“House of the Dragon”: George RR Martin wanted more time leaps and start the story sooner

‘The House of the Dragon’ has managed to recover the spirit of ‘Game of Thrones’ with a first season that has triumphed in the public and that has regained the fervor for Poniente. Critics and audiences applauded the first episodes of the prequel, based on George RR Martin’s novel “Fire and Blood”. But the author himself recently commented on it he had in mind some bases a little different from the path chosen by Miguel Sapochnik and Ryan Condal for the beginning of the story.

“One of the biggest problems for writers was where to start. Let’s start with the Grand Council where the lords vote that Jaehaerys’s heir, who had just lost his son Baelon, has died of appendicitis. Who will be his heir now? gentlemen voted Viserys over Rhaenys. That beginning was not granted by an ancient Greek muse. We – other writers and I – have had a lot of heated discussions about the starting point of the story.” Martin explains in a speech on his editorial channel.

It turns out that the writer not only didn’t see a problem in the multiple time hops and actor changes that “The House of the Dragon” had, but he wanted more. This was the version of him from the beginning of him: “It would have started about 40 years ago, with an episode that would be titled “The Heir and the Replacement”, in which both of Jaehaerys’ sons, Aemon and Baelon, are alive. We would see the friendship, but also the rivalry, between the two parts of this great house. Aemon is accidentally killed when he is accidentally shot by a Myrish archer on Tarth, and Jaehaerys must then decide who becomes the new heir. Will she be the daughter of the eldest son who has just died, or will she be the second child, who has children of her and is a man while she is a teenager? You would have had another 40 years and there would have been more time hops and more recast and yes, I was the only one excited about that.”.

no more jumps

Taking into account that the main complaints of the first season were, in fact, the time jumps and the sudden change of the actors every few chapters, it is quite possible that they made the right decision not to add further changes and to postpone the start of the Ball. by Dragons, the real heart of the series. Ryan Condal, who remains at the helm of the series in its second season after Sapochnik’s departure, has ensured that the time jumps are over: “We will tell the story in real time from here on out. The actors will play their characters until the end. We will not change anyone, nor will we make big time leaps”. The second season, yes, it will take some time to arrive. From HBO they claim that our return to Poniente will take place in 2024 because they are still in the early stages with the second season.

George RR Martin also commented on two other ideas that were discarded for the start of the series. One was to start with the death of Aemma, Viserys’ wife, and another was to start directly with the death of the character who ended up being played by Paddy Considine.therefore we would not have seen the young people of Rhaenyra and Alicent, and therefore we would not have discovered the wonderful Milly Alcock and Emily Carey.