Game Of Thrones prequel Tales Of Dunk And Egg reportedly in early development
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Another day, another promised Game Of Thrones spin-off set in the franchise’s shockingly well-documented history. No, we’re not talking about House Of The Dragon, which is already in pre-production. This time, the news is in regards to a long-awaited series adaptation about another set of historical Targaryens, the fan favorite novella series Tales Of Dunk And Egg, per an exclusive report from Variety. The outlet says that a number of unnamed sources have confirmed the new series, which is in pre-production.
According to the report, the one-hour show would predate the events of A Song Of Ice And Fire by 90 years, and would follow the adventures of Ser Duncan the Tall, a.k.a. Dunk, and Aegon V of House Targaryen, known in his youth as “Egg.” If you’re trying to fit this into the chronology of the original Game Of Thrones, by the way, Egg will grow up to be the last non-hilariously-awful king of Westeros, Dany’s grandfather, Jon’s great-grandfather (gross), and the brother of Night Watch old guy Master Aemon. He’ll also spend his youth serving as a squire to the heroic Ser Dunk, getting in a bunch of adventures that, while no less violent and grisly than George R.R. Martin’s other books—this is Westeros, after all—are at least far smaller in scale, being mostly self-contained adventure stories. Because the show is in the very early stages of development, there are currently no attached writers or actors. In fact, there still isn’t much of a guarantee that this will move forward, much like the ill fate of the now-defunct Naomi Watts vehicle. But there is enough desperation on HBO’s end to sufficiently fill the ratings void left in the wake of the 2019 series finale, which might impact the odds of this actually seeing the light of day ever so slightly.
The Tales Of Dunk And Egg series consists of three books—The Hedge Knight, The Sworn Sword, The Mystery Knight—which were compiled and published together as A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms in 2015.
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If you’re trying to fit this into the chronology of the original Game Of Thrones, by the way, Egg will grow up to be the last non-hilariously-awful king of Westeros, Dany’s grandfather, Jon’s great-grandfather (gross), and the brother of Night Watch old guy Master Aemon. He and Ser Duncan would also end up burning to death in The Tragedy at Summmerhall, which is heavily implied to have been a failed ritual to get a couple dragon eggs to hatch.Also, at least in the books, his cousin Brendyn “Bloodraven” Rivers: Master of Whispers, Hand of the King and Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch was also the Three Eyed Raven
Just going to point out that, that quote could be interpreted as using the GOT lore as it’s basis and omits Jaeharys II in the family tree.Which just makes me wonder if enough years will have passed that people won’t care about differences in lore between series that are inevitably going to happen.
Yeah, to be perfectly honest I think between GRRM’s seeming lack of interest in finishing either story and B&W’s complete train wreck of a finale for the show I suspect that the number of people actually invested in more GoT content outside of the diehard fans has dwindled significantly.
As I will always continue to just disagree on the idea that the finale (or final season) was a train wreck (I have editing quibbles, not plot issues).But even so, the derisive nature of the sequel trilogy hasn’t hurt Star Wars or The Mandalorian.Make something good and people will come around to anything. People have short memories.
Just made the same observation in a separate post. Regardless of how the Dance of Dragons spin-off does, a Dunk and Egg show should be an easy win for HBO. The story’s short, complete and its a personal journey without too much complicated world building and politicking. If they follow the source material without too many drastic changes, it’ll be a lot harder to screw up and should be another hit. I’m cautiously optimistic about the Dance with Dragons series too.
I’m less optimistic because it’s comes off as “nerd-bait” to me. It’s The Mandalorian at its worst. Off the bat that It seems that “Dance With Dragons” and “Dunk and Egg” will cater to the hardcore lore fan in ways that “The Long Night” wasn’t. Also, “Dunk and Egg” isn’t done. It’s nowhere near done. They’re individual stories sure, but, they’re building to the culmination of what Aegon was doing at Summerhall and Rhaegar’s birth. More mysteries that GRRM set up to be revealed in later books that may lead to disappointment for fans if it’s not up to their imagination and what they’ve built up in their minds.
I struggle to see the point of delving further into the history of the Targaryens though. It was somewhat interesting when it was all prophecies about them fighting some sort of grand war against ice zombies, but since that “great war” was a wet firecracker and the rest was ignominious failure, why would anyone care?
Digging into Targaryen history being a bad idea has nothing to do with your take on the show. Lots of people would disagree.It’s a bad idea because the Targaryen history is, ideally, supposed to service the main story. Like it’s only matters in how the history comes to inform and be reflected in the present. On its own, it’s just a sometimes interesting series of events that serve no purpose on their own. Like, “the Dance of Dragons” is a cool event. But, it’s purpose to show how the Targaryens fell so far and to foreshadow how destructive Targaryen infighting can be to Westeros (like when Dany inevitably burns KL after FAegon takes it) But on its own, it can be pretty but it’s going to be hard to care about anyone when it’s not meant to be their story.
But isn’t the whole point of GoT that infighting and jockying for power in general is bad for Westeros? There isn’t anything particularly special about Targaryens fighting that makes it “bad.” It’s not like the Lannisters, Starks, etc. were sweet kittens or benevolent monarchs. And the Targaryens weren’t cuddly philosopher kings before the Dance either. And the noble families managed to turn Westeros into a shambles long before Daenerys burned KL. Daenerys gave us a few hundred dead peasants and (I guess?) the defeat of the Night King. So, without the Targaryens there would be … slightly more dead peasants? Zombie victory? So “what Targaryen history means to Westeros” just doesn’t sound like an especially interesting thread to explore.So we’re back to it all being imaginary history that leads to nothing much of interest.
You realize, I’m agreeing with you right?That’s basically what I said. Targaryen history in the books purpose to serve the story of the characters that we’re following. Because it’s Jon and Dany and all their story. It’s a footnote. It’s this happened back then and because that happened this is how it affects our characters that we’re following.So Targaryen history on its own, it’s a fake biopic. It could be pretty and entertaining, maybe. But like any prequel it’s a hard justification this story being important when at the end of the day, it’s not the story that was worth telling from the start. It’s just a story used to set up the story worth telling.
Lots of authors do this – they set new narratives within established universes as a shorthand because they just want to write something else for a while and feel like they might as well attach a new story to existing tangential characters. Most people understand this (Outlander fans are aware the the Lord John Gray novellas could easily be a wholly new historical series) but the more obsessive fans of high fantasy presume that it’s all canon, or that it’s not simply a fun interlude.
“seeming lack of interest”Never understood this argument. You can choose to not believe him, and you can choose to believe he’s being unrealistic, but GRRM has consistently expressed a desire to finish the series.
He would have done it.A procrastinator can’t fool a procrastinator. He doesn’t want to finish his story, he wants to have it finished. Between his laurels and his bags of banknotes, he can afford to vaguely daydream of having it finished one day, and of it being as great as snyder’s true JL. But there’s no real urgency, nothing to prove anymore. It pre-exists sufficiently in his head, and its rewards are sufficiently already here, so, it can stay like that indefinitely. After all, he’s already finished it in the future, his bank account proves it.
Well then he’s fooled me. Maybe you’re not as lazy as you think, but I wouldn’t want his schedule.
“Expressing interest” and “actually doing something” are two very, very different things.
It sounds like HBO wants their own Mandalorian except set in Game of Thrones. I bet that was a quick pitch meeting.
The writing was on the wall for HBO once AT&T bought it and Michael Lombardo left.
It’s not gonna work. The other prequel smartly set itself during a time when there were still dragons, which the D&E tales don’t have.Tits’ll only get you so far on premium cable.
“Think Mandalorian…..with DRAGONS! And maybe Adam Sandler…”“SOLD!”
The idea of a Happy Madison production of Game of Thrones is scary enough to evoke an existential crisis.
They want The Witcher. And “Hey… we got all these swords and shit in storage – just sitting there – gathering dust.”
A mere three novellas isn’t that much source material to go on. GRRM has talked about a much larger number of such Tales he wants to write, but he hardly has time for that.I wouldn’t say the stories are as “grisly” as the main series. Aerion “Brightflame” Targaryen is an awful jerk with no redeeming qualities, but the worst thing he does* is break a woman’s fingers. Nothing comparable to Ramsay Bolton, Gregor Clegane, the Bloody Mummers, etc.*At least out of what we see. So nobody bring up how it was probably him who murdered a Blackfyre pretender after he’d surrendered & disarmed.
At least he gets an extremely silly death: poisoned by Wildfyre he drank because he thought it’d turn him into a dragon.
But why would he want to… (trails off)
I thought he actually burned himself to death rather than dying of poison, but that could just be artistic license with this:
No you’re right he burned to death.
That death actually gets a shout out in GoT show when Joffery is showing Margery
I’d imagine it would be a mini-series or one shot season, though AT&T greed might intervene and fuck it up.
I’ve got a great idea…set this AFTER GoT ended. That’s all.
Didn’t HBO say that they have no interest in doing sequel GOT series and only wanna make prequels?
yep, big mistake
You could basically just reuse the “nobles fighting over a crown” storyline since the final literally changed nothing about Westeros.
This wouldn’t work for several reasons:
The first is that it invalidates the entire premise of the story, which is that obsession and thirst for absolute power cause strife and that absolutist power as an institution is something best gotten rid of. The show ends with a king who doesn’t want power and a council who, more or less, treat their posts as a duty rather than a privilege. To unravel all of this just for further content, kind of like the sequel SW trilogy did with the original trilogy’s story, would be pointless. Sometimes stories simply have to end.
The second is that the final episode strongly hints of a changing world, a world that is rapidly leaving the norms of the middle ages towards something of a ‘Westerosi renaissance’. Of course, this would largely infuriate the original fanbase for whom the savagery of the Middle Ages which provides an opportunity to project a simplistic black and white morality onto the whole thing is kind of the chief appeal of this genre. Industrial-age steampunk isn’t nearly as popular as medieval fantasy.
Finally, it is beyond obvious that there are many fans who would openly seek for the sequels to undo and deligitimise just about everything in S8 to vindicate their hatred for the final season. As a fan of S8, I ain’t having none of it. The HBO is well aware that this would be just a giant can of worms best left unopened.
things are more boring when you know how they turn out already. This is a problem they had with Star Trek: Disco which they “solved” by having them jump 1000 years into the future…which now makes all 100 years earlier Star Trek pretty meaningless as we know what it all added up to.
But if you follow Arya you can duck all of that by exploring new & exotic locations on this planet that already has dragons & giants and has nothing to do with Weteros’s political BS.
Arya Stark Sailin’ & Fightin’ ‘round the World or GTFO
I’m fine with that: A Woman Has No Name coming this fall!
Does HBO not realize that they’ve completely poisoned the Game of Thrones well, or is this just some weird tax write-off?
Eh, what Tormented Thoughts correctly said. People will watch it, and if it’s really good, the fans will come back too and they’ll forget or not care about the original GoT series, much like how Star Wars fans keep coming back despite the endless parade of bad sequels, prequels, and spin-offs. There are still a lot of fans and people out there that still want to watch a GoT show.
I think the internet echo has overstated the idea that the GOT well was poisoned.Even through 2020, year after the final season air and after HBOMax launched, Game of Thrones has been one of it’s not the most watched show on HBOMax(based on the data in seeing through at least August of 2020).People are still watching it. And they don’t have to deal with the burden of the wait or social media water cooler. A new series will do fine, because even if only a fifth of the original series final season audience tuned in, it would still be a big hit for HBO.
The thinking tends to be that the story (via GRRM) in the final season was good; it was the writing and presentation that failed. Give these GRRM titles to new show runners and people will watch.
I don’t know about that. GRRM gave them SOME ideas of where the story was headed for the most major characters, but there’s a reason he hasn’t, you know, WRITTEN IT YET. I don’t know how many fans are thinking “GRRM’s story was great” when they didn’t really follow any GRRM template for the last 3 seasons other than “These characters are ending up here and oh Bran is king.”
Does HBO not realize that they’ve completely poisoned the Game of Thrones well
Exactly. The only thing I give a shit about is the next book, if it ever comes.
YES!!!! I can’t believe I’m excited for a GoT spinoff, but I am. The novellas were a perfect bite sized chunk of Westeros that’s still intriguing and fun without expanding the scope to the 4 corners of the earth. Plus the writers have a complete story to follow instead of the unfinished ASoIaF. It’s still possible to screw it up, but it should be an easy slam dunk and win back a lot of fans.
It’s based on the only Game of Thrones related book I’ve ever finished, so I look forward to it.
I prefer Dunk and Donuts
Unpopular opinion I know, but I like the last season best. It’s the season with the least torture. I find long stretches of previous series too horrible to watch.
This sounds like the name of a cartoon and I shall treat it accordingly by writing a theme song for it.
Life is like a hurricanehere in WesterosRape and death and weathervanesit’s not the best-eros!Might get some blistersor fuck your sister!Dunktales! (with Egg!)This title seems far too cheerful
Dunktales! (with Egg!)Cause Martin’s stories are so tearfulDunktales!
Remember Oberyn?
(face got splattered!)
Jon is royalty!(but it never mattered?)Dany turned evil for no reason!Dunktales! (with Egg!)The whole world’s sick of this IP!Dunktales! (with Egg!)But we’ll milk it shamelessly!
It’s Dunktales! (with Egg!)No new ideas, just more prequels!
Dunktales! (with Egg!)
You know, it occurs to me how hilarious it is that GRRM had a full year of lockdown to do some writing and earn a few billion dollars but instead decided to feast on Doritos instead.
I enjoyed A Game Of Tostitos, A Clash Of Cheetos and A Storm Of Smartfood, but imo the quality of his writing started to dip in A Feast Of Doritos. Sadly, A Dance With Fritos was even worse, and the few chapters posted on Martin’s Not-A-Blog do not inspire a lot of hope in The Winds Of Ruffles. Don’t even get me started on the fact that A Dream Of Sun Chips will never be published.
+7500 likes for “A Dream of Sun Chips”
Pretty wild this wasn’t the first and only spin-off that entered into production. The rest all seem like big high concept gambles, but this is just… a smaller scale episodic concept with some existing material to build from, it’s an open goal.
any distraction from the fact that the core books aren’t anywhere near done and probably won’t ever be done by GRRM is a good thing for GRRM
So I take it we still can’t admit that the original show really kinda sucks?
Even if Game of Thrones ended in a triumph, I think any further spinoffs are doomed to failure. Like Battlestar Galactica or Lost or any high concept show that has a beginning/middle and end, once the story is told it is told you cannot recapture lightening in a bottle.Even The Hobbit movies were critical failures and could not hold a candle to the Lord of the Rings. Or the Fantastic Beast failures after Harry Potter. It is just too much of the same story and style and tone to keep repeating. Sitcoms and procedurals are easier, because they really are not telling just a novel like story. And yes, Better Call Saul is awesome, but you need a Vince Gilligan to make that miracle. it is the exception that proves the rule.What are they going to do? Magic? Seen it. Dragons? Seen it. Political intrigue? Seen it. How are they going to top the characters of the original? HBO is going regret trying to recapture something that is just…over
“Dunk and Egg”? Really, HBO?? John Oliver gave you three solid prequel ideas over a year ago (at least 46 seconds into that presentation) on a show that you guys own so there can’t be copyright issues there, and he seemed to have express substantial confidence in them. (“HBO’s going to be fine. It’s going to be fine!”)