When DECIDER hopped on a Zoom a few weeks back to chat with A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms creator and showrunner Ira Parker, the first question we had was why the HBO half-hour series, which is full of bawdy humor and heartfelt laughs, was being submitted as a drama series in this year’s Emmy awards race. Especially since far bleaker half hour shows have triumphed at the prestigious awards show in recent years.
“I don’t know much about these things. I trust the parents, you know. And nobody knows more about this than HBO,” Parker said. “And I’ve never seen this show as a comedy, in spite of its half-hour runtime.”
“I think we’re properly located in drama, if I had to choose one. However, I would say I would advocate for a half hour/hour distinction rather than a comedy/drama distinction,” he continued. “But I had nothing to do with any of it. I just, I put my head down and I write and I produce, and I’m focused on Season 2 and anything else that comes is just lovely and extra, but certainly not expected in any way.”
One thing Ira Parker does know a lot about, though, is how to perfectly adapt the world of Westeros. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is inspired by George R.R. Martin‘s beloved “Dunk and Egg” novellas. Set a century after the horrific battles of House of the Dragon and another hundred years before the original Game of Thrones, these stories track the unlikely friendship that blooms between an impoverished hedge knight named Ser Duncan the Tall (Peter Claffey) and a sassy, bald boy who dreams of being his squire, Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell).
The first season of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms tackled the pair’s origin story, teaming up to take on the field at the Tourney at Ashford. However, before Dunk can prove his mettle in the lists, he finds himself in trouble with the Targaryens for defending a beautiful puppeteer from Prince Aerion’s (Finn Bennett) abuse. Ser Duncan the Tall must prove his innocence in a Trial of the Seven, a primeval practice from Westeros’s early days where seven knights must battle seven other knights to the death.
This pivotal showdown takes place in the penultimate episode of A Knight of the Seven Kingdom‘s first season. Now, you might think that this means A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Season 1 Episode 5 “In The Name of the Mother” would naturally let the melée play out in real time, giving HBO subscribers an epic, non-stop action set piece. Instead, Parker decided to weave in a major flashback sequence explaining how a young Dunk (Bamber Todd) found himself leaving the hell of Flea Bottom to squire for Ser Arlan of Pennytree (Danny Webb) in the first place.
“To be completely honest, I hate flashbacks. I hate them. It just stalls narrative momentum,” Parker said. “It’s almost as bad as a dream, but at least the flashback has a little bit more stakes that builds character in an undream-like way.”
“So in the middle of the battle in Episode 5, I’m like, ‘No one’s going to turn this off.’ People now have to eat their vegetables. There’s no question here that you have to come back and see what happens to Dunk, and so that’s the place to put this thing.”
Parker added, “I apologize to the viewing audience at large. I also hate when things like that happen, but it was intentional.”
For Parker, this flashback was intentional because he and his team of writers struggled to establish the stakes in their show. Game of Thrones quickly developed hype in its first season because it was willing to kill characters who felt foundational to the series. No one was safe. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms — with decades of story yet to tell — is simply built different.
“When you have a single POV show about a knight in a very dangerous world like Westeros, you sort of start to wonder: ‘Can Dunk die?’ And the truth is, he probably can’t. He probably is going to come out okay no matter what you do,” Parker said. “We live and die by the sword of Dunk.”
Parker said accepting this meant that the writers had to reassess what this “big fucking Trial of Seven” was even about, thematically for both the show and Dunk.
“For us, in the writer’s room, it really became clear that it was more about endurance,” Parker said. “That’s what Dunk’s whole life has really been about, is the ability to put one foot in front of the other.”
“I think a lot of people out there, they say, ‘I’m willing to really sacrifice for the thing that I want in life.’ But then… but are ya? How much are you willing to sacrifice?” he added.
We learn that as a child, Dunk scavenged the corpses of knights slain in battle just to survive. He watched his best friend killed by a member of the City Watch and was only saved, himself, by the drunk Ser Arlan of Pennytree. Left without anyone else in the world, Dunk naively follows the hedge knight — trudging one foot in front of the other — until he almost dies.
“There comes Dunk, just one foot in front of the other. This kid pulled himself up, but he did this thing,” Parker said, explaining how it impressed Ser Arlan and fed into Dunk’s ability to outlast Prince Aerion in the Trial of Seven.
“That’s where that opportunity comes from. And that, Get up!” obviously becomes so important for us. That’s how Egg brings him back. That’s how Sir Arlen brought him back,” Parker said. “Dunk, this whole journey is not about… He is not the best swordsman. He is not better than Aerion. He has not been trained by the greatest masters of arms in the realm. He doesn’t have anything to his credit. He was trained by a guy who, you know, at his very best was mediocre.”
“But in order for him to crest from that — being a squire to being a knight — he literally has to go through this Trial. He has to die.”
Parker told DECIDER that he thinks Dunk “actually sort of did die in order to take the jump up from where he was.”
“He has that moment where he’s just absolutely beat to shit. It’s my favorite moment of the whole thing, where he finally gets a shot in on Aerion, and Aerion goes down, and all he has to do is just go for it. Move forward, and he can have this thing, and he can’t. He’s literally given every single last ounce of himself that he has to give,” Parker said. “He sits down in the mud and he fucking dies.”
“Aerion is just trying to get this thing over with as quickly as possible and when Dunk comes back to life in that moment, Aerion knows it’s over… There’s nothing he can do because you can’t fight against a rock. You can’t fight against the fucking ocean,” he continued. “Dunk keeps getting him. No matter what he’s going to do, he’s going to wear you down.”
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms has dazzled viewers with its unique approach to Westeros, focusing on the hard-working hoi polloi that Martin nicknames the “Smallfolk.” And Parker thinks that this moment — Dunk getting up — is intrinsic to that theme.
“I think that’s a really great metaphor for a lot of things in life. Certainly my own life, my own career, everything,” he said. “You know, it doesn’t always have to be about skill and brains, or money and education. Sometimes it’s literally just about, you know, one foot in front of the other and having some good friends to have your back.”
HBO has had incredible success with its flagship shows set in the fantastic world of Westeros before at the Emmys. Will the Academy give a smaller show with a bigger heart its proper due?
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Season 1 is now streaming on HBO Max.