All Series Must Die (Which Is Why There Are New Ones) -- The Game of Thrones Series Spinoffs

And then after a season or two they all team up in Game of Thrones Defenders and beat up Finn Jones one more time.

Oh I'm sorry -- five, not four.

http://grrm.livejournal.com/536859.html

I kinda love how he goes into deep detail on all this and then at the bottom in a bigger font size and all caps goes

I AM STILL WORKING ON WINDS OF WINTER

No doubt.

And as for how many of these will come to fruition:

Some of the reports of these developments seem to suggest that HBO might be adding four successor shows to the schedule to replace GAME OF THRONES. Decades of experience in television and film have taught me that nothing is ever really certain... but I do think it's very unlikely that we'll be getting four (or five) series. At least not immediately. What we do have here is an order for four -- now five -- pilot scripts. How many pilots will be filmed, and how many series might come out of that, remains to be seen. (If we do get five series on the air, I might have to change my name to Dick Direwolf).

Some stuff

https://grrm.livejournal.com/550336.html

bryan seems like a hardworking, productive guy. how is he at writing books?

after last season, I am about as excited about seeing a game of thrones spinoff season as i am to see the next star wars movie

um yesssss

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mbkxnp/hbos-game-of-thrones-prequel-the-long-night-george-rr-martin-vgtrn

GRRM:

Yes, this is a prequel, not a sequel. None of the characters or actors from GAME OF THRONES will appear in the new show. All of the successor shows we’ve been developing have been prequels, as I have mentioned before. This one really puts the PRE in prequel, since it is set not ninety years before GAME OF THRONES (like Dunk & Egg), or a few hundred years, but rather ten thousand years (well, assuming the oral histories of the First Men are accurate, but there are maesters at the Citadel who insist it has only been half that long). We’re very early in the process, of course, with the pilot order just in, so we don’t have a director yet, or a cast, or a location, or even a title. (My vote would be THE LONG NIGHT, which says it all, but I’d be surprised if that’s where we end up. More likely HBO will want to work the phrase “game of thrones” in there somewhere. We’ll know sooner or later)

dunno, but this sounds badass to me

"Thousands of years ago, there came a night that lasted a generation," Old Nan explained to Bran back in GoT's first season. "Kings froze to death in their castles, same as the shepherds in their huts. And women smothered their babies rather than see them starve, and wept, and felt the tears freeze on their cheeks... In that darkness, the White Walkers came for the first time. They swept through cities and kingdoms, riding their dead horses, hunting with their packs of pale spiders, big as hounds."

Jane Goldman as showrunner is...not promising

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNwwt25mheo

i guess the dragons are still rendering

matt smith? being scary? i always find that so unnerving because he seems like the kind of non-threatening doofus who furiously resents being a non-threatening doofus and then blows up a town.

I mean, without real time source material to contend with, this might be solid.

The source material was basically what made GoT good, though.

this does have source material—it’s based off the biggest section martin’s fire and blood, which is a history of the targaryen family, plus a few short stories that go into more detail, like “the princess and the queen”

Oh right, it might be good then.

My point was more about the “real time” descriptor, meaning they won’t be outpacing them source material during the run and have to scramble to tie shit together. Okay

lol stupid phone added the stray “Okay”

Yes, if based on completed GRRM material it probably will be decent (though of course I've personally yet to see evidence that he can conclude an epic fantasy story in a satisfying manner).

the story they're planning to tell here def has an ending, and a bit of a scouring of the shire-style epilogue which i doubt they'll include

Really enjoyed the first episode of House of the Dragon. Definitely up for lots more political machinations in this world. The young girl Targaryen was very good and Matt Smith looks like he's having (and will be) lots of fun.

Pretty wild - if not surprising - that the original show has finished and we now have the spin off and still no new book has been published.

forgot about this thread. there was a little discussion about it on the "but is it on netflix" thread. fully expect this spinoff series to end before the next book arrives

i'm debating about whether i should go back and read fire & blood again or just let the series surprise me. idk if i can resist lol

Rhaenyra looks eerily like John Mulaney imo? Am I crazy?

Thought the first episode was entertaining enough. I hope they find ways to broaden the sense of the world beyond just the inner turmoil of the Targaryens. My favorite thing about the GOT books and HBO series was the way the world kept getting bigger throughout them. So I hope we get scenes in the free cities and so forth.

xp i will never unsee that lol

I sort of got Elrond of Rivendell vibes from Rhaenyra.

Just watched E2 and am enjoying very much. Most of my friends are still riding high on the whole “game of thrones sucks now” vibes from the end of the series - so feel like I’m going this alone

i found the first ep reprehensibly gratuitous in its sex, violence and exposition. like if an AI was fed all the episodes and told to make a spin off.

Ha! Much less of it in e2. But the weird sad orgy in e1 did feel very unnecessary. Like they thought people would complain if there wasn’t an ott brothel scene.
The violence was just right tho, imho

Yeah I was a bit put off by the half assed tavern orgy scene and the various gory bludgeonings, like OK we get it, you're reminding us what this show was all about before it went all Iceman Cometh.

what i ultimately liked about GoT at its best was how lore was told through plot, how battles became epic iliad-esque dips into hell, where the quiet moments presented opportunities for exploring character development and not chances to be even freakier, how the shifts in locale and different storylines gave natural narrative gear shifting. The sadism and tits were to be endured more than celebrated. Now its like everybody's joffrey. WTF would i wanna watch that for.
but of course i'll probably watch the 2nd ep. I'm a tv masochist.

there's no gore or sex in episode two so don't worry

there is the possibility of an incendiary incident – but let's not spoil things.

I'm not squeamish! It's just kinda boring and predictable.
I'll watch ep 2 before I complain too much more but the telegraphing of the story direction (and eventual red herrings) are coming fast and furious in episode 1. Gosh, i wonder if those cuts the king is getting on the iron throne might be a more serious problem than they appear?

i feel like that's not supposed to be a surprise? they've made it pretty obvious, as they literally talked about the gash on his back that isn't healing.

this first season is gonna be unlike anything else that has ever aired on tv. from what i can tell, this season is gonna cover roughly 30 years of westerosi history, and they can't really compress the timeline because there are characters who factor heavily into the coming conflict who haven't even been born yet lol

xp, of course; i'm just using that as an example. The birthing murder scene was also obvious from 80 feet away. Every character's presumed arc is being played to the rafters right now to the point where bad guys are twirling mustaches "but they aren't really BAD so much as they are machiavellian do you see"
Wake me when there's an interesting conversation.

xp

yes, I was browsing The World of Ice & Fire last night while I was watching this and counted 12 Targaryen kings between this one and Robert, so this series has quite a lot of ground to cover.

Is that their intention? How many season is this supposed to be?

they're planning to cover a period of history called "the dance of the dragons." i won't elaborate or spoil, but the period they're looking to cover is about three decades, not the 20 or so decades until robert's rebellion.

yeah I assume there will be yet another proposed series after this one that fills in some of the gaps. I had thought we'd see the mad king in this series but we are way way way early for that.

yah, no mad king in this series

that's kind of disappointing

The confrontation at Dragonstone was good in this episode. Disappointed they're using p much the same theme music and titles concept from GoT though.

I'll give it time but its just feeling like more of the same so far. And I am really not liking Matt Smith. He's no Joffrey.

he's more jaime than joffrey, i think

I suppose so yeah. I just dont feel any genuine menace or malice from him, he just seems petulant.

TBH hes more like Viserys!

(er... GOT Vierys obv, not current one)

it doesn't help that everyone on both shows has the same name

Was also very disappointed with the theme xps

You'd think it wouldn't be too difficult to come up with something new that maybe used some of the familiar motifs of the original music a la the new Star Trek shows

I enjoyed the episode. The foot thing was def a “wtf - why couldn’t this just be incest” moment. I liked the ending - tho they were obviously milking the moment a little much.
I was wondering - do they store their battle armour in a locker by their dragons?!

i'll refrain from spoiling but it's quite a bit more of the same.

sounds good

now excuse me while i spend what little time I have on this earth harrumphing and “coxcomb!”-ing through a show i dislike

Mr Belvedere?

harrumph

streaks on the china never mattered before
who cares?

Jace and Luke bringing strong Ari and Uzi vibes in this new one

https://media.guestofaguest.com/t_article_content/gofg-media/2017/10/1/49766/lxyphjgl.jpg

one thing I don't totally buy...I feel like Alicent knows her kids totally suck. I feel like she'd be like "yeah sure, no, you be queen, my kids are terrible."

i'm still betting on a peace deal in this show, probably in season 2, episode 2, "let bygones be bygones"

After being pretty lukewarm on this all season, I thought the finale paid off well. Did in fact make me want to see the next season. Especially the prospect of dragon warfare.

On Alicent's kids my question is just, why are they such terrible kids? Their parents weren't psychopaths or anything, it's just kind of stipulated that they both turned out as assholes.

A big part of it is that they are the long awaited male heirs of Viserys, but then they have to always defer to Rhaenyra and her bastard children. On top of that, Aegon just seems to have been born fairly worthless, and Aemond has a chip on his shoulder for being bullied when he didn't have a dragon and for being parted from his eye once he stole a dragon for himself.

it's implied that aegon neglected his children with alicent and favored his grandchildren with rhaenyra. and alicent spent decades convincing them that rhaenyra would murder them if she ever became queen.

helaena seems like a sweet girl, tho

*viserys neglected his children with alicent, d'oh

also realizing that my post implies even greater incest than was already happening haha. need some coffee

did the show ever explain who Erryk and Arryk are? I haven't been able to figure out why we are supposed to see them as important in this thing.

one thing I don't totally buy...I feel like Alicent knows her kids totally suck. I feel like she'd be like "yeah sure, no, you be queen, my kids are terrible."

It's such a nice detail how Rhaenys never once bows to Rhaenyra. No one questions her on it, either, there's a silent understanding that giving her shit for it would be unfair and disrespectful. All conveyed subtly, no dialogue, just with Eve Best giving that little smirk of hers pic.twitter.com/NOta4SyMZ1

— Nix 🇺🇦 (@SnowyNix) October 22, 2022

*how much bigger

did the show ever explain who Erryk and Arryk are? I haven't been able to figure out why we are supposed to see them as important in this thing.

Helaena is cool btw, she’s clearly a prophetic dreamer like Viserys.

That ending shot was great, really enjoy Emma D’Arcy.

yes, but I'm under the impression that they are supposed to be very important characters and the reason for that is not particularly clear so far

xp

yes, but I'm under the impression that they are supposed to be _very important characters_ and the reason for that is not particularly clear so far

xp

erryk defected to rhaenyra, arryk stayed with aegon.

feel like they serve a thematic purpose to illustrate the silliness of the power struggle - the two sides of the conflict are so similar that literal identical twins wind up on opposite sides!

erryk was aegon's personal protector and grew so disgusted with the idea of him becoming king that he defected. arryk was all like "is rhaenyra that much better?" and "we swore an oath!"

feel like they serve a thematic purpose to illustrate the silliness of the power struggle - the two sides of the conflict are so similar that literal identical twins wind up on opposite sides!

that, and there's a chance they're going to sleep with each other

And now

A century before @GameofThrones, there was Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire, Egg.

Executive produced by George R. R. Martin, Ira Parker, Ryan Condal, and Vince Gerardis, A Knight of the #SevenKingdoms: The Hedge Knight has received a straight to series order. #StreamOnMax pic.twitter.com/MRPUke5Upt

— HBO Max (@hbomax) April 12, 2023

FINISH THE FUCKING BOOKS imho

not gonna happen

Oh dan m, such a sweet and simple naive faith you have

point: cool, maybe

counterpoint: this is approaching marvelesque levels of oversaturation

contrapunto: the bonfire of nerd rage is stoked for another decade, yaaay

I'm no sweet summer child, that's for sure xp

Oh ye of little faith.

He said just last week that he's 75% done with Winds of Winter so I'm sure it'll be just a few short years until we finally get to see it.

it's like elaborate performance art, makin us all ~~~really think~~~ about our need for definitive endings in fiction, and our desire to impose them on real lyfe as well, the decades-long build up of a narrative itch that will never be scratched by its happilyeverafter

They should adapt "Shovel Knight" next.

I predicted next year, 2024. for the new book awhile back, but I've given up hope on that front.

gap between #2 and #3 was 1 year
gap between #3 and #4 was 5 years
gap between #4 and #5 was 9 years

so I predicted 13 years for the next gap... putting us at 2011 + 13 = 2024

but if he's publicly stating 75% done, well, so not gonna happen

"75% done" does not mean that the remaining 25% will take the amount of time that is implied by the previous 75%.

I was 75% done writing a novel in 1993. You know what? It's still 75% done.

oh exactly, that’s why I’ve given up on 2024

honestly I don’t think we’ll ever see it. but as long as we don’t end up with Brandon Sanderson being dragged in to finish it…..

Funny that this is from a film released in 2017

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nwa6xgIZCv8

If we get to 2026, the gap between #5 and #6 will be more than the gap between #1 and #5 xps

But yeah, if it ever turns up great, if it doesn't, well I guess most people are past caring now

What are the other big series that are also stuck in limbo?

Gentleman Bastards and Kingkiller Chronicles spring to mind (last instalments on both of those also 2011) - any others?

Annnd here we go

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ8H5gqGA34