The universe of Star Wars had a problem. After the conclusion of the Skywalker saga, the franchise faced a fundamental question: where do we go from here? How do you follow the enormous scope of the main trilogy without just trying to replicate it? The answer, when it finally arrived in The Mandalorian, was elegant and smart. Go smaller. Focus on individual characters rather than galaxy-spanning conflicts. Tell intimate stories set in the larger universe rather than trying to shake the foundations of that universe.
Now, fast forward to the Game of Thrones universe, which faced a nearly identical problem. House of the Dragon chose to go bigger and grander, diving deep into the Targaryen civil war that’s central to Game of Thrones lore. But A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms made the same choice as The Mandalorian: go smaller. Focus on two characters on a journey. Tell stories about individuals and communities rather than kingdoms at war. Use the larger universe as a backdrop rather than the center of the story.
These two shows—separated by franchise, by genre in many ways, by entirely different production contexts—have discovered the same solution to the central challenge of spinoff storytelling: how to honor and build on a legacy universe without trying to replicate or overshadow what came before. Let’s talk about what they’re both doing right and what their shared approach can tell us about how to make successful spinoffs.
The Problem with Going Big After Success
There’s a natural instinct when a franchise has been wildly successful to think that the path forward is to go bigger. More money, more spectacle, more scope. If the original was epic, the spinoff should be even more epic. This led to some genuinely catastrophic decisions in Star Wars: projects that tried to recapture the magic of the original trilogy by making them even more grandiose, or projects that tried to tell stories that were so huge they collapsed under their own weight.
Game of Thrones itself kind of fell victim to this instinct. The later seasons, increasingly desperate to bring massive storylines to conclusions, became less intimate and more focused on delivering shocking moments and large-scale destruction. It worked sometimes, but there’s a sense that the show forgot what made it special in the first place: its ability to weave together character-driven stories set in a realized world.
Both The Mandalorian and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms recognized that the winning move isn’t to try to match the scope of what came before. It’s to do something different. It’s to recognize that audiences are hungry for something other than just more of the same, and that intimate, character-driven storytelling can be just as compelling as epic narratives. The Mandalorian is successful because it’s willing to be a bounty hunter show first and a Star Wars show second. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is successful because it’s willing to be a road narrative first and a Game of Thrones show second.
Structure: The Episodic Advantage
One of the most interesting similarities between The Mandalorian and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is their shared structural approach: episodic storytelling with overarching character arcs. Both shows follow characters traveling through their respective worlds. Both shows structure their narratives around specific adventures or encounters while maintaining longer-term character development.
The Mandalorian’s first season is explicitly structured around Din Djarin taking bounties and going to different planets to fulfill those bounties. Each episode is relatively self-contained, though there’s ongoing character development and world-building across the season. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms similarly structures its narrative around Dunk and Egg traveling and encountering different situations. Each episode could theoretically stand on its own, but they’re woven together by the characters’ journey and their relationship.
This episodic structure is actually perfect for spinoff storytelling because it allows you to tell multiple stories set in the established universe without needing to connect everything through complex plot mechanics. You’re not trying to solve every mystery or explain every mystery from the original. You’re just showing us how this world works from a different perspective, through different eyes. The structure gives you permission to meander a little, to focus on character moments and world-building without constantly advancing some enormous mythological plot.
There’s also something liberating about episodic structure for the creative team. You’re not locked into a five-season plan where every choice has to serve some predetermined endpoint. You have flexibility to develop characters organically, to let stories breathe, to end a season when you’ve told a good story rather than trying to stretch things out to hit some predetermined beat.
Avoiding the Legacy Burden
Here’s where both of these shows are really clever: they understand that being a spinoff of something beloved can actually be a burden. The weight of canon, the expectations of fans who care deeply about the original, the pressure to somehow tie everything back to what came before—these can be creatively paralyzing. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms and The Mandalorian both deal with this by not trying to explain or resolve the mysterious elements that fans are curious about.
The Mandalorian doesn’t try to definitively answer questions about the state of the galaxy after the events of the main saga. It just shows us how the galaxy works now. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms doesn’t try to answer all the questions about what happened during the Targaryen civil war or what the Targaryen dynasty’s future holds. It shows us a snapshot of the world at a specific moment.
This is actually the perfect approach for a legacy universe spinoff. You’re not trying to write the definitive history. You’re not trying to fill in all the gaps that curious fans have identified. You’re just telling a story that happens to be set in this world. This takes an enormous amount of pressure off because you’re allowed to focus on what makes your story good rather than what makes it comprehensive.
Both shows also benefit from having a clear creative vision that’s somewhat independent of the original’s vision. The Mandalorian isn’t pretending to be like the original trilogy. It’s a completely different kind of show—more of a western, more of a buddy comedy in places, with a totally different tone. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms similarly isn’t trying to replicate the tone or scale of Game of Thrones. It’s doing its own thing within the same universe.
Character Focus Over World-Saving Stakes
Both The Mandalorian and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms place an enormous emphasis on character relationships rather than world-shaking conflicts. The Mandalorian is, at its heart, about the relationship between Din and Grogu. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is about the relationship between Dunk and Egg. These relationships are the emotional core of both shows. They’re what we’re actually invested in watching.
This is crucial because it means both shows can sustain interest even when the individual episodes don’t have massive stakes. An episode of The Mandalorian might just be about a prison break that goes wrong or a mission to capture something on a specific planet. An episode of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms might just be about a tournament or a local problem with a lord. The stakes are real within the context of the story, but they’re not world-ending stakes.
And yet, because we care about the characters involved, we’re genuinely invested in how things turn out. We’re not watching these shows because we need to know what happens to the fate of galaxies or kingdoms. We’re watching because we want to see what happens to Din and Grogu, or to Dunk and Egg. That’s a fundamentally different kind of investment, but it’s no less engaging.
Both shows understand that character moments are often more important than action beats. Both are willing to slow down and have scenes where people just talk, where relationships develop, where we get to know these characters more deeply. These are the scenes that make the exciting moments matter more, because we understand what’s being risked.
Building World Through Detail, Not Exposition
Neither The Mandalorian nor A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms relies on heavy exposition to explain how their worlds work. Instead, both build their worlds through observation and detail. In The Mandalorian, we learn how the galaxy works by watching Din navigate it. We see communities dealing with the aftermath of war. We see different cultures and how they interact. We learn the state of things through action and observation rather than explanation.
Similarly, in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, we learn how Westeros works by watching Dunk navigate it. We see different lords and how they behave. We see communities in different regions. We encounter the reality of feudalism not through lectures but through watching how it functions in actual situations. This creates a much richer sense of world than exposition could ever provide because we’re experiencing the world through the characters’ perspective.
This approach also means that both shows can maintain mystery and uncertainty. They don’t need to explain everything because they’re not trying to provide a comprehensive guide to their universes. They’re just showing us the parts of the world that matter to their specific stories. This is actually perfect for building a sense of a larger world that exists beyond what we see on screen.
The Emotional Payoff of Small Stories
Perhaps the most important similarity between these shows is that they’ve both discovered that small stories can have enormous emotional impact. The Mandalorian’s finale of Season 1 is genuinely moving not because it resolves some cosmic conflict, but because of what it means for Din and Grogu’s relationship. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ emotional moments land hardest when they’re about the relationships between characters rather than about historical events or political maneuvering.
This is actually in direct contrast to a lot of modern television, which assumes that bigger scale automatically creates bigger emotional impact. But that’s not true. The most moving moments in storytelling often come from intimate character work. When you’ve spent time getting to know people, when you understand their hopes and fears and dreams, when you genuinely care about their outcomes, small moments become huge.
Both shows understand this in their bones. They structure their narratives to create space for these emotional moments. They trust that the audience will be moved by watching characters they care about face difficult situations and make hard choices. And they’re right. The response to both shows suggests that audiences are hungry for precisely this kind of storytelling.
When Intimacy Works Better Than Spectacle
There’s something genuinely subversive about The Mandalorian and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms in the current landscape of prestige television. They’re suggesting that intimate storytelling might actually be more compelling than epic spectacle. Not that spectacle is bad, but that you don’t need it to tell a story worth watching. You don’t need the most expensive action sequences or the most impressive visual effects. You need compelling characters and a world worth exploring.
The Mandalorian proved this conclusively—it became one of the most popular Star Wars properties despite (or maybe because of) being much smaller in scope than the main saga. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is proving it again. These shows are telling us something important: audiences want to feel like they’re actually experiencing a world and understanding characters deeply. They want intimate relationships and real stakes for people they care about. They want storytelling that trusts them to be interested in human drama.
Conclusion: The Future of Spinoffs
If there’s a lesson that The Mandalorian and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms are both teaching, it’s this: the most successful spinoffs don’t try to be bigger or more important than what came before. They go smaller. They go more intimate. They find a different angle, a different tone, a different kind of story to tell within the same universe. They trust that audiences are hungry for character-driven narratives set in realized worlds, and that we don’t need world-ending stakes to be emotionally invested.
This has implications not just for Star Wars and Game of Thrones, but for how we think about legacy universes more broadly. The instinct to go bigger after massive success is natural, but these shows suggest that the winning move is often to do something different. Find a new perspective. Tell a new kind of story. Use the established universe as a foundation for something that stands on its own terms.
The Mandalorian opened the door for intimate Star Wars storytelling. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is opening a similar door for Game of Thrones. And both shows are teaching the entertainment industry a valuable lesson about what audiences actually want. We want good characters. We want to understand how worlds work through observation and detail. We want stories that trust us to be interested in human drama. We want spinoffs that are confident enough to go smaller rather than bigger, intimate rather than epic. And when done with skill and care, that approach creates some of the most compelling television we’ve seen in years.
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