Last week, George R.R. Martin took to his “Not a Blog” to hint at some significant grievances with the recent sophomore season of HBO's Game of Thrones prequel series, House of the Dragon, promising to go into more detail soon.
The writer has now done just that, with a lengthy post outlining why he felt one particular character omission in the season premiere could have a "butterfly effect" on later seasons of the show.
He also spoils a significant season 3 death - at least for those who haven't read the book.
In the show, King Aegon and Queen Helaena have two children (Jaehaerys and Jaehaera), but in Martin's Fire and Blood, the twins have a younger brother, 2-year-old Maelor. The infamous “Blood and Cheese” sequence in the series shows the hired thugs kill Jaehaerys in front of his mother, but the events of the book are quite different - and a lot more disturbing.
“I argued against it, for all these reasons,” Martin writes. “I did not argue long, or with much heat, however. The change weakened the sequence, I felt, but only a bit. And Ryan had what seemed to be practical reasons for it; they did not want to deal with casting another child, especially a two-year old toddler. Kids that young will inevitably slow down production, and there would be budget implications. Budget was already an issue on HOUSE OF THE DRAGON, it made sense to save money wherever we could. Moreover, Ryan assured me that we were not losing Prince Maelor, simply postponing him. Queen Helaena could still give birth to him in season three, presumably after getting with child late in season two. That made sense to me, so I withdrew my objections and acquiesced to the change.”
But, Martin adds, “Sometime between the initial decision to remove Maelor, a big change was made. The prince’s birth was no longer just going to be pushed back to season 3. He was never going to be born at all. The younger son of Aegon and Helaena would never appear.”
Martin goes on to mention some other changes that might have to me made going forward, and warns: “And there are larger and more toxic butterflies to come, if HOUSE OF THE DRAGON goes ahead with some of the changes being contemplated for seasons 3 and 4…”
He then notes that, in showrunner Ryan Condol's treatment for season 3, Helaena takes her own life - as she does in the book after Maelor's death later in the story - but here it's "for no particular reason," since Maelor doesn't exist in the HBO adaptation.
HBO responded to the post with the following statement:
“There are few greater fans of George R.R. Martin and his book Fire & Blood than the creative team on House of the Dragon, both in production and at HBO. Commonly, when adapting a book for the screen, with its own format and limitations, the showrunner ultimately is required to make difficult choices about the characters and stories the audience will follow. We believe that Ryan Condal and his team have done an extraordinary job and the millions of fans the series has amassed over the first two seasons will continue to enjoy it.”
Martin has since deleted his post, but you can still read it here. What do you make of his comments? Let us know in the usual place.
"The prequel series finds the Targaryen dynasty at the absolute apex of its power, with more than 15 dragons under their yoke. Most empires—real and imagined—crumble from such heights. In the case of the Targaryens, their slow fall begins almost 193 years before the events of Game of Thrones, when King Viserys Targaryen breaks with a century of tradition by naming his daughter Rhaenyra heir to the Iron Throne. But when Viserys later fathers a son, the court is shocked when Rhaenyra retains her status as his heir, and seeds of division sow friction across the realm."
House of the Dragon season 2 sees Matt Smith, Olivia Cooke, Emma D’Arcy, Eve Best, Steve Toussaint, Fabien Frankel, Ewan Mitchell, Tom Glynn-Carney, Sonoya Mizuno, and Rhys Ifans reprise their respective roles. Additional returning cast includes Harry Collett, Bethany Antonia, Phoebe Campbell, Phia Saban, Jefferson Hall, and Matthew Needham.
The directors for the new season are Alan Taylor (Episodes 1 & 4), Clare Kilner (Episodes 2 & 5), Geeta Patel (Episodes 3 & 8), Andrij Parekh (Episode 6), and Loni Peristere (Episode 7).