Game of Thrones’ Newest Star Delivers a Bold Take on The Lord of the Rings

George R.R. Martin famously skewers the tidy questions fantasy often ignores with a single line: “What was Aragorn’s tax policy?” The point isn’t merely that Aragorn ruled for a century after J.R.R. Tolkien’s tale — it’s that Tolkien’s saga tends toward grand, noble arcs, while Martin’s fiction dwells in the grubby, complicated realities of power and consequence.

HBO’s upcoming Game of Thrones spinoff, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, follows the beloved duo Dunk (Peter Claffey) and Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell) as they wander a Westeros where the Targaryens still sit the Iron Throne but dragons are gone. Speaking at New York Comic Con, Claffey offered his take on one of the clearest contrasts between Martin’s world and Tolkien’s: what it actually means to be a knight.

“George’s world is saturated with darker, more adult themes — there’s treachery, ambition, and a lot of moral compromise,” Claffey said. “People advance by betrayal; look at how Petyr Baelish prospered. So when someone embodies old-fashioned knightly virtue in Westeros, it stands out. Dunk’s insistence on upholding a code that many have abandoned makes him admirable. In my view, knighthood in Westeros is a far more treacherous path than in Middle-earth.”

Afterwards Claffey attempted to soften his remarks — aware of how fans of both trilogies might take offense — and Polygon followed up with him to unpack his comparison between knighthood in Game of Thrones and in The Lord of the Rings.citeturn0search0

For Claffey, the gulf largely comes from tone. “[In Middle-earth] there’s a stronger sense of honor,” he explained. “Tolkien’s saga centers on lofty, almost mythic morality. Outside of the great evils like Morgoth or Sauron, the conflict often reads like fairy-tale evil versus virtue. Martin’s Westeros, by contrast, revels in ambiguous characters and moral corrosion.”

Claffey doesn’t argue that being a knight is inherently harder in Westeros; he says it’s messier. “To hold to an ethical code in that environment gives you a constant, distracting fog — you’re navigating political currents that can drown a decent person,” he said, invoking how vows and ambition warp knights throughout the franchise: from Ser Criston Cole in House of the Dragon to Jaime Lannister in Game of Thrones, both of whom show what oathbound service can do to a person.

Still, Claffey concedes a clear winner in a straight contest. “Aragorn would trounce Dunk any day,” he laughed. “I reckon George would agree.”

Source: Polygon