Game Of Thrones: 4 Spin-Offs HBO Should Make (& 3 They Shouldn't)
2. Robert's Rebellion
Much like Dunk & Egg, Robert's Rebellion is the other story that comes up every time the notion of a Game of Thrones spin-off is raised. Going even further than that, it's probably the one most wished for, and there's good reason for that.
This is a crucial story to Game of Thrones, effectively where it all began. It has characters we already know and love (or hate), fanciful Tourneys, epic battles, love, violence, politics, and everything else that makes Game of Thrones so compelling, with events viewers and readers alike are dying to see. So why shouldn't they make it?
Firstly, there's an issue with the fact that, on Game of Thrones, we've already seen a fair bit of it. Season 6 gave us a couple of episodes featuring big Tower of Joy sequences, and they were indeed a joy to watch. We saw Ned and his men take on the legendary Kingsguard, the defeat of Arthur Dayne, the death of Lyanna Stark, and the birth of Jon Snow and confirmation of R+L=J. That's a major part of Robert's Rebellion, and we've already seen it. How does a series, which presumably has to exist in the same canon, do it again? Repeat the scenes we've already seen? Recast? Cutting it out wouldn't really be possible. So there are problems there (we've also seen Jaime killing the Mad King, another crucial event, albeit in less detail), albeit not completely insurmountable ones.
Another issue is with the context and how we view the events. We're told bits and pieces from various points of view, and largely allowed to make up our own minds as to what happened: was Rhaegar the woman-stealing tyrant Robert would have you believe, or the kind-hearted soul Barristan Selmy remembers? Did Rhaegar kidnap Lyanna, or did the two lovers run away together? On the one hand it could be great to get these answers - I mean, I would kinda love to see the Knight of the Laughing Tree story on-screen, if they could work that in somewhere - but many elements are so connected and important to the main series, it might actually be better to stay away from them, and give us something wholly unique instead. Of course, this is by far the most likely to happen, and it'll no doubt be brilliant, but still.
Update: Martin has also confirmed this one won't be happening either, for similar reasons to those outlined above: "...it would feel too much like a twice-told tale."