A GAME OF THRONES Prequel Series Focusing on The Rise and Fall of House Targaryen is Moving Forward at HBO

HBO is moving forward on a second Game of Thrones prequel series and this one is going to have lots and lots of dragons.

According to Entertainment Weekly, the project will be based on the history of the Targaryens and that the story would lead up to and eventually chronicle the house’s civil war, which is known as the legendary Dance of the Dragons.

For those of you who don’t know, it’s explained that the Dance of the Dragons was “a massive civil war in the Seven Kingdoms held between two rival branches of House Targaryen. The war occurred roughly 200 years before the events in Game of Thrones.”

Apparently executive producer George R.R. Martin really loved this concept and he’s pushed for it to get made. Martin recently published Fire and Blood, which gives a history of House Targaryen. It spans roughly 150 years and the details in the book will serve as the basis for the series. The story was told in Game of Thrones Season 5, when young Shireen Baratheon read a book about the Targaryen conflict and described the war to her father Stannis:

“It’s the story of the fight between Rhaenyra Targaryen and her half-brother Aegon for control over the Seven Kingdoms. Both of them thought they belonged on the Iron Throne. When people started declaring for one of them or the other, their fight divided the kingdoms in two. Brothers fought brothers, dragons fought dragons. By the time it was over, thousands were dead. And it was a disaster for the Targaryens as well. They never truly recovered.” 

The script for the pilot episode is being written by Ryan Condal (Colony) after several other writers took a crack at it. As of right now there’s no title, but I they should use the title of the book, Fire and Blood.

I love this concept and I can’t wait to see what comes of it! The other prequel series is coming from showrunner Janes Goldman and is set thousands of years before the events of Game of Thrones. It deals with The Long Night, which is the great winter that lasted for years and brought forth the White Walkers. This is a time where the First Men and the Children of the Forest fought against the White Walkers in the North, and the epic battle concluded with the Battle for the Dawn where the first members of the Night’s Watch defeated the White Walkers.

What do you all think of the concept for series that will focus on the rise and fall of House Targaryen?