Caked up knights & queer longing?

This past weekend, HBO took us back to Westeros for the premiere of A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms, a prequel series to the smash-hit Game Of Thrones that feels notably gentler & smaller-scale, yet has all the makings for another great fantasy adventure.

While author George R.R. Martin’s A Song Of Ice And Fire series and its TV adaptations haven’t always been the kindest to their queer characters (you need an entire graveyard for all the gays they’ve buried), they often offer up plenty for us to tune in for, from bad*ss LGBTQ+ stars (like House Of The Dragon‘s Emma D’Arcy) to some knightly eye candy.

And especially on the latter front, A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms really delivers!

Set 100 years before the events of Game Of Thrones, while the Targaryen dynasty sits on the Iron Throne, the series introduces audiences to the lowly hedge knight Ser Duncan the Tall, a.k.a. “Dunk” (Peter Claffey), as he buries his fallen mentor.

Without a master to serve, he travels to the nearby town of Ashford in hopes of joining the jousting tournament, where he meets a young kid named Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell) who he reluctantly makes his squire. As the unlikely pair look to prove themselves as heroes, “great destinies and enemies await.”

Our eyes & ears into this new corner of Westeros history, Ser Dunk is a protagonist worth rooting for: an underdog with a heart of gold—who’s certainly fun to look at, too!

It’s barely only 20 minutes into the premiere episode that he stops to bathe in a stream, dropping trou to get all cleaned up. Talk about an eyeful; that is one caked up knight! Naturally, the gays have no choice but to stan: