A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms Showrunner Admits To One Big 'Mistake' In The Show

You can't please everybody. In a stark contrast to the reputations of "Game of Thrones" and "House of the Dragon," the debut season of "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" has enjoyed a much warmer and smoother reception than its two bigger-budget predecessors. Still, as with any adaptation, diehard fans of the source material can't help but focus on the flaws. This wouldn't exactly be the first time fans of a show set primarily in Westeros complained about a major omission from the books, but it certainly feels notable that the showrunner himself has actually responded to the criticism — and, what's more, actually agrees with it.

"A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" co-creator and writer Ira Parker admitted as much in a recent Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) after one fan submitted a question about why the series omitted a key line of dialogue from author George R.R. Martin's novella, "The Hedge Knight." In episode 4, titled "Seven," Dunk (Peter Claffey) must assemble a group of knights to fight for him in a Trial of Seven after running afoul of the Targaryens. In the show, the onlooking crowd of nobles appears to be decidedly against him and his just cause. In the novella, however, Dunk is struck by the warm reception from the smallfolk. "Why? What am I to them?" he asks his armorer friend Steely Pate (played by Youssef Kerkour in the show) out of genuine emotion. "A knight who remembered his vows," he responds.

Asked why this pivotal line is missing in the adaptation, Parker owned up to this "mistake" and explained:

"Honestly, it was a mistake on my part. Not my first [and] not my last on this show. That scene was in the script at one point, then fell out."

Creating and overseeing entire productions ain't the easiest job in the world, but that goes triple for someone like "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" showrunner Ira Parker. As main creative lead on the ongoing HBO adaptation, his duties on any given day of production would likely have the rest of us running for the hills. Faithfully translating author George R.R. Martin's beloved source material is already daunting enough. Add to that all the pressures and responsibilities that go into a show of this scope and scale — from casting the two fan-favorite leads (and every member of the ensemble, for that matter) to designing the overall look and feel of this setting to finding the perfect locations to use — and it's a minor miracle that series like this ever make it across the finish line at all, let alone to such high praise.

That goes a long way towards explaining how and why something like this might've slipped through the cracks. It appears that this exchange, a perfect summation of what Martin is trying to convey through Dunk's arc in "The Hedge Knight," appeared in earlier drafts of the script before ultimately getting cut. Still, as much as readers may have been looking forward to this moment, Parker maintains that the overriding theme shines through in the series anyway. As he went on to say:

"I agree that 'a knight who remembers his vows' is the soul of this story, but I think that is still very much at the core of the show, even if I stupidly left out this scene ... it may not be said explicitly, but Dunk's actions remain the same."

As far as excuses go, we'd go so far as to say that Ira Parker has a pretty good one. No, it's technically not the first time that someone in the "Game of Thrones"-verse slipped up in a big way — may we always remember Daenerys Targaryen and how she "kind of forgot about the Iron Fleet" in the final season of "Game of Thrones." Compared to that blunder, however, this one is infinitely more forgivable. As obvious as it may be to diehard fans of the book to circle a line of dialogue like that and prioritize it in an adaptation, the truth is that this sort of thing happens all the time. Having seen Dunk live up to the knight's vows again and again throughout the series, viewers didn't necessarily need another reminder of this to be spoken out loud for anyone who may have missed the subtext.

More broadly, this speaks to a truth that online fanbases would be well-advised to take to heart: Not every adaptation must be a 100% recreation of its source material. Live-action remakes like "How to Train Your Dragon" mark one extreme in this spectrum, with writer/director Emerald Fennell's blatantly unfaithful "Wuthering Heights" retelling representing the other end. The vast majority of adaptations, however, reside somewhere in the middle, and "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" has shown how going off-book can lead to wonderful additions, like the scene-stealing and music-loving Lyonel Baratheon (Daniel Ings).

Would anyone honestly contend that this wasn't an improvement? We rest our case. "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" debuts new episodes on HBO and HBO Max every Sunday.