How the Battle of the Bastards is Like Seven Noble Knights

The photos in this post are publicity stills for Game of Thrones. 

I think most GoT fans were thrilled with Season 6, Episode 9, "The Battle of the Bastards." It held a special fascination for me because portions of it echoed my novel, Seven Noble Knights.

When Jon Snow was riding around with his troops, I realized for the first time that with the new hairdo and tidy beard, and especially wearing piles of furs, Kit Harington is a dead ringer for my hero, Mudarra. I watched with keen interest to see this Mudarra doppelganger play out some of the battle scenes from Seven Noble Knights. I'll go over them in the order they appear in my book.

This terrifying surround tactic takes place in Chapter VIIII, although I dare say it's even worse in Seven Noble Knights because the numbers are more drastically mismatched. You'll be wondering how they get out of it! So as not to spoil my novel, I'll just say it doesn't happen the way it does in GoT.

If I wasn't sure Seven Noble Knights had snuck onto the small screen without anyone's knowledge, this scene sealed it for me. In Seven Noble Knights, my heroes are unhorsed and overwhelmed, faced with markedly similar scenes to this one, and you're still rooting for them against these incredible odds.

When Jon Snow and Ramsay Bolton meet the day before the battle, I thought I was watching a scene from later in Seven Noble Knights, when Mudarra proposes single combat to decide the battle. This is something nice guys proposed in the Middle Ages to spare lives and resources. Again here, GoT doesn't follow the plot of my book, and Iwan Rheon doesn't look like my bad guy, Ruy Blásquez, either.

But wow, the good guy side of the aisle was insanely similar to what I had imagined. I don't know if I can explain what it feels like to have something you've written acted out on film, even unintentionally. In this case it was immensely exciting and satisfying, with a little bit of disconcerting because I know no one on the GoT staff has read Seven Noble Knights.

Let's hope this isn't the closest scrape Seven Noble Knights has with the moving pictures medium.

I'll be putting excerpts from Seven Noble Knights at the link as soon as I receive my galley proofs (yes, it's at that exciting stage!). You may see a battle scene that looks a little familiar if you're a GoT fan.

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Awash in Talent

by Jessica Knauss

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