A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms creator compares Dunk and Egg to Game of Thrones' Arya and the Hound: "George [R.R. Martin] does odd couple pairings better than anyone"

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A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms creator compares Dunk and Egg to Game of Thrones' Arya and the Hound: "George [R.R. Martin] does odd couple pairings better than anyone" News By Emily Garbutt published 14 January 2026

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms creator Ira Parker compares the show's central duo to a pair of Game of Thrones fan favorites

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A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms creator Ira Parker thinks his show's central duo, Dunk and Egg, have something in common with some fan favorite pairings in the original Game of Thrones series.

"I would say the main difference is that we're just Game of Thrones without all the stuff," Parker says during a roundtable interview attended by GamesRadar+. "We don't have the dead coming to kill mankind. We don't have the politics, really. We don't have the massive roving POVs from different families and different characters. We have one character: we have Dunk, and we have Egg, our little stable boy, and I would say that relationship is probably closest to the dynamic of something from Game of Thrones along the lines of the Hound and Arya or Pod and Brienne."

If you cast your mind back to seasons 3 and 4 of Game of Thrones, you'll remember that Arya Stark and Sandor Clegane, AKA the Hound, travel across Westeros together as the Hound repeatedly tries (and fails) to ransom Arya to various family members. Podrick Payne, meanwhile, is assigned as Brienne of Tarth's squire by Jaime Lannister in season 4 to accompany her on her mission to find Sansa Stark after she goes missing from King's Landing.

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Parker continues, "George [R.R. Martin] does odd couple pairings better than anyone, and those were always my favorite moments from the original series. So now we have an entire series just based on a little odd couple pairing here, and it's a lot of fun, and hopefully it's enough for audiences."

Set around 90 years before Game of Thrones (and about a century after House of the Dragon), A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms follows lowly hedge knight Ser Duncan the Tall as he attempts to enter a tourney and make a name for himself. In the process, he finds himself with a wannabe squire: a mysterious stable boy who calls himself Egg.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms premieres on HBO and HBO Max in the US and Sky and NOW in the UK on January 18. In the meantime, check out our guide to the other upcoming Game of Thrones shows and movies.

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Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsorsBy submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. CATEGORIES HBO Streaming Services Emily GarbuttSocial Links NavigationEntertainment Writer

I’m an Entertainment Writer here at GamesRadar+, covering everything film and TV-related across the Total Film and SFX sections. I help bring you all the latest news and also the occasional feature too. I’ve previously written for publications like HuffPost and i-D after getting my NCTJ Diploma in Multimedia Journalism. 

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