January 16Jan 16 Remember back in 2013, 2014, thereabouts? You'd be at a party, and someone would mention Game of Thrones, and the conversation would bubble along for a bit, but you'd already stopped paying attention because you were girding your loins, knowing what was about to happen, because it always happened? Like clockwork?Namely: Someone in the group would snort with outsized, performative derision. "Uch, dragons," they would say, rolling their eyes. "I don't see how anyone could care about like, dragons and magic and all that made-up fantasy nonsense." (They didn't say "nonsense," of course; they used another word.)There have always been people who wear their disdain for the most popular aspects of pop culture as badges of honor, intelligence, discernment, etc. But I have good news for them: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, premiering Sunday night on HBO, is a show for you.Yes, it's about a knight (Peter Claffey) and his squire (Dexter Sol Ansell) trying to make their way.And yes, it's set in the fantasy world of George R.R. Martin, on the continent of Westeros, where both Game of Thrones and its prequel, House of the Dragon, largely take place. And eventually the Targaryen family does show up, and they're pretty much the same rich jerks they are in those other shows.But that's where the commonalities end. Instead of a sweeping, lore-dense epic filled with so many characters and locations that each episode needed to orient viewers with a world map (GoT) or a set of family trees (HotD), A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms requires no homework; it's a small, grounded story you can watch it without a wiki open on your phone.In fact, it's easier to start by listing the stuff A Knight of the Seven Kingdomsdoesn't have, before getting to the stuff it does.Read the rest here.
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