The final season of HBO's hit fantasy series Game of Thrones is nearly upon us, and fans everywhere are clamouring to know what the ultimate fate of the realm of Westeros will be. Will the Night King plunge the Seven Kingdoms into an abyss of ice and death? Or will our heroes be able to rally together to fight back against the undead hordes? Only one thing is certain: fans all over the world are going to be absolutely gutted when the show is finally over and the last season airs.
Luckily for us, HBO has decided to mitigate this by announcing the production of a Game of Thrones prequel, so it won't be long before we get back to the juicy murders, political intrigue, and awesome battles that we all love so much. Many people speculated that the prequel would be set only a few years before the start of season one, and show Robert Baratheon's insurrection against the tyrannical king Aerys Targaryen. However, the show's producers have clarified that the show will actually take place thousands of years in the past, and detail the rise of house Targaryen after the doom of Valyria.
As if that prospect wasn't exciting enough, now the full cast for the upcoming series has been made public, and the actors involved are getting a lot of social media attention. According to the latest HBO press release, the cast for the Game of Thrones prequel will include Naomi Watts and Josh Whitehouse, as well as Jamie Campbell Bower, Naomi Ackie, Ivanno Jeremiah, Denise Gough and Georgie Henley. Collateral director SJ Clarkson is the executive producer and director of the first episode, and scriptwriter Jane Goldman will serve as the showrunner.
Commenting on the prequel in a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, author George R.R. Martin stated: "Westeros is a very different place. There’s no King’s Landing. There’s no Iron Throne. There are no Targaryens — Valyria has hardly begun to rise yet with its dragons and the great empire that it built. We’re dealing with a different and older world and, hopefully, that will be part of the fun of the series. [Prequel showrunner Jane Goldman] is a tremendous talent. She flew into Santa Fe and we spent a week talking about her ideas. She’s going into territory that I haven’t explored very much in the books. I’ve hinted about them. But she’s a major writer, I love her work."
The official synopsis for the upcoming show states: "Taking place thousands of years before the events of Game of Thrones, the series chronicles the world's descent from the golden Age of Heroes into its darkest hour. And only one thing is for sure: from the horrifying secrets of Westeros's history to the true origin of the white walkers, the mysteries of the East to the Starks of legend ... it's not the story we think we know."
Man, I'm so hyped for this I can hardly wait! Game of Thrones really has been the gift that keeps on giving.
