Plenty of HBO shows go the world talking over the years, but few have been as wildly poplar as Game of Thrones. The book to screen adaptation (which is streaming with a HBO Max subscription) is expanding with spinoffs, including the upcoming series A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which is premiering in January. The showrunner recently teased the inclusion of some GoT villains, and my mind is officially blown.
What we know about A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is limited, unless you've ready all of George R.R. Martin's books that is. I've only read the main Song of Ice and Fire books, so I've got no idea what to expect. During an appearance at New York Comic Con (via Polygon) creator/showrunner Ira Parker spoke about one particular character who will likely pop up eventually: David Bradley's Walder Frey. In his words:
My favorite is, and look, it's not until the third book, but there's a baby Walder Frey. I have this, hopefully, really funny idea that people are probably gonna kill me for. But this idea that something's happening, like there's a runaway horse cart, and this baby's about to be killed, and Dunk intervenes and saves baby Walder Frey.
Well, this is pretty awesome. While House of the Dragon is set nearly 200 years before Game of Thrones, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is close to the flagship series. As such, characters like Walder Frey factor into the story... even if he was very young in the scene from the books. And I can't wait to see the man responsible for The Red Wedding as a young person in the spinoff.
While Game of Thrones' series finale is controversial, the spinoffs have brought back fan interest in the HBO franchise. And seeing OG characters in AKOTSK would no doubt please longtime fans. At the same Comic Con appearance, George R.R. Martin himself spoke about wanting to include more GoT characters in the forthcoming spinoff, saying:
It would be fun to have other great knights from Westerosi history. I think Jaime Lannister would like to enter tournaments, winning some, fighting some of them. And Tyrion would just bet on them.
Honestly, sign me TF up. Seeing the Lannister brothers in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms would be even more exciting than the return of Walder Frey, so I'm hoping that Martin eventually gets his wish. We'll just have to see how the latest Game of Thrones series performs when it hits HBO in the New Year.
Between this new spinoff and the forthcoming third season of House of the Dragon, it feels like Westeros is back on top of the TV food chain. Bringing in characters from the original series for the spinoff helps to create a bonafide shared universe, and I can't wait to see how it shakes out.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms will premiere January 18th on HBO. Hopefully those crossovers happen sooner rather than later, because I'm hyped.
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