George R.R. Martin is not happy about ‘House of the Dragon’ season 2

The author has been teasing his displeasure about season 2 for some time.

By Joe Allen Published September 4, 2024

The Targaryen family is documented in House of the Dragon — Matt Smith and Emma D'Arcy play the lead roles Ollie Upton / Warner Bros. Discovery

After teasing that he would be blogging about his issues with the second season of House of the Dragon, George R.R. Martin, the creator of the Game of Thrones universe, has made good on that promise. The show, which is based on his novel Fire & Blood, had to make some changes to Martin’s original story in order to accommodate the realities of TV. Now, Martin has weighed in on one change in particular that he didn’t approve of.

The change relates specifically to the “Blood & Cheese” plotline in the first episode of season 2, in which the death of one of Aegon and Halaena Targaryen’s children. The show chose to elminate one of their children, Maelor, entirely, and Martin is worried about the ramifications of that decision in the show moving forward.

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“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.”

Martin continued by saying that the elimination of Maelor will have ramifications for the final two seasons of the show. “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,” he added.

Martin has been complaining about the show’s second season for some time. Amidst all that complaining, he has not provided any updates on when he may actually deliver The Winds of Winter, the next Game of Thrones book.

You can read the author’s full blog post here.

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Joe Allen is a freelance culture writer based in upstate New York. His work has been published in The Washington Post, The…

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