Yahoo News George RR Martin warns of "toxic" House of the Dragon changes
House of the Dragon season 2 spoilers follow.
Game of Thrones creator George RR Martin has warned of "toxic" House of the Dragon changes in a blog about the show.
Last week, the writer warned that he would share "everything that’s gone wrong" with House of the Dragon — and he partially followed through on Wednesday (September 4) with a blog that was deleted quickly after publication.
In the post (via TheWrap), Martin explains that his biggest complaint about the second season of House of the Dragon was not with the controversial finale.
Instead, the writer took issue with showrunner Ryan Condal removing the character Maelor from the show because he should have been pivotal in the season premiere's 'Blood and Cheese' sequence.
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The episode revolved around a section from Martin's book Fire & Blood where the assassins Blood and Cheese sneak into the Red Keep to avenge the death of Prince Luke.
In the TV version, Blood and Cheese make Helaena choose which of her twins dies. This is radically different from Fire & Blood, where younger son Maelor was with the twins and their mother when she was forced to choose between the three children.
"As I saw it, the ‘Sophie’s Choice’ aspect was the strongest part of the sequence, the darkest, the most visceral,” Martin wrote in his blog. “I hated to lose that. And judging from the comments online, most of the fans seemed to agree.”
The writer explained that he "argued against" the show's twist on 'Blood and Cheese' when he first found out about it from Condal.
"I did not argue long, or with much heat, however," he recalled. "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 3, presumably after getting with child late in Season 2. That made sense to me, so I withdrew my objections and acquiesced to the change."
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Martin concluded: "I still believe the scene in the book is stronger. The readers have the right of that. The two killers are crueler in the book. I thought the actors who played the killers on the show were excellent… but the characters are crueler, harder, and more frightening in Fire & Blood.”
Martin was concerned that the removal of Maelor from the show thus far could point to a "butterfly effect" where more content from his books could be left out of House of the Dragon.
"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 wrote.
The writer made sure to mention that he "still love[d] the episode, and the Blood and Cheese sequence overall" and approved of the job Condal is doing as showrunner.
HBO defended showrunner Ryan Condal's creative choices in its statement to Deadline.
"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," a network statement read.
"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."
In his own statement, Condal acknowledged that it was a grueling task to adapt Martin's vast canon to the screen.
"As dramatists, I think we have to approach this history, though it is fictional, as anyone would do, as trying to adapt a chapter from real history,” Condal said.
“So we have to construct this three-dimensional reality and this full story for the world to inhabit and provide the characters with internal lives and flaws and desires that might not necessarily have made it into the historical account. Now there are plenty of opportunities in reading Fire & Blood to say, well, there was actually a flaw or a desire or something that does not make it into the record, but it’s often an incomplete picture.
"So really a lot of what we do is, as dramatists and adapters of this is coloring in the lines that we’re given … and a lot of that color is ultimately our own.”
Martin's criticism of House of the Dragon's second season has come weeks after it was announced that the show will end with its fourth season.
House of the Dragon seasons 1-2 air on Sky Atlantic and stream on NOW in the UK. In the US, it airs on HBO and streams on Max.
Read more House of the Dragon news on our dedicated homepage
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