George R.R. Martin reveals why the House of the Dragon spinoff about Corlys Velaryon is animated

Early in August, we learned that A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin talked about all the Game of Thrones spinoffs HBO was developing during a talk at the Oxford Writers House: according to Martin there are seven spinoffs in the pipeline, three of them live-action and four of them animated. We don't know if any of these will actually make it to air, but that's what the man said.

We don't know everything about these spinoffs, but so far as the live-action shows go, we know that HBO is developing a show about Aegon the Conqueror. On the animated side, we know they're working on a show about the Golden Empire of Yi Ti and another about the adventures of a young Corlys Velaryon, played as an older man on Game of Thrones spinoff House of the Dragon by Steve Toussaint.

In his youth, Corlys Velaryon sailed all over the world exploring new places and enriching his house, which could make for entertaining TV. Now that the Oxford Writers House talk has been posted on YouTube, we have in a few more details on that show. Martin says that the series, called either Nine Voyages or The Sea Snake, was originally developing this show as a live-action show but eventually switched to animation. Why?

"[S]ome of the animated shows I think would be really, really good," Martin said. "One of the shows we've been working on for a couple of years is a prequel about the Sea Snake, Corlys Velaryon and his nine epic voyages. He was like the Magellan of Westeros, and we call it Nine Voyages or The Sea Snake. And we developed that as live-action for a couple of years, and then we realized that there's no way that we could ever afford to make it live action. It all takes place at sea and he visits a different city every week. And so we'd have to be creating Qarth and Braavos and Ib and whatever, but we could do it animated. So we're now developed that to be an animated show if we can get it going."

The "if we can get it going" bit is important. Martin admits that one never knows what will happen to a TV show before it gets the official greenlight. "Now, there's no guarantee they'll be made," he said of the spinoffs. "The way television works, you work for a year or two years or whatever, you develop a show, you write treatments, you get notes, you write screenplays, you get more notes and eventually they say, 'we'll make it, we won't make it.'"

Is the Nymeria spinoff also animated?

HBO is also developing a show called Ten Thousand Ships about Nymeria of the Rhoynar, a leader from Essos who led her people to the kingdom currently known as Dorne. We've assumed that show was being developed as a live-action series, but during a recent appearance at a convention in New Mexico, Martin reportedly said it too would be animated.

Nymeria leads her people from Essos after being unable to resist the Valyrian Empire, which is then in command of hundreds of dragons. She and her people travel the sea, visiting strange and dangerous lands. That story, if it's told onscreen at all, might need to be told in animated form for the same reasons Corlys Velaryon's show is animated.

Whatever happens to the new slate of spinoffs, HBO is pretty bullish on expanding the world of Game of Thrones. House of the Dragon just wrapped up its second season, and next year we'll be watching a new prequel series called A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, based on George R.R. Martin's Dunk and Egg novellas.

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