If you don’t closely follow the world of Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon, and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, you may be surprised to learn that, in the very month of its premiere, the series will already be filming its second season. What audiences will see in January has been finished for months — in fact, the series was originally meant to premiere back in 2024, in theory.

The delay is not directly related to strikes, but rather to a particular kind of caution: the collective trauma left by the ungracious ending of Game of Thrones. Since then, any return to Westeros has carried a lingering shadow of distrust. Not because of a lack of stories — quite the opposite — but because of the weight of accumulated criticism. Even so, it is curious (and somehow admirable) that HBO Max managed to keep images from the series almost entirely under wraps until now.

The premiere is set for January 18, 2026, and the story unfolds about a hundred years before the events of Game of Thrones. Here, no dragons rule the skies, and no monumental battles occur in every episode. There is drama, politics, and violence, of course — but the two central characters are, at this point in history, almost outsiders within the very mythology that surrounds them.

The proposal is, deliberately, the opposite of excess. And it already carries the official approval of George R. R. Martin, who is, not coincidentally, openly critical of certain adaptation choices made in House of the Dragon. The first images suggest this different tone: shared tables, celebrations, dusty roads, faces not yet fully sculpted by tragedy.

Peter Claffey embodies Dunk with an imposing physical presence and an unexpected kind of gentleness, while Dexter Sol Ansell gives the legendary Egg a rare blend of innocence and precocious intelligence.

Around them, key figures of the Targaryen lineage already emerge: Sam Spruell as Maekar, the severe father; Bertie Carvel as Baelor, already exercising power through visible symbols; and Finn Bennett as the insufferable Aerion — the kind of character who almost makes Joffrey seem like a harmless spoiled child. The Iron Throne is not yet under direct dispute, but the destinies of the Targaryens are already being quietly rewritten.

We also meet the almost playful charisma of Daniel Ings as Lyonel Baratheon, the luminous presence of Tanzyn Crawford as Tanselle, and the nearly ingenuous honesty of Shaun Thomas as Fossoway.

HBO’s confidence in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is confirmed by the most concrete gesture possible: production on the second season begins even before the first has premiered. Soon after, the third season of House of the Dragon will arrive, once again plunging into the bloody past of the Targaryens on an epic scale.

By contrast, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is a smaller, more contained, almost intimate production — and precisely because of that, one of the boldest bets Westeros has ever made.