The Conquest

Warner Bros. announced at CinemaCon this week that it is making a movie called AEGON'S CONQUEST.

This requires context. Aegon's Conquest is the founding event of the Game of Thrones franchise — the moment, approximately 300 years before the events of the original show, when Aegon I Targaryen unified the Seven Kingdoms by flying three dragons over them until the opposition stopped having opinions. The event is extensively documented in fictional history. Characters in House of the Dragon — itself a prequel to Game of Thrones, set approximately 200 years after the conquest — cite it regularly, as one cites a foundational catastrophe. The fictional historians, called maesters, had 200 years to write about it before House of the Dragon began. They were thorough.

(There is a significant amount of fictional backstory. It goes back further than anyone has warned you about.)

The movie has not yet announced a cast. The outcome of the conquest is in all the books, including the fictional ones.

The franchise structure, as it now stands: there is Game of Thrones, which is the story. There is House of the Dragon, which is the story before the story. There is now AEGON'S CONQUEST, which is the story before the story before the story. There is also a show called The Hedge Knight in production, about a wandering knight who predates House of the Dragon. The franchise is moving in one direction at an increasing pace. Warner Bros. has not announced a production date for the Age of Heroes, which predates the maesters who documented the conquest the movie is about. This is probably a scheduling issue.

Every story in this franchise ends with a dragon. The conquest ends with dragons. House of the Dragon ends with dragons. Game of Thrones ends with a dragon. AEGON'S CONQUEST will end with dragons. The studio is manufacturing suspense around an event the audience has already absorbed from three earlier properties, a documentary companion series, and approximately 800 pages of supplemental material titled "Fire & Blood."

The announcement received 1.6 million views in three hours.

The dragons are coming. This has always been the only news.