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When Game of Thrones concluded back in 2019, the powers that be at HBO faced a fork-in-the-road decision. It was never in doubt that there would be additional television series set in George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” canon, the only question was whether they would take place following the events of Game of Thrones or preceding them.
After several false starts in the development stage, a prequel option finally won out thanks to House of the Dragon, a show about the Dance of the Dragons Targaryen civil war roughly 150 years before the birth of Daenerys. Now, with second Game of Thrones spinoff A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, HBO gets to have its cake and eat it too. That’s because the six-episode series operates as both a Game of Thrones prequel and a House of the Dragon sequel.
Based on Martin’s three prequel novellas collectively known as “Tales of Dunk and Egg,” A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms depicts a Westeros long after the last of the Targaryens’ dragons have died but well before Daenerys’ fresh three lil guys are born. Though the show is more limited in scope – focusing chiefly on hedge knight Ser Duncan the Tall a.k.a. “Dunk” (Petter Claffey) and his bald, adolescent squire “Egg” (Dexter Sol Ansell) – there’s still plenty of the usual games of thrones percolating in the background.
Before Dunk and Egg head off to the Tourney at Ashford Meadow in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms season 1, which is based on first Dunk and Egg novella The Hedge Knight, here is what you need to know about where their adventures fall on the Game of Thrones timeline.
When Is A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Set?
Though seasons are notoriously fickle in Westeros, the Seven Kingdoms still maintains a yearly calendar. Like the real world Western timeline, which is split into CE (Common Era) and BCE (Before Common Era), the Seven Kingdoms’ timeline is split into AC (After Aegon’s Conquest) and BC (Before Aegon’s Conquest).
Game of Thrones begins in the year 298 AC, while House of the Dragon begins around the year 101 AC and continues through 131 AC. Now, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms picks up in 209 AC. This means that the events of the Dance of the Dragons continue to linger just on the outskirts of living memory.
While the Targaryen dynasty remains on the Iron Throne under the rule of King Daeron II, the family’s power has been greatly diminished. That’s because the last of the dragons (the literal fire-breathing dragons, mind you, not the family itself) died out during Queen Rhaenyra and King Aegon II’s contentious civil war. In the latest A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms trailer, we see how the absence of the Targaryens’ usual firepower has somewhat emboldened the smallfolk against them, with Raymun Fossoway (Shaun Thomas) telling Dunk that the Targaryens are little more than “incestuous aliens and tyrants.”
That’s the situation facing the ancient House as several of its members arrive at Ashford Meadow to participate in Lord Ashford’s name day tourney for his daughter. Among the dragons in attendance are King Daeron II’s son and heir Prince Baelor (Bertie Carvel), his younger son Prince Maekar (Sam Spruell), and Maekar’s son Aerion (Finn Bennett). Den of Geek spoke with Bennett about the fiery Aerion’s understanding of his family’s tenuous political position.
“Aerion can sense that people are laughing behind his back and the Targaryens back,” Bennett says. “He doesn’t think they should be at this kind of event. I think he thinks it’s beneath him and frankly quite embarrassing. That explains a lot of his behavior at the tourney as this kind of brash attempt at regaining some kind of respect.”
What Is the Blackfyre Rebellion?
As if the extinction of the dragons weren’t bad enough, House Targaryen is facing down another political crisis during the time in which A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is set: the Blackfyre Rebellion.
Daemon Blackfyre was born an illegitimate bastard to the Targaryen King Aegon IV (often called Aegon the Unworthy due to his ravenous appetites). Aegon IV not only legitimized Daemon but granted him the family’s ancestral Valyrian blade Blackfyre. Daemon would go on to establish his own cadet branch of the family tree known as House Blackfyre and would then lay claim to the Iron Throne after his father died. Due to Daemon’s possession of the symbolically important blade (and the impressive figure he cut) many lords of Westeros supported his claim and joined his rebellion.
Ultimately King Daeron II and his loyalist forces were able to kill Daemon Blackfyre and quell his uprising but several of Daemon’s sons escaped to the Free Cities where they remain a perpetual threat to restart the Blackfyre rebellion. And that’s not even to mention the danger posed by the many other bastards that Aegon the Unworthy recognized on his deathbed.
Though A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms rarely mentions Daemon or the First Blackfyre Rebellion, the characters all live under the shadow of that recently-concluded war and the specter of more potential insurrection to come.
How Does A Knight of the Seven Dragons Lead Into Game of Thrones?
The following contains details from the A Song of Ice and Fire canon that will serve as spoilers for A Knight of the Seven Kingdom season 1 and future seasons.
One might assume that A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms being set 80 years before the beginning of Game of Thrones precludes it from featuring any of the flagship series’s characters. And one would assume mostly correctly on that front! There are, however, a couple of strange exceptions.
The first is a character who does not physically appear in any of the three Dunk and Egg novellas but who is canonically alive at the time in which they take place. Remember that abbreviated Targaryen family tree above? The one that talked about King Daeron II and his sons? Well, the Prince Maekar branch of that tree is pretty fruitful when it comes to the larger Thrones universe.
In A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, we will get to meet at least three of Prince Maekar’s sons: the aforementioned Prince Aerion, the drunken Prince Daeron, and the precocious Prince Aegon a.k.a. “Egg” a.k.a. the future King Aegon V. Still, Prince Maekar has a few more kids offscreen and one of those kids is little Prince Aemon. You may know him better as Maester Aemon: the blind, century-old brother of the Night’s Watch and Jon Snow’s close ally.
Recall that Maester Aemon’s last words before he died were “Egg, I dreamed that I was old.” The “Egg” he’s addressing is his older brother Aegon: the Egg half of “Dunk and Egg.” Aegon V, known historically as Aegon the Unlikely, only ascended the Iron Throne due to a series of improbable events, one of which was Aemon’s joining of The Night’s Watch, as he assumed the line of succession would never fall all the way down to him.
The other Game of Thrones character who we will likely meet should A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms reach its third season is Brynden Rivers a.k.a. Bloodraven. One of the Great Bastards legitimized by Aegon IV (like his half-brother Daemon Blackfyre, Brynden was born to a noblewoman), Bloodraven is a steadfast Targaryen loyalist. Given the nickname because of his albinism, red eyes, and the crimson avian birthmark that adorns half of his face, Bloodraven is such a brilliant tactician and statesman that enemies and allies alike believe him to be a sorcerer.
Later in life, Bloodraven is sent to join the Night’s Watch by King Aegon V and disappears while ranging beyond the Wall. While that’s the last anybody in the Seven Kingdoms hears of him, it’s implied in the book A Dance with Dragons and confirmed by Game of Thrones that Bloodraven became the powerful all-seeing entity known as the Three-Eyed Crow, who is played by actor Max von Sydow and who eventually bestows his omniscient powers unto young Bran Stark.
Is it crucial to know any of this to better understand A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms or its place on the Game of Thrones timeline? Not at all! The show is very much about Dunk, Egg, and the knightly adventures the embark upon. But aren’t you happy you know the background lore now all the same?
New episodes of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms premiere Sundays at 10 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max, culminating with the finale on February 22.
The post A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Timeline Explained: When Is Game of Thrones Prequel Set? appeared first on Den of Geek.
