George R.R. Martin Writes About Everything That Went Wrong with House of the Dragon S2, Then Deletes Blog Post

If you didn’t know, the series is adapted from George R.R. Martin's "Fire and Blood," an in-universe historical book about the Targaryen family. The prequel focuses on the "Dance of the Dragons," a devastating civil war that took place approximately 200 years before the events of GOT, where the Targaryens fought against each other.

Many fans anticipated that Martin would write about the less-than-stellar finale that did not include the highly anticipated Battle of the Gullet between the Blacks and Greens. Instead, in the detailed blog post (see below for more), Martin slammed Ryan Condal, the showrunner, for HOTD’s decision to omit a character that was key in Martin’s Fire & Blood and how that will likely impact the story going forward in Season 3 & 4. Martin serves as co-creator and executive producer on the show.

The blog post

In the lengthy blog post, Martin essentially stated that the events that happened in the Blood & Cheese event had deviated from the original source material as the showrunners essentially changed the dynamic of the scene by removing one of Aegon's sons, Maelor.

Martin explained that the decision to do so was due to budgeting reasons for the series, "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 are young will inevitably slow down production, and there would be budget implications. Budget was already an issue in HOUSE OF THE DRAGON, it made sense to save money wherever we could."

However, Martin stated that removing Maelor from the series will cause a "Butterfly Effect," whereby, in making one change to the narrative, House of the Dragon will be forced to make even more changes in the future.

Read the now-deleted full blog post here titled ‘Beware the Butterflies,’ which was originally published on George R.R. Martin’s blog ‘Not a Blog.’ It was shared on LRM Online.

HBO & Ryan Condal’s response

After Martin published his complaints online, an HBO spokesperson responded with the following statement to Variety, “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 is ultimately required to make difficult choices about the characters and stories the audience will follow.”

As reported by Deadline, Condal labelled Martin’s tome a “history book” that doesn’t necessarily come with fully fleshed-out moments or characters. "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.”

“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,” he explained.

He added, “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 are colouring in the lines that we’re given … and a lot of that colour is ultimately our own.”