‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ Creator on Working With George R.R. Martin

The showrunner of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms—HBO’s next series spinning off the massive success of Game of Thrones—says he doesn’t have social media. Still, Ira Parker is “very aware [that] the fan engagement on all of George R.R. Martin’s stuff is very high.”

That is almost an understatement; between Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon, and Martin’s books (The Winds of Winter when?), there are few other authors who are under such scrutiny from people who feel so passionately about their works. But Parker, whose new series adapts Martin’s Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas, thinks the intense interest is a good thing.

“I hope everyone aspires to work on something that’s going to be seen by millions and millions and millions of people all over the world,” he explained in a recent A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms roundtable interview attended by io9 and other journalists. He did admit that it’s “a little scary” but thinks anyone fearful that the show won’t be faithful to the much-loved source material can rest easy.

“I would say anyone who is a fan of the novella will be a fan of the show. We tell the same story; we have the same beginning, same middle, same end. We don’t go off-book. We don’t send Dunk off on any strange side quests,” Parker said.

The on-screen version of the story stars Peter Claffey as Dunk, a hedge knight who gets in over his (very tall) head when he strikes out on his own for the first time after his master’s death, deciding to enter a nearby tournament he’s somewhat ill-prepared to face.

“I love this novella,” Parker said. “I love Dunk, and George shares that as well. He often says that this is the best thing he’s ever written—which may be a version of him saying that this is his favorite thing that he’s ever written. And I took that to heart very early on. I wanted to make sure that he was happy and saw this properly represented.”

That hasn’t always been the case for Martin adaptations; famously, the author had some not-so-nice things to say about certain story changes made in House of the Dragon. In a recent profile in the Hollywood Reporter, Martin described his relationship with Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal as “abysmal” and said that by the time the show reached its second season, “he basically stopped listening to me”—a feud made very public thanks to Martin’s since-deleted blog post criticizing the series.

But for Parker, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms has been a much more harmonious experience.

“Because we agreed on what it was and who these characters were and what this story was, it was easy. We weren’t fighting about these things. I told him quite early on that I wouldn’t put anything in the show that he did not want in the show. And It never came to that. It never came to him telling me, ‘Don’t do this, don’t make this change, don’t make this addition.’ Everything was a conversation upfront and there’s no better person to have a conversation about Westeros with than George R.R. Martin,” Parker said.

“It’s fun, we riff off of each other, and he’s only been a benefit to this show. Look, is everyone gonna love this show? No. But hopefully everyone will appreciate that we put forth an honest effort. We really did try. We are imperfect in our result—but, you know, so is Dunk.”

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms premieres January 18 on HBO and HBO Max. It runs for six episodes total with a weekly rollout.

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