It’s not always easy to adapt a novel to film or television, and no matter how faithful you are to the source material, chances are you’re going to piss someone off anyway. In the case of House of the Dragon, none other than author George R.R. Martin took aim at the second season of the HBO series in a since-deleted blog post, warning that changes made in the show will cause problems later in the story.
It may be a little embarrassing to have the creator of one of your biggest franchises publically criticize it, and HBO has now responded to Martin’s post. “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,” the statement reads. “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.“
In the post, Martin detailed his opposition to reducing the number of Aegon and Helaena’s children from three to two. While this doesn’t seem like the most egregious change, Martin believes it will have a “butterfly effect” on later seasons.
“I argued against it, for all these reasons. 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,” Martin wrote. “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. That made sense to me, so I withdrew my objections and acquiesced to the change.” Martin added, “Sometime between the initial decision to remove Maelor, a big change was made. The prince’s birth was no longer just going to be pushed back to season 3. He was never going to be born at all. The younger son of Aegon and Helaena would never appear.“
Time will tell whether this change will prove detrimental to future seasons of House of the Dragon, but as the creator of the franchise, Martin is certainly entitled to be protective of his sprawling saga and all its characters.