All your burning questions about the 'Game of Thrones' prequel era, answered

By now the news that the spirit of Game of Thrones will continue with a prequel series set to air after the original show shatters everyone's hearts with a Valyrian steel blade and laughs about it has spread across the internet, but the pilot order's cryptic references to White Walkers and the Age of Heroes offers more questions than answers. What is the Age of Heroes? How does it connect to the time period of Game of Thrones? Will we get to see any ancestors of our favorite characters?

Settle in, beloveds, your answers are below.

What is the Age of Heroes?

The Age of Heroes is a period in Westeros’s history. The most major event of the Age of Heroes is The Long Night, during which the White Walkers attempted to take over Westeros the first time — The Long Night lasted a generation and is remembered by Game of Thrones-era Westerosi as a myth or piece of folklore.

When was the Age of Heroes?

The Age of Heroes began with the signing of the Pact and ended with the Andal Invasion.

The what and the what now?

You’re right, let’s back up. In the beginning, Westeros was populated solely by the Children of the Forest and Giants. Eventually a race known as the First Men crossed a land bridge in the south of Westeros and warred with the Children of the Forest and the Giants for centuries. This war ended with the signing of the Pact, which brought an era of peace between the two factions. At this point the Age of Heroes began, roughly ten thousand years before Game of Thrones.

The Andal Invasion ended the Age of Heroes. Four thousand years after the Pact, a different race of men called the Andals came to Westeros and warred with both the First Men and the Children of the Forest/Giants. They brought the Faith of the Seven with them and took over all of southern Westeros, but the entire North withstood them. By the end of the Andal Invasion most Children of the Forest and Giants were dead and the rest fled north of the Wall.

Oh my god, that’s why Daenerys is “Queen of the Andals and the First Men”

Yes. Well, and the Rhoynar but that’s...I won’t get into that. None of this will probably be in the prequel, by the way. It’s just good to know the bookends.

What was Westeros like during the Age of Heroes?

It was very different to how it looks in Game of Thrones! The seven kingdoms were actual kingdoms who battled each other instead of having one king over them all. Since the Andals hadn’t invaded yet, there was no Faith of the Seven or Septs — the overarching culture of the continent was much more similar to the Thrones-era Northerners, who maintain a lot of First Men customs like weirwood worship, guest rights, “the man who passes the sentence should be the one who swings the sword,” and uh...prima nocta.

The wildlings and Hill Tribes of the Vale may also be a point of reference for the culture of the Age of Heroes, as they are all descendants of the First Men, but their societies changed a lot in the years they separated themselves from “civilized” Westerosi.

This also means that there were no knights in the Age of Heroes, as knighthood is a concept that only exists in the Faith of the Seven.

Do we know who any of those kings might have been?

It’s not clear which houses were the kings during the Age of Heroes, as they kinda shifted around a lot, but Houses Arryn, Martell, Tully, and Lannister were all founded after the Andal Invasion, so they may not appear in the prequel. The Tyrells and Baratheons didn’t become Great Houses until Aegon’s Conquest, so they won’t be around either.

I'm going to have to learn a bunch of new sigils, aren't I?

Absolutely, my friend. Some of the kings in the Age of Heroes are held legendary figures, the way Johnny Appleseed or Gilgamesh are known to people in the real world. There’s more on those kinds of characters here, but they include Bran the Builder, who founded House Stark and built the Wall, and Lann the Clever, who by all reports was kind of a dick and is an ancestor (not founder) of House Lannister.

What about the Long Night?

George R.R. Martin himself has said that a good title for the prequel pilot is “The Long Night,” so it stands to reason that the show will deal with that particular part of the Age of Heroes. The Long Night is a period of winter that lasted an entire generation that is thought to have been brought upon Westeros by a the first invasion of the White Walkers.

We know from Game of Thrones that the White Walkers were created by the Children of the Forest during their war with the First Men, but it seems like at some point between the Pact and the Long Night they lost control of their icy bros with deadly consequences. The ensuing struggle for the future of humanity is also known as the War for the Dawn.

Here’s the fun part: no one knows how that happened! Enter: the prequel.

It’s going to be a cool new story that explains some of the gaps in extant Thrones lore. They might show Bran the Builder raising the Wall, founding the Night’s Watch, and becoming the first Stark King in the North. They might show secrets of the Children of the Forest. They might breeze past all of it by Season 3 and smash cut to thousands of years later when the Andals showed up and made everyone miserable! The ball is in Jane Goldman’s court, and we are just the enraptured public.