Judging from the trailer for HBO Max’s new upcoming Game of Thrones prequel A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, the show is going for a lighter tone than its predecessors.

Full of jousting and jesting and light on the castle intrigue, the trailer shows the titular Knight, Ser Duncan (aka Dunk, played by Peter Claffey) and his squire/ward Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell) angling to win a jousting tournament so Dunk, merely a hedge knight, can prove himself worthy of greater things.

The show’s official description reads, “A century before the events of Game of Thrones, two unlikely heroes wandered Westeros … a young, naïve but courageous knight, Ser Duncan the Tall, and his diminutive squire, Egg … Set in an age when the Targaryen line still holds the Iron Throne and the last dragon has not yet passed from living memory, great destinies, powerful foes and dangerous exploits all await these improbable and incomparable friends.”

Season one of Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is taken from “The Hedge Knight.” written in 1998, which is the first novella from Martin’s Tales of Dunk and Egg collection. Should the show get more seasons, the stories could come from other works in that collection, like “The Sworn Sword” (2003) and “The Mystery Knight” (2010). 

Because the show is set before the events of either Game of Thrones or the other prequel produced in the world of Westeros, House of the Dragon, it won’t be necessary to binge either series to be able to follow Knight.

Creator Ira Parker, who sat on a panel at New York Comic Con with Claffey, Ansell, and others, hinted that the trailer’s lighter tone may not be an indication of how the show as a whole will play out.

“I think the biggest thing about this show — finding its place sandwiched between these two [other shows] — was just tone, tone, tone, for us,” Parker said. “These novellas have so much hope, but they also have really brutal elements of this world that I think we’ve all come to love in Westeros, where anything can happen. There is a level of unpredictability that resonates with people because that’s just how your life is.”

Continued Parker, “Following Dunk on this journey — a very grounded, gritty, earthy, ground-up sort of feel, we’ve never had this perspective before of somebody who grew up in the slums of King’s Landing as an orphan who didn’t have a name, didn’t have an inheritance and didn’t have any money; doesn’t have the best training in the whole world. He’s just trying to make it. He’s trying to go out and do something hard that’s he’s never done before. He’s out of his comfort zone. And hopefully, a lot of that will resonate with our audience.”