Ryan Condal Addresses George R. R. Martin’s Criticism of Season 2 in House of the Dragon
In a recent discussion with House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal, he offered insights regarding the criticisms voiced by author George R. R. Martin about the show’s second season. This dialogue coincides with the commencement of production for the highly anticipated third season.
During an interview with Entertainment Weekly (EW), Condal shared that although he was not privy to the details of Martin’s blog post, which has since been removed, he was made aware of its critical content. He described Martin’s comments as “disappointing”and defended his creative decisions, suggesting that Martin may not fully grasp the complexities of adapting his literary works for a television format.
“It was disappointing. I will simply say I’ve been a fan of A Song of Ice and Fire for almost 25 years now, and 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.
“It’s this incomplete history and it requires a lot of joining of the dots and a lot of invention as you go along the way. 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.
“And I think as a showrunner, I have to keep my practical producer hat on and my creative writer, lover-of-the-material hat on at the same time. At the end of the day, I just have to keep marching not only the writing process forward, but also the practical parts of the process forward for the sake of the crew, the cast, and for HBO, because that’s my job. So I can only hope that George and I can rediscover that harmony someday. But that’s what I have to say about it.”
As the production team gears up for season three, fans are eager to see how these challenges will be addressed and how the narrative will evolve. Stay tuned for further updates.
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