A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS Corrects a Longstanding Targaryen Detail George R.R. Martin Hated
HBO’s A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms quietly delivers something that longtime fans and A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin have wanted for years. It isn’t a massive plot twist or a shocking death. It’s a small visual detail that speaks volumes about how seriously this series takes its source material.
Martin’s relationship with adaptations of his work has always been complicated. Game of Thrones famously ran past the books and made sweeping changes along the way, some of which the author has clearly wrestled with over time.
While Martin has often kept his criticisms measured, he’s been consistent about one thing. He wants adaptations to respect the rules of the world he built. That tension became far more public with House of the Dragon, especially after Season 2 altered the Blood and Cheese storyline and removed Maelor Targaryen entirely. Martin even published, then deleted, a detailed critique of those changes.
That’s why A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which Martin co-created with showrunner Ira Parker, feels like such a course correction. The series adapts the Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas, and from the jump it’s clear fidelity matters here.
Episode 2 introduces members of House Targaryen, including Baelor, Maekar, Valarr, and Aerion. Along with them comes their sigil, and for the first time in a long while, it’s right.
The three-headed dragon on the banner has two legs, not four. That’s exactly how Martin has always envisioned it. Early seasons of Game of Thrones used the correct two-legged design, but later switched to a four-legged version. House of the Dragon followed suit. It’s a change that’s bothered Martin enough for him to publicly call it out in 2024, writing:
“I designed my dragons with a lot of care. They fly and breathe fire, yes, those traits seemed essential to me. They have two legs (not four, never four) and two wings.. Four-legged dragons exist only in heraldry. Much of the confusion about the proper number of legs on a dragon has its roots in medieval heraldry.
“In the beginning both versions could be seen on shields and banners, but over the centuries, as heraldry became more standardized, the heralds took to calling the four-legged beasties dragons and their two-legged kin wyverns.
“No one had ever seen a dragon or a wyvern, of course; neither creature actually existed save in legend, so there was a certain arbitrary quality to this distinction… and medieval heralds were not exactly renowned for their grasp of zoology, even for real world animals.
“Dragons DO exist in the world of Westeros, however (wyverns too, down in Sothoryos), so my own heralds did not have that excuse. Ergo, in my books, the Targaryen sigil has two legs, as it should. Why would any Westerosi ever put four legs on a dragon, when they could look at the real thing and could [count] their limbs?
“My wyverns have two legs as well; they differ from the dragons of my world chiefly in size, coloration, and the inability to breath fire. (It should be stressed that while the Targaryen sigil has the proper number of legs (two), it is not exactly anatomically correct.
“The wings are way too small compared to the body, and of course no dragon has three heads. That bit is purely symbolic, meant to reflect Aegon the Conqueror and his two sisters).
“FWIW, the shows got it half right (both of them). GAME OF THRONES gave us the correct two-legged sigils for the first four seasons and most of the fifth, but when Dany’s fleet hove into view, all the sails showed four-legged dragons.
"Someone got sloppy, I guess. Or someone opened a book on heraldry, and read just enough of it to muck it all up. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. A couple years on, HOUSE OF THE DRAGON decided the heraldry should be consistent with GAME OF THRONES, but they went with the bad sigil rather than the good one. That sound you heard was me screaming, ‘no, no, no.’ Those damned extra legs have even wormed their way onto the covers of my books, over my strenuous objections.”
There’s an irony to A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms being the show that finally gets this right. There are no dragons in the story. By this point in Westerosi history, they’ve been gone for more than 50 years.
Most of the characters have never seen one. And yet, the heraldry still reflects the truth of the world, even if House Targaryen itself is working from memory and tradition rather than living creatures.
On its own, the sigil fix might seem small. In context, it signals something bigger. Parker and Martin clearly have a strong working relationship, and that shows in how the series handles changes. Adjustments feel thoughtful rather than careless.
Moments like Dunk drinking and dancing with Lyonel Baratheon expand on the page without breaking it. The novellas are lean, and many characters need more space for actors to fully inhabit them. The show fills in those gaps in ways that feel natural and earned.
That care extends to the dialogue. Large chunks of conversation in the first two episodes are lifted straight from the novellas, including both the humor and the heavier exchanges. The characters Dunk and Egg feel exactly like they should, and the wider world feels instantly familiar.
The arrival of the Targaryens also raises the stakes. While the scope is still smaller than Game of Thrones or House of the Dragon, their presence changes the game for Ser Duncan the Tall and Egg. Dunk’s earlier encounter with Aerion already hinted at trouble, and now that the table is set, the story starts to stretch beyond what either of them expected.
Fixing the Targaryen perfectly sums up what A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is doing right. It respects the details, It listens to its creator, and it proves that even the smallest corrections can make the creator of the series and fans of the franchise happy.