House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal addresses the plan for the show’s ending and how faithful it will be George R. R. Martin’s source material. Based on Martin’s Fire & Blood, the hit Game of Thrones spinoff show first aired on HBO in 2022, chronicling the events of the Targaryen civil war. Ahead of House of the Dragon season 2’s premiere, the show was just renewed for season 3, but it remains unclear how many seasons the show will ultimately run for before concluding.
During a recent interview with Jonatan Blomberg from MovieZine, Condal addresses House of the Dragon’s series ending and how closely it will follow Martin’s book.
According to the showrunner, there is already a plan in place regarding how the series will wrap up. While Condal affirms that House of the Dragon will “honor” the book, the difference in mediums between the book and the show means that there could be some changes. Check out Condal’s comment below:
“We’ve certainly talked about all that. We know where the ending is now. The writing team and I…and when I say the ending it’s really just where the curtain drops in this particular period of Targaryen history. Because, of course, after the Dance of Dragons is over there’s still another 120, 150 years of history before the Mad King is overthrown by Robert Baratheon. Which is really the end of the Targaryen Dynasty, and that leads us into the original series.
“So yeah, we’ve talked about it. I do want to honor as much of what is there in the book, but we also have to find a satisfying to this story that wraps things up in a different and unexpected way for a giant TV audience. You’re always balancing the written history and making television show. But I think the fun of Fire & Blood as a whole is it’s such a deeply rich and textured history that another writer can follow me after this and tell a story from the past before the Dance of Dragons or just after.”
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Will House Of The Dragon Avoid Game Of Thrones’ Ending Problems?
Game Of Thrones’ Ending Was Highly Controversial
House of the Dragon season 2 reviews are already very positive, but the Game of Thrones ending, and really the entire final season, was infamously controversial. Season 8 caught a lot of flak for feeling rushed, and for various narrative choices. One factor that’s widely considered to have negatively affected the final two seasons is that showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss surpassed Martin’s source material, meaning they weren’t drawing from the author’s own vision for the end of this grand saga.
Martin himself has been vocal that he thought Game of Thrones’ ending should have happened with season 10 and that he largely wasn’t consulted during the show’s final seasons. While it’s unclear how many seasons Martin wants House of the Dragon to run for, several factors suggest the spinoff could end in a less divisive manner than its predecessor. First and foremost, Fire & Blood has been written. This means the entire Targaryen saga that House of the Dragon is adapting is already on the page.
Condal, then, won’t run out of source material for later seasons, but Martin also seems to be more closely involved with the writing this time around. Martin revealed in December that he had a productive brainstorming session about House of the Dragon season 3 and 4 with Condal and the writing team. It remains to be seen how House of the Dragon ultimately wraps up its story, but there’s certainly reason to be optimistic that the show won’t be as divisive as Game of Thrones.
House of the Dragon season 2 premieres on HBO on June 16.