A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms has saved the Game of Thrones universe

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms has saved the Game of Thrones universe Stuart Heritage The original show might have ended on a whimper and the first spin-off might have disappointed but this lighter, shorter series has been a genuine joy I can’t speak for anyone else, but I first entered into A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms extremely gingerly. Game of Thrones (as we all know) all but cratered during its final season, to the point that watching it almost felt like a punishment. House of the Dragon was somehow even worse, for reasons we’ll come to shortly. And so, presented with an opportunity to dip my toes back into Westeros, I hesitated. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me repeatedly due to a capitalist desire to permanently entrench all existing IP in order to minimise subscriber churn, shame on me. What’s more, A Knight for the Seven Kingdoms looked terrible . All available clips looked so grimly lighthearted, with all the comedy coming from big heroic moments being undercut with silliness. Want to see a classic Game of Thrones archetype get lost on the way out of an important meeting? Check. Want to see him suffer through explosive diarrhoea behind a tree? Also check. Intentionally or otherwise, the series seemed to market itself as a low-rent spoof of what came before; the Meet the Spartans of Game of Thrones. How wrong I was. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms has just ended its (refreshingly brief) run, and it may well qualify as my favourite Game of Thrones project yet. The previous shows all came with an element of “eat your vegetables”, more interested in laying out the intricacies of multigenerational dynasties than propulsive plot. Watching an episode, especially at first when you’re plunged headfirst into a maelstrom of ancestors and rivalries and several thousand characters who all sound like they have the exact same name, was dizzying. Until now, Game of Thrones has very much been for people who already know the books inside out. Anyone else? There’s Wikipe...