Game of Thrones ended years ago, but HBO is keeps returning to Westeros in spinoff series like House of the Dragon. It has more spinoffs in development, including a few animated shows. One would follow the adventures of a young Corlys Velaryon, played in his old age by Steve Toussaint on House of the Dragon. Another would be set in the Golden Empire of Yi Ti, a civilization based on ancient China.
HBO is also developing a spinoff that would follow Nymeria of the Rhoynar as she leads her people out of Essos to settle in Dorne, which happens centuries before the events of Game of Thrones. Last we heard, this was being developed as a live-action show, but author George R.R. Martin, the progenitor of the Game of Thrones universe, makes it sound like it would be a better fit for animation. "10,000 troops, 300 dragons. We have17 in House of the Dragon, and there's 300 in the book," he told Collider. "Some of these ideas are so big and so grand, I think that the only way we can really do a good job with them is animation and great animation."
"I don't know if we always succeed. Obviously, any writer has to know that you win some, you lose some, some get rained out. You try to make the story as good as it can be, and some fans will like it, some fans will not like it. You're always going to get criticism, but you got to keep trying. You got to try to do every one the best it can possibly be, and sometimes other people disagree with you; there'll be arguments or whatever."
Mind you, none of these proposed Game of Thrones spinoffs are guaranteed to make it to air; the only ones we know for sure are happening are House of the Dragon, which is coming up on its third season; and a new show called A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which will premiere on HBO and Max later this year. We don't know if any of these animated ideas will make it to the screen, but if they do, Martin knows what he'd like them to aim for. "If it looked like Blue Eye Samurai, and it would be amazing, but that's like one of the best ever done," he said. "I really do want it to look good."
Martin is also a big fan of Netflix's animated anthology sci-fi series Love, Death + Robots. "[T]hey're adapting some very good stories from science fiction, from good writers like Marko Kloos and John Scalzi and various other people and every episode is a different style of animation and some styles I like more than others," he said. "Some are very cartoony, but some are very realistic. Some are very, obviously done with VFX and it's all computer animation, so there's great possibilities there."
I think an animated show set in the Game of Thrones universe could be very entertaining, although it would take some imagination to pull off. The "History and Lore" featurettes on the Game of Thrones home video releases could provide some kind of a rough rubric; those features would highlight little-known corners of the universe with simple art and animation to help bring them to life.
But again, we're not even sure if these animated Game of Thrones projects will materialize. We'll keep an eye out.
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