George R.R. Martin Criticizes ‘House of the Dragon’ Storyline, Reveals Season 3 Ripple Effect

Proma Khosla
·3 min read
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George R.R. Martin is breaking his (relative) silence about HBO’s “House of the Dragon.”

After initially responding positively to Season 2 of the series, Martin turned to his blog on September 4 to dig deeper into a major change from “Fire & Blood” and how it did and will continue to affect “House of the Dragon” moving forward.

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Season 2, Episode 1 ended with the murder of the child Jaehaerys, son of Helaena (Phia Saban) and Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) and grandson of Alicent (Olivia Cooke) and Viserys (Paddy Considine). Two unnamed assassins known as “Blood” and “Cheese” kill the boy to avenge Rhaenyra’s (Emma D’Arcy) son, who died at the end of Season 1 in dragon flight with Aemond (Ewan Mitchell). The episode title, “A Son for a Son,” refers to this act.

And while the structure and result of the sequence in the same, Martin points out that in the book, there is a third child present with Jaehaerys and his sister Jaehaera: their little brother Maelor, only two years old at the time. The killers ask Helaena to choose which son will die, and under duress she names Maelor — prompting the killer to tell him “You hear that, little boy? Your momma wants you dead,” and then sparing his life and killing Jaehaerys instead.

“I still believe the scene in the book is stronger,” Martin wrote in his September 4 post. “As I saw it, the ‘Sophie’s Choice’ aspect was the strongest part of the sequence, the darkest, the most visceral. I hated to lose that. And judging from the comments on line, most of the fans seemed to agree.”

Martin resisted the change at first, but said Ryan Condal assured him Maelor would still be introduced later in the show. Book and possible show spoilers ahead, but Maelor is eventually sent away from King’s Landing and ripped limb from limb on his journey to safety; his death drives Helaena to suicide, and her death is one of the events that turns the people of Westeros against Rhaenyra.

“In Ryan’s outline for season 3, Helaena still kills herself… for no particular reason,” Martin revealed. “There is no fresh horror, no triggering event to overwhelm the fragile young queen.”

Martin did also write “I have no idea what Ryan has planned — if indeed he has planned anything — but given Maelor’s absence from episode 2, the simplest way to proceed would be just to drop him entirely, lose the bit where Alicent tries to send the kids to safety, drop Rickard Thorne or send him with Willis Fell so Jaehaera has two guards.”

An HBO spokesperson told IndieWire: “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.”

Helaena’s character has already been modified from the book, along with lots of other changes like Alicent’s change of heart, tension between Aegon and Aemond, and Daemon’s extended stay at Harrenhal which culminates in visions of the future. “House of the Dragon” has never been a show that strictly follows Martin’s text, but the absence of Prince Maelor appears to have been one change too many for the author.

“House of the Dragon” is available to stream on Max.

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