“A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” like its predecessor series, offers a prescient glimpse into contemporary politics.
Foreign Policy
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For many viewers, the first season of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms seems like a breath of fresh Westeros air. Set around a century before the events depicted in Game of Thrones, it ditches the complex, generational power struggles and large ensemble casts that typify the original series and House of the Dragon, another prequel. Instead, HBO’s latest collaboration with fantasy author George R.R. Martin tells a shorter, simpler, sweeter tale. The series, which premiered in January, counts just six episodes taking place in a single geographic location. Focusing on a lowborn knight and his bald squire, the series seems disconnected from the byzantine background lore of Martin’s fully fleshed-out fictional universe.
But as with the show’s diamond-in-the-rough protagonist, Duncan (“Dunk”) the Tall, there is more to Knight than meets the eye. For one, the series checks in on a number of important noble houses—from familiar names like the Tyrells and Baratheons to new players like the Fossoways and Hardyings. We also learn that Dunk’s squire, Egg, is actually a member of the Targaryen royal family, Prince Aegon, who will one day sit on the Iron Throne, with Dunk as lord commander of his Kingsguard. By picking up after the events of Dragon and setting the stage for Thrones, the series isn’t a fresh start so much as the middle chapter in a larger, overarching narrative.
For many viewers, the first season of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms seems like a breath of fresh Westeros air. Set around a century before the events depicted in Game of Thrones, it ditches the complex, generational power struggles and large ensemble casts that typify the original series and House of the Dragon, another prequel. Instead, HBO’s latest collaboration with fantasy author George R.R. Martin tells a shorter, simpler, sweeter tale. The series, which premiered in January, counts just six episodes taking place in a single geographic location. Focusing on a lowborn knight and his bald squire, the series seems disconnected from the byzantine background lore of Martin’s fully fleshed-out fictional universe.
But as with the show’s diamond-in-the-rough protagonist, Duncan (“Dunk”) the Tall, there is more to Knight than meets the eye. For one, the series checks in on a number of important noble houses—from familiar names like the Tyrells and Baratheons to new players like the Fossoways and Hardyings. We also learn that Dunk’s squire, Egg, is actually a member of the Targaryen royal family, Prince Aegon, who will one day sit on the Iron Throne, with Dunk as lord commander of his Kingsguard. By picking up after the events of Dragon and setting the stage for Thrones, the series isn’t a fresh start so much as the middle chapter in a larger, overarching narrative.
Though categorized as fantasy, this narrative is deeply tied to current political developments in the West, particularly the United States. Dragons, ice zombies, and magic rituals aside, the customs and institutions of the Seven Kingdoms are mainly cobbled together from English medieval history, with the shape of Westeros itself bearing an unmistakable resemblance to the British Isles. But while this fictional universe was created from Martin’s armchair studies of the distant past, the stories that take place inside it have always looked towards the future. Thrones, Dragon, and Knight are all shining examples of what French historian Patrick Boucheron calls “political fictions”—art that reshapes political culture in its own, prophetic image. Westeros is not, as many critics have claimed, a mirror that reflects the functioning and misfunctioning of today’s society so much as a crystal ball that offers brief, often terrifying glimpses of what is yet to come.
A young boy and a man stand talking on a road surrounded by foliage as it rains.
Claffey (right) and Dexter Sol Ansell as Aegon “Egg” Targaryen in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.HBO
So far, each of the three shows has seen fiction transforming into fact. Thrones, which premiered in 2011 and ended in 2019, anticipated many features of the post-Obama era. The series’ supernatural antagonists, the White Walkers, function as metaphors for two topics central to contemporary U.S. politics: climate change and immigration. Though equal parts inevitable and apocalyptic, the coming of these malevolent humanoids is ignored and even worsened by politicians sticking to their selfish games at the expense of the greater good. As explained by Timothy Malone, a cultural studies scholar, the Walkers (called “Others” in the books) also function as stand-ins for immigrants of color as they exist in the conservative imagination, threatening to overrun a poorly defended border in the form of the Wall. Consequently, Jon Snow enlisting the help of the uncivilized but comparatively human Wildlings to stop the Walkers can be read as MAGA Republicans and other populist movements mobilizing poor whites against their even poorer, non-white neighbors.
More broadly, the trajectory of Westeros in Thrones resembles what Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney described in his 2026 Davos address as a “rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a harsh reality, where geopolitics … is submitted to no limits, no constraints.” In Westeros, Robert Baratheon’s rebellion against the Targaryens and usurpation of the Iron Throne does not usher in a new, stable dynasty. Instead, the Seven Kingdoms enter into a long and brutal civil war that decimates many noble houses and completely transforms the continent’s political makeup, culminating in the secession of the North.
Echoing Carney’s address, the chaos that consumes Westeros is above all the result of lords and ladies losing respect for Westeros’ version of the international rules-based order: Ned is executed without a hearing; his son Robb and wife Catelyn are murdered in violation of guest right during what becomes known as the Red Wedding; and Cersei blows up the Great Sept with green wildfire to avoid having to stand trial.
Real or fictional, each transgression of norms, laws, and unspoken agreements that underpin a society shifts the Overton window, paving the way for still greater transgressions. Before long, the powers that be don’t even pretend to fight for peace and justice anymore. Naked self-interest is paraded about in all its obscene glory; the signs, as Carney put it, are taken “out of the window.”
A young boy in medieval garb stands in front of a group of men with swords.
Ansell in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.HBO
House of the Dragon, the first season of which was released in 2022, can be seen to foreshadow Kamala Harris’ unsuccessful bid for the U.S. presidency and Donald Trump’s return to the White House. The prequel series, adapted from Martin’s (mock) historical account of the Targaryen dynasty titled Fire & Blood, chronicles the so-called Dance of the Dragons: a succession crisis that spirals into yet another civil war, this one fought within House Targaryen itself. As during the 2024 election, much of the drama revolves around gender: Princess Rhaenyra (though appointed as successor by her father, King Viserys) stands opposed by conservatives who deem the supposed gentler sex unfit to rule—in spite of the fact that their own champion, Rhaenyra’s half-brother Aegon (not to be confused with Egg), is far less capable.
If Rhaenyra’s predicament is a harbinger of Harris’ and Aegon’s supporters prefigure the language and logic of MAGA Republicans, Viserys’ role tracks that of former President Joe Biden. Both share blame for the disorder following their reigns. For all his achievements, Biden’s questionable health and failure to address working-class concerns provided ammunition for Trump’s reelection campaign. Viserys, too, tries in vain to prevent the conflict awaiting the realm once he leaves office (which in his case means dying). His natural inclination towards kindness and moderation; inability to take forceful, drastic action; and various debilitating illnesses allow his own subordinates to dispute Rhaenyra’s claim, hastening Westeros’ path toward a future he so desperately wished to avoid.
The trajectory of the succession war spells a bad omen for U.S. hegemony. As already revealed in Fire & Blood, neither Rhaenyra nor Aegon survives the war. More importantly, neither do any of their dragons. The fantasy equivalents of nuclear weapons, dragons allowed the Targaryens to conquer Westeros and secure their hold on absolute power. When the very source of their superior strength goes extinct, the survival of their dynasty is no longer guaranteed. Force and threat of force give way to concessions and sacrifices, and rebellions grow more frequent and difficult to contain, with Robert Baratheon’s finally succeeding.
Similarly, even if Trump and the MAGA movement were to disappear from political life, there is no going back to a more stable time. Their policies have permanently damaged the United States on the global stage. Mirroring contemporary U.S. politics, Dragon tells the story of how an unrivaled superpower loses its long-standing supremacy through internal conflict, giving way to a messy and unstable multipolarity.
Two men in armor and on horseback face each other as a crowd watches.
Claffey (left) and Finn Bennett as Aerion Targaryen in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.HBO
As the most recent HBO series, it remains to be seen which aspects of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms will resurface in the world of tomorrow. One possibility is that the show, in which low-born Dunk stands in for the working poor in the United States and—more broadly—non-elite citizenry, heralds a remobilization of the lower classes, a restoration of collective political agency, and a successful push to hold those in power accountable for their actions. When Egg’s older brother Aerion breaks the fingers of a puppeteer because he didn’t like her performance, Dunk, without thinking, rushes over to punch Aerion in the face. In Thrones, laying a hand on a member of the royal family would have earned Dunk an unceremonious death. Instead, Knight sees him defeat the corrupt and entitled prince in a hard-fought trial by combat, claiming for himself what Westeros’ flawed justice system would have denied him. Contrary to what its smaller scale and largely white male cast would suggest, Knight is neither decidedly apolitical nor particularly conservative in its themes. Rather than insisting on the immutability of a particular hierarchy, it instead demonstrates the virtue and merit of standing up against injustice.
Far from an “anti-woke” response to Dragon—whose focus on gender, along with the “race swapping” of certain characters, has drawn the ire of right-wing culture warriors—the novellas on which Knight is based might be the most woke storyline set in Westeros that Martin (an outspoken critic of Trump) has ever put on paper. Traveling the Seven Kingdoms with Dunk despite his father’s wishes, Egg comes to understand better than any Targaryen before him the plight of the continent’s disenfranchised smallfolk. Once on the throne, he proves himself a Westerosi FDR, a traitor to his class who passes reforms that greatly expand protections for the realm’s most vulnerable subjects. He also removes from power his tyrannical great-uncle Lord Bloodraven, an all-seeing sorcerer who presided over a merciless surveillance state for years. (Banished to the Wall, this character eventually becomes the Three-Eyed Crow, the mysterious old man who trains Bran Stark in Thrones.)
If Dragon warns of the lasting damage dealt by Trump’s leadership, Knight perhaps anticipates a partial rehabilitation of an order rooted in shared norms and values. The emphasis is on partial, though. Unlike FDR, Egg’s progressive policies are unable to cut through polarization. In fact, elite opposition to his agenda proves so persistent that he ends up losing his life in a doomed attempt to ritually resurrect the all-powerful dragons of yore. It’s a tragic end for a kindhearted character who, despite (or because of) his noble intentions, concludes that the only way he can change society for the better is through tyrannical coercion. Knight therefore foreshadows the Hegelian pendulum swinging back in the other direction, with Trump’s right-wing wave giving way to an equally seismic left-wing response.
The critical and commercial success of Thrones and, to a lesser extent, the two prequels may also have shaped U.S. politics by influencing the worldviews of people on both sides of the political spectrum. Among conservatives, the series’ reputation as historically grounded fantasy has reinforced the notion that medieval European society—a key component of U.S. cultural heritage—was unequivocally violent, sexist, and white: a place where people of color were virtually absent, sexual assault was the norm, and even the most highborn women lacked basic rights and freedoms. Many medievalists have stressed that the actual Middle Ages—especially the early centuries, when the church anointed female saints and many kingdoms were ruled by consequential queens—were not as patriarchal or racially homogeneous as Westeros would have us believe. Unsurprisingly, the historians’ well-informed pleas have struggled to compete with the gravitas of prestige TV, and they have been unable to stop people from insisting on the contrary.
More generally, the unprecedented grimness of Thrones seems to have inspired in its millions-strong audience a sense of fatalism, cynicism, and impotence that persists to this day. It’s one thing to watch good characters suffer and evil ones go unpunished, let alone be rewarded for their inhumanity. It’s quite another to watch it under the assumption that this is how the world used to work in the past and may thus still work in the present. Along with House of Cards, The Handmaid’s Tale, and other gratuitously gruesome shows that followed in its lucrative footsteps, Thrones ingrained in its viewers the notion that reality is unfair, unjust, and unchangeable. Whereas Dragon more closely investigates the structural causes of these conditions, Knight offers a call to change them, even if it doesn’t yet show where such change might lead.
