George RR Martin Calls Out House of the Dragon Writers For Toxic Changes [HOTD SPOILERS!]

hello there so almost a week ago George RR Martin made a post on his n blog where he talked about all sorts of things including some sort of Burning Man festival happening down in Santa Fe but at the very end of this post almost as an afterthought he said that he was going to write another post about all the things House of the Dragon season to got wrong he's never been this scathing before so people have been waiting for this post some people thought it would never happen myself I kind of didn't think it would not only did he make the not a blog post he did not hold back he criticized a lot of things he spoiled some things for future seasons of House of the dragon and then he named names the blog post is titled beware the butterflies because of the butterfly effect you know the thing of if you make one small change to something that's going to create bigger problems or bigger changes in the future all right so let's just read the N blog so he writes quote back in July I promised you some further thoughts about blood and cheese and mayor the missing after my commentary on the first two episodes of Hot D season 2 a son for a son and rera the cruel those were terrific episodes well- written well-directed powerfully acted a great way to kick off the new season fans and critics alike seemed to agree there was only one aspect of the episodes that Drew significant criticism the handling of blood and cheese and the death of Prince Jaris from the commentary I saw online opinion was split there the readers of Fire and Blood found the sequence underwhelming a disappointment watered down from what they were expecting viewers who had not read the book had no such problems most of them found the sequence a real gutch tragic horrifying nightmarish Etc some reported being reduced uced to tears I found myself agreeing with both sides end quote they're good people on both sides anyway I have a video on here about my reaction to the blood and cheese thing I am in the camp that I found it underwhelming a disappointment watered down from what I was expecting but that's the problem with having expectations you're going to be let down so to continue quote in my book aegon and Helena have three children not two the twins Jaris and Jara are sick years old they have a younger brother malor who is two when blood and cheese break in on Helena and the kids they tell her they are debt collectors come to exact revenge for the death of Prince luceros a son for a son as Helena has two sons however they demand that she choose which one should die she resists and offers her own life instead but the killers insist it has to be a son if she does not name one they will kill all three of her children children to save the life of the twins Helena names malor but blood kills the older boy Jaris instead while cheese tells little mord that his mother wanted him dead whether the boy is old enough to understand that is not all certain end quote I do want to interject here and say that's not all blood and cheese threatened to do they said they were going to sexually assault Jara and then they were going to kill all the children I find it kind of odd that Martin wrote that in the book but he's leaving that out here I do think it's relevant in talking about the differences between blood and cheese in the book versus the show anyway moving on quote that's not what happens on the show there is no mord in House of the Dragon only the twins both of whom look younger than six but I am no sure judge of children's ages so I can't be sure how old they're supposed to be blood can't seem to tell the twins apart so Helena is asked to reveal which one is the boy you would think a glance up his PJs would reveal that without involving the mother instead of offering her own life to save the kids Helena offers them a necklace blood and cheese are not tempted blood saws Prince Jar's head off we are spared the sight of that a sound effect suffices in the book he lops the head off with a sword end quote so in my blood and cheese video I said the same thing all they had to do was inspect the child's private parts and they would have their answer but they made it seem like that was something that they could not bring themselves to do I don't know which one's the boy we the mother has to tell us when there's an obvious way to figure that out you don't have to show it you don't even have to have the camera on the child just have blood off screen say I found the boy we'll we'll get what happened right but this is how the show arrives at the moment where Helena has to choose which one of her children dies it's not really the same Sophie's choice of the books let's keep going quote it's a bloody brutal scene no doubt how not an innocent child is being butchered in front of his mother I still believe the scene in the book is stronger the readers have the right of that the two killers are crer in the book I thought the actors who played the killers on the show were excellent but the characters are cooler harder and more frightening and Fire and Blood in the show blood is a gold cloak in the book he is a former gold cloak stripped of his office for beating a woman to death book blood is the sort of man who might think making a woman choose which of her sons should die is amusing especially when they double down on the wanting cruelty by murdering the boy she tries to save book cheese is worse too he does not kick a dog true but he does not have a dog and he's the one who tells malor that his mom wants him dead I would also suggest that Helena shows more courage more strength in the book by offering her own life to save her son offering a piece of jewelry is just not the same end quote now this is a good point something I did not recognize when I made my video on blood and cheese Helena offering her necklace is not the same another thing Martin points out that I kind of overlooked is that on the show cheese has a dog it seems to be a pet dog because the dog goes looking for him after cheese is hanged in a future episode I think what Martin is saying here is that book cheese is such a loathsome person he would not have a pet he would not be caring enough to take care of any animal sure cheese on the show kicks the dog that shows the audience that he's a bad person this is a transgression of the save the cat rule of screenwriting not to get off topic but save the cat is this Trope in screenwriting and Other Stories where if you want to have sympathy if you want the audience to sympathize really quick with a character then have them save a cat or some other similar animal in the reverse of that if you want the audience to despise a character have them kill or hurt an animal I believe House of Cards in the very first episode maybe the very first scene Frank kills a dog while talking directly to the audience and that shows us you know he's bad I think we're halfway through the blog post and Martin is right once you start making changes the butterfly effect starts becoming very real but moving on quote as I saw it the Sophie's Choice aspect was the strongest part of the sequence the darkest the most visceral I hatte it to lose that and judging from the comments online most of the fans seem to agree end quote I definitely agree but now we're going to get into the part of the blog post where he starts naming names and then he starts getting really shady quote when Ryan condle first told me what he meant to do ages ago back in 2022 might be I argued against it for all the reasons I did not argue long or with much heat however 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 2-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 meor simply postponing him Queen Helena 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 end quote so obviously that didn't happen and it couldn't happen because aegon as we now know has no sexual reproductive organs that got roasted when he got jarus by his brother rioting vagar also while I don't want to read too much into things this does kind of sound like Ryan Condell just saying you know we're going to do we're totally going to do it don't worry about it Martin it's going to happen it sounds like to me he was just blowing smoke but let's move on quote I still love the episode and the blood and cheese sequence overall losing the Helena Choice beat did weaken the scene but not to any great degree only the book readers would even notice its absence viewers who had never read Fire and Blood would still find the scenes heart-rending maor did not actually do anything in the scene after all how could he he was only 2 years old there is another aspect to the removal of the young princeling however end quote and this is the part where I'm going to stop reading the blog post verbatim because now he just gets into you know this is the book this is the show this is how bad things happen when you make changes butterflies butterflies butterflies like we're on Nath or something he talks about all the things mayor is supposed to do that aren't going to happen because he doesn't exist and then he tries to Envision ways that these things could happen but with other characters like Jara taking his place but to him it still it doesn't work because that's not what he wrote in Fire and Blood this is where he loses me because I I understand what he's saying he wants the show to be as faithful as possible but then again I remember that he said he wrote A Song of Ice and Fire which Fire and Blood is a part of that world he wrote this story to be big epic Grand in scale because there was no limitations in literature with a fantasy novel he could write a cast as big as he wants because he was tired of the limitations screenwriting imposed on him and his creativity back when he was a screenwriter in Hollywood A Song of Ice and Fire is like a big Fu to the screenwriting world because he can do whatever he wants with no limitations no one's there to check him on how this world works and how many characters he can have in it so with this part of the blog post he's kind of like I understand we have to make some changes some necessary constrictions but at the same time why can't I have all the characters I wrote in Fire and Blood why can't we do that but there is one extremely Shady part of that passage I want to share here because Martin is talking about the future of House of the dragon and how all these changes are going to affect the story then he says this quote I have no idea what Ryan has planned if indeed he has planned anything end quote if he has indeed planned anything now that's that's shady Boots the library is open and Martin is reading this suggest to me that he thinks the show is not planning ahead it's making all these changes with no regards for the future and even if they do have plans he doesn't like how they've reduced the story down to what it is he doesn't think that this simpler version of the story is better and this is the part where Martin just starts spoiling things because he says quote in Ryan's outline for season three Helena still kills herself for no particular reason there is no fresh horror no triggering event to overwhelm The Fragile young Queen end quote yikes this ain't it Chief friendly reminder when characters make major decisions like killing themselves they have to have the right motivations otherwise it doesn't make any bloody damn sense and if Helena kills herself next season by I don't know throwing herself on the blades and Barbs of the Iron Throne if she doesn't have the right motivation that's not going to make any sense either Martin is a very character driven writer so if he's saying these screenwriters they're not giving these characters the right motivations I'm inclined to believe him so the blog post ends with him talking more about these butterflies and all the changes we don't have to get into it because again this is just him saying this is what the show might be doing but this is what happens for sure in the books but the final part of the blog post is perhaps the best because he says quote and 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 four end quote what are the big changes let me guess there is a white walker battle I know they're going to do it it's not going to just be Visions they're going to have a white walker show up up you just know they're going to do it the dagger the prophecy the vision they're going to have a white walker show up it's inevitable Sunfire dying means changes no malor means changes and then these Visions the prophecies I think Martin has had it he never showed such disdain for Game of Thrones and Dan and David which means what's happening with House of the dragon and Ryan condal it's exceptionally bad storytelling he had to speak out but he deleted the post and I think I know why it's not because of contracts it's not because HBO called him and said hey take this down I think he just realized it's not a good look he is well within his rights to complain he is a grown ass man this is his story after all but at the same time he's still a professional writer working in the industry sometimes you have to pick your battles sometimes you have to hold your tongue some Behavior even though Justified is Unbecoming and unprofessional some grievances are best aired behind closed doors some of these issues are not for public guys because we don't need to know these things it's none of our business and even though Martin has established himself in the industry you don't want to be the person who is known for being disagreeable being harass someone who can't keep things on the down low again even though the behavior can be seen as Justified it can also be viewed as Petty calling someone out even though yes they're ruining the story you created can be viewed as Petty childish not a good look it's like after season 8 ended and people were wondering why weren't the cast members speaking out negatively about the show why weren't they telling the truth why were they all So Silent there were all these conspiracy theories oh they must have contracts there must be ndas there might be hush money HBO and their agents are telling them not to talk when it's like no it's just not professional these are still upand cominging actors many of them and for them to get out there and start trashing the show it just would not be seen as professional it might make you feel good because it validates your feelings as a show Watcher that was disappointed with season 8 they are still working actors they're trying to build Bridges not burn them sometimes this sort of thing is best kept in the group chat in the Inner Circle and I think that might be what happened here with this not a blog post but that about wraps this up this was a video on the not a blog post that does not exist anymore if you didn't know this is my second Channel if you like a song ofon fire history Theory and lore you can find me over on my main Channel Kevin pin dragon this is the channel where I can let my hair down if you know I wasn't bald and just talk about things in a more casual way and I don't have to worry about you know finding all the right pictures and clips and videos to go along with the content it's just me running my mouth with a video game I once played in the background the game is Telltale Games Game of Thrones if you didn't know sad we're not getting a season 2 to play and I'm just as sad with the quality of season 2 of hot D please like subscribe and ring that Bell links on how to support the channel in other ways are in the description down below thank you all for watching and I'll see you in the next one