IGN has an interesting interview with Jane Goldman, one of the four (or five) writers working on ideas for a successor series to HBO’s Game of Thrones. In the course of the interview, Goldman’s quite cagey, but she does share just a little bit of information that provides some additional parameters for what her pitch is.
Goldman reveals a couple of things that we didn’t know before: that her pitch will indeed feature some aspects of the supernatural or magical part of the series, and that readers of the books as well as viewers of the show will recognize the historical event or milieu in which her pitch takes place. As far as the first part goes, it seems clear to us that at the very least dragons are or could be a part of her story—they’re the last substantial piece of magic in Westeros until the present time. This means anything post the reign of Aegon III is probably out (unless you want to cling to the notion that she’s making a show about the pyromancers or the warlocks of Qarth, we suppose).
The second part is particularly interesting because the television show has been quite parsimonious when it comes to doling out historical information. The Blu-ray extra lore and history sections have done much more, but if you discount those, what significant events in which supernatural/magical elements were present have been mentioned? Of course one can go back to the far past—the children of the forest, the first appearance of the White Walkers, the First Men and the Long Night—but for various reasons we think it unlikely any series pitch goes that far into the past.
Instead, we’d guess that none of the pitches go much before the Targaryens started to interact with Westeros, from the time Aenar Targaryen brought his family to Dragonstone, through the Doom, and on to Aegon’s Conquest and beyond. These things have all been mentioned in passing on the show and in the extras, as has events from Targaryen history including the Dance of the Dragons (which occupied some 20 minutes of Blu-ray extras material, narrated by multiple actors from the show). So that’s our guess of Goldman’s pitch: something with dragons having a presence, something with Targaryens, probably not much before the Doom and more likely a good deal after.
For additional thoughts and ideas about these successors, Linda and I recently recorded a three-part series delving into some of the possibilities: