'A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms' Showrunner Explains Why He's Intentionally Ruining The Show With Disgusting Shock Scenes

A Knight of The Seven Kingdoms showrunner Ira Parker has explained why he’s ruining the show with disgusting and intentional shock scenes.

First, in the premiere episode, showrunner Ira Parker included a diarrhea scene to which even author George R.R. Martin balked at telling The Hollywood Reporter, “Yeah, that was a bit of a surprise.”

“Not to say that my characters don’t take [expletive], but I normally don’t write about them at any length. When I saw the rough cut, I wrote, ‘What is this? Where did this come from? I don’t know if we really need the [expletive].’ But [showrunner Ira Parker] liked it for whatever reason.”

Parker justified the scene’s inclusion saying, “So in the script it reads, ‘Duncan hears the hero theme in his head’ — which wasn’t necessarily going to be the Thrones theme at that moment. He was going to hear that call to greatness that we all hear that when we decide we’re going to do something really difficult that we’ve never done before. It’s a little scary and you feel like, ‘Okay, I’m gonna be the guy. I’m gonna do it!’ He picks up the sword. He’s thinking about it.”

“But then the reality of doing this, how difficult it is, how scary it is — that turns his guts to water. Because he’s not a hero yet, you know? All we’re trying to say here is that Dunk is not a hero yet,” he said. “He’s just a nervy kid with a nervous stomach — just like me. And as badly as you want to do something great, as soon as you actually have to go off and do it, it becomes trickier. And that’s what the whole season is for him.”

Now, in the show’s second episode, Parker included a full frontal scene of actor Danny Webb’s Ser Arlan of Pennytree.

Parker explained the inclusion of the scene, “I felt bad for Ser Arlan at some point. He was the only person who's ever looked out for Dunk and really stuck with Dunk. And he died on a muddy road in the middle of nowhere, was buried without ceremony, and now Dunk is going around trying to find somebody who just even remembers him — people that he served for, people that he bled for, these knights and these lords. They can't even remember his name. I felt the need to give him his one special thing, to channel a little Boogie Nights, I suppose.”

He then shared how the scene is ultimately pointless, "I can't say it zips past you at 100 miles per hour because, you know, it's out there, but it's not the story that we're telling. It is just a flourish of the story that we're telling. It changes nothing else.”

“In order to survive to be an Old Man Hedge Knight, you had to be made of solid [expletive] iron. Those were tough days for anyone, let alone a fighting warrior who lives under trees in the 14th century. So, you know, he's a small guy and he's slim. I figured he's got something that helps him get through those really intense battles. He's got a certain energy about him, if you will,” he concluded.

These aren’t bold artistic risks; they’re cheap, crass attempts to provoke reactions. And Parker clearly chose this filth over substance in those moments, and it shows. It’s straight-up disgusting and detrimental.

It is a complete turn off to many who were hoping for a solid “old-fashioned chivalric moral compass” as Empire Magazine’s John Nugent promised in his review.

In fact, the scenes are likely done to undermine that moral compass by normalizing immodesty and violating the virtue of chastity.

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