The moment I heard that Game of Thrones spinoffs were in the works, my brain immediately started trying to predict what they would be about. But while we don't yet have that information, what we do know is what the Game of Thrones spinoffs won't be about, from George R.R. Martin himself.
Using his LiveJournal, as he often does for these sorts of announcements, the author put to rest some of the bigger rumors he's heard as to the five — yes, five! — GoT spinoffs. Reportedly, they'll all be prequels and involve none of the known series characters. "We're not doing Dunk & Egg," he wrote. "Eventually, sure, I'd love that, and so would many of you. But I've only written and published three novellas to date, and there are at least seven or eight or 10 more I want to write."
He's referring to the stories of Dunk, aka future Kingsguard member Ser Duncan the Tall, and his squire Egg, aka future King of Westeros Aegon V Targaryen. They met 89 years before A Song of Ice and Fire begins, and their stories have appeared in the Martin-penned novellas The Hedge Knight, The Sworn Sword, and The Mystery Knight, with a total of 10 to 13 novellas planned, according to his post.
The reason he gives for not covering that same ground is that he doesn't want to have a repeat of what happened with ASOIAF and Game of Thrones, where the TV show gets ahead of the books. "When the day comes that I've finished telling all my tales of Dunk & Egg," he said. "Then we'll do a tv show about them... but that day is still a long ways off."
So essentially, there won't be a Dunk and Egg spinoff because Martin wants to avoid spoilers, and the reason for the next story that won't get a prequel is sort of the exact opposite.
We're not doing Robert's Rebellion either. I know thousands of you want that, I know there's a petition... but by the time I finish writing A SONG OF ICE & FIRE, you will know every important thing that happened in Robert's Rebellion. There would be no surprises or revelations left in such a show, just the acting out of conflicts whose resolutions you already know. That's not a story I want to tell just now; it would feel too much like a twice-told tale.
In this case, it would be the written series that would spoil the television show — or not even spoil it, but make it redundant. When you're working with a world that's as packed with characters and details as Westeros is, there's no reason to double up on any particular story.
So the bad news is that you're going to have to wait even longer to hear more about Dunk and Egg and Robert's Rebellion, which is a bummer for fans who are passionate about those stories. The good news, however, is that this announcement does make it seem like George R.R. Martin really has his fans' backs, which is reassuring going forward.
This isn't a guy who's just cashing his checks and throwing out stories willy-nilly. He's thinking carefully about what stories he wants told and what will benefit the world and the fanbase that he's created. That, my friends, is priceless.
