After teasing that he would address what went wrong during Season 2 of House of the Dragon, author George R.R. Martin has taken to his blog, detailing some of the changes made while also warning that more might be coming.
In a new blog post, Martin detailed some of what he believes went wrong during the second season of the series, specifically the show’s depiction of the “Blood & Cheese” sequence that took place in the Season 2 premiere. In the series, the two men were hired by Prince Daemon Targaryen to murder one of the songs of King Aegon Targaryen.
While the scene in the show is shocking, Martin felt the sequence was weakened a bit by omitting a key character. In the book, there are three children in the sequence instead of the show’s two, and Blood and Cheese force Helaena Targaryen (the boys’ mother) to choose which would die. In the show, the character of Maelor Targaryen — Helaena’s youngest son — is omitted from the scene completely, something Martin says showrunner Ryan Condal told him was done due to budget and production decisions.
“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,” Martin wrote. “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 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. Moreover, Ryan assured me that we were not losing Prince Maelor, simply postponing him.
“Queen Helaena could still give birth to him in season three, presumably after getting with child late in season two,” continued Martin. “That made sense to me, so I withdrew my objections and acquiesced to the change. I still love the episode, and the Blood and Cheese sequence overall. Losing the ‘Helaena’s 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 & BLOOD would still find the scenes heart-rending. Maelor did not actually DO anything in the scene, after all. How could he? He was only two years old. There is another aspect to the removal of the young princeling, however.”
Martin hints at major changes from the book in Seasons 3 & 4
Martin detailed how not including Maelor in the scene could lead to larger ramifications for the overall project. In a spoiler-filled part of the blog, Martin mentioned that instead of appearing in Season 3, he was told that Maelor would never be appearing in the show. The author mentions how that creates a larger butterfly effect that would potentially remove many of the bigger moments in Fire & Blood from ever appearing on the show, including a sequence he calls “the Bitterbridge scene.”
In Fire & Blood, Maelor and Ser Rickard Throne of the Kingsguard are killed in Bitterbridge, leading an enraged Prince Daeron Targaryen to lay siege to the town in what is called “the sack of Bitterbridge” in the original novel. With Maelor not existing in House of the Dragon, Martin said he doesn’t know how any of these scenes could show up, and says that while it would be “simpler” to do, that doesn’t make it better.
“It’s simplest, yes, and may make sense in terms of budgets and shooting schedules. But simpler is not better,” wrote Martin. “The Bitterbridge scene has tension, suspense, action, bloodshed, a bit of heroism and a lot of tragedy. Rickard Thorne is a tertiary character at best, most viewers (as opposed to readers) will never know he is gone, since they never knew him at all… but I rather liked giving him his brief moment of heroism, a taste of the courage and loyalty of the Kingsguard, regardless of whether they are black or green.”
Martin ended the blog post by mentioning that “larger and more toxic” changes could also be coming that could change the show in big ways during its third and fourth season, but did not detail them.
