George Martin kept his promise and analyzed it, «what went wrong» in the first two seasons of the series «House of the Dragon».
The series, which adapts George Martin’s novel «Fire and Blood», excluded a character whose story, according to the writer, will have great consequences for the next 3 and 4 seasons. We are talking about the youngest son of Aegon and Helena Targaryen, Prince Maelor.
«When Ryan Condal (the showrunner of the series, — editor’s note) first announced this turn of events, I was against it. Although I didn’t argue much. This change weakened the sequence, and I felt it a little bit», — Martin writes in his blog (via Variety).
The writer writes that Kondal may have had practical reasons for this, given that casting a two-year-old could have slowed down production and affected the budget.
«The budget was already a problem for the Dragon House series. We had to save money wherever we could. Besides, Ryan assured me that we hadn’t lost the character, we just postponed his story. Helena could have given birth to him in the third season».
To understand what’s going on here, you’ll have to go back to the events of the episode «Son for son» where Damon hires a city guard nicknamed Blood and a rat catcher nicknamed Cheese to kill Prince Aemon. The last killer was never found, and remembering Damon’s words «son for son», they decide to take the life of little Jaegeris, the son of Aegon and Helena.
In Martin’s version, Damon does not give the Blood and Cheese a specific goal, and the murder scene itself features three children at once, not two: along with Jaegeris and his twin sister, there was the aforementioned little prince Maylor (so Helena had to choose between the three children when the murderers asked her who was the heir).
«I still like this episode and the series as a whole. But the loss of Helena’s “choice” weakened the scene a bit. Only readers might have noticed its absence, but viewers who have never opened the Fire and Blood book will still find it heartbreaking»,” Martin adds.
At the same time, Maylor’s absence may have a negative impact on the further events of the series (hereinafter — spoilers for «House of the Dragon» and «Fire and Blood» in particular):
«Maylor doesn’t mean much by himself. He is a small child and does not engage in dialogues But his death… The loss of Maylor cost us the Bitter Bridge scene with all its horror and heroism; it undermined the motivation for Helena’s suicide, which in turn brought thousands of people to the streets demanding justice. It’s not a big deal, but such moments help tie the storylines together to make everything look logical and convincing».
At the end of the blog, Martin wrote that in the next two seasons, we should expect even more «toxic changes to».
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