SPOILER ALERT: This article contains key plot points from tonight’s first episode of HBO‘s A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.

The opening scene of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms immediately reveals this is a Westeros not seen before on screen, says the HBO series’ showrunner, Ira Parker.

In an interview with Deadline, Parker said his series acts as a “natural on-ramp for anyone who did not come to Game of Thrones the first time around, who was scared off by violence and brutality.”

The scene is question sees Dunk digging a shallow grave for his recently-deceased master, hedge knight Ser Arlan of Pennytree, before laying him to rest in the rain and saying a few awkward words, interspersed with some comic (but painful) cutaways that highlight their father-son relationship. His voice breaks as he says, “I wish you didn’t die, Ser.”

Then comes the comedy. The sun has replaced rain the following day as Dunk, lost and alone, talks to his three horses about what’s next, settling on a plan to travel to a tourney at Ashford Meadow. The rousing Game of Thrones series music begins to play before a sharp cut sees Dunk defecating by the tree.

Parker said the scene plays a vital role in establishing the series as separate to GoT and House of the Dragon. “We don’t open up with a camp full of mutilated people and we don’t end with a kid getting thrown out of a window. We open with Dunk by a really nice tree,” he added.

“It’s a sad moment, but Dunk is such an easy person to like and understand. He is chasing a dream. He wants to go and become a knight, but this is going to be a very difficult thing. We’ve all had that moment in life when we decide we’re going to go off and try something that is probably harder than what I’m capable of.”

The series, completely told from Dunk’s perspective, sees the young knight take Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell) as a squire after a comical first meeting at an inn. They go on a wild adventure that takes them to the tournament and introduces princes, princesses and smallfolk along the way. While the comedic moments continue, it’s no spoiler to say harsher, more violent moments are to come.

“Hopefully we get to what Game of Thrones fans love so much about Westeros, which is a lot of comedy and great characters butting right up against tragedy, and those really brutal, honest, terrible fight sequences that will hopefully impress some people,” said Parker.

“Swinging with different tones”

Parker, Seven Kingdom‘s showrunner, co-creator and exec producer who got his GoT education as a writer on House of the Dragon‘s first season, was full of praise for George R.R. Martin and the Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas on which Seven Kingdoms is based, but their format also posed a tonal challenge. “We were following the novella. That was our guiding light,” he said.

“The novella is quite different from the main series of books and the histories of Fire & Blood [Martin’s novel telling the history of the ruling Targaryen family] and the tone is a little different. It’s tricky sometimes because when you’re swinging with different tones and different moments it doesn’t always come out looking pretty in the end.”

“The truth is, for me at least, this is a very grounded, gritty look at what this experience would have been like for a hedge knight and an up-jump squire riding into a new town where he doesn’t know anybody. He’s walking into Madison Square Garden to play for the Knicks tonight and he’s never played before.”

When Dunk arrives at Ashford Meadow, he witnesses the best knights and jousters in Westeros training, drinking and fighting. He’s called a “farmer” and “like a knight… but sadder,” and he resorts to talking with his horses. The sequence is entirely designed to portray his feelings as an outsider.

“It’s incredibly daunting and when he sees up close how good these people are, the fear it strikes in his heart is so overwhelming that any reasonable person might say, ‘I’m gonna go back to King’s Landing and join the City Guard’,” said Parker. “But there is just something special that we love about Dunk that forces him to go forward and into all of these weird and wonderful places.

“One of my favorite things that Dunk – and Peter does – is when he is meeting these weird and eccentric nobles, lords and ladies who have very specific weirdnesses themselves as fully developed characters coming into his world, he almost plays it like he doesn’t known if he’s the butt of the joke or not. Is this person being serious?”

Parker said that he had not tried to play the episode for laughs, but that Dunk’s situation, the “natural stiffness” Claffey plays him with and his odd couple friendship with Egg means comedy follows.

“Hopefully we’re not actually telling jokes, but setting people up very naturally – two people who don’t understand each others’ world,” said Parker. “In George’s best work, tragedy butts right up against the hopeful moments: Just when you think things are going right, they take a turn. That was our only goal here, to represent that experience naturally.”