George RR Martin has serious concerns about the future of House of the Dragon

House of the Dragon Season 2 apparently didn’t go as everyone had hoped. The largely solid second season ended on a sour note for some fans. Now, a few weeks after the finale of the shorter-than-normal eight-episode season, both A Song of Ice and Fire author George R. R. Martin and showrunner Ryan Condal opened up to fans on Wednesday about their similarly complicated feelings about the show so far.

Martin’s reaction to the season came in a now deleted post on his Not a Blog websitewhich he already started talking about last week. The post is mostly about Martin’s general feelings about some of the changes that Condal and the rest of the House of the Dragon team created during this season, and how they relate to the books. He frames most of his discussion around the concept of the butterfly effect, in this case how small changes to the source material can have big effects when adapting a story.

Martin’s biggest point in the post is about the changes made to the Blood and Cheese sequence in episode 2 of the season. As Martin says, the sequence was praised by those who had only watched the show, but was met with some skepticism from those who had watched Martin’s Fire & Blood book first. The book version is mean, mean-spirited, and more poignant. Martin agrees with the book’s readers, which makes sense considering he wrote it, but he doesn’t entirely dismiss the show’s handling of the scene. What bothers him most is the way the show has approached Aegon and Helaena’s third child, Maelor—or more specifically, the way the show seems to have removed him from the story entirely.

While Maelor’s role in the story is small overall, his elimination does have significant ramifications for the characters and their motivations. Martin goes into more detail about this with more spoilers, which you can and should read if you want the full story. But if you don’t want the spoilers just yet, we’ll sum it up by saying: Martin has a lot of concerns about how losing Maelor could weaken some of the show’s characters and themes later on in the story, and how that could bode poorly for the film adaptation as it heads into seasons 3 and 4.

Of course, the part that Martin doesn’t say out loud, but that loyal fans will certainly ponder, is the fact that cutting seemingly minor characters from adaptations has gotten to him in the past. In the original Game of ThronesShowrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss made some decisions early on about which characters to cut from the plot, because their roles seemed unimportant to the larger story. But as the story progressed, it became increasingly clear that those characters had thematic and narrative roles to play, some more important than others. While nothing was said about House of the DragonThe cuts could well come close to those in Game of Thronesit’s hard not to hear echoes, especially for fans who felt offended the first time around.

Condal’s response to the season came with a surprise appearance on HBO’s Official House of the Dragon podcastalso released on Wednesday, was all about the difficulty of translating stories from page to screen. Condal is a little less forthcoming in his reaction to the season, understandably, but emphasizes that there will always be mistakes and regrets and opportunities to improve or do things better, but that overall he’s very proud of the work he and the cast and crew have done on Season 2. He also acknowledges that a lot of the changes are necessary for timing, scheduling and budgets, which you don’t have to consider when you’re writing a book, for example.

The final question of the podcast specifically addresses Martin’s involvement in the production of the show, which Condal is even more careful about than his previous answers. Condal says that Martin is given all the material they write for each season, and that Condal works hard to take Martin’s feedback and thoughts into consideration when he receives them. However, that doesn’t always make it into the final product. Condal specifically emphasized that the production time is tight and that, as showrunner, he has to make decisions extremely quickly, making hundreds of decisions a day. That leaves room for regret, but it also means that sometimes he can’t incorporate all of Martin’s feedback.

All of these statements from both sides basically boil down to the same thing: adapting a story is hard and compromises always have to be made, and in the end you have to hope you made the right one. Either way, it’s hard not to feel the unspoken effects of the Writers Guild strike that occurred around the production of Season 2.

Since the end of Season 2, there has been much speculation among fans that the strike caused HBO and Warner Bros. to cut their season short. House of the Dragon‘s second season from 10 episodes to just eight. While this has not been confirmed, it would make sense given the very strange, rather anticlimactic cliffhanger that ends the season. Plus, it would also explain why Condal emphasized the tight timing and blinding speed of the production in his podcast appearance.

Further complicating all of this is the fact that Martin has now deleted his blog post. It’s possible that the post simply got more attention and traction than he had hoped, or perhaps it got him in trouble with HBO, but we won’t know for sure why he deleted it unless he releases an official statement. Whatever the story, it’s clear that no one is entirely happy with House of the Dragon season 2 — a funny outcome for a season that was pretty solid up until the final episode, and could still be good in the context of the finished show. Both Martin and Condal’s words are worth reading and hearing; while Martin seems a bit more pessimistic about the show’s future and Condal more optimistic, we won’t know for sure how things will go until House of the DragonThe third season is coming, but it probably won’t happen until 2026.