George R.R. Martin, the creator of the literary series that inspired Game of Thrones and the spin-off House of the Dragon, has talked about the HBO prequel and revealed that his relationship with showrunner Ryan Condal is “worse than rocky. It’s abysmal.” The writer has never shied away from disclosing his disagreements with some parts of the franchise, but it seems that House of the Dragon touched a nerve, and it isn’t something he’s willing to let go. Martin recently opened up in an extensive interview with The Hollywood Reporter, where he talked about the future adaptations in the vast land of Westeros. After Game of Thrones, HBO released House of the Dragon, which will release a third season in the near future. And the streamer is about to release another prequel spin-off, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. In other words, Martin’s relationship with HBO is far from over. However, House of the Dragon seems to be a bone of contention. When asked why his relationship with the prequel’s creator is so rocky, Martin clarifies that it may actually be worse and shares the reasons:
“It’s worse than rocky. It’s abysmal. I hired Ryan. I thought Ryan and I were partners. And we were all through the first season. I would read early drafts of the scripts. I would give notes. He would change some things. It was working really well – I thought.
“Then we got into Season 2, and he basically stopped listening to me. I would give notes, and nothing would happen. Sometimes he would explain why he wasn’t doing it. Other times, he would tell me, ‘Oh, OK, yeah, I’ll think about that.’ It got worse and worse, and I began to get more and more annoyed. Finally, it got to a point where I was told by HBO that I should submit all my notes to them, and they would give Ryan our combined notes.”

The Blog Post That Started the Fire

Season 2 of House of the Dragon started airing in June 2024, and a couple of episodes in, Martin posted something on his website that would forever change his relationship with those adapting the show. While the writer had never been one to stay quiet about some of his most controversial views, the blog post was incendiary. He had some praise for the series, but his strong opposition to the show’s direction was what mattered the most. Eventually, the post was taken down, but today Martin says, “I would’ve put it back up, but then I would’ve looked like an idiot.”

Earlier this year, Entertainment Weekly sat down with Condal, who addressed the controversial blog post by Martin and told his version of the story. “It was disappointing,” the showrunner said about Martin’s post. “Working on the show has been truly one of the great privileges of, not only my career as a writer, but my life as a fan of science fiction and fantasy. George himself is a monument, a literary icon in addition to a personal hero of mine, and was heavily influential on me coming up as a writer.” He added:

“I will simply say, I made every effort to include George in the adaptation process. I really did. Over years and years. And we really enjoyed a mutually fruitful, I thought, really strong collaboration for a long time.
“But at some point, as we got deeper down the road, he just became unwilling to acknowledge the practical issues at hand in a reasonable way…I can only hope that George and I can rediscover that harmony someday. But that’s what I have to say about it.”

Release Date

August 21, 2022

Network

HBO

Directors

Clare Kilner, Geeta Patel

Writers

Gabe Fonseca

Fabien Frankel

Ser Criston Cole