I guess it is true to say, “You know nothing, HBO,”. Or really the quote should be “you learned nothing”, as HBO are planning on making a Jon Snow spinoff show, despite the horrific backlash that came with A Game of Thrones Season 8 finale.
I am all for ASOIAF content and A Game of Thrones spinoff shows. Actually, I am more than “all for”. I am ecstatic that HBO are making the House of the Dragon, which is coming out this August on HBO Max. And, I am just as excited for the Nymeria spinoff, Coryl Velaryon spinoff, the YI-TI Golden Empire show, and the Dunk and Egg miniseries that is reportedly in the making.
This rumored Jon Snow show is a whole other Pandora’s Box that HBO seems set to open. It was only three years ago now that Season 8 concluded to an overwhelmingly discontented fanbase. The last season of the show was rushed and suffered tremendously from it, which nearly destroyed the reputation and hope of any future A Game of Thrones film universe.
But, for the same reason as to why I am excited for the already announced shows, I am worried for HBO. I am worried because HBO was not at fault for the Season 8 conclusion and should be trusted in making the new shows. Yet, by making a Jon Snow sequel, they are only drumming up sour, negative resentment from still disappointed towards themselves.
The reason these new, already announced, shows work (at least for me) is because they are PREQUELS to ASOIAF/A Game of Thrones. Nothing from the last season of A Game of Thrones will have any effect on the stories told. That is not the case for a Jon Snow sequel.
The way A Game of Thrones ended turned that whole show into a nuclear, radioactive wasteland worse than the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown. Anything that is inspired or is a sequel to that show is going to have to carefully tread carefully through the nuclear fallout to have any chance of making a half-decent show.
And with ASOIAF author George RR Martin still, after 11 years, unfinished with the Winds of Winter (the book that should have been the source material for the final few seasons of A Game of Thrones), HBO is taking an almighty risk bringing back Jon Snow and the survivors of A Game of Thrones finale to our screens without prior source material.
Image Source: Featured Image: (HBO Max: A Game of Thrones: Winter Is Coming)
