Throwdown Thursday: The controversial new show coming from GoT creators

The guys behind Game of Thrones are having a pretty good week: season 7’s premiere broke ratings records and they announced their next project. Except their next project plan is getting some serious backlash.

With all the ratings records and critical acclaim for season 7 of Game of Thrones, showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are sitting pretty on the Iron Throne of pop culture power. But judging by this week’s Throwdown Thursday controversy, not everyone is thrilled by the creative choices the duo plans to make once they’ve left Westeros behind.

On Wednesday, HBO announced some details about Benioff and Weiss’ next project, a series called Confederate, about, yep, an alternate reality where the South had seceded from the Union and American slavery is still a thing. And let’s just say, not everyone was into the idea.

The internet, of course, blew up with responses and think pieces calling the show tone-deaf, offensive, and unnecessary, particularly in our current racially-charged political climate. The fact that Benioff and Weiss have caused controversy in the past over their depiction of race and sexual violence on Game of Thrones is only adding to the backlash.

Of course, no one has actually seen the series. According to HBO, it will follow “ a broad swath of characters on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Demilitarized Zone,” and with racial relations being such a hot button topic and Benioff and Weiss being such talented showrunners, it’s possible the story could be thought-provoking and not exploitative, or maybe it’ll be both.

Next: Game of Thrones season 7, episode 2: What do these 7 new photos mean?

We’ll just have to wait and see.