It’s a truth universally acknowledged that Game of Thrones changed the game for fantasy television. A monster hit for HBO, it spawned a seemingly endless parade of prestige adaptations based on literally anything that felt like it could speak to the same sort of audience. From Prime Video’s The Wheel of Time and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power to Netflix’s The Witcher and Shadow and Bone, fantasy fans were living their absolute best lives for a brief and glorious time. Even Game of Thrones’ parent network, HBO, wasn’t immune to this trend, greenlighting a big-budget take on Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials and commencing a search for any other story they could conceivably tell in the world of Westeros. cnx.cmd.push(function() {cnx({playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530",}).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796");});While this didn’t go as well as they likely hoped — failed Thrones spinoffs in some stage of development have included a Jon Snow series and a prequel about the events of the Long Night, among others. HBO did finally find some modest success with House of the Dragon. A House Targaryen-based prequel about the infamous civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons, the show is currently set to conclude with its yet-to-be-filmed fourth season and has never managed to fully step out of the shadow of the one that came before it. This is possibly because, save for the elaborate dragon battles and copious incest, it doesn’t actually feel all that different from the original Game of Thrones. So far, so seen it, right? It makes sense that, for its second swing at a Westeros-based series, HBO is going in a completely different direction with its latest effort, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Based on George R.R. Martin’s trio of Dunk and Egg novellas and set roughly 90 years before the events of Game of Thrones, it may take place in the same world that once featured dragons, direwolves, and White Walkers, but it’s a story on a vastly smaller scale. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms will follow the story of Ser Duncan the Tall (“Dunk”), a courageous but naive young hedge knight and his squire, Egg (“Egg”). Both these figures will go on to become relatively major historical figures in the world of Westeros, but for purposes of this story, they’re just two regular guys on the hunt for valor and coin. And as such, their adventures will give us a chance to see a side of Westeros we’ve never really seen before: The one where regular people live. Though characters from the lower classes regularly appeared on Thrones and House of the Dragon, both series primarily revolved around powerful families with names like Stark or Lannister, whose choices could and did quite literally shape the lives of average people. In Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, the show is grounded firmly in the world of the small folk, the people who can perhaps vaguely remember a time of dragons but who are more concerned with the concerns of everyday living, struggling as they are to pick up the pieces after the (first!) Blackfyre Rebellion. “Nobody’s thinking about magic,” showrunner Ira Parker told Entertainment Weekly. “This could basically be 14th century Britain. This is hard nose, grind it out, gritty, medieval knights, cold with a really light, hopeful touch. It’s a wonderful place to be. We are ground up in this series, we are starting right at the bottom. We’re not with the lords and ladies, the kings and queens.”Parker plans to delineate this shift right from the start. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms apparently won’t have any sort of elaborate opening title sequence like its HBO siblings, but only a plain card decorated with a medieval-esque typography. It’s clearly meant to reflect this show’s simpler approach to its setting and story, and will immediately alert viewers that, at least in terms of this Westeros tale, it’s something they haven’t seen before. Of course, this is still a GRRM joint, and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms will feature appearances by various Targaryens and members of other influential Westeros families. But thanks to some complicated political circumstances, House Targaryen’s influence is weaker than its been in generations, which means it’s the perfect moment to finally explore the stories of the people they rule. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms will premiere on HBO in January 2026. The post A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Will Offer an Unprecedented Look at Westeros appeared first on Den of Geek.