I Watched Season 1 of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

A hopeful little story in a cynical world

March 4th, 2026

I loved Game of Thrones. The ending wasn't great, but the rest of the show is still outstanding - and there's a lot of it. I caught the final season while it was airing, and it was a genuinely unique experience: sharing the excitement, the speculation, and eventually the disappointment with so many people in real time. Something I hadn't really felt since the Harry Potter films were dropping. In the aftermath, there was a rush of streaming services trying to offer up the next Game of Thrones, and HBO moved quickly to capitalize on the momentum with spin-offs and expansions. None of them really succeeded in the same way. House of the Dragon is probably the best of the lot, but it still hasn't quite reached the heights of the original - it often feels like an imitation, like it's following a formula Game of Thrones set rather than forging its own path. It has genuinely great moments, but its identity is heavily dependent on what came before, and as a result it often lives in its shadow.

Seven years on from the phenomenon that was Game of Thrones, it feels like the world has largely moved on and the excitement for the franchise has quietly died off. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms didn't excite me going in - I had low expectations and wasn't even sure I'd bother watching until the reviews started pouring in. I'm so glad I was wrong.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is a masterpiece that carves out its own identity entirely. Similar to how Andor doesn't feel like a Star Wars show - and is better for it - A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms doesn't feel like a Game of Thrones show, and that's precisely what makes it work. The world of Game of Thrones is dark and cynical; this show is hopeful and positive in spite of the darkness around it. That shift in tone is carried beautifully by Dan Romer's score, which brings the same distinct sensibility he brought to Maniac and Beasts of No Nation - a careful balance between somber and whimsical that never tips too far in either direction.

In many ways the show is a masterclass in restraint. No long, expensive animated intro. Short episodes, a short season - and yet it never feels too short. It's exactly as long as it needs to be. The total runtime actually made me wonder if it was conceived as a film at some point. Dialogue is never drawn out, and nothing is over-explained.

The camaraderie between Dunk and Egg, and between Dunk and Ser Arlan, is genuinely beautiful. Ser Arlan is something of a mystery - a man of few words who often comes across as a drunken fool with little real talent for knighthood. Yet near the end of the season, without a single line of dialogue, we understand that he's a good-natured man carrying tremendous pain. It's a quietly stunning piece of storytelling. The Targaryen family dynamic is probably the one element that feels distinctly Game of Thrones. Dysfunctional at best, but seeing it through Egg's eyes makes it all the more tragic.

The question of what makes a true knight is asked repeatedly throughout the show, and answered in several genuinely beautiful ways. Stories like this are rare and difficult to pull off without tipping into something corny - yet this one nails it effortlessly. There's a real message here, and timeless virtues embedded throughout, and I think that's exactly why it resonates so broadly. For reasons I can't quite articulate, it reminds me of a more whimsical, wholesome version of Gladiator, and lands with a similar kind of emotional impact.

I tried to get my wife to watch it. She called it a "boy show." She may not be entirely wrong - but I'd still strongly recommend this to everyone.