George R.R. Martin slams ‘House of the Dragon,’ warns of ‘toxic’ changes — and appears to spoil Season 3
He’s going full dracarys on “House of the Dragon.”
George R.R. Martin, who wrote the books that are the basis for “Game of Thrones” and “House of the Dragon,” published a now-deleted blog post on Wednesday slamming the latter. He also appeared to spoil a major plot point from Season 3, which hasn’t filmed or aired yet.
In the blog entry, which got taken down the same day Martin posted it, the author also left an ominous warning about “toxic” changes from his books that may happen in Seasons 3 and 4.
Last week on his blog, Martin teased that he would reveal “what’s gone wrong” on the show. And, in this new blog post, he gets into it.
“I still believe the scene in the book is stronger,” he wrote.
“I thought the actors who played the killers on the show were excellent … but the characters are crueler, harder, and more frightening in FIRE & BLOOD … I would also suggest that Helaena shows more courage, more strength in the book, by offering her own own life to save her son. Offering a piece of jewelry is just not the same.”
Martin was talking about the “blood and cheese” murder scene that kicked off “House of the Dragon” Season 2.
The show is set around 200 years before the events of “Game of Thrones” following a civil war between Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy) and her allies, who are defending her claim to the Iron Throne, and her half-brother, Aegon Targaryen (Tom Glynn-Carney) and his allies, who claim that he’s the real monarch.
At the end of Season 1, Aegon’s fierce brother, Aemond (Ewan Mitchell), kills one of Rhaenyra’s sons. At the beginning of Season 2, Rhaenyra wants revenge on Aemond. She expresses this desire to her husband, Daemon (Matt Smith), who impulsively hires killers to take out Aemond.
However, the bumbling killers aren’t able to find Aemond, so instead, they find his sister, Helaena (Phia Saban), and kill one of her kids. So, they still kill a Targaryen prince, just the wrong one — and a child, at that.
It’s a horrifying scene, but Martin is taking issue with how his book did it better.
About the elements that he feels like the show flubbed, Martin wrote in his blog, “I hated to lose that. And judging from the comments on line, most of the fans seemed to agree. When [series creator] 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 … The change weakened the sequence, I felt, but only a bit.”
“House of the Dragon” will end after four seasons. Two have aired, so far.
In his blog post, the famous author warned readers about “spoilers” from his books. He also wrote about the “butterfly effect” of the show removing a character — but in his post, he not only spoils his book, he also appears to spoil “House of the Dragon” creator Ryan Condal’s plan for a big Season 3 character death.
Martin said that Condal’s plan “may make sense in terms of budgets and shooting schedules. But simpler is not better.”
Then he slammed the creator for — spoilers alert! — writing a death with little apparent narrative lead-up.
“In Ryan’s outline for season 3, Helaena still kills herself … for no particular reason,” said Martin. “There is no fresh horror, no triggering event to overwhelm the fragile young queen.”
Season 3 has not yet filmed or gotten a premiere date, so this information is not public to anyone who hasn’t read Martin’s book, “Fire and Blood.”
And, although Helaena dies in the book, the show has made some changes. Meaning her death was not guaranteed in the series, and there was still a mystery about how it might happen. So, Martin completely spilled the beans on how Condal plans to kill her off.
Martin ended his fiery blog post on an ominous note, writing, “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 4.”
