Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Showrunner Adresses George R.R. Martin’s Book Plans & Show Future: “10, 11, 12 of These…”

The Game of Thrones train will keep on rolling with the upcoming new spinoff series, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. With the show about to premiere on HBO (at the time of writing this), we’re finally hearing more from the creative team around it, as they do the obligatory rounds of press interviews. ComicBook got a chance to sit down with Ira Parker, creator, showrunner, and executive producer of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms; in addition to discussing this new series, there were questions about how it fits into the larger Game of Thrones saga.

Since House of the Dragon premiered, there have been plans for additional Game of Thrones spinoffs, set up and down the timeline of the main show. Some of those projects haven’t panned out, others have been stuck in development limbo, which has led fans to question just how long they should stay invested in this series.

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A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is based on three novellas that Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin wrote in his Tales of Dunk and Egg series. The three novellas (The Hedge Knight, The Sworn Sword, and The Mystery Knight) were collected into one book, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which Martin has repeatedly indicated that he will expand into more volumes.

When speaking with Ira Parker, it was made clear that A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is a gamble for the franchise, so the first step will be connecting with a big enough audience: “We’ll see how we do on January 18th; we take nothing for granted here. This is just Game of Thrones without all the stuff, and who knows if we’re going to connect with a wider audience… I love doing this show, and I would make as many of these as they let me.”

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Has A Lot of Potential Lore to Explore

Parker went out to confirm that when it comes to the book series, “George is writing a fourth one, at least, that he has some good ideas for.” More than that, it seems Martin has story concepts or outlines for the two main characters, Dunk and Egg, that go on for “7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 of these that takes them all the way through their life.”

Without getting into spoilers, the legend of Dunk and Egg is actually a very pivotal story in the history of Game of Thrones. The adventures that Dunk has with his squire, Egg, are crucially important for the young boy’s formative years, and how it ultimately shapes him for a later destiny. In that sense, Parker expressed that “I really hope that we get to do it, because it’s such an interesting journey to complete… If we end up doing two or three of these, it’ll be nice, but it won’t have that resolution [to Egg’s story].”

Don’t Worry, The TV Series Will Tell the Story Faster

Game of Thrones fans will forever be scarred by the final season of the HBO TV series. It remains one of the biggest pop-culture debacles of the last decade, to the point that fans are ready to jump ship on shows like House of the Dragon the moment they begin to show similar signs of creative stumbling.

So, while Martin may have upwards of 12 volumes of Dunk and Egg stories, no one is ever going to sit through that many seasons of a TV show. Parker clearly recognizes as much and already has a vision for how to condense it all for a TV show. “George and I have talked very loosely that if it ever came to that, we would just go through and sort of break seasons together. I know he has a lot of ideas, and we could bounce ideas off of each other. Obviously, I don’t want to take him away too long from his day job, but it’s amazing how much can be accomplished in a quick amount of time with him and a couple of his favorite authors in the room. We were pretty good for Season 1, so I think we could continue that and come up with some good stuff.”

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms premieres on January 18th, on HBO and HBO Max.