Your watchlist and Westeros are both expanding, as A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, the upcoming Game of Thrones spin-off based on George R. R. Martin’s Dunk and Egg stories, debuts on HBO on January 18. Following the dangerous adventures of Ser Duncan the Tall (Peter Claffey) and his squire Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell), the series has promised to be detailed in its dedication to the source material, and has become one that George R.R. Martin himself has publicly praised in the process.
Ahead of the show’s release, and in the shadow of the first response on Rotten Tomatoes failing to live up to the heights of the main series, star Ansell has discussed one particular scene in the series involving a tug-of-war, which drew specific praise from Martin. In an interview with Radio Times, Ansell said, “It was this tug-of-war scene. I was dangling off this rope, I was holding, literally for my life, ’cause I really didn’t want to fall in the mud.” The actor added, “None of anyone was listening ’cause the stunt coordinator, CC [Smiff], was going, ‘Right, now, this house, move this way, move this way. You’ve got to win now’. And no one was doing that. We were all just actually playing a proper game of tug-of-war, and our side was losing.”
He continued, “So, my own decision, I put my feet onto the rope and dangled on for my life. And it was really good. And then we won the tug-of-war, so Dunk threw me up in the air, back and forth for a few takes. And this one take [he] threw me so high that when I went down, I smashed my eye into his nose. And the funny thing is, they used that take, but they cut off when I went high.” Clearly, this commitment to the moment from the eleven-year-old actor was noticed by Martin, with Ansell adding that, after being told the creator was watching, “So, I go over, I go over to him, and he says, ‘Wow, you’re so good, and you look and you act like you’ve really just jumped out the books’. And that’s amazing to hear from the creator of my character.”
‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ Early Reviews Are Mixed
With the show already renewed for a second season, there is room for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms to learn from its first season mistakes. According to some critics, there are many such mistakes, with Collider’s Therese Lacson writing in her review, “It’s hard to imagine where A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms will go if it wants to go beyond the three novellas in the series, putting the show in the same difficult spot as Game of Thrones circa Season 5.” She continued, “By the finale, Season 1 exists as more of a side dish to be enjoyed alongside the main rather than a full meal on its own, and that’s not a good thing.”
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms premieres January 18 on HBO.
- Release Date
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January 18, 2026
- Network
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HBO
- Directors
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Owen Harris
- Writers
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George R. R. Martin, Ira Parker
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Peter Claffey
Ser Duncan ‘Dunk’ the Tall
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