Showrunner Ira Parker says he wants to include a young Walder Frey in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

The upcoming Game of Thrones prequel, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, will show us a very different side of Westeros, as described in George R. R. Martin’s novellas The Tales of Dunk and Egg. The first three novellas take place in the aftermath of a war, during a period when the infamous Blackfyre Rebellions were still ongoing. It is still set in the same universe as HBO’s Game of Thrones series.

This means there’s always a chance that we may see familiar characters from that show appear in this one. One possibility is Maester Aemon, the blind old maester of the Night’s Watch, who was a Targaryen and a brother to Egg, the future King Aegon V. In the books, Ser Duncan and Egg encounter Aemon while he is still training to become a maester in Oldtown, where he gifts them a mule named Maester.

When Martin was asked which Game of Thrones characters he would like to see appear in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, he mentioned that it would be funny to see Jaime and Tyrion Lannister — Jaime participating in tourneys and Tyrion betting on them. This isn’t possible, as both were born decades later, though their father, Tywin, served as a cupbearer to Aegon V (Egg) after his ascension.

However, there is one prominent character from Game of Thrones and A Song of Ice and Fire who does appear, at least briefly, in the text of the novellas — Walder Frey, the old lord of the Twins during the War of the Five Kings. Showrunner Ira Parker is aware of this, saying that he wants to include that cameo in the show as well.

Ira Parker says Walder Frey may show up in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms series

Ira Parker, the showrunner of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, has said in an interview with Polygon that he wants to include a cameo of Walder Frey in the series, though it technically wouldn’t appear until the third season. The old lord of the Twins appears in the Dunk and Egg novellas as a young child. Parker hinted at what kind of role he wants the character to have, saying that fans would probably hate him for it. He joked that he wants to show Dunk saving young Walder as he’s about to be run over by a cart, saying:

“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.”

That small change would have a darkly ironic outcome — if Dunk saves young Walder Frey, then he is indirectly responsible for the infamous Red Wedding orchestrated by Lord Walder during the War of the Five Kings. That event resulted in the deaths of Catelyn Stark, Robb Stark, and, in the TV version, Lady Talisa and her unborn child. Parker’s humorous addition could turn out to be controversial, as he rightly predicted.

Read More: 13 details you may have missed in the A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Season 1 trailer

When does Walder Frey appear in the novellas?

Credit: Mike S. Miller / Bantam Books

Walder Frey appears in the third book of the series, The Mystery Knight, which follows Dunk and Egg as they attend a tourney at Whitewalls, where Lord Butterwell’s wedding is taking place. Unknown to them, the wedding is actually a cover for the Second Blackfyre Rebellion, orchestrated by the supporters of the late Daemon Blackfyre, who wish to put his son Daemon II Blackfyre on the throne instead of the ruling monarch, Aerys I Targaryen. The story ends with Dunk and Egg uncovering the plot and helping Bloodraven stop the rebellion before it can begin.

The story also contains a brief cameo that fans believe to be a young Walder Frey. The current Lord of the Crossing, who is simply named as ‘Lord Frey,’ arrives with his heir — a four-year-old boy described as “a chinless boy of four whose nose was dripping snot.” The heir is widely accepted to be young Walder Frey, even though he is not named directly in the text. Lord Frey’s daughter, meanwhile, is the bride marrying Lord Butterwell at the feast.

During the celebrations, the boy interacts with the wedding entertainment — a troupe of dwarfs and a pig on wheels — and causes a commotion. The text reads: “The child had the most irritating laugh Dunk had ever heard, a high shrill hiccup of a laugh that made him want to take the boy over a knee or throw him down a well.”

Walder Frey’s role in The Mystery Knight

Walder is present during a toast where Lord Frey proposes that his daughter will give Lord Butterwell a grandson before the year is out, saying, “Twins would suit me,” jokingly referring to the castle he rules.

It was later rumored that Lady Frey, Walder’s sister, was married off after her younger brother caught her having intimate relations with a servant at the Twins. The story claimed they were found in the kitchens, naked and covered in flour, on the slab where dough was rolled.

Although his role in The Mystery Knight is small, it foreshadows his later prominence and shows how House Frey’s ambition was already present generations earlier. The heir’s behavior in the hall — rude, loud, and self-assured — mirrors Lord Walder’s personality in later years.

In both the books and the show, he is extremely old while he is Lord of the Twins. The fact that he appears as a small child during A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is remarkable, considering the timeline. Aegon V eventually ascends the throne, and his descendant Aerys II, known as the Mad King, also dies during Robert’s Rebellion. In the books, Aerys is Aegon’s grandson, while in the show, he is portrayed as his son.

So while Egg and Walder were both children during The Mystery Knight — Egg being about twelve and Walder around four — Walder would live on to see Aegon’s descendants rise and fall, surviving into old age. By the time of Game of Thrones, he had outlived kings, queens, and even some of his own grandchildren, ruling the Twins with the same smug arrogance that annoyed Dunk at Whitewalls.

Read More: George R.R. Martin says A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Season 1 is “very similar” to what he wrote