Winter is coming, but it is also coming to an end.
Once the current season of Game of Thrones finishes its seven-episode run, and the eighth and final season ends after just six episodes, we really don’t have much time left before the ‘winner’ is announced.
The showrunners of the series David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have been with Game of Thrones since the show started. They have, more or less, decided which parts of George RR Martin’s novels made it into the show.
However, with the show ending, they are already looking to the future… an alternative future, in fact, with their follow-up HBO show, Confederate.
The set-up for the story, which was originally conceived as a feature-length movie, but morphed following the success the duo had with HBO, will surround the events leading to the third, fictional, American Civil War. In this alternative history, the southern states have successfully seceded from the Union, giving rise to a nation in which slavery remains legal and has evolved into a modern institution.
While the idea sounds like it is ripe to reflect back a dark shadow of today’s political landscape, a lot of folk took to the internet to vent their frustrations about the central problem as they see it.
The fandom for the new #HBO show #Confederate is gonna be Tragic. Can you imagine how much harmful imagery they're gonna produce? pic.twitter.com/P9xbxfQQtv
— Mars (Like the planet, yeah) (@MarsinCharge) July 19, 2017
https://twitter.com/rgay/status/887798204703559680
Critics of HBO's "Confederate" don't think slavery should be trivialized for the sake of a fantasy TV series https://t.co/IWkj2S6xKN
— The New York Times (@nytimes) July 21, 2017
https://twitter.com/kamilumin/status/887808959243046913
Every pop culture writer I know, upon being asked about HBO's Confederate. pic.twitter.com/Pa5MeMe4eK
— Kayleigh Donaldson (@Ceilidhann) July 19, 2017
The show is still years away from hitting the small screen. But both Benioff and Weiss have already released a statement, claiming they knew the idea was going to court controversy.
They told Vulture “we all knew it was coming in one form or another.”
Nichelle Tramble Spellman, one of the writer/executive producers on the series, also stated:
“I do understand their concern. I wish their concern had been reserved to the night of the premiere, on HBO, on a Sunday night, when they watched and then they made a decision after they watched an hour of television as to whether or not we succeeded in what we set out to do. The concern is real. But I think that the four of us are very thoughtful, very serious, and not flip about what we are getting into in any way. What I’ve done in the past, what Malcolm has done in the past, what the D.B.s have done in the past, proves that. So I would have loved an opportunity for the conversation to start once the show was on the air.”
