George R.R. Martin Lambastes House of the Dragon Story Choice, Hints at ‘Toxic’ Changes Ahead — HBO Says Showrunner Has Done ‘An Extraordinary Job’
As House of the Dragon executive producer/Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin recently promised, he outlined his issues with the HBO adaptation of his source material in a lengthy blog post Wednesday.
In the since-deleted post, Martin wrote that he did not agree with showrunner Ryan Condal’s decision to have the Blood & Cheese storyline — aka the gruesome murder chronicled in the Season 2 premiere — play out with only little Jaeherys and Jaehaera and not with their brother, Maelor, included. Though Maelor is a character in Martin’s Fire & Blood, on which the Game of Thrones prequel is based, he has not been introduced in the series adaptation.
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Among Martin’s biggest problems with the change: If Helaena and Aegon’s son Maelor is not introduced in the series, as Martin says Condal originally assured him he would be but now seems like he will not, there will be a “butterfly effect” on the rest of the show’s run. Those ramifications will include the circumstances surrounding the death of a major character and that loss’ effect on even bigger story points that follow.
“From what I know, that seems to be what Ryan is doing here,” Martin wrote. “It’s simplest, yes, and may make sense in terms of budgets and shooting schedules. But simpler is not better.”
In a statement, an HBO spokesperson said: “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.”
Condal also speaks to Maelor’s absence in the latest episode of The Official Game of Thrones Podcast: House of the Dragon.
“Yes, Maelor, who is the third son, who’s a little older in the book, would have been an infant because of the age of Jaehaerys and Jaehaera,” Condal says in the episode. “And frankly, this goes back to our first season and trying to adapt a story that takes place over 20 years of history instead of a story that takes place over 30 years of history, and we had to make some compromises in rendering that story so that we didn’t have to recast the whole cast multiple times and really just frankly lose people.”
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He adds: “The casualty in that was that our young children in this show are very young — very, very young — because we compressed that timeline so those people could only have children of a certain age and have it be believable where it didn’t feel like we weren’t hewing to the realities of the passage of time and the growth of children in any real way.”
In August, Condal announced that House of the Dragon will end with Season 4. Before Martin signed off his blog post, he warned that “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…”
What are your thoughts about Martin’s criticisms of House of the Dragon? Hit the comments, and let us know!
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