House of the Dragon: The three big plot points George RR Martin wish had been left in
George RR Martin's Fire and Blood was adapted for HBO's Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon and was always going to have to chop and change some parts for TV. The author may love much of the new series, but there are aspects including cut characters he really wishes had been left in.
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In his latest blog post, George RR Martin praised House of the Dragon’s cast and crew for helping to “brighten my Sundays”. He especially highlighted Paddy Considine’s portrayal of King Viserys, saying: “The character he created (with Ryan and Sara and Ti and the rest of our writers) for the show is so much more powerful and tragic and fully-fleshed than my own version in FIRE & BLOOD that I am half tempted to go back and rip up those chapters and rewrite the whole history of his reign. Paddy deserves an Emmy for this episode alone. If he doesn’t get one, hey, there’s no justice. Meanwhile, I am going to give Archmaester Gyldayn a smack for leaving out so much good stuff.”
Martin did clarify: “(No, I am not really going to rewrite FIRE & BLOOD, that was a jape). ((And no, I am not going to assault Archmaester Glydayn, who does not actually exist. I made him up)).”
The 74-year-old admitted he thought that House of the Dragon has handled the big time jumps in Fire and Blood very well, saying: “I love love love both the younger Alicent and Rhaenyra and the adult versions, and the actresses who play them. (Truth be told, we have an incredible cast, and I love all of them).”
However, he lamented that the TV format doesn’t allow for exploring plot points from Fire and Blood he would have liked to have seen.
Martin said: “Do I wish we’d had more time to explore the relationship between Rhaenyra and Ser Harwin, the marriage of Daemon and Laena and their time in Pentos, the birth of various and sundry children (and YES, Alicent gave Viserys four children, three sons and a daughter, their youngest son Daeron is down in Oldtown, we just did not have the time to work him in this season), and everything else we had to skip? Sure.”
In the show, Queen Alicent has Aegon, Helaena and Aemond with King Viserys Targaryen. In Fire and Blood, Daeron – who has been cut from House of the Dragon as mentioned by the author – is a dragonrider and most popular of the children, who only lives 16 years before dying in battle.
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Nevertheless, Martin admitted: “But there are only so many minutes in an episode (more on HBO than on the network shows I once wrote for), and only so many episodes in a season. Fewer and fewer as time goes by, it seems… If HOUSE OF THE DRAGON had 13 episodes per season, maybe we could have shown all the things we had to time jump over… though that would have risked having some viewers complain that the show was too ‘slow’, that ‘nothing happened.’”
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Martin added: “As it is, I am thrilled that we still have 10 hours every season to tell our tale. (RINGS OF POWER has only 8, as you may have noticed, and my AMC show DARK WINDS is doing 6 episode seasons). I hope that will continue to be true. It is going to take four full seasons of 10 episodes each to do justice to the Dance of the Dragons, from start to finish. But right now, Ryan Condal’s focus is on HOT D season two, and mine is on THE WINDS OF WINTER.”
Here's hoping his Game of Thrones novel gets a release date sooner rather than later.
House of the Dragon is streaming on NOW.