A spokesperson for HBO has defended House of the Dragon from the complaints raised by series creator and author George R.R. Martin against the adaptation. In a now deleted blog post, Martin criticized several changes made in the show’s second season. These changes include altering the immensely popular “Blood & Cheese” plot line from the novels, and the removal of a character who should have played a major role in future seasons.
Per Variety, a representative of HBO has defended the changes made to House of the Dragon‘s second season. The unnamed spokesperson said that novels will always undergo changes when being adapted into TV shows, as alterations have to be made to fit the new medium. They assured fans and Martin that the show’s writing staff are some of the biggest “A Song of Ice and Fire” (the name of George R.R. Martin’s book series) in the world. They also stood by showrunner Ryan Condal for the changes he had to make, and hope fans will continue to show their support moving into the third and fourth seasons. The full statement reads:
“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 ultimately is required to make difficult choices about the characters and stories the audience will follow. We believe that Ryan Condal and his team have done an extraordinary job and the millions of fans the series has amassed over the first two seasons will continue to enjoy it.”
Who Is House of the Dragon’s Missing Character?
Set 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones, the spin-off series House of the Dragon adapts Martin’s novel Fire & Blood, which was released in 2018. The book tells the long history of House Targaryen, with House of the Dragon adapting the bloody “Dance of the Dragons” civil war that helped to decimate the great dynasty. While the series features a who’s who of white wig-wearing characters with complicatedly similar names, all battling for the Iron Throne, there is one crucial character which the show has written out.
In George R.R. Martin’s deleted blog post, the author described the character that would become crucial to the upcoming seasons of House of the Dragon, but was one of the first victims of the show’s second season. Prince Maelor Targaryen, the son of Aegon and Helaena Targaryen, has been completely written out of the series. In the novels, Maelor has a major influence over later storylines, which would likely have been depicted in Season 4. However, by removing the character early, showrunner Ryan Condal now needs to find a new way to incite the same upcoming incident, or make another major alteration to the story. Martin also explained why Condal made the decision to kill off Maelor, saying:
“When Ryan Condal first told me what he meant to do, ages ago (back in 2022, might be) I argued against it, for all these reasons. 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 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.”
House of the Dragon
is streaming on Max.