George R.R. Martin: House Stark is “definitely” in the Game of Thrones prequel

Production on the pilot episode for HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel series, which is set thousands of years before the main series, is underway. The working title for the series is Blood Moon, but as A Song of Ice and Fire George R.R. Martin reminded Entertainment Weekly in a new interview, he prefers another name.

The author has long held on to the idea that the prequel should be called The Long Night, since the show will purportedly be about the first time the White Walkers visited Westeros, ending the golden Age of Heroes.

Now, you might say that calling the prequel “The Long Night” would be weird because that was already the title of an episode during the final season of the show, the one where Arya killed the Night King at Winterfell. You also might say that HBO has a logo and everything for Blood Moon and it’s time let “The Long Night” go. None of that seems to phase Martin. “I heard a suggestion that it could be called The Longest Night, which is a variant I wouldn’t mind,” he said. “That would be pretty good.”

Martin talked quite a bit about the time period when the prequel is set. “We talk about the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros; there were Seven Kingdoms at the time of Aegon’s Conquest,” he said. “But if you go back further then there are nine kingdoms, and 12 kingdoms, and eventually you get back to where there are a hundred kingdoms — petty kingdoms — and that’s the era we’re talking about here.”

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As for who ruled those petty kingdoms, some of them are the ancestors of people we know. “The Starks will definitely be there,” Martin reminds us.

"Obviously the White Walkers are here — or as they’re called in my books, The Others — and that will be an aspect of it. There are things like direwolves and mammoths."

The Starks go back a long time, but not all the houses on Game of Thrones have such ancient histories. “The Lannisters aren’t there yet, but Castlery Rock is certainly there; it’s like the Rock of Gibraltar,” said Martin. “It’s actually occupied by the Casterlys — for whom it’s still named after in the time of Game of Thrones.”

According to legend, a figure known as Lann the Clever tricked the Casterlys into giving them Casterly Rock, which is how House Lannister was started. Will Blood Moon (or The Long Night — happy, Martin?) depict this story? Could perhaps Naomi Watts be playing the legendary trickster and progenitor of House Lannister? That’s the crackpot theory we’re holding to.

Watts is the biggest name currently attached to the prequel, but Martin thinks of the cast as an ensemble. “I hesitate to use the word ‘lead,’” he said. “As you know for Game of Thrones, we never even nominated anybody for lead actress or lead actor [during awards season] until recently; it was always for supporting [categories] because the show is such an ensemble. I think that will be true for this show too. We don’t have leads so much as a large ensemble cast.”

And here I didn’t think I could be more excited for this show to get a green light from HBO.

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