Game Of Thrones' Creators Have Had A Terrible, Terrible Idea

HBO has plans for a new series, and it may prove to be controversial. The network will be home to a new series called 'Confederate' from the team behind 'Game of Thrones,' and it'll focus on an alt-history timeline in which the confederacy was to some degree successful, slavery still exists, and the US is a divided nation with a demilitarized zone along the Mason-Dixon line.

An alt-history story is one in which storytellers present alternative versions of history, imaging what the world would be like if some major (or not so major) past event had ended differently. We've seen Amazon successfully embrace this genre with its 'Man in the High Castle' series, which imagines what the world would have been like if Germany had won the second world war.

In HBO's case, 'Confederate' will take a look at what the US may be like if the confederacy had been successful during the American Civil War. The show is being written by 'Game of Thrones' showrunners and creators D.B. Weiss and David Benioff, who say they first imagined the show as a feature film. Talking about the plans, the two said:

We have discussed CONFEDERATE for years, originally as a concept for a feature film. But our experience on 'Thrones' has convinced us that no one provides a bigger, better storytelling canvas than HBO.

In addition to Weiss and Benioff, the show will be bringing in Malcom Spellman and Nichelle Tramble Spellman as executive producers, as well as Bernadette Caulfield and Carolyn Strauss. What can we expect from the series' storyline? HBO explains that it will tell the story of what happens in the time leading up to the faux Third American Civil War.

In this alt-history world, the confederacy has successfully seceded from the Union, and as a result there will be characters like slave hunters and abolitionists, 'the executives of a slave-holding conglomerate,' and more. We'll see the stories of characters who exist on both sides of the political divide.

It isn't clear when the show will premiere, but HBO says production will start once the last season of Game of Thrones ends.

SOURCE: Medium