Despite receiving widespread praise from the critics, the second season of this Game of Thrones prequel has led to disagreements due to some controversial changes made to House of the Dragon‘s source material.
HBO’s hit show, House of the Dragon, set nearly 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones, gained critical acclaim upon its release in 2022. Season 2 seems to have followed in its footsteps. Scoring 84% from critics on Rotten Tomatoes and 4 stars from this Guardian reviewer, it might come as a surprise that there’s been some recent drama surrounding the show.
In fact, the author himself, George R. R. Martin, spoke out in a since-deleted blog post in September, criticizing the show’s recent season. His main concerns seem to be the show’s divergence from his novel, Fire & Blood, which the show is based on. On the same day, seemingly in response to Martin, showrunner Ryan Condal appeared on the official House of the Dragon podcast to defend the season.
Additionally, HBO chief Casey Bloys brushed off this disagreement in a conversation with Deadline. He commented, “I’m not sure that the fans were divided over Season 2” while pointedly ignoring Martin’s blog post.
So, what exactly did the show change from the novel? And does season 2 actually deserve all this critique?
(Warning: this article will contain lots of spoilers for both seasons of House of the Dragon.)
A Rundown of Season 2: Successes & Failures
Season 2 kicks off with A Son for a Son. As both the Greens and Blacks prepare for the prospect of a civil war, Rhaenyra is still in mourning after the shocking death of her son Lucerys by the murderous Aemond and his equally bloodthirsty dragon. Emma D’Arcy continues to shine as the (rightful) Targaryen queen. Rhaenyra’s only line in the season premiere is the hauntingly calm, “I want Aemond Targaryen”. This, of course, has disastrous consequences, as Daemon takes things into his own hands as per usual.
He sneaks into King’s Landing, hiring a soldier and a ratcatcher to infiltrate the castle and bring him Aemond’s head. They find their way into the royal chambers, where Queen Helaena is with her two infant children. After they threaten her at knifepoint, Helaena is forced to point to her son, Jaehaerys, whom the two mercenaries gruesomely behead off-camera. The episode ends with Helaena running to Alicent’s chambers, numbly stating, “They killed the boy.” Her seemingly subdued response to the murder of her son tragically conveys her inability to process her horror of the situation. Overall, it’s a brilliant opening to the season.
HBO
In the following episode, the Greens use Jacaerys’s murder to stain Rhaenyra’s reputation. They cruelly make grief-stricken Helaena and Alicent parade through the streets of King’s Landing with his dead body. Criston Cole and King Aegon enact an idiotic assassination attempt on Rhaenyra in Dragonstone, which her guards easily thwart. And Otto Hightower, the only person on the side of the Greens with common sense, gets fired.
Things begin to slightly falter in the next episode. For some reason, Rhaenyra decides to go meet up with Alicent. This results in Alicent realizing she was wrong the whole time about Viserys’s last wishes and that the Greens’ entire claim is basically illegitimate. And… that’s it. The whole scene feels rather unrealistic and unnecessary. Alicent could have easily had her guards kill Rhaenyra on the spot.
Daemon travels to creepy, damp Harrenhal to gather up the armies of the Riverlands. This starts the potentially most problematic subplot of season 2, as Daemon spends the rest of the season in Harrenhal doing essentially nothing. (Aside from having weird dreams/hallucinations, which may or may not be caused by a curse on the spooky castle.) In my opinion, along with many others, this plot is a real waste. Matt Smith is one of the most compelling actors in the show, and this season gives him very little to work with. In fact, the only great thing introduced by Harrenhal is Ser Simon Strong, played by Sir Simon Russell Beale, who might just be the best character in the show so far.
HBO
Episode 4, The Red Dragon and the Gold, finally delivers some action in a sort of mid-season climax. There is an epic confrontation in Rook’s Rest between Rhaenys (the ‘Queen Who Never Was’ but totally should have been) on her dragon Meleys and Criston Cole with his army. However, it turns out to be a trap, as Aemond is waiting nearby with his obscenely huge dragon, Vhagar. A drunken King Aegon, moronic as usual, also joins the party atop his dragon, Sunfyre.
Meleys brutally ravages Sunfyre. Instead of helping, Aemond purposefully burns his brother Aegon in dragonfire. Courageously, Rhaenys chooses not to flee the fight but rather face Vhagar head-on. She then dies like a badass, falling from the sky on her fatally injured dragon. It might be the highlight of the entire season; it’s the top-rated episode on IMDB and certainly the most action-packed.
Unfortunately, the remaining episodes in season 2 don’t quite live up to this one. There’s yet more plotting and scheming. The Greens continue to be villainous (Aegon is sadly still alive, just severely scorched), and Rhaenyra continues to do… not very much.
There are a few good moments, such as Alicent and Helaena getting caught up in a riot by the angry smallfolk (the former queen gets a fish satisfyingly thrown at her face). Rhaenyra finally starts making her move, which is to find riders for all her dragons. The scheme is ultimately successful, though it results in more than a few deaths along the way. Daemon finally reunites with his wife, and the once-jaded prince reconsolidates his loyalty to Rhaenyra. This seems to have been the purpose of all those weird visions.
HBO
Finally, Alicent becomes entirely disillusioned with her life and switches sides. After a rather dull existential crisis, she goes to Dragonstone, whines at Rhaenyra, then tells her she will let her take King’s Landing with no resistance. This complete change of heart is puzzling, and like the last scene where the two of them were together, not very convincing.
The finale is rather anticlimactic: there’s no big action scene, and the season almost seems to end where it began. There’s going to be a civil war, and it’s going to involve dragons; we already knew this information, so what’s really changed? This isn’t to discredit the season entirely, but there’s a bit of a pacing issue. After the dramatic events of episode 4, the rest feels slightly flat and disappointing.
George R. R. Martin & Questions of Continuity
Season 2 made a lot of changes from the book, and not all of them were for the better. For example, the show alters Daemon’s plotline, and this renders him somewhat useless for a lot of the season. In the show, he faces a lot of problems, such as gathering up an army in the Riverlands, which goes wrong at almost every turn. He seems to be working for himself, forcing people to address him as ‘Your Grace’ despite only being the King Consort. In the book, he has none of these issues. Additionally, Daemon’s visions are purely in the show. His plotline in Harrenhal felt very static and even aimless, as by the finale, he just ends up recommitting himself to Rhaenyra, and nothing dramatic really comes about from his mental conflict.
In George R. R. Martin’s now deleted blog post, he takes aim specifically at the changes made in the first episode. Firstly, he emphasises that the killing of Jaehaerys was far more brutal in Fire & Blood, saying that readers found the scene “watered down from what they were expecting”. The show also completely leaves out Helaena’s third child, Maelor. This may seem like something minor, but Martin warns that this could have a butterfly effect on future events. He says, “There are larger and more toxic butterflies to come if HOUSE OF THE DRAGON goes ahead with some of the changes being contemplated for seasons 3 and 4.”
HBO
Of course, the elephant in the room is the complete disaster that was season 8 of Game of Thrones. The show began to diverge heavily from George R. R. Martin’s books as early as season 5 before running out of source material entirely and, essentially, crashing and burning. With that in mind, it’s understandable that Martin might seem cautious about the future of House of the Dragon.
The Difficulties of Adaptation
In HBO’s official House of the Dragon podcast, showrunner Ryan Condal defended the changes, explaining that the timeline needed to be compressed for practical reasons: “we had to make some compromises in rendering that story so that we didn’t have to recast the whole cast multiple times.” He argued that timing, schedules, and budgets all have to be taken into account as well.
Due to season 2 having only eight episodes, instead of ten like the first, fans have speculated that the Writers Guild strike forced HBO to shorten it. The odd pacing and cliffhanger ending both point towards this conclusion. Furthermore, Condal’s mention of the practical difficulties of adapting a book suggests this as well.
While I still think the whole production team, cast, and showrunners did a brilliant job in making season 2, George R. R. Martin’s concerns are valid as well. However, like Condal has said, compromises are necessary when translating a book to a show. Indeed, there is no ‘perfect adaptation’. Personally I think having an exact, word-by-word recreation of a novel to television would be pointless, not to mention impossible. Overall, we’ll have to wait and see what House of the Dragon has in store for season 3 and beyond.
