The Dragon Demands

Oh...thanks! …as you can see from the "Recent Changes" tab I started a round of updates on September 28: a few new ones like Alaric Stark, Jonquil Darke, and updating others (Jaehaerys I, White Harbor). ….however, the wiki slowed down until it ground to a halt and editing became physically impossible, so I had to stop. I suspect because the videos continue to play even in editing mode. Didn't have a chance to start updating a family tree template for Alaric - btw, if we know his wife was a Mormont and some description of her but not her first name, does she get her own article? And in what title format? ("Wife of Alaric Stark"? "Lady Mormont (Alaric Stark)"? What is the relationship between Alaric and Ellard Stark? I left the note in the article. Did Alaric..."supersede" Ellard, and "Ellard Stark" no longer exists as a character? And Alaric is the renamed Ellard? You've mentioned before there were issues regarding Ellard Stark and the chronology of which Stark ruled when that had to be updated due to new developments from GRRM (line got removed from World book as a result)

No Alaric Stark page until December 20? Etc?

While you were gone, there was also prequel casting news: a casting sheet was released for four characters in Long Night.

What is the “semi canon” status, if any, of info coming out about the prequel TV pitches?

What is the canon status for Unseen Westeros art? What are the copyright restrictions?

Video from Variety. On the Emmys red carpet, GRRM speaks of "5 prequels" and that they range from "just 100 years ago" to "5,000 years ago". The question of course, is: was he just speaking loosely, and we shouldn't take this as factually accurate? We know some prequels got ruled out. 5,000 years ago was the rise of Valyria but that doesn't seem to be "a prequel" as such. Maybe he was just talking about prequel eras in general. Odd that he says 5 pitches - maybe he just got used to saying 5. We thought Cogman left after he signed on to Amazon - though it's possible someone else picked up his idea?

https://winteriscoming.net/2018/09/10/casting-call-game-thrones-prequel-series-based-long-night/ This has been circulating through news sites, but Elio & Linda were out-out-country: casting calls for a "confidential HBO project" that begins filming in February 2019...just like Long Night, and using casting director Lucinda Syson - who previously worked as casting director on Jane Goldman's past projects Kick-Ass and X-Men-First class. It seems a reasonable conclusion they're for Long Night. Like Game of Thrones from Season 6 onwards, they've stopped releasing character names and switched to code names. In this case, just code-letters assigned to all four: "A", "S", "I", and "F"....which fans have noted, may be the acronym "ASIF" = ASOIAF = A Song of Ice & Fire. The descriptions are: "A" - Series Regular, Male, Playing Age 17-22, Mixed Race Actor "S" - Series Regular, Female, Playing Age 24-32, Black Actress "I" - Series Regular, Female, Playing Age 17-25, Caucasian Actress "F" - Series Regular, Female, Playing Age 16-23, Black Actress

….World book used Robar, Sons of the Dragon saw the same mixed notes and decided it was probably Rogar. Gardner Dozois was proved correct from beyond the grave. "This bean shames us all"

It doesn't sound like anything particularly new was revealed. Asked about the prequels, he dispelled that they're filming Age of Heroes in October: no director or anything in place yet, filming would begin "early 2019" at the earliest. Asked if the other prequel pitches are "deceased or just on hold" he apparently gave the curt answer "a combination". ….which simply matches what GRRM already said: of the other four ideas, one was "shelved", but the other three were still in contention, and at least one of those three was doing well enough that GRRM seemed to believe HBO indicated it would probably also get a pilot episode order. So this changes nothing. Other than confirming that October 2018 for Goldman's project sounded kind of early. Said that Game of Thrones Season 8 would air "first half of 2019" but that can really mean anything from February to June if you think about it, so who knows. Simply ruling out the less probable chance of a fall release or something. …..funny, several reports indicate he was asked about "Confederate" but just said there was "no change" - no active work on it because anyone who potential could like D&D are currently busy on other projects. That isn't a denial, that isn't saying they dropped it. They learn nothing. I wonder what the exact transcript of the exchange was I'm hearing this second-hand. At this point I think all the prequels have been "pitched" in the script stage, said all they can say, and they might be wrangling around for what directors are available to such to see what gets greenlit. Or at least that's what he seems to be saying: "we need to find a director" etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md75fSYqp2o

There are some basic functionality issues with the new design: The right-hand column added to it is supposed to display ads, as well as the page Contents menu - removing the Contents navigation menu from the top of the page. However, it is impossible to scroll down the right hand column, so the particularly long Contents menus on very detailed pages are cut off after a few entries. Also...where is the "Recent Changes" tab? That's basically the home page of the wiki for regular editors, so they can see what is being worked on.

I've been thinking it over and I disagree with the conclusion Elio & Linda reached in their video that "maybe they're just doing the Long Night, which doesn't have a prequel novella to adapt (or even World book chapter) to distance themselves from Martin's actual writings as much as possible". I don't think altruistically or negatively of HBO, but purely in terms of Realpolitik. I mean this sympathetically, as the Long Night announcement baffled me too at first. But in HINDSIGHT.... The thing that we, as book-readers, sometimes fail to do is take a step back and realize they're trying to appeal to the TV audience. And Elio & Linda did that in their video a little - pointing out "They wouldn't do First Blackfyre Rebellion because it's never been mentioned in a live-action TV episode". Well....if they won't do Blackfyre Rebellion because it hasn't been mentioned enough...what's the inverse of that? What WOULD they do because it WAS mentioned very often? Remember how annoying it was when, any time the prequel pitches were being mentioned in the past year, casual entertainment news sites would suggest "Robert's Rebellion? The Long Night?" ….well....that's what they know. And HBO has actually tried to promote the Targaryen Conquest and Dance of the Dragons. But the fact remains: since SEASON ONE, the Long Night is the big past event the TV show has mentioned. ….I don't think they picked Long Night to "avoid GRRM's work"....I think they simply did it for Name Recognition. To a general TV audience. Fundamentally, the Long Night has more name recognition to them than the Dance of the Dragons (even though, admittedly, the TV show did try to hype it up in live-action episode dialogue, as with the Conquest, and put out animated features for both). I mean, if they said "We're doing an anthology series using an invented storyline set in the Age of the Hundred Kingdoms about 2,000 years before the Targaryen Conquest".....THAT would be "avoiding Martin's writings". And I don't really blame HBO for this so much as fundamental story structure: how often did they really need to mention the Dance of the Dragons, or the Targaryen Conquest, even, relative to "the Long Night"? Every casual viewer is at least vaguely aware of it. I realize we can't trust HBO anymore, I'm not trying to paint a rosey picture of this.....dear god, how many times did I say "Give Benioff and Weiss a chance, these are just early speed bumps" during Seasons 1 and 2? (shudder) I defended them. I defended Cogman. Their betrayal cuts deep. But HBO is going to act in their own self-interest, which means their actions will ultimately be pragmatic. It's just that we have a different frame of reference: not "what exists to adapt" so much as "what's a name that people who only saw the TV series would come back to watch?" So combine all these factors together: I was surprised, we were all surprised, that they picked the Long Night....and a the same time, for the past year, I've been annoyed that the prequel suggestion getting the most buzz from general-entertainment non-books news outlets was, "hey, maybe a Long Night prequel?" ---- It obviously had the most "Name Recognition" going for it. Whether this is a GOOD idea is a whole other matter. But the suggestion that they're trying to avoid writing Martin's works? I felt that for a while the past week, but the facts of the situation just don't sit right with me. It seems they just wanted to go with a prequel most relevant to the main TV series, in its form as a TV series, not as books. My conclusion is simply this: We were worried HBO picked the Long Night to avoid adapting Martin's actual writings. But when you think about it...it seems far more plausible that they simply did it for Name Recognition. So maybe we shouldn't worry just yet. Meanwhile, in their video, Elio & Linda expressed fears in both directions: on the one hand, that they just want to re-hash the White Walker storyline from the main TV series, while at the same time, fear that the line about "it's not the story you think you know" means they'll be changing stuff for the sake of changing stuff. Those might cancel each other out. ….of course, I've seen shows do both before. Like, comic book reboots that.....needlessly change the characters' motivations and backstories purely for the sake of being shocking, while at the same time, being a fairly repetitive and unoriginal storyline. We might get a generic re-hash of the White Walker war, combined with ancient Starks who were evil and ancient Boltons who were good (like the Dune prequels...) -- But we're hearing stuff in both directions: "it will change a lot", "it's too similar" -- the usual prequel fears. I honestly don't know what to make of it. So I'm adopting a "wait and see" attitude of "trust, but verify". I want a fresh start with Jane Goldman, or whoever does the prequel they ultimately pick. The era of D&D and Cogman bullshitting us and stonewalling their own fanbase need to end - compare with Star Wars and Star Trek writers & producers, who regularly answer basic questions via Twitter or Reddit Q&A. but I digress.... The point was just I was relieved to consider "They probably did this for Name Recognition more than avoiding GRRM".

Alright, I've done the first writeup for a Game of Thrones Wiki "hub page" on the live-action prequel projects as a whole: https://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/Game_of_Thrones_prequel_projects From this hub page, there will be articles on each specific pitch idea that gets ordered to pilot. The first of which is the one on the Long Night run by Jane Goldman: https://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/Game_of_Thrones:_The_Long_Night Not much there yet, but the goal was to writeup everything we DO know. Just letting everyone know that's the place to check for any little updates that might be coming in weeks and months ahead (stuff that slips through major announcements). …..Given that there is a lot of speculation but little information, I cited Elio & Linda's own video analysis as an excuse to speculate on the identity of the others. I can't speculate on my own on the wiki, but I can "report on" the speculation of authorities (such as the World book co-authors). No real difference, as everyone pretty much suspects the same prequels - i.e. Targaryen Conquest, Dance of the Dragons. Obvious enough to anyone who read the books, and paid attention to news announcements. Some news writeups were pretty good on other news sites, some mainstream news sites....(shudder)….last week started making speculation lists of "maybe Robert's Rebellion and Tales of Dunk and Egg!"....even though GRRM very prominently stated they were officially not doing those. I have no idea how these people have journalism jobs, they do no research. ….well, not to be too negative, most writeups were pretty good, actually: Harper's Bazaar, Rotten Tomatoes, Esquire, all had pretty well-informed analysis. Still, it's the job of the wiki to keep the masses informed. The fault was mine for not making a "prequel news hub page" sooner.

Westeros.org's Elio & Linda on Ideas for Game of Thrones Prequels, & Dorne (5 minute video)

Westeros.org discusses...Jane Goldman's Game of Thrones: The Long Night successor project 31 minutes in: "You've said things before in jest, Elio, that then end up on the show..." Season 5 finale review, Elio: "This makes no sense, why would Ellaria poison Myrcella right before sending her away on a ship? What the hell is going to happen, they're going to have her kill Doran too and take over Dorne?!" Damn it Elio, you've murdered us all!