What is Game of Thrones spinoff A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms and will there be LGBTQ+ characters?
A Knight of Seven Kingdoms is the second Game of Thrones spin-off in recent years. (HBO)
The House of the Dragon season 2 just ended, meaning we won’t be getting another season until around 2026, but luckily Game of Thrones fans don’t have to wait quite that long for their next Westeros fix: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.
It’s due to air in 2025, becoming the second spin-off series from George R.R. Martin’s sprawling universe, and the first trailer dropped today (5 August).
The HBO show is based on Martin’s Tales of Dunk and Egg, a series of novellas set a century before the events of the original Game of Thrones series.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms will follow a knight named Ser Duncan the Tall (Peter Claffey), also known as “Dunk”, and his bald squire “Egg” (Dexter Sol Ansell) who is trying to prove himself during a time when peace is tenuous after the ruling House Targaryen is coping with the fallout from a second civil war.
However “Egg” has a secret identity… there’s a reason he’s shaved his head, which becomes clear later.
Despite quelling the rebellion, there are still people loyal to an illegitimate Targaryen heir named Daemon Blackfyre and plans are afoot to usurp the reigning monarch, King Daeron II.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms will follow “Dunk and Egg’s” adventures as they get into battles and conflicts set against the backdrop of the dissent within Westeros.
The first season is expected to have six episodes and they are currently filming it in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
There is one canonically LGBTQ+ character in the Tales of Dunk and Egg: Daemon Blackfyre’s son Daemon II Blackfyre has been confirmed to be gay by George R.R. Martin.
In the book, Dunk meets the younger Daemon under the alias of “Ser John the Fiddler”. He’s described as “a young man lean and lithe, with a comely clean-shaved face and fine features”. He had collar-length black hair – but that turns out to be a dye job. After revealing himself to be the son of Daemon I Blackfyre, he washes it out to reveal he actually boasts the traditional white-silver Targaryen hair colour.
During their interactions, he appears to be attracted to Dunk, and George R.R. Martin has confirmed this to be the case, and that the character is gay.
There’s also a good chance that the TV producers will just decide to make one of the characters LGBTQ+, even if they aren’t portrayed that way in the original novellas.
For example, in the book version of House of the Dragon, Fire and Blood, Rhaenyra wasn’t written as queer but the showrunners decided to change her sexual orientation for the purposes of the show.
Martin explained further that Rhaenyra was not visualised as a “lesbian character in Fire and Blood” and that her “sexual preferences are straight”. In the show, however, she has already had romantic moments with women and is canonically meant to be queer.
So fans can certainly hold out hope that there will be LGBTQ+ characters in A Knight of Seven Kingdoms.
