'Game of Thrones' Co-Authors Shed New Light on Future of the Franchise

The Game of Thrones and A Song of Ice and Fire fandom has been getting a surprising amount of new information recently, but one addition is difficult to parse. Elio García and Linda Antonsson co-authored The World of Ice & Fire with George R.R. Martin and are working with him on other book projects in the future as well. In a recently-released interview with the Spanish-language YouTube channel Maglor, they shared new details on what that upcoming slate looks like.

For those unaware, Martin recently made a blog post detailing his immense workload right now and implying that all of those projects were of equal importance to him – implying to some fans that The Winds of Winter is no longer his No. 1 priority. According to approximate fan translations of the new interview with García and Antonsson, that may not be entirely true. Some of their comments on how much they and Martin are involved in each TV and book project were encouraging, suggesting that there is still plenty of time left in the day for good old-fashioned writing.

First and foremost, García and Antonsson claimed that the sequel to Fire & Blood will not be written until A Song of Ice and Fire is complete. This is a huge relief to fans who feared that Martin would focus on this fictional history book in order to keep the TV shows supplied with material, rather than working on the ending of his book series. Fans still hope the final two volumes of A Song of Ice and Fire will provide a more satisfying ending than the TV show.

One of the biggest hints comes from their comments on the Dunk & Egg TV show in development. They confirmed that Martin intends to finish writing his Dunk & Egg spinoff novella series before the TV show can catch up with him – assuming it gets greenlit – and that he intends for there to bet between 9 and 11 novellas in total. However, they reportedly said that the Dunk & Egg TV show does not take up much of Martin's time or attention since the first three novellas are already written and are well-suited to a TV adaptation.

The couple also said that one of the biggest struggles for Martin in writing The Winds of Winter has been making corrections, then accounting for them within the plot. For those that don't know, García and Antonsson created the first major A Song of Ice and Fire fan site, "A Wiki of Ice and Fire," and Martin eventually hired them to help keep his world-building consistent and to organize the encyclopedia-style companion book with him. They said that Martin often mixes up where his characters are in the world at any given time, and when he goes back to correct that, it leads the story off in different directions.

García and Antonsson shared lots of other interesting tidbits and insight – much of which was just speculation, but still worth thinking about. They mentioned the first Game of Thrones spinoff show, Bloodmoon, which they believe was canceled because of the abysmal response to Game of Thrones Season 8, Episode 3 – the one with the final battle against the White Walkers. They said that they were consultants for the show and that the prop masters wanted to create a "White Painted Table" – a version of the Targaryens' "Painted Table" but with a map of just the north, rather than all of Westeros.

The couple also shared their opinions on some of the most prevalent fan theories within the A Song of Ice and Fire fandom. For example, they believe that Valyrians like the Targaryens do in fact share some literal DNA with dragons and that this impacts who can ride dragons. They also believe that the book-exclusive character Aegon VI is actually a Blackfyre bastard in disguise, that the Tragedy at Summerhall was an attempted fire magic ritual and that Bran Stark will never leave his cave again. Rather than ruling from King's Landing, they believe Bran will rule from his Wierwood throne north of The Wall using his Greenseer magic.

These insights may help pep up the ASOIaF fandom as it waits patiently for The Winds of Winter. However, it still seems like we'll probably see the first spinoff show, House of the Dragon before anything else. House of the Dragon is expected to premiere this year on HBO. It is based on Fire & Blood, which is available now in print, digital and audiobook formats.