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‘GoT’ creators new show ‘Confederate’ sounds like worst shit ever

With its massive debut, HBO’s hit TV series Game of Thrones looks to have one of its most successful seasons yet.

Sunday’s episode titled “Dragonstone” snagged about 10 million viewers for the season premier. And those numbers will keep rising as the show progresses.

There are even talks about potential spinoffs that will either be preludes to the show’s timeline or take place after the show has ended.

However, when asked at last year’s Television Critics Association summer press tour about these spinoffs, president of HBO’s programming Casey Bloys stated that there are, “no concrete plans, or anything like that at this point.” However, there is one project set to begin after the final season of GoT.

Recently, HBO greenlit another project by GoT’s executive producers and showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff called Confederate.

It is based on an alternate timeline where the southern states have successfully seceded from the Union and slavery was never abolished. The story chronicles the events leading to the Third American Civil War.

According to HBO’s press release,

“The story follows a broad swath of characters on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Demilitarized Zone – freedom fighters, slave hunters, politicians, abolitionists, journalists, the executives of a slave-holding conglomerate and the families of people in their thrall.”

Unfortunately for those hoping to see White Walkers, that will not be the case, sort of.

Both producers stated,

“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.

“There won’t be dragons or White Walkers in this series, but we are creating a world, and we couldn’t imagine better partners in world-building than Nichelle and Malcolm, who have impressed us for a long time with their wit, their imagination and their Scrabble-playing skills.”

The Spellmans will be joining in this project as executive producers and writers. Nichelle Tramble Spellman has worked for the shows Justified and The Good Wife while Malcolm Spellman has worked on Empire.

Carolyn Strauss and Bernadette Caulfield, who have both worked on Game of Thrones, will also join as executive producers.

While this may be an interesting idea for some, it has also sparked a lot of controversy on social media outlets. Most are concerned about how harmful this premise may be, especially with America as most divided as it is right now.

Game of Thrones has seen a lot of controversy itself due to the fact that there is barely any diversity in its cast.

Recently, actor John Boyega, one of the stars in the new Star Wars trilogy, slammed the show for not having enough black actors or actresses in the show. In an interview with GQ, he stated, “There are no black people on Game of Thrones.”

Boyega went on, “you don’t see one black person in Lord of the Rings. I ain’t paying money to always see one type of person on-screen!” Though there are several actors of color such as Nathalie Emmanuel, who plays Missandei, and Jacob Anderson, who plays Grey Worm, a lot of people agree with his statement.

Underground, a much-praised drama that was cancelled recently by WGN has been also brought into the mix. The show was based on key figures in the Underground Railroad. It had wrapped up its second season earlier this month.

John Legend, executive producer of Underground, stated on his twitter that “Content wins. We’re not reliant on a particular network to make great content.”

To see a show like Underground that had so much potential and was not trying to exploit black history but educate and inspire viewers, it begs the question: who is really in charge here?