HBO Officially Fixed Game Of Thrones By Making A 94% RT Prequel With No Dragons

Via MovieStillsDB Published Aug 16, 2026, 4:00 PM EDT Ben Sherlock is a Tomatometer-approved film and TV critic who runs the massively underrated YouTube channel I Got Touched at the Cinema. Before working at Screen Rant, Ben wrote for Game Rant, Taste of Cinema, Comic Book Resources, and BabbleTop. He's also an indie filmmaker, a standup comedian, and an alumnus of the School of Rock. Sign in to your ScreenRant account Much like Amazon has done with The Boys, and Netflix has done with Stranger Things, HBO has expanded Game of Thrones into a shared cinematic universe. The ending of Game of Thrones had proven to be so underwhelming and divisive that the bar was pretty low going into the first spinoff, House of the Dragon. House of the Dragon’s first season was a stellar debut — a fascinating, years-long Targaryen saga — but it’s stumbled in its second and third seasons, because it’s trying to outdo Game of Thrones. House of the Dragon is another sprawling epic about different factions warring over their claim to the Iron Throne, and the inevitable comparisons to the flagship show haven’t done it any favors. Game of Thrones’ second spinoff, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, went the other way. Rather than trying to replicate the scale and spectacle of the previous shows, it told a delightfully small-scale, low-stakes, intimate story about two characters. When HBO first announced a spinoff series following the adventures of Dunk and Egg, it seemed unnecessary. Their story is so small and inconsequential to the wider world — why give them their own show? But it turned out to be just what the Thrones-verse needed. A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms Was A Refreshing Change For Game Of Thrones When A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms premiered earlier this year, it was a breath of fresh air. In Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon, we’re up in the ivory tower with the royals, looking down on the commonfolk. We’re following kings and queens and generals with entire armies at their disposal. But in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, we’re down in the muck with the commonfolk. Ser Duncan the Tall is a hedge knight; he doesn’t have any royal attachments, so he sleeps in the woods. His young squire, Egg, is secretly a Targaryen, but he’s so desperate to escape the barbarity of his family that he’s removed everything that ties him to his royal name — even his silver-blond locks. They’re not trying to seize the Iron Throne or win a world war; they’re just trying to make a name for themselves on the open road, standing up for what’s right and fighting injustice wherever they find it. After two whole TV series’ worth of following the political machinations of a sprawling ensemble of dozens of different characters, I can’t express how refreshing it was to only have two main characters to keep track of. And after two whole series’ worth of heartbreak and tragedy, it was refreshing to see such a funny Game of Thrones show. With the banter between Dunk and Egg, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms often felt like a GoT sitcom. How A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms Proved That The Franchise Is Still Bright For HBO At the height of its powers, what made Game of Thrones work so well was the human drama underneath the fantasy spectacle. It was all well and good watching dragons destroy cities and armies destroy each other in the big action set-pieces, but what kept viewers coming back was that they cared about the human lives on the battlefield. Game of Thrones told universally relatable human stories in a medieval fantasy setting. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms brought that back in spectacular fashion. The first season only has one major battle sequence, but it might be the best battle scene in Game of Thrones history. It’s not the biggest, but it might be the most emotionally compelling. During Dunk’s Trial of Seven, there are only seven lives at stake, but Ira Parker and George R.R. Martin and everyone else involved in the series had done such a good job of building up those characters throughout the season that you cared about every single one of those lives.