own thing, and it is magnificent,” Martin wrote. “Even if you don’t normally watch animation, give it a try. It’s terrific. If you like my own stuff, I think you’ll love it.”
The writer then pivoted to his current work. “As it happens, HBO and I have our own animated projects, set in the world of ‘A Song Of Ice & Fire.’ None of them have been greenlit yet, but I think we are getting close to taking the next step with a couple of them.”
The father of Westeros revealed that he previously had four animated series pitches in development with HBO. Variety broke the “Game of Thrones” animated series news back in 2021, and Martin went even further revealing that there were several writers rooms, scripts and outlines created, unfortunately, two out of the four projects were “shelved,” as Martin likes to phrase it.
“We have moved ‘Nine Voyages,’ our series about the legendary voyages of the Sea Snake, over from live action to animation. A move I support fully. Budgetary constraints would likely have made a live action version prohibitively expensive, what with half the show taking place at sea, and the necessity of creating a different port every week, from Driftmark to Lys to the Basilisk Isles to Volantis to Qarth to… well, on and on and on. There’s a whole world out there. And we have a lot better chance of showing it all with animation. So we now have three animated projects underway.”
OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, is facing a lawsuit from bestselling writers including George R.R. Martin, John Grisham and Elin Hilderbrand that claims the company fed their books into its “large language models” allegedly violating their copyrights and engaging in “systematic theft on a mass scale.”
The suit was filed in the Southern District of New York on Tuesday on behalf of the Authors Guild and 17 noted writers, including Scott Turow, Jodi Picoult, David Baldacci, Michael Connelly and George Saunders. OpenAI didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The complaint is the latest legal challenge facing OpenAI over the data it collects and uses to create the algorithm that underpins ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence tool that can answer questions and write text in sophisticated language that mimics how a human would respond. To create these AIs, companies like OpenAI rely on large language models, or LLMs, that are fed massive amounts of text and data.
“ChatGPT and the LLMs underlying it seriously threaten the livelihood of the very authors — including plaintiffs here, as discussed specifically below — on whose works they were ‘trained’ without the authors’ consent,” the lawsuit alleges.
It added, “ChatGPT is being used to generate low-quality ebooks, impersonating authors and displacing human-authored books.”
The suit alleges that ChatGPT has been used by a programmer named Liam Swayne to “write” the sequels to George R.R. Martin’s best-selling series “A Song of Ice and Fire,” which was adapted into the hit HBO show “Game of Thrones.” Martin hasn’t yet published the two final novels in the series – the lawsuit notes that he’s currently writing them — but Swayne used ChatGPT to create his own versions of these novels, which he has posted online.
“When prompted, ChatGPT accurately generated summaries of several of the Martin infringed works, including summaries for Martin’s novels ‘A Game of Thrones,’ ‘A Clash of Kings,’ and ‘A Storm of Swords,’ the first three books in the series A Song of Ice and Fire,” the suit notes, adding that ChatGPT has also created prequels and alternate versions of his books.
“ChatGPT could not have generated the results described above if OpenAI’s LLMs had not ingested and been ‘trained’ on the Martin infringed works,” the complaint alleges.
The lawsuit, which makes similar claims for the other authors, is seeking class-action status as it proposes to represent “tens of thousands” of authors whose works have allegedly been used by OpenAI’s programs. The other authors who are suing are Mary Bly, Sylvia Day, Jonathan Franzen, Christina Baker Kline, Maya Shanbhag Lang, Victor LaValle, Douglas Preston, Roxana Robinson and Rachel Vail.
The authors want the court to prohibit OpenAI from using copyrighted works in LLMs without “express authorization,” and they are also seeking damages including up to $150,000 per infringed work.
A group of famous fiction writersjoined the Authors Guild in filing a class action suit against OpenAI on Wednesday, alleging the company’s technology is illegally using their copyrighted work.
The complaint claims that OpenAI, the company behind viral chatbot ChatGPT, is copying famous works in acts of “flagrant and harmful” copyright infringement and feeding manuscripts into algorithms to help train systems on how to create more human-like text responses.
George R.R. Martin, Jodi Picoult, John Grisham and Jonathan Franzen are among the 17 prominent authors who joined the suit led by the Authors Guild, a professional organization that protects writers’ rights. Filed in the Southern District of New York, the suit alleges that OpenAI’s models directly harm writers’ abilities to make a living wage, as the technology generates texts that writers could be paid to pen, as well as uses copyrighted material to create copycat work.
“Generative AI threatens to decimate the author profession,” the Authors Guild wrote in a press release Wednesday.
The suit alleges that books created by the authors that were illegally downloaded and fed into GPT systems could turn a profit for OpenAI by “writing” new works in the authors’ styles, while the original creators would get nothing. The press release lists AI efforts to create two new volumes in Martin’s Game of Thrones series and AI-generated books available on Amazon.
“It is imperative that we stop this theft in its tracks or we will destroy our incredible literary culture, which feeds many other creative industries in the US,” Authors Guild CEO Mary Rasenberger stated in the release. “Great books are generally written by those who spend their careers and, indeed, their lives, learning and perfecting their crafts. To preserve our literature, authors must have the ability to control if and how their works are used by generative AI.”
The class-action lawsuit joins other legal actions, organizations and individuals raising alarms over how OpenAI and other generative AI systems are impacting creative works. An author told CNN in August that she found new books being sold on Amazon under her name — only she didn’t write them; they appear to have been generated by artificial intelligence. Two other authors sued OpenAI in June over the company’s alleged misuse of their works to train ChatGPT. Comedian Sarah Silverman and two authors also sued Meta and ChatGPT-maker OpenAI in July, alleging the companies’ AI language models were trained on copyrighted materials from their books without their knowledge or consent.
But OpenAI has pushed back. Last month, the company asked a San Francisco federal court to narrow two separate lawsuits from authors – including Silverman – alleging that the bulk of the claims should be dismissed.
OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
“We think that creators deserve control over how their creations are used and what happens sort of beyond the point of, of them releasing it into the world,” Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, told Congress in May. “I think that we need to figure out new ways with this new technology that creators can win, succeed, have a vibrant life.”
US lawmakers met with members of creative industries in July, including the Authors Guild, to discuss the implications of artificial intelligence. In a Senate subcommittee hearing, Rasenberger called for the creation of legislation to protect writers from AI, including rules that would require AI companies to be transparent about how they train their models.
More than 10,000 authors — including James Patterson, Roxane Gay and Margaret Atwood — also signed an open letter calling on AI industry leaders like Microsoft and ChatGPT-maker OpenAI to obtain consent from authors when using their work to train AI models, and to compensate them fairly when they do.
But the AI issues facing creative professions doesn’t seem to be going away.
“Generative AI is a vast new field for Silicon Valley’s longstanding exploitation of content providers. Authors should have the right to decide when their works are used to ‘train’ AI,” author Jonathan Franzen said in the release on Wednesday. “If they choose to opt in, they should be appropriately compensated.”
Final Fantasy XVI, a more action-focused take on the RPG franchise, clearly pulls inspiration from a lot of other popular media. As Game Informer reported back in May, Square Enix was inspired by blockbuster films and hit series like Game of Thrones, Godzilla, and Neon Genesis Evangelion during the game’s development. And it’s that last source of inspo that is garnering attention after players noticed a detailed homage to the mecha anime series.
Witch From Mercury’s Suletta Joins The List of Anime Protags Who’ve Committed War Crimes
ResetEra forum user Lady Bow posted a video comparing a battle between anime protagonist Shinji Ikari and Sachiel in Neon Genesis Evangelion’s Tokyo-3 (a post-apocalyptic version of Tokyo) to a cataclysmic battle between Phoenix and Ifrit within the early hours of FFXVI.
The Ifrit fight (which is playable in the demo, btw!), takes place between two summons, which manifest in FFXVI by basically turning the player into a giant kaiju version of a deity. Early in the game, one of the outposts in the game’s fictional kingdom of Rosaria is ambushed. Phoenix does its damndest to protect it from the rampaging Ifrit. Unfortunately, the Phoenix getting torn from ass to appetite in the scene is Joshua, the younger brother of FFXVI protag, Clive. You can check out a GIF of the video below.
And just like in NGE with Shinj and Eva Unit 01, this fight showcases a point-of-view-esque depiction of the gigantic kaiju mounting its adversary and dishing out wild strikes to their face before clubbing them with a double-arm hammer fist punch.
The similarities between the fights also makes Clive begging the hulking titan to cease his onslaught all the more tragic. Clive’s desperate plea somewhat mirrors Shinji begging his father, Gendo Ikari, to stop his mecha from crushing his friend’s entry plug after his unit went AWOL. They’re like poetry because they rhyme, you see.
And there you have it: not only is Final Fantasy XVI a video game with similar grit and political subterfuge as George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones series and bombastic Devil May Cry-esque action, but it’s also the latest video game to pay homage to NGE creator Hideaki Anno’s body of work. We love to see it.
Brandon Sanderson is a fantasy author who nets tens of millions of dollars in book sales every year, which puts him in the same book-selling league as George R.R. Martin. However, his financial success has not really translated into a similar mainstream visibility outside of his specific fanbase—until this week. The tech magazine Wiredpublished a cynical profile about Sanderson yesterday, and the author’s fans are pissed. Things got so heated that Sanderson had to take to Reddit to tell his community to back off.
Sanderson is best known as the writer of The Stormlight Archive,The Reckoners, and Mistborn series—all of which take place in his original fictional universe, called the Cosmere. His books have extensive magic systems in them, and he’s known as the inventor of the concepts of “hard” and “soft” magic. He has also written the final books of the fantasy epic series The Wheel of Time, picking up after Robert Jordan passed away in 2007.
The Wired profile
Despite extensive successes and credentials, Wired editor Jason Kehe did not seem impressed by Sanderson as an author or as an individual. His profile makes some attempts to explain Sanderson’s worldbuilding prowess using his Mormon background, but struggles to connect with Sanderson’s personal life experiences, even though Kehe went to Utah to learn more about the author and the people he surrounded himself with.
As a result, the article is not very flattering. “At the sentence level, [Sanderson] is no great gift to English prose,” Kehe writes. “He writes, by one metric, at a sixth-grade reading level.” It’s definitely not a description that fans are used to seeing from a multi-million dollar selling author who penned decades worth of books.
Neither is Kehe impressed by the personal life that the bestselling author lives, or the manner in which he holds himself. “To my mind, I still haven’t gotten anything real from Sanderson, anything true. I’m not the first person he has toured around his lair to politely gawk at his treasures and trophies and his hallway of custom stained-glass renditions of his favorite books,” he writes. “Sanderson has lived so much of his life and fame openly, self-promotionally. It’s a major reason for his success.”
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“I find Sanderson depressingly, story-killingly lame,” Kehe wrote, days before he met the author’s family or his fans. “He sits across from me in an empty restaurant, kind of lordly and sure of his insights, in a graphic T-shirt and ill-fitting blazer, which he says he wears because it makes him look professorial. It doesn’t. He isn’t. Unless the word means only: believing everything you say is worth saying. Sanderson talks a lot, but almost none of it is usable, quotable.”
At the end of the piece, Kehe describes Sanderson as a god. Not because of his literary prowess, but because the author had created worlds that had enthralled so many readers over the course of decades. “If Sanderson is a writer, that is all he is doing. He is living his fantasy of godhead on Earth,” he writes. Kehe seemed to struggle to see any humility in a man who had a literary empire within his grasp. Kehe was a visitor from a distant land (San Francisco), and he took the velvet gloves off when he had to leave a review of his travels.
The internet responded loudly. “[The article writer] is nasty, jealous, catty, and uncharitable to someone who delivers value to millions of fans, and never has a bad word to say about anyone,” tweeted one author named Travis Corcoran. “I imagine he’s pissed that Sanderson isn’t nearly as good at ’constructing sentences’ as he is … and yet makes $20M/yr while the Wired editor makes, I dunno, $60k?” Several other people cited Sanderson’s kind personality and financial success as reasons why the profile should never have been published.
Even Activision Blizzard’s poster-in-chief weighed in. “The sneering tone. The gratuitous meanness of insulting a man in front of his family after he has invited you into his home. The bullying cheap shots at people you consider nerds,” tweeted Lulu Cheng Meservey. “Fantasy writing is valuable, being prolific isn’t a bad thing, people can like different things from you, and nerds are the best.”
“My basic feeling has always been: We write stories, and then they belong to readers,” wrote Kehe in an email to Kotaku. “Readers get the last word.”
Brandon Sanderson’s response
Look, nobody is coming for the human rights of fantasy nerds. And a writer who makes several million dollars a year off his own IP isn’t going to be toppled by some mean article. Even Sanderson himself thinks so. He wrote a Reddit thread today pleading for his fans to keep calm. He agreed that his life wasn’t very exciting for a profile, and that his ordinary and trauma-free life “is kind of boring, from an outsider’s perspective.” While he appreciated that his fans were willing to defend him, he wanted them to let Kehe be. He felt that the profile was not an attack on the community, and that the Wired editor had been honest about his opinions. Kotaku reached out for a comment, but did not receive one by the time of publication.
“[Kehe] should not be attacked for sharing his feelings,” Sanderson wrote. “If we attack people for doing so, we make the world a worse place, because fewer people will be willing to be their authentic selves.”
After over a decade of FromSoftware games holding court as the quintessential ‘git gud’ franchise, locking those of us without a masochist bent out of the discourse, Elden Ring’s open world opened up the gates for an entirely new player base. As such, it catapulted the work of Hidetaka Miyezaki to entirely new heights: Elden Ring is by far the best-selling FromSoftware title, it’s snatching up GOTY awards like Rowa Fruit, and it’s still generating passionate conversations 10 months after its release.
By subtly divesting from the tried and true FromSoftware formula and giving us a game unshackled by a single, punishing, linear path, EldenRing offered up the Lands Between on a beautifully ornate (but slightly Tarnished) silver platter. And we gobbled that shit up.
Feeding The Difficulty Discourse Machine
These guys are called Abductor Virgins, and they suck. Image: FromSoftware
The Souls game discourse has almost solely revolved around difficulty. Before Elden Ring was released, FromSoftware’s Yasuhiro Kitao told Eurogamer that the game was “made for all sorts of players,” not just “hardened veterans.” This sent the fanboys into a tailspin, but it piqued the interest of those who have never been able to enjoy the punishing gameplay of FromSoft’s oeuvre.
I wrote about Kitao’s quotes back when I was at GamesRadar, suggesting that what would make Elden Ring great would be its approachability, and that that approachability was made possible by its open world. It’s a helluva lot easier to avoid difficult areas if you can run around them on horseback, but previous Souls games forced you to choose between the difficult path and the bang-your-head-against-the-wall-because-it’s-impossible path. The promise of ample choice made me think that maybe, just maybe, Elden Ring could be a game I’d enjoy.
Image: FromSoftware / Kotaku
Conversely, Forbes published a response to my piece, one that hoped Elden Ring’s open world wouldn’t ruin the FromSoftware vibes by focusing too much on “making these games approachable rather than tough and gritty.” This was months before the release date, but the discourse machine turned and turned and turned, smoke spewing from every inch, its cogs grinding and grating with each new take chucked into its gaping maw.
Until February came, and brought with it the Lands Between, wide open for exploration like a darker, deadlier Breath of the Wild. Players quickly learned that most of them were accidentally skipping the combat tutorial, and a bit more slowly learned that the first boss (that fucking Tree Sentinel) was avoidable. Many of us who could never latch onto a FromSoft game willingly clung to Elden Ring’s teat, as we learned we could, in fact, get on a horse and fuck off away from some horrifying eldritch beast.
As we collectively made our way through Elden Ring, we were given the gift that comes only with truly open-world games: seemingly endless discoveries by ourselves, our friends, and other players on the internet.
Braving Brutal Battles For A Glimpse Of Beauty
Need a hand?Image: FromSoftware
The beauty of Elden Ring lies in its world that teems, bubbles, and spews with both friendly and deadly life, that tantalizes and terrifies with its landscapes, that beckons and shuns you in a single breath. I find this beauty in so many moments during my time with the game, like when I accidentally descend down to the Siofra River, not too long into my playthrough.
In Limgrave, I step on a platform and am whisked down, down, down, until I emerge into an astounding space: a fully realized night sky in a variety of bruise colors, littered with pinholes of light. Crumbling classical architecture obfuscates my view of this impossible galaxy and tombstones line the path leading away from the platform, which glowed a bizarre green during my descent but now lies dormant.
I am, as the kids say, gagged, and stumble aimlessly away from the platform, paying little attention to what enemies may lie in my path for the first time since booting up Elden Ring. This is a mistake I quickly pay for, as I walk directly into a horde of Claymen. They move slowly, but they hurt, and I am severely underleveled for this area. One of the weaponless magic conjurers takes me out in seconds with his weird bubbles, sending me back to the Site of Grace right next to the platform that brought me here. When I go back to fetch my several hundred runes, the same guy takes me out again.
“Fuck that,” I mumble before stepping on the stone circle at the center of the lift. “I’ll come back later.”
And I do, just much, much later. After I’ve discovered I’m a battle mage with an affinity for gravity magic and summons, and long after I fell the Tree Sentinel with a single Rock Sling, I return to the Siofra River from a completely different direction, and lay waste to its inhabitants. Then, after I’ve collected every last item dropped by a fallen NPC and picked all the Ghost Glovewort my eyes can see, I allow myself a second to breathe. I glance up at that still-impossible night sky, and exhale. I earned this. Elden Ring, unlike other FromSoftware games, gave me ample chances to amass the tools and experience I’d need to earn a brief respite.
Elden Ring Eternal
I’m an Aries.Screenshot: FromSoftware / Kotaku
But Elden Ring isn’t just somber and serious, it’s not just hours of grueling gameplay with brief, meditative breaks. It’s goofy as hell, like all FromSoftware games inherently are. There are stupid, dirty messages littered all over the ground, dozens upon dozens of ways to die that will make you chuckle in disbelief, and the ever-popular but always somewhat broken online play that encourages players to fuck with one another.
It’s this combination of punishing play, engaging story (thanks, George R.R. Martin), and asinine antics that make FromSoftware games, especially this one, so special. Elden Ring gives you enemies like Starscourge Radahn, who will in one moment beat the brakes off of you with gigantic meteors flung from a blood-red sky and in another send you into a fit of hysterics when you realize that he is, in fact, sitting on top of a very tiny horse. Elden Ring plays with you, offering up prophecies and moral quandaries that will have you scratching your head, but undercutting it with both accidental and purposeful absurdism.
Screenshot: FromSoftware
Elden Ring gives you a gigantic turtle wearing a pope hat. It gives you strange, unsettling storylines about grapes that are actually eyeballs. It tucks a giant bat grandma away amongst a rocky outcropping and gives her a haunting song to sing ad infinitum—or until you slash at her leathery, gray skin. It deflates your hope in humankind at one juncture just to build it back up again at the next.
It lets you explore this incredibly fucked-up world for hours upon hours, fall in love with some of its characters and revile the rest, taxing you physically and mentally with enemies plucked from the deepest depths of game design hell, and at the end, it presents you with a few options that don’t really fucking matter. It does all of this while making itself playable for us FromSoft plebeians, which therefore (brilliantly) means more of us will be talking about it than any game that came before.
When we inevitably look back at Elden Ring a decade from now, it will be difficult for us to remember exactly how much it defined the zeitgeist, just how far it permeated popular culture outside of gaming, and just how much we couldn’t stop talking about it. But now, ten months after its release, it’s hard to imagine we ever existed in a world without it.
