HBO’s Game of Thrones was the most talked about television series of the 2010s, following its premiere in 2011 and continuously building its audience before its record-setting finale in 2019. While fans, both casual and die-hard, universally loved the early seasons of the show, opinion began to wane in the later seasons.
By the time the final season was wrapped up, much of the narrative surrounding Game of Thrones was about how intensely the show had fallen off. Despite this, the strength of the Game of Thrones franchise has proven to be resilient, as the spin-off prequel series House of the Dragon has managed to rebuild much of the goodwill that was established in Thrones’ earlier seasons.
As the core Game of Thrones series was being wrapped up, HBO was clear about its intention to keep the franchise going with various new shows and spin-offs. While House of the Dragon may be the only one of these shows we’ve seen anything from at this point, it is far from the only one that has entered development.
Most notably, HBO was working on a spin-off series that would have centered on Kit Harrington’s Jon Snow, following the King in the North through his adventures North of the Wall after the events of the Game of Thrones finale. However, Harrington has recently confirmed that the development of a Snow series has fallen through the cracks, and it is unlikely to happen anytime soon, if at all. Here’s why this is actually a good thing for Game of Thrones fans:
What Would a Jon Snow Show Have Been?
The development of the Snow spin-off series first made its way to the public consciousness via THR in mid-2022. The outlet reported that the series was in very early stages, though Harrington was firmly attached to return. Few other details were made available over the following couple of years, though George R. R. Martin confirmed he was involved with the series and that the idea was originally Harrington’s. Rumors continued to suggest that Harrington and his team were very actively a part of producing the series and cracking its story.
While no specifics about the story were confirmed, we can make pretty clear assumptions about the show based on the way Jon Snow’s story came to a close in Game of Thrones. The final seasons of the show confirmed the popular fan theory that the character was not actually the bastard son of Ned Stark, but rather he was the child of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen, with his true name being Aegon Targaryen.
This made Jon the rightful heir to the Iron Throne of Westeros, though it was not a position of power that he sought to hold. In the series finale, after killing Daenerys Targaryen to put an end to her increasingly tyrannical rule, Jon is sentenced to live the rest of his life with the Night’s Watch. When he arrives at the Wall, he joins with Tormund and the Wildlings and journeys to the far North, leading fans to conclude that he would take up position as the King Beyond the Wall.
A Snow series would likely have continued the story of Jon Snow and the Wildlings in the land beyond the Wall. With the Night King and the White Walkers destroyed in the final season of Game of Thrones, Snow and the Wildlings would have had free rein to establish their own kingdom, without the existential threat of the Walkers constantly hounding them. It could have also seen Jon coming to terms with his heritage as both a Stark and a Targaryen, potentially introducing new dragons into the franchise for him to tame and utilize.
Building on the Shaky Final Season
The biggest hesitation about this Jon Snow series is that it would effectively have served as a sequel to the original Game of Thrones. Rather than feeling separated off in its own space, like House of the Dragon, the show would have been forced to build directly on the story that preceded it. Given the lackluster reaction to the final seasons of Game of Thrones, this would have been a bit of an uphill battle, as the series would need to prove how it could stand on its own two feet while also showcasing that the creativity and writing at the center of it all had been improved substantially.
Even if the Jon Snow series was able to get off the ground, there would always be viewers that would see it simply as the newest seasons of Game of Thrones, whether that be season nine, ten or any other. When developing a show like this, it’s important to have the creative freedom to tell the story that you want to tell, but positioning the series as a follow-up to Game of Thrones would undercut much of that freedom. People would watch the show with the expectations already set by the previous series, rather than taking it for the new thing it would be.
On top of that, the Game of Thrones series is generally regarded to have gone off the rails once it stopped adapting the published books written by George R. R. Martin. While the first five seasons or so were directly based on the first five A Song of Ice and Fire books that Martin had written, season six and beyond ventured into the realm of unpublished material.
The story of the show had passed the point the story was at in the published books, and so the series was then adapting notes and ideas that Martin had told the showrunners about the final two books, rather than directly pulling from finished material. Martin has even gone as far as saying that he was pretty out of the loop for the show’s final few seasons. This change is dramatically apparent when watching the show, as the character arcs, dialogue and overall story are significantly less polished and sharp. If HBO were to develop an entire Jon Snow series, it would have this exact same problem.
HBO’s Other Game of Thrones Shows
So far, only one new Game of Thrones series has launched in the aftermath of the original series, and it has done so quite successfully. House of the Dragon is widely considered to be an incredible return to form for the Game of Thrones franchise, as it incorporates much of the outstanding political maneuvering that made the original series so great, while also pairing it with plenty of fire-breathing dragon action to boot. House of the Dragon also has the benefit of once again adapting published material by Martin, as it adapts parts of the author’s 2018 book Fire & Blood.
House of the Dragon will soon be joined by another Game of Thrones prequel/spin-off series titled A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight. This series will be set between House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones, about a hundred years after House of the Dragon and just as long before Game of Thrones. This show also has the benefit of adapting stories published by Martin, as it is tackling the Tales of Dunk and Egg, a series of three novellas set within the world of Westeros. The first (The Hedge Knight) was published in 1998, the second (The Sworn Sword) in 2003 and the third (The Mystery Knight) in 2010.
Beyond these two series, HBO is also in some form of development on a handful of other Game of Thrones series, including animated shows like The Golden Empire and The Sea Snake, as well as live-action shows about Princess Nymeria – the warrior Queen who founded the Dornish kingdom – and Aegon the Conqueror, who established the royal Targaryen dynasty in Westeros. Some of these shows have real potential, but HBO needs to be careful not to stretch the franchise too thin across too many stories.
Thankfully, the network is demonstrating its awareness of this, as it is taking things slowly with the new Game of Thrones shows and canceling any that aren’t quite coming together well. This was first demonstrated in the cancelation of Bloodmoon, a prequel series about the Long Night, which had gotten as far as filming a pilot before it was ultimately canceled in favor of House of the Dragon. Now that Snow seems to have met a similar fate, this apprehensive approach to the franchise is continuing to be put on display, which hopefully bodes well for the long-term health of the brand.
Stream Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon on Max.
