George RR Martin Goes Hard On House Of The Dragon Season 2

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."