Game of Thrones already has an outside pitch for the spin-off series

This Game of Thrones video might be an interesting subject, but it also seems to have some mistakes in canon knowledge that prevent it from truly shining.

Time to test your Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire knowledge. Thanks to io9, we even have the test in the form of a video! It’s dubbed Doom of Valyria, and if you pay attention, you might just catch a few things that make you raise an eyebrow.

The video kicks off with a brief card showing that the whole point of this video is to get HBO’s attention. However, with some fundamental misunderstandings of Valyria, it seems like it might not work as intended.

Check it out below. Warning: this video does contain animated nudity and actual voiced adult language. In short, it’s not safe for work.

Let’s start with what the video does get right, citing a Wiki of Ice and Fire (which in turn is citing the books as well as The World of Ice and Fire). Aenar Targaryen was indeed a dragonlord of Valyria, and he did have a son, Gaemon, and a daughter, Daenys. And, in fact, Daenys did marry Gaemon. She even had visions of the fall of Valyria …12 years before it actually happened. That’s why the Targaryens moved to Dragonstone. They’re powerful because they lived and still had dragons when no one else did. The video here appears to compress all of that timeline into a much shorter period.

It also seems to misrepresent the Targaryens’ standing in Valyria. The Targaryens were one of 40 families who had dragonlord status in Valyria, and indications are that Aenar wouldn’t have been in quite as much power as he seems to be here. Also, they weren’t the first family to marry sister to brother; as io9 notes, that’s how Doom chooses to show it. Instead, the Wiki notes on the page about Valyria that that type of marriage was quite common, citing both A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings.

Even so, one can tell that a lot of effort went into this. io9 says that Patrick McCarthy took two years to put this all together and notes it likely won’t catch HBO’s attention. When yours truly speculated on the five series, I noted that the Doom is quite possible as a subject matter, but I have to agree with io9 that it’s probably not going to be this version.

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Also, finally, why is a Stark there? It’s explained why he’s there in story, but what purpose does he serve other than to be like “hey, there’s a Stark” and exposition on Valyria? Unfortunately, this leaves me asking more questions than ever before.