I Can't Possibly Be Wrong All the Time

Thursday, October 10th 2025, HBO released the trailer for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, an adaptation of The Hedge Knight, the first of three (so far) novellas about a lowborn hedge knight named Ser Duncan (the Tall) and his scrawny bald squire, Egg.

George RR Martin, the author of the (unfinished) A Song of Ice and Fire series, wrote these novellas roughly sometime after the third ASOIAF book (I have not researched this) – as part of the background for his main series. The Dunk and Egg novellas take place close to a century before the events shown on HBO’s Game of Thrones series, and roughly 70 years after the events in the still-ongoing House of the Dragon show, detailing the Dance of the Dragons or the Targaryen Civil War. Alright, that’s enough detail. Why am I posting this shot-by-shot breakdown of the trailer?

As long-time readers of my blog know, I like to dissect these trailers for my Dad, who has read some of the books. He’s read A Song of Ice and Fire, he did read the Dunk and Egg novellas in the published collection A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. I feel that he did this largely because of my interest in the books, and I love him for that. So I like to watch these trailers, and I like to put together a breakdown for him to provide context to things that he might have missed in watching the trailer.

I try to keep these things relatively non-spoilery, other than possibly randomly identifying the noble house that a sigil might belong too. Obviously, I’ve already said that the show is going to be about Ser Duncan and his squire Egg, so I’m going to identify those two characters.

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The trailer begins overlooking a hill with one tree, and a man digging a grave for an older gray-bearded dead man. (After the obligatory identification that this is from HBO.)

Over this begins narration:

I was squire to Ser Arlan of Pennytree, since I was a boy.

We get some reference to the timeframe.

This would put it around 200 A.C. (After Conquest) – Game of Thrones started roughly in 299 A.C. In contrast, House of the Dragon started close to 130 A.C. (not counting that initial flashback to the Great Council at Harrenhal with King Jaehaerys.)

We get some shots of the grave-digging man alone, on horseback, and having some practice with or thoughts about a sword that he’s carrying. The narration continues.

He charged me to be a good knight.

To defend the weak and the innocent.

The scene shifts to a different location, where someone is assisting the man suit up in armor, throwing a tabard over his chain mail.

I swore that I would.

His sword is put in place, as well as his helmet. He’s mounted and looks prepared to joust.

The scene cuts away from this impending gray-morninged joust to this man featured in the trailer apparently blocking a gateway – he’s being addressed by a shorter man leading a horse.

Short Guy: Are you Baelor Targaryen?
Tall Guy: Uh, n-no.

Short Guy: Then would you move the fuck out of the way?
Tall Guy: Yeah, sorry.

Alright, I’m tired of beating around the bush. The tall guy that the trailer has been focused on is Duncan, aka Ser Duncan the Tall. We heard him do the narration identifying that he was once the squire of Ser Arlan of Pennytree, who trained him to be a good knight. Despite Dunk being physically imposing, he’s no one of importance as this shortie with the horse just bosses him around.

It’s worth noticing that Dunk (I like calling him Dunk) is wearing a beat-up shield with a sigil that looks like a goblet with wings. All the knights and noble houses have identifying coats of arms, either their personal ones or the arms of the noble household they are serving. (You already know this, or course.)

In case the logo up at the top right wasn’t enough of a clue, there’s another frame telling us that this is an HBO Original.

The scene shifts to a stone gateway, with tents in the background. The gate is flanked on either side with statues of knights on rearing horses, holding lances. It gives the sense of an established jousting location. Cinematically, Dunk is framed by this gate. We get a closer look and we can see his cloak is kind of worn.

We begin to hear a conversation with a child. I’m not going to pretend I don’t know who this is, it’s a kid named Egg who is going to want to be Dunk’s squire.

Egg: What’s your name?
Dunk: Ser Duncan the Tall.

The scene cuts to the conversation.

Egg: Never heard of him.
Dunk: Do you know every knight in the Seven Kingdoms, then?

Egg: The good ones.

Cheeky, Egg!

Although I feel that the way the trailer is arranged, there’s some trickery going on. It would be more likely that Egg would say “I’ve never heard of you” instead of “I’ve never heard of him” – so Egg might have been responding to Dunk referencing some other knight that Egg doesn’t know about.

The scene cuts to a different conversation with Dunk and Egg, where the little guy is trying to get a job.

Egg: If you could bring me to Ashford, I could squire for you, ser.

The next scene has Dunk and Egg elsewhere, Egg is holding the reins of Dunk’s horse. There’s some trust issues going on.

Dunk: Rob me and I’ll hunt you down, with dogs.
Egg: You don’t have dogs!
Dunk: I’ll get some.
Egg: Where?

Dunk: *barks like a dog*

Quick shot of HBO crediting the author of the Dunk and Egg stories.

The trailer then introduces some other well-recognizable features of this medieval-esque fantasty world: the Targaryens.

The trailer makes it seem like Dunk is taking note of these riders in particular.

The trailer quickly establishes that some Targaryens are entitled chuds.

Targaryen: Boy, stop gaping. See to my horse.
Dunk: I’m not a stable boy, my lord.

Targaryen: Not clever enough?

The trailer cuts to what appears to be a puppet show featuring an elaborate dragon puppet. We hear some narration (or part of a conversation) by Dunk.

I know I’m just a hedge knight, but sometimes I think I could be more.

We get a close up of a young woman near the back of the puppet-dragon, and Dunk in the audience, presumably blocking someone’s view of the show.

The trailer abuptly cuts to a seated individual Dunk is making some entreaty to (I guess) – spitting into a cup. Dunk looks like he does not enjoy what’s going on.

The trailer cuts to some jousting scenes. We see a knight with a checkered shield riding up to the lists.

That’s a Targaryen tent in the foreground – the dragon head as part of the tent support makes that clear (and all that black gear.) The knight with the checkered shield (and tent) is from House Hardyng (I *think* that’s right) and just beyond the checkered pavilion is a pavilion for House Baratheon. You can see the antlers on top of the tent pole, and the horse that is waiting for its rider has black and yellow saddle and barding features. Take a note of the armored plates going down the back of its neck.

The trailer shows us Dunk and Egg as spectators to the martial event, as well as a conversation where Egg has some class-consciousness questions.

Egg: Why do you treat these royal lapdogs like they’re your betters?

Dunk: They are my betters.

We cut to some rather under-lit scenes of fancy folks at a party. (Including the guy trying to get free valet stable service from fighting man Duncan.)

There’s some narration (or part of a conversation) from Dunk, set against scenes of a Baratheon knight ready to joust, and some men sparring rather vigorously in a training yard.

These men have a name and training.

Dad, the red apple on that shield means that the guy with the shield (at least) is from House Fossaway. The Fossaways are a House from the Reach, and you may (or may not) remember that during the events of Game of Thrones, there were two House Fossaways, the Red-Apple Fossaways and the Green-Apple Fossaways. (Just wanted to drop some knowledge on you.)

We cut to a shot of Dunk, finishing up the previous narration and establishing that it’s part of a conversation.

Dunk: What chance do I have?

He gets an unsettling answer from his conversation partner, a bearded fellow with some wild curly hair.

Guy With Beard: You have no chance.

That ominous note is softened by the next scene – Egg and Dunk are camping out (they don’t have the coin to sleep anywhere other than under the stars – and they see a shooting star.

Egg: A falling star brings luck to those who see it.

We cut to Dunk looking at a painted shield, showing a falling star above a tree.

Dunk: So the luck is ours alone?

Now there’s a big kick off of jousting scenes, or preparation for jousting. We notably see Dunk coming out on a gloomy foggy field, and we see the Targaryen from earlier also prepping for a tourney.

Shots of Dunk and Egg camping out under the stars, and some festivities.

There’s some conversational narration from Dunk, set against scenes from the joust. We see the fancy folks’ reviewing stand, multiple knights in a line for a mass joust, and a very-extra Targaryen helmet.

I need to fight honorably. But sometimes I think I buried my courage alongside the old man.

We again see that bearded guy Dunk had been talking to earlier in the trailer. He’s a Baratheon! (That’s the horse with the neck armor from earlier, the knight has some antler designs on his person, and there’s a squire holding an antlered helmet behind the horse.)

There’s some narration from someone talking to Dunk, interspersed with various scenes of Dunk and Egg outdoors, the joust being announced, and another look at the amazing puppet dragon.

In every man, there are many men.

So be brave.

The trailer kicks into high gear, showing us action scenes from more than one joust, cut together.

Riders charging in an overcast morning (notice the knight on the right appears to be wearing all white.)

A well-lit joust showing the knight from House Hardying (on the right) that we saw earlier:

Those riders clash and the scene cuts to the overcast joust, where one of the riders has an unexpected dismount. Once again, we see a knight all in white (over on the right.)

We get a shot of young Egg running like mad carrying a sword. (Did Ser Duncan, like Sir Kay from the King Arthur stories, forget his sword and his squire had to fetch it?)

There’s also a disconcerting shot of looking out the helmet slit seeing someone riding up with a flail whose spiky ball is about to smack the observer’s helmet.

Be just.

The last shot is hard to make out above, but it appears to be Dunk’s helmeted head going back, as if he’d just been clobbered with a spiky mace ball. Look, just watch the trailer.

Someone then is shown going down hard off their horse and into the mud.

Egg helpfully shouts “GET UP!”

A quick moment of a mounted knight drawing a sword, and a shot of the jousters getting ready. The knight in the center bears the shield that Dunk was looking at earlier in the trailer.

(I’m pretty sure that’s Dunk.)

The scene cuts to the guy who has been talking to Dunk about the many men inside of a man. Based on the antlers, it’s that bearded Baratheon fellow.

Be tall.

The trailer’s camera perspective now shows the start of the multi-rider joust. The camera is directly behind Dunk, following him as his horse charges with the others towards their opponents.

BOOM! We get the title card, with the name and airing of the show.

I know we still have another season (or two) of House of the Dragon, and GRRM is still working on The Winds of Winter (we have to find out about Jon bleeding out at the Wall and Dany recovering from dysentery on the Dothraki Sea eventually) but I am excited for this upcoming show.

The Dunk and Egg stories are certainly set in the world of A Song of Ice and Fire, but they’re more charming and hopeful, and less laden-down with tragedy.

Baby Rhaegar Targaryen: OR ARE THEY?
Me: What happened at Summerhall stays at Summerhall, Rhaegar.
GRRM: I’LL GET TO IT! GEEZ.

You can watch the trailer here, which is probably much better than looking at my still (and way too dark) images: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPFRItMOgPo

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(Comments are always welcome. Super welcome! But if you want to talk spoilery Game of Thrones talk with me (also welcome) I’d invite you to visit my Safe Spoilers page on my backup blog. That way my non-book-reading friends won’t be shocked with foreknowledge.)

Images from HBO’s A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. I make no claims to the artwork, but some claims to the text here – at least the text that isn’t my transcription of the trailer dialogue. So there.

If you liked this article, thank you! I have all of my Game of Thrones related articles on my handy-dandy Game of Thrones page should you want to read more but don’t want to navigate around my site.

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