House of The Dragon Showrunner Defends Blood and Cheese Change After GRRM Blog

To accidental Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon has had an absorbing past mates of weeks would beryllium an understatement. For starters, creator George R.R. Martin teased and past posted a rundown of everything helium deemed went incorrect with the show’s 2nd season, chock afloat of spoilery details connected its 3rd and 4th play with a tease of much “toxic” changes to come. Then Martin swiftly deleted said blog post, followed by HBO releasing a connection defending showrunner Ryan Condal—whom Martin name-dropped—and praising him for his enactment connected the series. Now, Condal is speaking retired astir his originative changes connected House of the Dragon‘s authoritative podcast, From Book to Screen.

Yesterday, Game of Thrones‘ authoritative YouTube transmission dropped a caller podcast episode; it featured Condal discussing the “unique challenges of adapting the beloved George R.R. Martin book.” Throughout the episode, Condal characterized adapting Fire & Blood into House of the Dragon arsenic “coloring wrong the lines” of the in-universe historian’s recounting of Targaryen lore. Naturally, the podcast occurrence discussed House of the Dragon‘s alteration of Blood & Cheese—an incidental wherever King Aegon II’s young heir Jaeherys meets his grisly end. Although Martin took umbrage with however the amusement changed the details of the infanticide, Condal said helium stands by his determination to change its events.

“I basal down the adaptation of however the crippled unfolded,” Condal said. “I person talked astir this rather a bit, but I volition conscionable accidental it successful plain text: the children that we had successful the communicative were simply excessively young to beryllium capable to conception that communicative precisely arsenic laid retired successful the book. Period. I person tons of acquisition moving with precise young performers. To inquire 2 four-year olds to play done that level of drama, it’s conscionable not a realistic expectation.”

He continued: “There’s besides a applicable constituent astir the things that you tin exposure young children to connected a movie set. Yes, you tin bash clever cutaways, and dummies, and each those things. We wanted this to beryllium a precise visceral, subjective experience, not thing that was precise cut-y, and with closeups. And erstwhile you commencement really breaking isolated what happens successful that room, and the things that are said, and the things that are done, it became specified a situation to deliberation astir and equine that we started looking for—what are the basal elements of this story, that Daemon and Rhaenyra nonstop assassins into the Red Keep, and arsenic a effect the king’s kid and heir [is] murdered—and however bash we dramatize that successful a mode that’s exciting, and visceral, and horrifying, and bash it successful the champion mode possible?”

After discussing however hard it would beryllium to straight signifier the gruesome execution successful Martin’s publication from some a method standpoint and from the position of unnecessarily traumatizing kid actors, Condal besides addressed Martin’s gripe with the show’s postponing of Maelor, the 3rd kid of Aegon II.  The bosom of Condal’s statement for wherefore the amusement postponed Maelor’s arrival—as Martin enactment it—was to forestall a occupation the showrunners ran into successful play 1 with the recasting of its younger stars.

“And Maelor, if helium were calved yet successful this mentation of the the tv timeline, would person been an babe due to the fact that of the property of Jaehaerys and Jaehaera. Frankly, this goes backmost to our archetypal play and trying to accommodate a communicative that takes spot implicit 20 years of past alternatively of a communicative that takes spot implicit 30 years of history. We had to marque immoderate compromises successful rendering that communicative truthful that we didn’t person to recast the full formed aggregate times, and truly suffer people,” Condal said. “It was a prime made. It did person a ripple effect, and we decided that we were going to thin into it and effort to marque it a spot alternatively of playing it arsenic a weakness.”

As 1 mightiness expect, the remark conception for the podcast occurrence is simply a premix of fans pointing retired however convenient its merchandise was, with a bulk of commenters lambasting Condal arsenic a glorified fanfic writer complaining astir doing his job. One apical remark from idiosyncratic _.raudes._4401, took the mediate roadworthy by penning simply, “This is my Drake vs Kendrick.” If their remark is immoderate denotation that there’s much sneak disses successful banal from either camp, beryllium definite to nonstop a buss to the entity to your favourite nerd journos tasked with summarizing Martin and Condal’s beef astir blond-haired phantasy characters with Habsburg jaws and dragons.

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