"House of Dragon Showrunner Responds to George R.R. Martin's Criticisms"

House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal has expressed disappointment over George R.R. Martin's critique of the series' second season, following the author's critical remarks published last year.

The drama unfolded when Martin promised to delve into "everything that's gone wrong with House of the Dragon" in August 2024. True to his word, he criticized certain plot elements involving Aegon and Helaena's children and voiced concerns about the future trajectory of the show. Although the post was eventually removed from Martin's website without any explanation, it had already garnered attention from thousands of fans and HBO.

In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Condal shared his thoughts on Martin's criticisms, highlighting the strain on their relationship as the most painful aspect. "It was disappointing," he stated. "I've been a fan of A Song of Ice and Fire for nearly 25 years, and working on the show has been one of the greatest privileges of my career as a writer and my life as a fan of science fiction and fantasy. George is a literary icon and a personal hero, deeply influential in my development as a writer."

Condal acknowledged the challenges of adapting Fire & Blood for television, noting that the source material is an incomplete history that requires significant creative interpretation. "It's this incomplete history and it requires a lot of joining of the dots and a lot of invention as you go along the way," he explained. He emphasized his efforts to involve Martin in the adaptation process over the years, describing their collaboration as fruitful until practical issues arose. "But at some point, as we got deeper down the road, he just became unwilling to acknowledge the practical issues at hand in a reasonable way," Condal added.

Condal further elaborated on the challenges of his dual role as a showrunner, needing to balance creative and practical responsibilities. "And I think as a showrunner, I have to keep my practical producer hat on and my creative writer, lover-of-the-material hat on at the same time. At the end of the day, I just have to keep marching not only the writing process forward, but also the practical parts of the process forward for the sake of the crew, the cast, and for HBO, because that's my job. So I can only hope that George and I can rediscover that harmony someday."

He stressed that each creative decision takes "many months, if not years" to finalize, and all decisions pass through him before reaching the screen. The goal, he said, is to create a show that appeals not only to Game of Thrones readers but also to a "massive television audience."

Despite recent tensions, HBO and Martin continue to plan multiple collaborations, though a few projects have been shelved. Upcoming projects include A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which Martin has praised as a "faithful adaptation," and potentially another Targaryen-centered spinoff.

Meanwhile, House of the Dragon has already started production on Season 3, following a successful second season that received a 7/10 in our review.