HBO has cast three major characters for the forthcoming second season of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, with Lucy Boynton, Babou Ceesay, and Peter Mullan joining the Game of Thrones spinoff.
Set 89 years before the events of Game of Thrones – but after the initial prequel spinoff House of the Dragon – the series is based on George RR Martin’s “Dunk and Egg” novellas.
It follows a knight and his squire, Peter Claffey’s Ser Duncan the Tall (Dunk) and Dexter Sol Ansell as Prince Aegon Targaryen (Egg).
Consisting of just six episodes, the mini-series features a number of characters from the house of Targaryen, one of the main houses battling it out for power in the Game of Thrones universe.
The second season will adapt The Sworn Sword, the second novella in the Tales of Dunk and Egg series.
The leads are set to meet a trio of characters central to a regional conflict in the Reach, where Dunk finds employment with a minor noble house.
Boynton will play Lady Rohanne, aka the Red Widow, also the head of House Webber and the Lady of Coldmoat. She goes on to become the grandmother of Tywin Lannister, who Game of Thrones fans will remember as the ruthless patriarch and father of Jaime, Cersei, and Tyrion Lannister.
Mullan, who was last seen in The Witcher as Vesemir, will play Lady Rohanne’s rival, the head of House Osgrey Ser Eustace.
Ceesay will play Ser Bennis of the Brown Shield, another wandering hedge knight serving Osgrey. In Martin’s novella, the character shares a past connection with Dunk’s late mentor, Ser Arlan of Pennytree.
The Independent’s Louis Chilton has described A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms as “a loose, low-stakes oddity”.
“It makes very little effort to justify its own existence – refreshing, perhaps, for a franchise that has too often treated its subject matter with stodgy self-importance, but ultimately frustrating. It is a character piece without a sufficiently interesting character at its core,” he wrote.
Season two has reportedly already begun filming and the casting news comes amid more Game of Thrones offshoots. Prequel series House of the Dragon’s third season is set to drop in June, and it was revealed on Wednesday that a Game of Thrones movie is in the works at Warner Bros. The plot will reportedly centre on Aegon I, who founded the Targaryen dynasty. The character has never previously been depicted on screen, but the Targaryen family featured heavily in the original series and both spinoff series.
Last month, the Royal Shakespeare Company announced that it will produce another prequel, which will be staged at its Stratford-upon-Avon HQ this summer.
Game of Thrones: The Mad King , based on Martin’s novels , will focus on the events leading up to the main books, with the fantasy author admitting: “For my work to now be adapted for the stage is something I did not expect but welcome with great enthusiasm and excitement.”
The “Mad King” character, often mentioned in both the Game of Thrones novels and HBO’s TV series, is King Aerys II Targaryen, the father of Daenerys, Rhaegar and Viserys Targaryen.
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