I recently finished A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms and almost immediately started reading the Dunk and Egg stories it’s based on, which probably tells you everything you need to know about how much I enjoyed it.
What caught me off guard though was how much it reminded me of Kingdom Come: Deliverance.
Both stories spend their time looking at what being a knight actually means when you strip away the romantic nonsense. Not the shining hero version. The muddy, exhausting, socially complicated version.
That’s something A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms does brilliantly. After years of Game of Thrones showing us kings, queens and continent shaping wars, this story zooms right in on one hedge knight with almost no status trying to figure out where he fits. Dunk isn’t navigating the fate of kingdoms. Half the time he’s just trying not to get himself killed by people with far more power than he has.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance starts in a very similar place. You don’t arrive as some legendary warrior. You’re Henry, the son of a blacksmith who can barely swing a sword without embarrassing himself. The game makes sure you feel that too. Early fights are messy and awkward because Henry genuinely doesn’t know what he’s doing yet.
Both characters begin completely out of their depth and spend most of their stories trying to survive worlds that are built for people far more powerful than they are.
What makes them compelling though isn’t just that they struggle. It’s how they respond to it.
Dunk spends most of the series getting battered by circumstances and people far above his station, but he never really loses that stubborn sense of decency. He’s not politically clever and he’s definitely not the most refined knight in Westeros, but he has a very clear idea of what is right and wrong.
The world tests that constantly.
The finale really drives it home. During the trial by combat he literally gets stabbed and still keeps fighting. Even then he refuses to become the kind of knight Westeros often rewards. There are moments where he absolutely could kill his opponent and probably walk away justified.
He doesn’t.
That moment says a lot about the kind of story this is trying to tell. In a world where brutality and betrayal often win, Dunk choosing restraint feels almost radical.
It also makes him feel like a direct counterpoint to the tone established in Game of Thrones. That series built its reputation on the idea that honour is dangerous and that morally upright characters tend to lose.
Dunk is different.
He takes the hits. He gets manipulated. He gets stabbed in the middle of a battle. And somehow he still comes out of it fundamentally decent.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance lands in a similar place with Henry. His life gets completely upended early on and the game spends a lot of time reminding you that he’s surrounded by nobles, soldiers and knights who outrank him in every possible way.
Yet Henry never really becomes cynical.
He still wants to help people. He still believes in doing the right thing even when the world keeps knocking him down. Like Dunk, he gets bruised, humiliated and occasionally completely outplayed.
But he keeps going.
And honestly that might be the biggest thing these stories have in common. Medieval settings often lean hard into cynicism where everyone is corrupt and goodness feels naive.
Dunk and Henry push back against that.
They aren’t perfect knights and they definitely aren’t unstoppable warriors. They’re just decent people trying to live by a code in worlds that constantly challenge it.
And somehow that ends up being far more compelling than another grim anti hero cutting his way through enemies.