The second season of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms will seemingly include a book-accurate Ser Duncan the Tall detail that season 1 skipped.
The newest Game of Thrones spinoff has made a very successful debut, averaging 13 million viewers per episode, according to MovieWeb. During a BAFTA interview, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms showrunner Ira Parker and star Peter Claffey talked about having a “faithful adaptation” to George R. R. Martin’s original work being priority number one, and how this relates to Ser Duncan’s (Claffey) hair.
Regarding the show’s faithfulness to the Dunk and Egg novellas, Claffey says: “I feel like other than Dunk not having long hair, it’s pretty bang on.” Parker added, “Yeah, right. But now—” gesturing to Claffey’s long hair. Claffey joked that he “didn’t cut [his] hair… with fingers crossed in hopes that we got to do it again.”
In the source material, Dunk is described as having thick, shaggy hair, which is “sun-streaked in the summer.” This adds to his rough and humble silhouette compared to some of the more polished knights and aristocrats. Parker goes on to say in the interview: “It was very important to have a faithful adaptation. I think George said that phrase to me about seven times in the first three minutes of our meeting in Santa Fe.”
Parker said in a previous A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms interview with ScreenRant that they made season 1 six 30-minute episodes to preserve the core of the 100-page novella. The story has a clear beginning, middle, and end, and from there, they fleshed out characters like Lyonel Baratheon (Daniel Ings), while exploring Dunk and Egg’s (Dexter Sol Ansell) relationship.
In the Game of Thrones universe, a faithful adaptation has become a loaded promise, partly because the original series hit a point where it had to build the story beyond the published books. Even years before the show ended, coverage was already debating the looming question of what happens when the TV series outpaces the remaining source material.
The first Game of Thrones spinoff, House of the Dragon, deals with this in a different way since it adapts a supposed historical text with contested accounts, rather than a conventional narrative. House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal has described their approach to Entertainment Tonight as trying to render George R. R. Martin’s history as faithfully as possible, while still acknowledging the practical demands of TV storytelling.
Concerning the story of The Hedge Knight, Parker and Claffey’s casual comments suggest that they would opt for Dunk having longer hair in season 2, showing that the show is willing to course-correct on something fans instantly associate with the book version of Ser Duncan the Tall. It also reinforces Parker’s insistence that the team is constantly thinking about what feels and is authentic.
With HBO already confirming A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms season 2 and the series moving forward into the events of The Sworn Sword, the adjustment also hints at where Duncan’s story goes next. The second novella places him on the road for a longer time and closer to the life of a wandering hedge knight. If the biggest early difference was Duncan’s appearance, this becoming more book-accurate is a big signal that the show will continue to align with Martin’s story.
The A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms season 1 finale will be released on HBO and HBO Max on February 22, 2026.
Release Date
January 18, 2026
Network
HBO
Showrunner
Ira Parker
Peter Claffey
Ser Duncan ‘Dunk’ the Tall
