As Game of Thrones goes from strength to strength on the small screen, ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms‘ is shaping up to be one of George R.R. Martin‘s most deeply personal shows yet. According to Ira Parker, the driving force behind the series, George R.R. Martin himself was a key partner in deciding how the tone, style and narrative priorities of the project would come together. And it was a deliberate choice – one that trumps the usual pressure to appeal to as wide an audience as possible from the get-go. Parker is upfront about the fact that he made a conscious decision to write the series with one person in mind: George R Martin.
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So why did Ira Parker decide to write the series with George R.R. Martin top of mind?
At Comic-Con, where Parker unveiled the series alongside George R. R. Martin and the main cast, the showrunner explained how he came to strike up this creative partnership. Talking to Temple of Geek afterwards, Parker revealed that he spent a whole week talking George through the emotional underpinnings that drive the characters and the story in The Hedge Knight.
‘I spent a week just having a deep chat with George to get under his skin and learn what he loved about these characters, about that story and The Hedge Knight,’ Parker said. His aim wasn’t just to do the source material justice – but to get at the heart of what made the original story so special to its creator. And it seems that George had a very clear idea of what he wanted the show to be: he really made it clear to Parker that he was looking for him to put in the effort to do a good job.
“I made this season for George”: a deliberate creative choice
Talking about his approach, the showrunner spelled it out quite explicitly – he deliberately chose to write with a specific person in mind, one that many writers would likely try to avoid because they feel pressure to appease a mass audience. But Parker reckons that’s a proven loser. ‘They say that when you write, you should never try to please everyone, and that you shouldn’t try to write for an audience. Just for one person.’
In this case, that one person was George. ‘Well, I made this season for George. And the fact that he likes it makes me very happy indeed’ Parker said. If George was happy with the result, that was all the validation he needed. And while clearly he hopes that audiences will respond to it too, he’s clear that maintaining consistency with the author’s original vision was the top priority. ‘I hope that it resonates with more people,’ he said – but the main goal was delivering on the author’s vision.
A collaboration that Parker just calls a ‘wonderful experience’.
Behind the creative bits, Parker really goes out of his way to sing Martin’s praises, saying he’s been a great addition to the whole project. “George has been a real benefit to the series,” he says, picking out the way Martin helped make better narrative decisions and stuck to the story’s core. “He’s been great to work with,’ he sums it up – “Collaborating with him has really been a wonderful experience.’ That’s a far cry from a lot of other shows based on Game of Thrones, where the original creator and the show are a lot further apart.
But in this case, they took the show to Comic-Con and had Martin there alongside the actors, Peter Claffey and Dexter Sol Ansell, which shows just how much of a team effort it was – author, showrunner and cast all chatting away. And even though it’s still a way off from hitting the screen, ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ is looking like a show that wants to recapture that close, personal feel of Martin’s stories the way he writes them. & it’s all thanks to the close collaboration that Parker reckons is key to doing the characters and world justice.
