A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms explores a new part of the Game of Thrones timeline that we’ve never seen before on screen. Thrones and HBO’s first prequel, House of the Dragon, have covered some of the biggest and bloodiest time periods in Westeros history, but there’s so much more that hasn’t yet been covered. Author George R.R. Martin has created a world with a history that stretches back 10,000 years, though it’s the Targaryen dynasty that’s currently most important for the TV shows and understanding the timeline.
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That begins with Aegon’s Conquest, with all events from there on being known as “AC” (After Conquest). House of the Dragon is over a century later, and Game of Thrones comes after the Targaryen dynasty has ended, almost 300 years later. So what about A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms? That’s takes place roughly in the middle of those two.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Is ~90 Years Before Game of Thrones
Game of Thrones begins in 297 AC, running until around 305 AC. In contrast, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms begins at the Tourney if Ashford in 209 AC, as per The Hedge Knight. Although the series is marketed as being 100 years before Game of Thrones – and the TV shows are never quite as explicit in this as some of the source and supplementary material anyway – it’s more like 88-89 from the start of the series. The subsequent novellas take place over just a couple of years:
- The Hedge Knight: 209 AC
- The Sworn Sword: ~210-211 AC
- The Mystery Knight: 212 AC
That itself is important, because it gives HBO a limited window to adapt those books, before Dexter Sol Ansell, who plays Egg, gets too old. That’s why A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Season 2 is not only confirmed, but has already started filming for a release sometime in 2027.
The timeline gives it plenty of difference from Game of Thrones (and, for that matter, House of the Dragon), since this is peacetime in Westeros, rather than being set amid the War of the Five Kings or Dance of the Dragons. However, several familiar characters could still appear: Maester Aemon is alive and mentioned in the novellas, while Brynden Rivers (who becomes the Three-Eyed Raven) and Walder Frey (as a child) both appear in The Mystery Knight.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Is ~78 Years After House of the Dragon
As per Fire & Blood and other official sources, the Dance of the Dragons runs from 129-131 AC, which would put the end of the show at 78 years before A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. This allows for multiple generations to have passed, so don’t expect any characters from the series to appear in the Dunk and Egg spinoff. The events of HOTD actually begin earlier, starting with the Great Council of 101 AC, so Season 1 begins over 100 years before the story of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.
House of the Dragon is important context, though. The civil war is often described as the beginning of the end for House Targaryen, in no small part because it does so much damage to both sides of the conflict, and their dragons. Notably, there are no dragons in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, and while they don’t die out in HOTD, that does put the Targaryens on the path to losing their greatest power.
The Dance of the Dragons isn’t the only civil war that’s important to A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. The show also takes place around 13 years after the first Blackfyre Rebellion, which continues to impact the story and characters, not dissimilar to Robert’s Rebellion in Game of Thrones.
The Blackfyre Rebellion came as a result of King Aegon IV Targaryen legitimizing several of his bastard children on his deathbed, leading to a split between the Targaryens, led by King Daeron, and the Blackfyres, led by the bastard Daemon Blackfyre. Martin’s Dunk and Egg novellas weave this history through the story – far more so from the second book, The Sworn Sword – making it one of the most important parts of the Game of Thrones timeline when it comes to A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms releases Sundays at 10pm ET on HBO and HBO Max from January 18th.
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