There was a pretty clear divide, as there often is, between book-readers and show-watchers for House of the Dragon’s finale on Sunday. Those loyal to the books often had many issues with the finale, given its source material changes, while many unfamiliar with Fire and Blood thought it was great. We’ve been dealing with this since the Game of Thrones days, though we did have a brief reprieve during A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which everyone from both sides seemed to love, no one more than George R.R. Martin.
House of the Dragon is a project where Martin has been open about his dislike of the show and its changes from the book. Showrunner Ryan Condall is constantly asked about what he’s altered and often lambasted by fans on social media. That was true during the finale with major changes to deaths, battles and so forth.
Condall spoke to Esquire about how difficult it is to make all this work cohesively, especially based on the type and length of source material. Here’s what he said:
“For me, necessary changes in the translation of something from one medium to another seem less controversial. People have to understand that I have 200 pages of prose to work with to make four seasons of television. And this stuff, believe me, keeps me up at night more than anybody.”
How many pages is 200 in context? Well, the entirety of A Song of Ice and Fire so far, five books out of seven, is 5,175 pages, and of course, Game of Thrones had to go past the books for the last couple seasons.
Here’s Condall on when things really started to change:
“But between season 2 and season 3, I just realised that I really can’t live like this anymore, just worrying about every little thing. I have to trust my instincts as somebody who’s read Fire & Blood probably more than anybody else on the planet at this point. And I still regard this adaptation as tremendously faithful to the overall text and the broad story that it is telling, even when there are individual moments that are surprising or different.”
This was around when the dramatic split between Martin and Condall happened, and Condall realized he simply had to go his own way. We saw that manifest in butterfly effect ways this season, where, for instance, Condall cut a child of Helaena from the show entirely years ago. That child goes on to be murdered, and it is the main inciting incident of Helaena jumping to her death. But all that had to be changed. Similarly, the Battle of Tumbleton went through a number of alterations, including Daemon’s involvement.
As a non-book reader (who has been spoiled multiple times by book readers at this point), I do empathize with the situation Condall is in, and such public criticism by George R.R. Martin (which Condall has not returned) has to be demotivating. The idea seems to be that ultimately, he will get where the books were going, but the path to reach that point may be uneven and forcibly filled with changes. Some fans will never approve, but at least he doesn’t have to invent an ending from scratch like his predecessors.
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