“Dunk” (Peter Claffey) stars in HBO’s ‘A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms’
HBO
A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms—HBO’s lighthearted Game of Thrones spin-off—doesn’t waste time setting the tone, the first episode showing our titular knight emptying his bowels behind a tree.
The series adapts George R.R. Martin’s Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas, a whimsical look at Westeros through the eyes of the wandering knight, “Dunk” (Peter Claffey) and his young squire, “Egg” (Dexter Sol Ansel).
Dunk and Egg’s adventures are smaller and sillier than the fantasy epic of A Song of Ice and Fire, a bit like the contrast between J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms begins with Dunk burying his master and taking up his sword, pondering his future as the iconic Game of Thrones theme plays, before cutting to Dunk’s noisy moment of digestive relief.
Given the context, fans wondered if the detailed defecation scene was meant as a diss against Game of Thrones, and some viewers even took it as an insult.
After all, Game of Thrones is widely remembered as a hit show with a terrible ending, the showrunners famously running out of source material by the final season, and cobbling together an ending based on George R.R. Martin’s outline.
The ending was met by online backlash and an overwhelmingly negative audience reception (although, the finale does have some defenders).
Would HBO really lean into the joke and mock one of its biggest hits with a poop joke?
Was ‘A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms’ Mocking ‘Game Of Thrones’?
A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms showrunner Ira Parker has since clarified that the team weren’t trying to raise a stink with the scene, just intending to establish a comedic tone and an important character beat.
In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Parker said that the already-infamous scene wasn’t meant to mock Game of Thrones—it was a visceral character moment.
“So in the script it reads, ‘Duncan hears the hero theme in his head’—which wasn’t necessarily going to be the Thrones theme at that moment,” Parker explained.
“All we’re trying to say here is that Dunk is not a hero yet. He’s just a nervy kid with a nervous stomach—just like me. And as badly as you want to do something great, as soon as you actually have to go off and do it, it becomes trickier. And that’s what the whole season is for him.”
Even Martin was surprised at the scene when he saw the rough cut, and wants viewers to know that it didn’t come from his writing.
“Not to say that my characters don’t take sh*ts, but I normally don’t write about them at any length,” Martin said.
“When I saw the rough cut, I wrote, ‘What is this? Where did this come from? I don’t know if we really need the sh*t.’ But [Ira Parker] liked it for whatever reason.”
Toilet humor aside, A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms is off to a strong start, the first episode setting up Dunk as a lovable underdog desperately trying to make a name for himself in a world where names matter.
The series is simpler, more focused than the sprawling narratives that fans have come to expect from HBO’s adaptations of Martin’s work—it’s refreshing to see a bit of silly banter in Westeros.
Game of Thrones had a great sense of humor when the moment called for it, but HBO’s Targaryen-focused spin-off House of the Dragon is a far more serious story.
Thrones fans have plenty of Shakespearean succession drama to enjoy, so it makes sense to give viewers a glimpse at the lighter side of Martin’s world.
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Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2026/01/22/a-knight-of-the-seven-kingdoms-was-that-graphic-scene-a-dig-at-game-of-thrones/
