George R.R. Martin admitted that he wasn’t all that impressed with the dragons in Game of Thrones.
“They were like all the same,” he admitted Tuesday at an FYC event for HBO.
But the fire breathers he saw in the House of the Dragon were truly next level. “They had personality,” he continued. “They came alive. It came as great satisfaction to me.”
So this little tidbit shared by Showrunner Ryan Condal should keep a spring in Martin’s step: there will be five new dragons in season 2, which is expected to begin production “shortly.”
Sigh. That’s all Condal would reveal. But we already know the GOT prequel won’t return until late 2024, thanks to a bunch of we don’t want to rush things comments that were recently shared by HBO Chief Content Officer Casey Bloys. “My philosophy is a good script is number one priority,” he told Variety. “I am not doing it based on wanting to have one a year, two a year. I want to do it based on the scripts that we’re excited about.”
Otherwise, HBO’s FYC event at the DGA Tuesday was mostly an opportunity for the cast to reflect on their characters, how Rhys Ifans (Otto Hightower) would make everyone laugh, and how Condal and his writers are to blame for one of the bloodiest moments ever in the World of Westeros.
Martin explained that his 2018 novel “Fire & Blood” only served as an outline for House of the Dragon. “It was an imaginary history book,” he said. “In Fire and Blood, it stated that Queen Emma Arryn dies in childbirth and the son dies [within the hour]. There is nothing about it being the most horrendous childbirth scene ever seen on TV. That’s all the work of [Condal] and his writers.”
Martin then went on to laud “the weird ass stuff” that occurred in season one and how “cool” he found it. He did show some regret, however, that he couldn’t spend any time on the set in season one — where Ifans liked to make his castmates giggle.
“Sadly I wasn’t there for any of this fun,” Martin lamented to the crowd. “I was in Santa Fe working on [his next] novel.”