There have been quite a few comments made in recent weeks that have revealed George R. R. Martin’s feelings when it comes to how the Game of Thrones series based on his A Song of Ice and Fire novels panned out on TV. While it seems that the author was a bit disgruntled by the turn the series took once it passed the point of his published work, it appears that he also is surprised to learn that HBO have so many potential spin-offs in production at the same time.
Game of Thrones became an iconic series from the moment it aired its first episode, but by the time the last season rolled around a number of issues had presented themselves that derailed the almost perfect run the show had up to that point. It was always expected that by the time Game of Thrones caught up to the published works of Martin, that the author would have put out at lease his penultimate book in the series, but as time marched on and seasons came and went it became quickly apparent that the show was going to surpass the novel series quite a way before Martin managed to complete The Winds of Winter let alone the final book, A Dream of Spring.
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Even with the final season splitting fans’ and critics’ opinions, HBO was quick to start discussing exactly where they could take the IP next and the obvious choice was always going to be to delve into the history of the families featured in the main show. With House of the Dragon arriving next year and bringing us the history of the Targaryen family centuries before we were introduced to Emilia Clarke’s Daenerys Targaryen in the flagship series, it seems that George R. R. Martin was surprised to find out there are numerous other prequels also being considered.
In an interview snippet taken from the new book Tinderbox: HBO’s Ruthless Pursuit of New Frontiers, Martin is quoted as saying:
While the “Dance of the Dragons" prequel mentioned is what became House of the Dragon, it is quite funny to note that the Dunk and Egg series is now one that seems to be moving ahead after having been sat in limbo for a while even though HBO seemingly wasn’t that interested in it at the time. With Martin being quoted elsewhere as saying he wanted more seasons of Game of Thrones to fully tell that story, it is no wonder that he was surprised to see HBO so eager to put out additional series when they had, in his eyes, been so quick to end the main series. We will get to see how well House of the Dragon is received when the first 10 episodes of the series arrive next year. This story comes to us from Insider.
“I suddenly found out that they had put four prequels in motion. The Dance of the Dragons idea was just one of them. And the other three were ideas that had come from other people who I guess had read my books or had some of the documents at HBO. They didn’t like the Dunk and Egg idea because they were familiar with the novellas — somebody there had read them — but it was too soft, but they did respond to the Dance of the Dragons idea. It surprised me, I’ll admit that. I’d never heard of that before. I thought we’d be going ahead with one, with one development, with the one that I pitched to them, the Dance of the Dragons idea. I met with all four of the writers. They came to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where I lived, and I had meetings with them, discussed their idea, did workshops, tried to fill them in on any questions and all that.”
