One of the greatest television shows ever made was born when HBO ordered the very first season of Game of Thrones over a decade ago. The series took us to the unpredictable and ever-changing political continent of Westeros on the basis of novels like A Song of Ice and Fire written by George R.R. Martin. When the series ended, there was a desire for more from Westeros, and then came House of the Dragon based on Martin’s book, Fire & Blood but the source materials for both differ greatly.While Game of Thrones told the story of the last embers of light in House Targaryen through Queen Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke), House of the Dragon takes us back 200 years when the Targaryen dynasty was in its pomp. While speaking at HBO’s FYC event at the DGA Tuesday, Martin explains the differences between the source materials for both shows. While Thrones was built out on novels with fully laid out dialogues and plots, Dragon was set on the basis of what he called “an imaginary history book.”Sitting next to showrunner Ryan Condal, the author explains, “There is a special challenge to adapting Fire & Blood which is significantly different from the books and stories for Game of Thrones,” he says. “Those are five, soon to be seven I hope novels that are fully developed with the characters, the dialogues, the scenes it’s all there. Fire & Blood is an imaginary history book, that has a few scenes where I zero in, and I give you half page of a scene and I give you some actual dialogue but mostly its history. It's an outline, and you can’t present an outline on television.”
George R. R. Martin Has Nothing But Praise For the Team Behind 'House of the Dragon'
While praising Condal and his writers for their work, Martin reveals that they are to blame for one of the bloodiest moments ever on the continent of Westeros saying, “In Fire and Blood, it stated that Queen Emma Arryn dies in childbirth and the son dies the following day. There is nothing about it being the most horrendous childbirth scene ever seen on TV. That’s all the work of [Condal] and his writers.”
The author expresses admiration for the work done by the writers revealing that while some of the scenes had just been single lines in the book, the series expanded on it building it out wonderfully. “It’s an adaptation but also a creation,” he says. His praise is fully merited as House of the Dragon went on to become the most-watched premiere of 2022 before it was dislodged late in the year. Given the cliffhanger upon which the first season ended, many fans cannot wait to return to Westeros and its dragons.
House of the Dragon is available to stream on HBO Max. Watch Martin’s interaction below: