We haven’t even started the final season of Game of Thrones, but HBO has already greenlit another Thrones-based show to quench whatever thirst you thought you would have after the legendary show is over.The Hollywood Reporter notes that the new show will come by way of Jane Goldman (Kingsman: The Secret Service) and George R.R. Martin himself, and serve as a prequel to the events on Game of Thrones. The show has evolved from an idea back in November 2016 to likely one of multiple spinoff projects by HBO in May 2017 to receiving a pilot order from the network. New details about the focus of the show help shed light on what to expect.
The still unnamed project will take place thousands of years before Game of Thrones began, and offer insight into the events of the show’s eight seasons while illustrating "the world's descent from the golden Age of Heroes into its darkest hour."
We might get to see House Targaryen, who controlled the Seven Kingdoms hundreds of years before the events of the current show takes place. The show logline also mentions "mysteries of the East," which likely suggests the show will explore Valyria, the land where Targeryens originally come from.
HBO also specifically refers to “the Starks of legend” in the logline for the pilot, which probably means the show will explore some of the family trees of the characters we already know. Avid fans of the show will already have a few ideas: Bran the Builder, the man credited with building the Wall that divides White Walker territory from the rest of Westeros, among other notable structures in the seven kingdoms.
In Season 6, Game of Thrones leaned into some backstory that provided the foundation for the events of the show up to this point, most notably the fact that thousands of years ago, the Children of the Forest were the ones who created White Walkers in the first place when they created the Night King. The Hollywood Reporter notes that the prequel show will “focus at least in part on 'the true origin of the White Walkers.'” This could fuel at least one popular fan theory: the original White Walker, the Night King, was a member of House Stark.
In the meantime, details about the final season of Game of Thrones, set to premiere sometime next year, are still heavily under wraps. We only know what some of the show’s actors have told us, like the fact that Emilia Clarke’s final scene as Daenerys “f*cked her up,” or that Lena Headey thinks the season will make you tear up.
In reality, it’s is all a variation on the same theme: it’s going to be intense.
