The dragons have fallen! The realm is in
chaos. And now, the man who knows it all has something to say. "George R.R. Martin
has broken his silence. He's here to tell us what really went wrong with House
of the Dragon. Are you ready to hear the truth? This is gonna be a wild ride!"
So fasten your seat belt and let’s roll. As he promised in his blog post
on August 30, George R. R. Martin, the creator and author of “Game of Thrones,” has
explained what he believes went wrong with Season 2 of HBO’s “House of the Dragon.” He pointed out
specific differences between his original book, “Fire and Blood,” and the changes made by
Ryan Condal, the showrunner of the “Game of Thrones” prequel. Martin also discussed what
to expect in the final two seasons of the show. Martin’s main critique, which he later removed
from his blog post titled “Beware the Butterflies” on Wednesday, focused on the differences between
the “Blood and Cheese” plotline in the “House of the Dragon” Season 2 premiere and how it’s
described in “Fire and Blood.” What made Martin remove the blog post is now unknown. This
plotline includes the death of a child character, and Martin was concerned about how it was handled
differently in the show compared to his book. “House of the Dragon” has completely
removed one character from the story: Prince Maylor, the youngest son of
Eggon and Helayna Targaryen. Martin, who is a co-creator and executive producer
on the show, believes this change will have significant effects on the series as it moves
into Seasons 3 and 4. In the show’s version, Eggon and Helayna only have two
children, twins Jayhayra and Jayhaerys. “When Ryan Condal first told me
what he planned to do, which was a long time ago (probably back in 2022), I
disagreed with him for all these reasons,” Martin wrote. “I didn’t argue for long or
with much intensity, though. I felt the change made the sequence a bit weaker, but Ryan
had what seemed like practical reasons for it; they didn’t want to deal with casting another
child, especially a two-year-old toddler.” Kids that young can slow down production and add
extra costs. Since the budget was already tight on "House of the Dragon," it made sense to save money
where possible. Additionally, Ryan assured me that we weren’t permanently losing Prince Maylor;
we were just delaying his appearance. Queen Helayna could still give birth to him in Season 3,
probably after becoming pregnant late in Season 2. That made sense to me, so I dropped my objections
and agreed to the change. I still love the episode and the “Blood and Cheese” sequence overall.
Losing the “Helayna’s Choice” moment did weaken the scene a bit, but not by much. Only readers
of the book would really notice its absence; viewers who haven’t read Fire and Blood
would still find the scenes deeply moving. Maylor didn’t actually do anything in
the scene, after all. How could he? He was only two years old. However, there’s
another aspect to removing the young prince that’s worth mentioning. Martin then explained
in detail how removing Maylor could impact the plans for the final two seasons of HBO’s
“House of the Dragon,” which Condal has recently confirmed will end with Season
4. He revealed some major plot spoilers from “Fire and Blood,” saying, “Maylor
by himself means little,” Martin wrote. “He is a small child, doesn’t have any dialogue, and doesn’t do anything of consequence except
die, but the details of where, when, and how he dies do matter. Losing Maylor weakened
the end of the Blood and Cheese sequence, but it also meant losing the Bitterbridge
scene with all its horror and heroism. This, in turn, diminished the motivation for Helayna’s
suicide, which led to thousands of people pouring into the streets and alleys, screaming
for justice for their ‘murdered’ queen.” None of that is absolutely essential, I
suppose, but everything serves a purpose. It all helps to connect the storylines, making
sure that one thing leads to another in a logical and convincing way. The author of the “A Song of
Ice and Fire” series wrapped up his blog post, which he later deleted on Wednesday, by suggesting
that there could be more problems for “House of the Dragon” in the future. He added, “And there
are larger and more toxic butterflies to come, if ‘House of the Dragon’ goes ahead with some of
the changes being considered for Seasons 3 and 4…” An HBO spokesperson addressed Martin’s concerns
on Wednesday with the following statement, which was obtained by Variety: “Few people are
bigger fans of George R.R. Martin and his book Fire and Blood than the creative team on ‘House
of the Dragon,’ both at HBO and in production. When adapting a book for the screen, with its own
format and limitations, the showrunner often has to make tough choices about which characters
and storylines the audience will follow.” “We believe that Ryan Condal and his
team have done an extraordinary job, and we’re confident that the millions of
fans who have enjoyed the series during its first two seasons will continue to
do so.” On a recent episode of HBO’s official “House of the Dragon” podcast,
Condal explained that “we had to make some compromises in telling the story” when
it came to removing the Maylor character. “The casualty in that was that our young
children in the show are very young. Very, very young,” he said. “Because
we’ve compressed the timeline. So the characters can only have children
of a certain age to keep it believable and ensure it aligns with the realities
of time passing and how children grow.” “And people, people really notice those
details. Especially with a show like this, they scrutinize it very closely. So it was a
choice we made. It did have a ripple effect, and we decided to embrace it and try to turn it into a
strength, rather than treating it as a weakness.” On August 30, Martin first hinted
on his blog that he would write a post about “everything that’s gone wrong”
with the “Game of Thrones” prequel show. “I’m not looking forward to writing more
posts about everything that’s gone wrong with House of the Dragon, but I need
to do that too, and I will. Not today, though. TODAY is Zozobra’s day, when
we turn away from gloom,” Martin wrote, referring to the Burning of Zozobra festival in
Santa Fe, N.M, in a post about his summer travels. Martin was initially quite positive about “House
of the Dragon” Season 2. After watching the first two episodes, he wrote, “Both episodes were
just great. Dark, mind you. Very dark. They might make you cry. (I didn’t cry myself, but
one of my friends did.) Powerful, emotional, gut-wrenching, heart-rending. Just the
kind of thing I like. (What can I say? I was weaned on Shakespeare and love the
tragedies and history plays the most.)” Later, however, he posted a negative reaction
to the show, using the wrong, four-legged dragon sigil for House Targaryen. The correct sigil from
his Westeros world features a two-legged dragon. “They went with the bad sigil rather than
the good one,” Martin wrote at the time. “That sound you heard was me screaming, ‘No,
no, no.’ Those damned extra legs have even made their way onto the covers of my
books, despite my strong objections.” So there you have it. Martin's words, his
insights. What do you think? Did he hit the nail on the head? Or is there still more to the
story? Let us know in the comments below." "And that's a wrap! Thanks for joining me on this wild
ride through the world of Westeros. Remember, dragons are dangerous, politics are messy,
and Martin knows best. Until next time, subscribe to this channel, check out our
other videos and keep dreaming of dragons."