For many Game of Thrones fans, the last few days have been an emotional rollercoaster. First, George RR Martin, the creator of the massive fantasy world, announced on his social media channels that he would write a blog post about the Problems of Season 2 the spin-off series House of the Dragon.
Uproar, confusion, amusement: Wait, isn’t Martin the co-creator and executive producer of the series? Is he now dismantling his own work? Yesterday, Wednesday, the time had finally come and that blog post actually went online – only to be taken offline again by Martin a few hours later.
But what exactly was it about?
House of the Dragon: George RR Martin criticizes the implementation of the Blood and Cheese storyline
Variety and the Hollywood Reporter have captured the most important passages from Martin’s article and it quickly becomes clear: The author has ignored a decision made by House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal and his creative team sour stomach: the implementation of the Blood and Cheese storyline in the first episode of the 2nd season.
Attention, following spoiler!
Martin, who also wrote the script for House of the Dragon with Fire and Blood, is particularly frustrated by one thing: The series excludes an important figure Prince Maelor, the youngest son of Aegon and Helaena Targaryen, is completely absent from the plot. Instead, we only see Jaehaerys and Jaehaera.
Although Condal assured TVLine in June that he was just playing around with the timeline a bit and that Maelor simply hadn’t been born yet in this version of history, Martin is extremely disturbed by the changeas he believes it has serious implications for the events of seasons 3 and 4.
Prince Maelor links many later storylines in the history of House of the Dragon
Martin explains in detail (and with even more Spoilers):
[Der Name] Maelor means little. He is a small child, has no lines, does nothing of significance except die… but where and when and how, that matters. The loss of Maelor weakened the end of the blood and cheese sequence, but it also cost us the Bitterbruck scene with all its horror and heroism, he undermined the motivation for Helaena’s suicidewhich sent thousands into the streets and alleys crying out for justice for their ‘murdered’ queen. None of this is essential, I suppose… but it all serves a purpose, it all helps tie the storylines together so that everything flows logically and convincingly.
According to Martin, Prince Maelor’s absence has mainly practical reasons:
They did not want to cast another child, especially not a two-year-old toddler. Such small children would inevitably slow down production, and would affect the budget. Budget has always been an issue at House of the Dragon, and it made sense to save money wherever we could.
An official statement from HBO states:
There are few bigger fans of George RR Martin and his book Fire and Blood than the House of the Dragon team, both in production and at HBO. When a book is adapted into a series […] the showrunner must difficult decisions about the characters and stories […]We believe Ryan Condal and his team have done an exceptional job and that the millions of fans the series has amassed over its first two seasons will continue to enjoy it.
This is the latest in this stirring development surrounding the creative perspectives on the second season of House of the Dragon. Martin has not commented further since deleting his blog post. It is important to note, however, that in this post he not only criticized, but also emphasized that he liked the season opener, apart from the blood and cheese implementation liked it very much has.
When does House of the Dragon season 3 start?
How serious the Prince Maelor affair will actually be for the rest of the series is something we will probably only find out in two years. The third season of House of the Dragon starts 2026 at the earliest on HBO. The Game of Thrones series will then conclude with the fourth season, which will probably arrive in 2028.