George R.R. Martin on the possibility of a Game of Thrones prequel series

LOS ANGELES, CA – SEPTEMBER 18: Author George R. R. Martin attends HBO’s Official 2016 Emmy After Party at The Plaza at the Pacific Design Center on September 18, 2016 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

Perhaps he was just excited, perhaps all those Emmy awards were blinding him, or perhaps George R.R. Martin answered the prayers of millions of fans worldwide last night at the 68 Annual Primetime Emmy Awards. Interviewed alongside the cast after the show won an Emmy for Outstanding Drama for a second year in a row, he had this to say about a potential prequel series:

"I do have thousands of pages of fake history of everything that led up to Game of Thrones, so there’s a lot of material there and I’m writing more. At the moment we still have this show to finish and I still have two books to finish so that’s all speculation."

Book-readers will know that Martin is not joking about those thousands of pages of fake history. The novels are filled with retellings of major historical events. And that’s just within the Song of Ice and Fire novels themselves. Martin has already written a prequel series, the Tales of Dunk and Egg, and several more short novellas about other eras in Westerosi history. Any of these could form the basis for a new TV series.

If you can fault the HBO series for anything, it’s that it only glancingly touches on this rich invented history. The number of stories ripe for adaptation must have HBO executives giddy.

But whatever happens, Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss may not be involved. Benioff also weighed in on the prequel question:

"It’s a great world that George created. I think it’s a very rich world, and I’m sure there will be other series set in Westeros, but for us, this is it."

So he’s sure there will be other series set in Westeros, eh? Promising.

For book nerds like myself, it’s also exciting to hear Martin is continuing to write more Westerosi history. Devouring stuff like that is one way to pass the time as we await The Winds of Winter.

Check out the full cast and crew interview below, which also includes some playful teases for Game of Thrones Season 7.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnX93br64WU

Dan Weiss on Season 7: “It will be bigger, and it will better, and it will also be worse, but mostly better.” Okay, then.

So what say you? What kind of prequel series would you like to see? Let us know in the comments!