HBO has responded to George R.R. Martin’s now-deleted blog post criticising the development of House of the Dragon, the adaptation of his book Fire and Blood. In a statement (via GamesRadar), HBO had this to say:
“There are few greater fans of George R.R. Martin and his book Fire & Blood than the creative team on House of the Dragon, both in production and at HBO,” they opened their statement (via Variety).
“Commonly, when adapting a book for the screen, with its own format and limitations, the showrunner ultimately is required to make difficult choices about the characters and stories the audience will follow. We believe that Ryan Condal and his team have done an extraordinary job and the millions of fans the series has amassed over the first two seasons will continue to enjoy it.”
On an episode of the House of the Dragon podcast from HBO, Ryan Condal said the team “had to make some compromises in rendering the story” after killing off Maelor’s character.
“The casualty in that was that our young children in this show are very young. Very, very young,” he said. “Because we compress that timeline. So those people could only have children of a certain age and have it be believable where it didn’t feel like we weren’t hewing to the realities of the passage of time and the growth of children in any real way.”
Martin had previously written on his blog that he would outline “everything that’s gone wrong” with House of the Dragon. “I do not look forward to other posts I need to write, about everything that’s gone wrong with HOUSE OF THE DRAGON… but I need to do that too, and I will. Not today, though. TODAY is Zozobra’s day, when we turn away from gloom.”
