New Details About GoT Queen Nymeria Spinoff Prove HBO Was Right to Axe It

Summary

• HBO has a multitude of Game of Thrones spinoffs in the works.
• The Queen Nymeria project 10,000 Ships was recently canned.
• Details about the show prove that this was probably a good call.

The finale of Game of Thrones aired almost five years ago, and since then HBO has been developing a multitude of spin-offs, prequels, and sequels to fill the void.

So far the only one to come to fruition has been House of the Dragon, which had the difficult job of drawing us back to Westeros after the disappointing end of GoT left most fans uninterested. Many doubted that the show could do the job, but they were quickly proven wrong – viewership for House of the Dragon started high and got higher as news got out about its quality. The first season holds a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes (Season 8 of the original series has 55%.)

But not all ideas are going to make it, and recent details about the Queen Nymeria project 10,000 Ships prove HBO might have been right to axe it.

Who is Queen Nymeria?

One thousand years before the events of Game of Thrones, the Rhoynar people were on the verge of extinction due to attacks from the Valyrians and their dragons. Banding together all of the surviving Rhoynar, their leader Nymeria gathered her people onto ten thousand ships and set sail to find a new home.

After many years of wandering Nymeria and her people landed in Dorne, where she united her followers and the inhabitants of the land into one country.

By the time the events of Game of Thrones rolls around, Nymeria has become a legend.

A Good Idea

Although Nymeria's story isn't told in any great detail within George R.R. Martin's books, the idea is fleshed out enough that HBO spent some time developing a series about Nymeria and her people as they lived out on the water.

Writer Brian Helgeland told Inverse:

'Essentially, it was the story of Moses but swapping him out for Nymeria. Her country gets ruined and her people are forced to live on the water…She's leading all these people, trying to hold everyone together but things are always in danger of falling apart…Sometimes, the characters would come ashore, but they ultimately get driven off the land as they search for a home, their version of the promised land.'

Why Did HBO Pass?

We'll probably never know for sure, but there are likely a few reasons why HBO decided to pass on 10,000 Ships.

1. It was too far removed from the original series. Helgeland himself believes that this is a likely reason that the show did not get picked up: it is too far removed from the land, people, and age of Game of Thrones. Fans wouldn't have enough to pull them into the series.
2. It was too claustrophobic, and not claustrophobic enough. While the possibilities are endless for characters on a ship floating around – with a different port of call and new adventures every episode – the concept of an entire floating city is much trickier. You don't exactly pull up to a harbour with ten thousand people, so most likely the show focuses on… life aboard? There's a limit to how many storms, pirates, and sharks our characters could run into.
3. It's too reminiscent of a major flop. One of the most infamous flops in Hollywood history is Waterworld, a 1973 film starring Kevin Costner. The movie takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where everyone lives on rafts. It's iconically silly, and might make the very conventions of 10,000 Ships look absurd.

While 10,000 Ships is on the shelf for now, HBO still has several other GoT projects in development.