House of the Dragon Season 1 was hailed as a worthy follow-up to Game of Thrones and a vast improvement over a controversial, divisive final season. Still, there was a noticeable dip in quality with Season 2, and many fans argued that the show had lost its initial momentum.
While the upcoming third season will be a big test for the prequel series (which, whatever happens, will end with Season 4), we know that A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin took a step back, creatively speaking, with that second batch of episodes.
That came after a well-publicised rift with showrunner Ryan Condal, whom Martin publicly put on blast in a blog post that left HBO reeling. While it was quickly removed, the damage was done, and it became clear that there were major issues behind the scenes.
Talking to The Hollywood Reporter (via SFFGazette.com), Martin was asked about his relationship with Condal. "It’s worse than rocky," he replied. "It's abysmal."
"I hired Ryan," he continued. "I thought Ryan and I were partners. And we were all through the first season. I would read early drafts of the scripts. I would give notes. He would change some things. It was working really well — I thought."
"Then we got into season two, and he basically stopped listening to me. I would give notes, and nothing would happen. Sometimes he would explain why he wasn’t doing it. Other times, he would tell me, ‘Oh, OK, yeah, I’ll think about that.’ It got worse and worse, and I began to get more and more annoyed."
"Finally, it got to a point where I was told by HBO that I should submit all my notes to them and they would give Ryan our combined notes," Martin explained, adding that his manager took down the blog post after getting a call from an upset HBO executive.
Martin was unable to elaborate further on where things stand now. However, the trade's sources point to a major deterioration in their relationship that reached its boiling point during a Zoom call with producers and HBO execs. During that, the writer is said to have declared, "This is not my story any longer."
HBO asked Martin to step back from House of the Dragon after his viral comments, but he was brought back on board months later.
An HBO insider said, "George and Ryan had a disagreement on the direction of season three. At that point, it was clear that the process and communication with them was broken and needed a reset. So there was naturally a period where everyone took a step back for a while until we could figure out a new way forward."
We don't know the extent of Martin's involvement in House of the Dragon Season 3, but it's hard to imagine him and Condal returning to the dynamic they had while working on Season 1. What that means for the show's quality also remains to be seen.
House of the Dragon will return to HBO with its third season this summer.