Copyright Screen Rant
Warning! Includes SPOILERS for The Mystery Knight, George R.R. Martin's novella on which A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms' future story is based! Ahead of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms' debut on HBO, series creator Ira Parker has revealed how he intends to introduce one of Game of Thrones' most hated villains into the upcoming prequel. When A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms season 1 premieres on HBO on January 18, 2026, the cast will primarily consist of new faces and figures, but George R.R. Martin's Dunk & Egg books have set up more familiar characters to appear as the story continues. Parker previously confirmed that A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms will feature some returning Game of Thrones characters, accounting for those who are already alive during the prequel set about 90 years before the original series. While Maester Aemon Targaryen is one of the major expected returning characters, there are a few other young Game of Thrones figures who play small roles in the Dunk & Egg novellas. That includes Walder Frey, who later becomes one of the franchise's most notorious villains after his part in the infamously gory Red Wedding. While he noted to Polygon that the character's introduction won't happen until much later in the series if HBO renews it, Parker already has a "favorite" idea regarding how he wants Walder Frey's future cameo in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms to go: "My favorite is, and look, it's not until the third book, but there's a baby Walder Frey. I have this, hopefully, really funny idea that people are probably gonna kill me for. But this idea that something's happening, like there's a runaway horse cart, and this baby's about to be killed, and Dunk intervenes and saves baby Walder Frey." Considering the future Lord of the Crossing turns out to be one of the most abhorrent characters in Game of Thrones, up until Arya feeds Walder Frey a pie made of his sons' remains and slits his throat, it would be a darkly ironic moment to see the Dunk save his life. Of course, the baby Walder is still an innocent at that point, but it would certainly be a divisive twist to have A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms' hero save the person who will cause some of the worst destruction to House Stark in Game of Thrones history. Though A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms season 2 and beyond have yet to be renewed by HBO, Walder Frey likely wouldn't appear until the end of season 2 or early in season 3. The future Lord Frey appears in the third Dunk & Egg novella, The Mystery Knight, which sees Dunk and Egg travel to a wedding between a Frey and a Butterwell, an event which four-year-old Walder also attends with his father. While Walder isn't specifically named in the novella, only being referred to as "a chinless boy of four whose nose was dripping snot," author George R.R. Martin later confirmed it to be a younger version of David Bradley's Game of Thrones character. The reference to Walder in The Mystery Knight is largely just a throwaway Easter egg, which offers more freedom for Parker to creatively include the future villain in the HBO series.
