Game of Thrones: 5 characters that deserve spinoffs

Jerald Raymond Pierce

Photo Credit: HBO

Game of Thrones concluded its eight season run, wrapping up storylines for all of its major characters. However, there are a few characters whose stories deserve even more screen time.

The reactions to the finale of Game of Thrones ran the gamut: some people were happy, some were upset, still others thought it was lame or boring. No matter what you thought, the finale seemed to set Westeros on solid footing moving forward while giving the characters left alive new missions in life.

Obviously, the following contains spoilers for the entirety of Game of Thrones.

It’s easy to look at where all of our main characters wound up and feel like that’s the end of their story. But, for some, it feels like it’s actually just the end of a chapter in their lives. With characters opening new chapters, here are five characters and stories that deserve a spinoff:

Arya

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Aside from simply wanting to see more Maisie Williams being awesome, I have to know: what is West of Westeros?

Even if that’s just Essos (because, you know, they presumably live on a round planet), does that mean Arya will become the first person to explain to everyone that their planet is round? Or do they know it’s round, but think it’s larger than it really is? For some reason, no matter what she discovers on that front, I don’t see the stubborn old maesters taking too kindly to that information.

There was some speculation on Twitter that the choice to send Arya out West potentially turned her into a colonizer.

But, c’mon. Arya, while terrifyingly deadly, is an observer. She’s inquisitive. She’d want to learn more about any culture she came across, not disturb their way of life.

Unlikely scenario: Their world is flat and Arya sails off the end of the Earth. Tragic, but I’m still down to see it.

Infinitesimally small chance of happening: They’re all actually inside a dome a la The Truman Show and Arya breaks the fourth wall in a moment that changes the television landscape forever. The characters learn they’re in a tv show and everything breaks into chaos.

Ok, the last one was a joke. But, she definitely could sail off the end of the world.

Photo Credit: HBO

Sansa, Queen in the North

Wanting to follow Sansa is simple: Sansa just created a new country. That’s going to come with growing pains.

Sansa is clearly going to be a good leader. But it’s really still too soon to tell how she’s going to rule.

She doesn’t take kindly to betrayal and, while not quite as brutal, she does have a side of her that can be a little Daenerys/Cersei-esque when it comes to justice and punishment. After all, she spent her entire life watching the minds of Cersei, Joffrey, Ramsay and Littlefinger manipulate, control and terrify the people around them.

She’s seen how that managed to work for them.

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But, thankfully, she’s also seen how it failed them. She knows the power of a kind leader, like Jon was. She’s shown she had the mind for leadership, taking the best qualities for her former torturers. Hopefully that translates into a balanced reign in the North.

(Speaking of her torturers, a spinoff would allow the writers to actually delve deeper into what it means for Sansa to be a survivor of sexual assault. Not these writers. Find other writers, women writers, and let them tell that story. I digress.)

Aside from simply her reign, she’s the lone Stark tasked with the survival of the Stark house. Arya never seemed interested, Jon’s a Targaryen and (as far as she knows) can’t have a family, and Bran can’t have kids. Sansa has to bear a huge burden there, especially since we’ve seen no decent, eligible men on the horizon. Does she merge houses with another house in the North? Does she marry someone lowborn? Does she never marry and, like the Iron Throne, allow the crown to be passed by vote when she dies?

Finally, as Queen in the North, it probably falls to her to fix the gaping hole in East Watch by the Sea.

East Watch by the Sea

This is a tricky one mostly because there’s a big question as to whether the Night’s Watch is even necessary anymore.

Sure, Castle Black is still being used as a sort of federal detention center for Westeros, but the Night King has been defeated and the Wildlings are friends now and led by a Stark/Targaryen. That should spell peace, right? Not quite.

The whole issue with the Wall and the Wildlings was that the Wall was erected because of a fear of the White Walkers. The Wildlings just happened to be on the wrong side when it went up. There will be voices in Westeros, most likely the maesters and maybe Bran, that remind people that they had thought the White Walkers had been destroyed before, but they came back. So, they should rebuild East Watch by the Sea.

Much like last time, this opens the door for generations to pass and White Walkers to fade back in to legend. Will White Walkers fade into folklore before East Watch is rebuilt? If so, does that mean those working on the final touches of East Watch will start attributing its destruction to the Wildlings?

An East Watch rebuild, and the massive amount of time it’d take, opens the door for a really interesting look at labeling people as “other” and depicting them as evil as a way to rationalize a fear. They should be fearing a White Walker resurgence. But, with no White Walkers in sight for maybe centuries, they may start to fear the only thing they know for sure to be on the other side of the wall: The Wildlings.

I, for one, would love to see Jon’s descendants and whoever mans East Watch trying to broker a new peace between the two realms.

Photo Credit: HBO

The King’s Landing crew

Another story that would take place long after the events of Game of Thrones: what happens when Bran dies.

Game of Thrones established that, when Bran dies, the leaders of the houses of Westeros should gather and vote for a new ruler. It sounds like a great plan. No chance at evil children coming to power and ruining everything.

Well, not exactly. Bran is 17 (or thereabouts) in the final Game of Thrones season. Let’s even be generous and say he’s 20. He will, by quite a bit, outlive everyone that was at that meeting. Sure, rules can be established and procedures written down and put in place, but that doesn’t guarantee they’ll actually happen.

What’s likely is that Westeros is plunged right back into chaos and war. There’s hundreds and hundreds of years of arguments for taking the throne by force or lineage rather than leave it up to a vote. Things will be especially bad if there are any houses out there who are unhappy with Bran’s rule. And there will always be people unhappy with how a country is ruled. Especially if Bran starts warging all over the place. Maybe he’s too aloof as a king. Maybe people feel like his warging is too “big brother”-y and they feel he’s invading their privacy. Things could turn on a dime on Bran.

So, what’s to stop someone from taking King’s Landing by force when Bran dies? And then what if that new ruler is so fundamentalist in their belief in the old ways that they think the North should rejoin the rest of the kingdoms and bend the knee to King’s Landing?

All. Out. Chaos.

The only good thing is that the major houses that butted heads during Game of Thrones are destroyed or have seceded. Starks? Seceded. Lannisters? Dead (assuming Tyrion doesn’t have kids). Targaryens? Dead/Wildlings now. Baratheons? Dead. Tyrells? So dead.

There’s a small chance, with all the strong-willed houses gone or content, that things would be fine. But there’s a greater chance that someone’s kid will fall victim to an advisor who is a fan of the way things used to be run. The next Petyr Baelish is just biding his time, waiting for Bran to kick the bucket.

Drogon

Where’d you go, my flying friend?

I don’t think he’ll just spend the rest of his life flying around not bothering anybody. A dragon has to eat. Someone is going to lose livestock, a child or an entire town to that dragon. Drogon will eventually become a problem for both Westeros and Essos.

This could open the door for a story examining a future political relationship between Westeros and Essos—a cause for the first global summit.

Not Jon Snow

The man has been through enough. Let him live out his life in peace beyond the Wall.

What do you think? Who would you like to see in a Game of Thrones spinoff? Or do you only want stories from entirely new characters? Let us know in the comments!

Jerald Raymond Pierce

Jerald Raymond Pierce is a writer and journalist whose work has appeared in American Theatre magazine, the Seattle Times, the Charleston Post and Courier and the Syracuse Post-Standard. He has his BFA in Acting from Ohio University and MA in Arts Journalism from Syracuse University.