With both television and film, adaptations from book-to-screen are bound to generate all kinds of conversations between fans of the source material who had certain expectations. Sometimes, fans are on board with any necessary changes; other times, the chatter about the adaptation is overwhelmingly negative. Disney+’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians has had author Rick Riordan involved from the start, and executive producer Craig Silverstein opened up about why that’s “critical,” especially compared to George R.R. Martin’s recent complaints about HBO’s House of the Dragon.

Percy Jackson, available streaming now with a Disney+ subscription, wrapped the second season in late January of the 2026 TV schedule and is already well into production on Season 3. Author Rick Riordan has been an executive producer on the series from the start after being famously critical of the film adaptations, tweeting (via People) that the movies were like “my life's work going through a meat grinder when I pleaded with them not to do it” and “I certainly have nothing against the very talented actors” but “I'm just sorry they got dragged into that mess.”

I spoke with Craig Silverstein, an executive producer and co-showrunner on the Percy Jackson series, at SCAD TVfest first about him having the support of Rick Riordan, which the author doubled down on after the Season 2 finale. Silverstein shared:

Rick Riordan is directly involved in bringing his own story to the screen, which was not what happened with the first Percy Jackson movie in 2010 or its 2013 sequel. While the adaptation from page to screen has meant necessary changes from the source material, all signs point towards a collaborative process between the author and the producers.

That status quo is a stark contrast to what George R.R. Martin has said about House of the Dragon, the first Game of Thrones spinoff. He aired some grievances shortly after Season 2 finished airing on HBO and has referred to his relationship with showrunner Ryan Condal as “worse than rocky” and abysmal, blaming Condal for how he “basically stopped listening to me” and his notes about bringing Fire & Blood, the source material, to TV in House of the Dragon.

The Percy Jackson EP confirmed that he’d seen the controversy that followed George R.R. Martin’s comments, as well as that it would “definitely” be a nightmare of a response from an author to an adaptation of their work:

Fortunately, there hasn’t been backlash from Rick Riordan or changes to the source material going viral like what has happened with George R.R. Martin and House of the Dragon, although Martin is notably complimentary towards A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. (You can find the second Game of Thrones spinoff streaming with an HBO Max subscription now.)

As for Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Craig Silverstein shared that there’s “about a month and a half left of shooting” for Season 3. It remains to be seen when it will be ready to join Seasons 1 and 2 on Disney+, but the pace for releasing new seasons continues to be steady. For now, you can always revisit those first two seasons and/or the books written by Rick Riordan.

Last week, fans of author Brandon Sanderson, particularly those who enjoy his Mistborn and The Stormlight Archive book series, got some great news. Sanderson has partnered Apple TV to adapt his Cosmere literary universe for the streamer, with Mistborn and Stormlight Archive being specifically looked at to get the feature film and TV show treatment, respectively. While there’s a lot of these excited about with these book-to-screen adaptations, Sanderson has also now responded to the fans who are worried that these projects may lead to him pulling a George R.R. Martin.

I’m talking about how Martin, the mastermind behind A Song of Ice and Fire, still has not finished The Winds of Winter, the sixth book in his fantasy book series, 15 years after the previous book, A Dance with Dragons, was released. There have been various reasons for this, including Martin contributing to the various TV shows in the Game of Thrones franchise (although there’s been some “dysfunction” in his relationship with the House of the Dragon showrunner). So in terms of whether these Apple TV subscription-exclusive adaptations of Mistborn and The Stormlight Archive will delay Brandon Sanerson’s work on his upcoming books, here’s what he had to say on his YouTube page:

For those who missed the initial announcement, part of Brandon Sanderson’s deal with Apple TV is that not only will he write, produce an consult on the Mistborn and Stormlight Archive projects, he’ll also approvals on the cast and more. This was described as “rarefied control” that not even George R.R. Martin and J.K. Rowling got with the Game of Thrones and Harry Potter adaptations, respectively. However, having that much control over these new fantasy adaptations means that it’ll eat into his book-writing time.

Fortunately for his fans, Sanderson cleared up that his additional responsibilities, which will be his “full time work over the next few months,” won’t result in any major delays. After mentioning that “there’s nobody attached right now” to these projects, he added:

It sounds like the Mistborn movie will be the first Apple TV project he tackles, which will adapt the first book, 2006’s The Final Empire. It’s unclear, then, when Brandon Sanderson will begin work on The Stormlight Archive TV series. One thing I’m especially curious about is if he’ll be amenable to other writers helping him out, i.e. co-writing the movie scripts and working with a writing staff on the TV show. If he’s going to handle it all solo, then best of luck to him balancing all that on top of his books.

We’ll keep you apprised here on CinemaBlend on how Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn and Stormlight Archive projects are progressing as more details come in. For now, use our 2026 movies schedule and 2026 TV schedule to keep track of what will be released later this year.

The main conflict of House of the Dragon was once between the Greens and the Blacks, but the shots fired over the post-Season 2 hiatus have mostly come from George R.R. Martin over the show taking significant liberties with his source material. Ahead of Season 3's arrival in the 2026 TV schedule, HBO CEO Casey Bloys opened up about the conflict between Martin and showrunner Ryan Condal, which recently heated up.

Shortly before the premiere of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms as a fresh take on the Game of Thrones franchise, George R.R Martin described his relationship with Ryan Condal as "abysmal" and "worse than rocky." It didn't come as a huge shock after he aired his grievances about House of the Dragon Season 2, but Casey Bloys didn't waste any time in responding to the most recent comments. He told Deadline:

Bloys acknowledged the existence of "dysfunction" when it comes to George R.R. Martin, Ryan Condal, and House of the Dragon, and notably didn't address the problems that the A Song of Ice and Fire author had with Condal's adaptation of Fire & Blood. (Both seasons so far are available streaming with an HBO Max subscription now.)

In 2024, Martin's dramatic blog post (which has since been deleted) called out the show's version of Blood and Cheese, the infamous portion of his book that sets a lot of changes in motion and is arguably the worst thing that Daemon ever did. There were enough changes to the source material that it wasn't hard to compile a full list.

But what about George R.R. Martin's future at HBO, when he was reportedly pleased with A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms? Casey Bloys went on to confirm that there's still a deal between the network and the author:

The CEO did then confirm that Martin "definitely took a step back" in his involvement with House of the Dragon for Season 3, with more focus on A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Bloys also noted that "the Rotten Tomato scores of the first two seasons" have House of the Dragon at 87%, saying that Ryan Condal has been "a great collaborator with us" in making the first Game of Thrones spinoff successful. At the time of writing, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms has a 95% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Casey Bloys' comments now aren't too different from when he initially addressed George R.R. Martin's grievances in late 2024 by comparing the working relationship to a "marriage" that can get "rocky." Ryan Condal was less diplomatic last year, claiming that Martin "just became unwilling to acknowledge the practical issues at hand in a reasonable way."

For now, it's just a matter of waiting to find out how much Season 3 of House of the Dragon departs from how Martin told the history of the Targaryen dynasty in Fire & Blood. Having read the book myself, I will say that some big changes would have to happen early in the third season for HOTD to get on track with the publication, but I'm confident at least the biggest battles will be included. While a premiere date has yet to be announced, the new season is expected to arrive in the summer.

The world of Westeros is coming back to HBO early in the 2026 TV schedule with A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, once again based on source material from George R.R. Martin. Premiering on January 18 with stars Peter Claffey as Ser Duncan the Tall and Dexter Sol Ansell as young squire Egg, the new prequel is a fresh take on the Game of Thrones franchise with a lighter tone and shorter run time. That's not a bad thing for the author after his recent comments about House of the Dragon, with Claffey explaining how "happy" Martin was when visiting the set.

As he hinted in blog post timed to House of the Dragon Season 2 with its many changes from the Fire & Blood source material, George R.R. Martin became less involved as the series went on. In comparison, he has been openly praising A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms for nearly a year now, and the new leading man weighed in on how the first of Martin's Dunk and Egg novellas was adapted. When I asked the actor what conversations he had with the author, Peter Claffey shared:

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is set between House of the Dragon and the original series in the Game of Thrones timeline. There's definitely plenty of lore that could be – and was – folded into the first season, which is based on The Hedge Knight as the first of three novellas so far. Claffey went on to share one way that George R.R. Martin was heavily involved in the new show, although he didn't know that until well after he took on the role of Dunk:

One of the many ways in which A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms sets itself apart from Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon is a more focused POV, with Dunk and Egg central to the story as opposed to the vast families, sprawling noble houses, and political machinations of the two earlier series.

While there are still nobles from families like the Baratheons and Targaryens in the mix, there's no grand conflict like Team Black vs. Team Green in the six-episode first season, airing on HBO and streaming with an HBO Max subscription. Referring to working with Ira Parker as showrunner, Owen Harris as executive producer, Sarah Adina Smith as director, and himself as "quite a tight knit unit," Peter Claffey went on:

As Peter Claffey alluded, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms has already been renewed for a second season, based on George R.R. Martin's The Sworn Sword and already in production. It remains to be seen if The Mystery Knight, the third novella, gets a season as well, but fans can already count on the show being "true and respectful" from the jump.

That's not to say that the new show is only enjoyable for readers of the novellas, and I can vouch for having a good time watching without knowing the lore back to front. The trailer, which struck me as having shades of A Knight's Tale to go along with Game of Thrones' world of Westeros, gives a taste of what to expect:

Tune in to HBO on Sunday, January 18 at 10 p.m. ET to watch the series premiere of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. With just six episodes, the season may fly by, so be sure to keep current on Sunday nights or soon after via HBO Max. The newest Game of Thrones spinoff will be followed by House of the Dragon Season 3 later this year. While there are more questions than answers about that show's return, I'm confident that viewers will get a lot more laughs out of Dunk and Egg than Team Black vs. Team Green.

The works of George R.R. Martin have been hugely influential on HBO, going back to Game of Thrones becoming a smash hit in 2011 to the successful launch of House of the Dragon to the upcoming debut of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms in the 2026 TV schedule. While the author has only had good things to say about the new prequel and is slowly but surely working on continuing the Game of Thrones book saga, he wasn't so effusive about his "abysmal" relationship with House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal.

It hasn't exactly been a secret that George R.R. Martin has had some issues with House of the Dragon after some dramatic comments regarding Season 2, which he followed up with some specific grievances about changes Ryan Condal made from the Fire & Blood source material to the screen. Now, the author has gotten candid about their working relationship, telling THR:

Ryan Condal was originally the co-showrunner of House of the Dragon, sharing the job with Game of Thrones director/producer Miguel Sapochnik until Sapochnik unexpectedly quit in early 2023. Significant changes from the book were evident in Season 2 as early as the premiere with its alterations to the memorable "Blood and Cheese" sequence, which was one of the alterations that Martin called out on his blog in 2024. He went on:

The blog post in which George R.R. Martin criticized the Blood and Cheese change that had huge implications for a character in future seasons was quickly removed, after an HBO exec contacted the author's team, who then contacted his manager, who then contacted his assistant to delete it. That doesn't mean he regrets his words, however, as he went on to tell THR:

HBO CEO Casey Bloys responded to the critiques from George R.R. Martin months later, with a fairly diplomatic statement about Ryan Condal "making creative decisions" in "adapting work," and bumps are "to be expected" in "a creative process." Condal himself went a bit harder the next year, saying that as they "got deeper down the road," Martin "just became unwilling to acknowledge the practical issues at hand in a reasonable way."

For now, it's a waiting game to learn if House of the Dragon Season 3 will be any more faithful to Fire & Blood than Season 2 was. As a reader of the fictional history of the Targaryen dynasty, I will say that even if there are efforts to go back to the book's narrative, big changes will have to happen to get back on track.

The good news for book purists is that A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is set to be an incredibly faithful adaptation of George R.R. Martin's novella. Tune in to HBO on Sunday, January 18 at 10 p.m. ET for the series premiere of the new Game of Thrones prequel, which is set far enough after House of the Dragon that the two shows can be watched independently.

Game of Thrones is such an epic and detailed world that it feels like there are endless opportunities to continue bringing George R. R. Martin’s creations to life. House of the Dragon Season 3 is expected to hit the 2026 TV schedule this summer, but first we’re digging further into the story of another ancient member of the Targaryen family tree in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Let’s see what critics are saying about the upcoming HBO series.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms stars Dexter Sol Ansell as Prince Aegon Targaryen, or “Egg,” as he squires for a hedge knight, Peter Claffey’s Ser Duncan the Tall, or “Dunk.” This series has a different tone than the two that preceded it and apparently could serve as a more friendly introduction to the universe for those who didn’t vibe with the darkness of Game of Thrones. CinemaBlend’s own Laura Hurley has screened the series, and she says:

Daniel Fienberg of THR approves of this deviation from the formula, despite some flaws, and he promises fans won’t even miss the dragons. Feinberg writes:

The series takes place about a century before the events of Game of Thrones, when dragons were still extinct and the Targaryens still ruled Westeros. Tasha Robinson of Polygon says the story honors George R.R. Martin's work while bringing in appealing new elements, writing:

Neil Armstrong of the BBC calls the series “a total delight from start to finish,” saying that it’s never been so much fun to be in Westeros. The way the lead actors play off of each other is what makes it really special. The critic says:

James Hunt of ComicBook.com rates it a 4.5 out of 5, calling A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Season 1 a “near-perfect adaptation,” saying that it opens up the possibilities of what Game of Thrones spinoffs can do. Hunt continues:

Jim Vejvoda of IGN gives it a “Great” 8 out of 10, writing that despite having no dragons, the prequel is bursting with heart, charm and humor — and two endearing lead performances — that make this a more-than-worthy watch. Vejvoda continues:

There’s no doubt this newest chapter from the mind of George R. R. Martin is different, but if the critics’ reviews are any indication, different is perfectly fine in this instance. The series — which has already been renewed for Season 2 — is set to premiere with a Certified Fresh 83% on Rotten Tomatoes.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Season 1 consists of six episodes, averaging a little over 30 minutes apiece, so don’t miss the start of this new adventure when it premieres at 10 p.m. ET Sunday, January 18, on HBO and streaming with an HBO Max subscription.

Plenty of HBO shows got the world talking over the years, but few were quite as popular as Game of Thrones. That series was quintessential water cooler talk, even if the Game of Thrones finale is still a sore point for some fans. But we've returned to Westeros thanks to the prequel House of the Dragon, and the forthcoming series A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. I was already hyped to stream the latter project with my HBO Max subscription, although author George R.R. Martin's recent comments have me even more invested.

What we know about A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is limited, but some of our questions will be revealed when it premiers on HBO. HOTD renewed my interest in the franchise, and I'm eager to see how this new series will further expand the world. While appearing on the A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms podcast, Martin highligted a big change for the new series, saying:

Honestly, I'm sold. While we got some spotlight on the Small Folk in House of the Dragon (refresh on who owns what HOTD dragon here) the non-royals are going to be a major focus on AKOTSK. These new characters won't be competing to get on the Iron Throne, and are instead the regular folks who are usually affected by these bloody regime changes. That includes Ser Duncan the Tall, who is the titular character that will be played by actor Peter Claffey.

This isn't to say that there won't be royals in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. In fact, a Targaryen will serve as Duncan's squire. But the story isn't about warring families fighting for power and influence. In the same appearance, Martin also spoke about how the source material for the book to screen adaptation was a departure from the Game of Thrones books. In his words:

Of course, we'll have to wait and see A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms to see just how singularly focused it's narrative will be. I have to assume that Ser Duncan won't be the only character that we follow, but it'll seemingly be a more contained narrative. And after hearing Martin's comments I'm even more eager to see the Game of Thrones prequel on my small screen.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms will premiere on January 18th as part of the 2026 TV schedule. And it sounds like longtime fans like me are going to be treated to a very different take on Westeros.

It’s not exactly a hot take to say Game Of Thrones fans aren’t happy with how the last season went. I’m a little more defensive of the final few episodes than most people, and even I would say Season 8 has some major issues. Exactly who is responsible for the downfall, however, is an argument fans are still having. Recently, someone on social media pointed the finger at George RR Martin and accused him of being the real culprit, and let’s just say the diehards did not respond positively.

It all started a few days ago when a user made a thread in Reddit’s ever popular Unpopular Opinion sub. They argued that the acclaimed author ruined the show because he never finished his novels. The user claimed that showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss “signed up” to direct and write a TV show based off source material, and because the conclusion to the source material never came, the executive producers had to create their own ending to someone else’s work, which is “100x harder.”

The argument sounds very reasonable on paper. Fans have been complaining for years about the slow progress of Martin’s novels, and the acclaimed HBO show was finished before the books, which still haven’t come. Hundreds of comments and thousands of engagements, however, have made it clear many, many diehards disagree.

There are several reasons why so many are unwilling to blame Martin, but the most common definitely has to do with the source material itself. Numerous GOT fans in the thread pointed out how little of the books Benioff and Weiss actually adapted. The first two seasons of the show are fairly faithful adaptations of Martin’s books, but they start diverging very regularly late in the show, especially in Season 5 and beyond. Here’s a sample comment that has almost 1,000 likes…

There’s also the issue of the pacing and the episode count. The thing that bothered me most as an obsessive Game Of Thrones fan was how fast everything moved, especially during the 7th and 8th seasons. It was like the showrunners were in a rush to get things over with, which, of course, they were because they were planning to go make Star Wars movies.

To me, I didn’t really have a problem with the basics of what happened during the ending (although I still hate the Bran stuff). It was more that it was hard to get on board with the trajectory because it all happened so quickly. The early seasons are such a slow build. You really spend time with the characters and can see why they make the decisions they do. We still get a little foreshadowing and character development in the later seasons, but what we do get is wedged between so many “and this happened” moments. Here’s another comment from a user…

It’s worth noting that even though an overwhelming majority of users were very defensive of Martin and said he was not to blame, there were a very tangible percentage who were happy to throw at least a little shade at Martin. Overwhelmingly, people blamed Benioff & Weiss for the overall issues but admitted Martin has taken forever to finish his novels. Some claimed he’s taking so long because it’s impossible to weave together all the complicated storylines. Others claimed he’s never going to finish the books because the stories are supposed to be ongoing and never have a real conclusion like real life.

Regardless of who is to blame for what happened during Season 8, I prefer to look at the show positively. The characters, worldbuilding and intrigue of the first six seasons are unlike anything I’ve ever seen on television, and I’m really enjoying the first spinoff House Of The Dragon, as well (even if it has the same episode count problems). That’s a credit to George RR Martin and everyone else involved, especially showrunners Benioff and Weiss.

The superhero genre has been thriving for years, and is showing no signs of slowing down. The most popular heroes have gotten a number of adaptations over that time, just look at the Spider-Man movies. But it turns out that Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin has some notes for the franchise (which is streaming with a Disney+ subscription). Namely, that he's sick of reboots for the wall crawler.

Three different live-action Spider-Man franchises have come over the years, in addition to animated projects like Into the Spider-Verse. And that's not even counting how many reboots have happened in the comics. During a conversation with PopVerse, the visionary writer complained about this trend, specifically on the page. As he put it:

Honestly, this seems like an understandable frustration, one that has likely affected fans of Spider-Man comics and movies. For instance, plenty of moviegoers were hoping for The Amazing Spider-Man 3 before it got scrapped in favor of Tom Holland's Peter Parker in the MCU. And the two live-action movie reboots are just a drop in the bucket compared to how many times Peter Parker's story has been restarted in the comics.

While the Game of Thrones franchise has continued to expand through spinoffs like House of the Dragon and the upcoming series A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, there is only one official timeline, and it's free of reboots. Although fans are still waiting for the last few book for A Song of Ice and Fire.

Later in his same conversation, Martin cited one specific Spider-Man comic book plot line that he had issue with being rebooted out of existence. In his words:

Points were made. Actually seeing Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson marry was a big payoff for fans, but a Spider-Man reboot had to retcon this to start over. And Martin takes umbrage with that plan of action for the comics.

Mary Jane and Peter have never gotten married on the big screen, so hopefully George R.R. Martin is less annoyed by the movie reboots. Moviegoers who spent years watching the Marvel movies in order have already seen three Peter Parkers, although having them together in No Way Home felt like a big payoff.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is the next upcoming Marvel movie hitting theaters, arriving on July 31st as part of the 2026 movie release list. Let's just hope another reboot isn't on its way. At least, for Martin's sake.

As the one-year anniversary of House of the Dragon’s Season 2 finale looms, Season 3 isn’t expected to arrive on HBO until well past the end of the 2025 TV schedule. That said, there’s still news to get excited about as the weeks pass without any new footage, and readers of George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood can take note of the latest casting.

None other than a fierce warrior from the riverlands has been added for Season 3 rather than another branch of the Targaryen family tree, and while I won’t get deep into spoilers for the sake of non-readers, I will say that it gets my hopes up a little higher that some very funny Fire & Blood Easter eggs make the cut in Season 3.

House Of The Dragon’s Newest Warrior

Red Skies actress Annie Shapero has been cast to play Alysanne Blackwood, a.k.a. the archer and warrior Black Aly, for Season 3 of House of the Dragon (per Deadline). Without getting too deep into spoilers from Fire & Blood, Black Aly is Team Black and fights for Rhaenyra in the Dance of the Dragons, and will forge an important tie with Lord Cregan Stark when the North becomes more heavily involved in the war.

While I would have automatically expected Black Aly to be cast if House of the Dragon was a faithful adaptation of Fire & Blood, the show has increasingly diverged from the source material, with George R.R. Martin himself listing his grievances with certain choices. This particular book character has made the cut (unlike a certain prince during Blood and Cheese), and Annie Shapero will reportedly appear in five of Season 3’s eight episodes, although she’s not billed as a series regular.

Depending on how faithfully HOTD adapts Alysanne’s story, I’d expect that she’ll have a role to play in the fourth and final season as well. Only time will tell, but I’m choosing to take her casting as a sign that we could get to see more of the riverlands in House of the Dragon Season 3. And more of that region could bode well for a wish of mine.

Historically in both Game of Thrones and HOTD, the riverlands are just not a place anybody would want to be during a time of war, but I’m hoping that the addition of Black Aly – a Blackwood of the riverlands – could be a sign that something funny is on the way with that particular area. (Funny for fans, at least!)

George R.R. Martin’s Riverlands Easter Eggs

In House of the Dragon just as in the earliest seasons of Game of Thrones, House Tully were the Lords Paramount of the riverlands region. The second season introduced Oscar Tully, the young lord of Riverrun after the death of his father and grandfather. In Fire & Blood, there are more Tullys recorded by George R.R. Martin, and their names are funny enough that I can forgive the author for naming so many characters “Aegon.”

Key members of House Tully in the Dance of the Dragons chapters of Fire & Blood include:

• Grover Tully
• Elmo Tully
• Kermit Tully
• Oscar Tully

War comes to the riverlands by way of Sesame Street in this era of the history of Westeros, apparently! In all seriousness, I don’t know that George R.R. Martin was deliberately trying to make readers associate Tully men with Muppets, or even wanted any readers to pick up the trend.

My theory has always been that the author was tired of coming up with Westerosi name after name after name for this section of Fire & Blood, and simply picked ones that came to mind just to cross these Tullys off of his list. I can’t confirm, but why else name a bunch of characters after Sesame Street icons?

Of course, Grover and Co. don’t really have much to do with Black Aly in Fire & Blood other than hailing from the riverlands, but if I can celebrate that she’s been cast for Season 3, why not hold onto some hope for the Seven Kingdom’s Muppets to make the cut too? With a little tweaking to the Blackwood family tree, they could all be included in the show with a different line of succession than in Fire & Blood.

Besides, without details about when to expect the third season other than expectations of 2026, it’s fun to latch on to something from Fire & Blood that could make it to HBO. For now, you can always revisit the first two seasons of House of the Dragon as well as the full run of Game of Thrones streaming with an HBO Max subscription.

While I doubt that every fantasy author in the world is well-acquainted with the work of every other fantasy writer who happens to create wild universes for readers to dive into, there are certainly some scribes who simply cannot be ignored. Two such acclaimed writers are George R.R. Martin and Andrzej Sapkowski, who have given fans the worlds that led to Game of Thrones and The Witcher. Each series has spawned franchises, and while Sapkowski recently threw some shade at Martin (for obvious reasons), he also decided to defend him.

What Did The Witcher’s Author Say About George R.R. Martin?

Die-hard fans of George R.R. Martin’s work likely have a few sticking points when it comes to the celebrated writer, but perhaps none is more obvious than the fact that Game of Thrones had to wrap up with a contentious finale six years ago…and the man still hasn’t finished A Song of Ice and Fire. Book six, The Winds of Winter was supposed to be finished 13 years ago as of 2025, and he also has plans for a seventh and final book that is (clearly) nowhere near completion.

Meanwhile, The Witcher author Andrzej Sapkowski completed the main books in his series by 1999, meaning that when that TV series (which you can watch with your Netflix subscription) ends after Season 5, they will have had his full work to pull from. When speaking at the Opole book festival (via Redanian Intelligence) recently, the writer headed off questions about whether or not he was going to add to his collection of stories about The Continent by saying:

SHOTS. FIRED. Look, I love a spicy writer, and he just came right outta the gate with a slam for his fellow author, despite the fact that, apparently, no one had even mentioned Martin!

Of course, lots has been said and written about the incredibly extended delay that fans are seeing with TWOW. Many who’d been hoping to be able to finally read the end of ASOIAF as Martin intended it have given up on the idea of him ever completing it, and while there can certainly be some unnecessary toxicity regarding their disappointment, the basis of their feelings is pretty easy to understand.

Martin is working on several different projects to varying degrees at once (including helping out with the ever-expanding GOT TV universe, like the upcoming A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which is slated for the 2025 TV schedule), so he should be given some grace for that. But, even he’s admitted that TWOW is “a big mother of a book” which he now calls “the curse of my life.” Sapkowski continued his thoughts, and noted that he really does get why Martin seems to be having so much trouble with this one book:

“Indecent” it may be, but it happened, and now Martin has to figure out a way to make his own vision come to life, before the HBO drama is the final word on A Song Of Ice And Fire.

Whenever the name of famed fantasy author George R.R. Martin comes up, there are really only two things people think of. The first would be the expansive world he created which eventually became the mega-hit known as the Game of Thrones franchise. What’s the second thing, you ask? Well, it’s how Martin still hasn’t actually finished writing his A Song of Ice and Fire tale that inspired that series, which was supposed to see Book 6, The Winds of Winter, be released more than a decade ago. The writer has gotten honest (again) about not finishing, but he also has a bone to pick with folks who are complaining.

What Has George R.R. Martin Now Said About Not Finishing The Winds Of Winter Yet?

To be fair to Mr. George R.R. Martin, he is fully aware that there’s something on his to-do list that has been there so long that the ink is starting to fade. He’s been giving his rabid (and sometimes rather toxic) fans updates on his sixth Westerosi book for quite some time now, and knows that many fans have simply given up on the stories ever being completed (he has plans for a seventh and final book, A Dream of Spring, as well).

The A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms author (who’s “so so so pleased” with the upcoming adaptation) recently spoke with Time Magazine. When it was mentioned that fans are noting how we now, apparently, have dire wolves again but he still hasn’t delivered Book 6, Martin said:

Alright. This is gonna have to be one of those times where I ask every reader to take a breath and pause, because I can anticipate that some of you are ready to fly off the handle. Go ahead…calm yourselves.

OK, let’s get into this. First of all, as someone who writes for a living and does lots of other creative things for fun, I will say that if any project I’m working on becomes “the curse of my life,” well, shit. I’m just going to stop doing that thing, so there’s that to ponder. While the Dark Winds executive producer (who was trolled over TWOW in a recent episode) notes that he’s still working on the story he previously described as “a big mother of a book,” and admits that his other commitments can “divert” his “attention,” he also claims that his unfinished manuscript and his outside work really aren’t “connected.”

Now I’m breathing and pausing. Want to know why? Because that’s not how life works. Literally everything we do takes time away from something else. We might not mean or even want for this to happen, but we can’t do or think about all things at once. Hell, sometimes I put a show on “in the background” while folding laundry only to find myself standing in front of the TV 30 minutes later totally absorbed in the series and with the laundry all over the floor because a cat’s burrowed into it and I didn’t even notice. Just me? I don’t believe that, but whatever…

My point is that life be lifing, and while I firmly believe that Martin is trying to finish TWOW and wants to finish it, it seems rather myopic to say that his other work doesn’t stand in the way at all. He continued to explain his beef with critics, adding:

Though I’ve given Martin a teensy bit of grief here, I do get where he’s coming from. Not all of his non-TWOW projects will involve the kind of commitments that take significant time/energy/brain power away from finishing this one book. Plus, he literally can’t just write this book and do nothing else. He at least needs time to eat, sleep and/or shop for hats and suspenders, alright?

Listen, I know this is hard, but we just have to keep waiting and hope that The Winds of Winter comes along before someone finds a way to bring actual fire-breathing dragons into the world. The chances of Martin being able to finish after we get real dragons truly is non-existent. Keep hope alive!

George R.R Martin is undoubtedly best known for his work on Game of Thrones and the ongoing A Song of Ice and Fire book series that inspired the fantasy drama, but both he and Academy Award winner Robert Redford are also among the executive producers of AMC's Dark Winds. The duo took the time to make cameos in the Season 3 premiere in the 2025 TV schedule, and the result was an unexpected roast from Redford about Martin's long, long, long delays between books in the ASOIAF saga.

In the Season 3 premiere, Martin and Redford are playing prisoners who are in the middle of a game of chess when Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn (Echo cast member Zahn McClarnon) walks in. Redford's character says to Martin's, "George, the whole world's waiting. Make a move!"

And anybody who has been waiting for Book 6 of A Song of Ice and Fire, called The Winds of Winter, for more than a decade now likely registered that comment as a lot more than just a chess roast between cameo characters on AMC's thriller. According to Dark Winds showrunner Jon Wirth when he spoke with TV Insider, the writers aren't responsible for the line. Wirth shared:

If anybody on Dark Winds could get away with trolling George R.R Martin about the world waiting for his next ASOIAF book, it would have to be the legendary Robert Redford, right? Based on the showrunner's comments, the author took the ad-lib in good fun, and hopefully won't sour him on cameos in the future. Cast member Kiowa Gordon noted that "It’s really cool of them to make it happen because George hates cameos, but he did it for us" because he "loves the show, and I think that goes a long way."

Martin never did make a cameo in any of the eight seasons of Game of Thrones, choosing to pass on the opportunity for Season 8 to focus on writing The Winds of Winter. Game of Thrones' final season of course ended with its divisive finale in 2019, and the winds of winter are as yet still not blowing onto bookshelves.

He has been hyping the next show on the way to HBO's world of Westeros, as he's "so, so pleased" with A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, due out later this year. (Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon, and eventually Knight of the Seven Kingdoms will be available streaming with a Max subscription.)

For now, you can always check out Martin's cameo and the troll from Robert Redford in Dark Winds below. Take a look:

If you want to check out the full episode for yourself, you can find the Season 3 premiere streaming on AMC+, with new episodes releasing weekly on the streamer on Sundays, and airing on AMC on Sundays at 9 p.m. ET. You can also find the first two seasons streaming with a Netflix subscription. Seasons 1 and 2 only ran for six episodes each, so it won't be too tough to catch up if you're interested. Just don't count on seeing George R.R. Martin and Robert Redford playing chess on a weekly basis!

The world of Westeros is packed with rich lore, but Game of Thrones' creative team often had to streamline George R.R. Martin’s sprawling mythology. Now, its prequel House of the Dragon is leaning into more of the author’s intricate world-building, and showrunner Ryan Condal teased the addition of a long-referenced, never-before-seen object from the books in HOTD Season 3, sparking intense speculation from die-hard fans. Let’s jump into some of the theories.

Ryan Condal Teases a Mysterious Season 3 Prop

During an episode of The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of, a podcast centered on movie props and design, Condal discussed the extensive world-building in House of the Dragon and hinted at a prop that book fans will instantly recognize once it shows up in the anticipated season. Condal explained:

When asked if there was a specific prop he "had" to include, Condal apparently smiled ear to ear and added:

That was all the positivity it took for fans to start digging through Fire & Blood, all the short stories set in Westeros, and of course the A Song of Ice and Fire novels to try and suss out exactly what this mystery object could be.

Here's Why Fans Think It’s a Glass Candle

Over on Reddit, the most popular theory seems to be that Condal is referring to a Valyrian glass candle, a magical object that’s never made it to screen despite its significance in Martin’s books.

One Reddit user, @Nigma_, pointed to the show’s increasing focus on Oldtown in the upcoming installment and suggested:

Other fans quickly jumped on board. User @JoesShittyOs simply stated:

Meanwhile, @NoLime7384 agreed. Adding:

For those unfamiliar, glass candles are legendary Valyrian artifacts crafted from dragon glass (obsidian) and are rumored to possess magical properties. In the books, they are said to have once burned brightly in the days of Valyria, allowing their users to see across vast distances, communicate telepathically, and even influence dreams.

During the flagship Westeros saga's timeline, they were believed to be long dormant—until they mysteriously reignited. Theories suggest that powerful magic is tied to them, making their potential inclusion in HotD particularly intriguing.

Why Glass Candles Make Sense For Season 3

Unlike Game of Thrones, which often downplayed supernatural elements, the series centered around the Dance of the Dragons has embraced the mystical side of Martin’s world. The show has already featured Daemon’s Weirwood visions and the Green Man at Harrenhal, so it wouldn’t be surprising if the latest batch of episodes further explored the magic that lingers in Westeros.

If a glass candle appears, it could have major implications for:

• House Hightower – The family ruling Oldtown has long been rumored to have access to secret knowledge and magic. If the show explores their role in the Dance of the Dragons, a glass candle could symbolize their hidden influence.
• Helaena Targaryen’s Visions – Fans have speculated that Helaena has prophetic abilities. A glass candle might explain how she perceives the future and tie into the show’s ongoing mystical themes.
• The Targaryens’ Connection to Prophecy – Many members of the Targaryen family tree have been linked to dreams and visions, and the presence of a glass candle could reinforce this aspect of their lineage.

If glass candles do appear in the next chapter, it could be one of the biggest expansions of House of the Dragon’s magical elements to date. It might also set the stage for future projects in The Song of Ice and Fire universe, such as HBO’s upcoming A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which will be the next new Game of Thrones spinoff.

Since Seven Kingdoms (which GRRM is really happy with) is set around 100 years after the Targaryen-centered prequel, introducing glass candles now could help establish their lingering presence in Westeros, leading into the era of Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire, Egg—future King Aegon V Targaryen.

Fans will have to wait for House of the Dragon Season 3, which is currently expected to premiere sometime in 2026. If only we had a Valyrian glass candle, we might be able to see a more concrete release date. In the meantime, check out our 2025 TV schedule to discover other exciting shows coming to the small screen. Or revisit the previously released seasons of GoT or HotD, which are available to stream with a Max subscription.

If you are a Game of Thrones fan, odds are you are very aware that George R.R. Martin is not afraid to make his opinions about the adaptations of his work known. For example, last year he popped off about his problems with House of the Dragon. Now, thankfully, he has shared his significantly more positive thoughts on the upcoming GOT series, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, and his reasoning behind why he loves this project on the 2025 TV schedule has massively increased my excitement about it.

George R.R. Martin Is Very ‘Pleased’ With A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms

Admittedly, I’m not a Game of Thrones book reader. However, as someone who loves to read and is a fan of a great book-to-screen adaptation, I value projects that are made with the author’s wholehearted approval. It would seem the first season of A Night of the Seven Kingdoms has that from Mr. Martin as he wrote on his personal blog:

So, for starters, Martin adores the cast and what he’s seen. I was already looking forward to watching Peter Claffey as Dunk and Dexter Sol Ansell as Egg. However, the author's comments about Daniel Ings' character The Laughing Storm and Tanzyn Crawford’s Tanselle are thrilling. To me, that means they’ve assembled another stacked GOT cast!

The author went on to praise the adaptation generally, writing:

Seeing Martin’s comments about Hosue of the Dragon last season made me very aware of his tendency to point out issues he has with his adaptations and it makes me nervous to find out his thoughts on HOTD Season 3. So, I think writing such a high compliment like this carries a lot of weight.

Anyway, he continued to praise this new project and its creators, and made it very clear that he was proud of the work the cast and crew did on it:

He capped it off with one final sentence about hoping the fans “love this show as much as I do.” I have to say, I think I will, and that’s in part because of the comments Martin made about what to expect from this GOT show.

Martin’s Comments About The Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms Adaptation And Its Chracter Driven Story Have Me Very Excited

On top of Martin’s high praise getting me excited to use my Max subscription to watch A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, his comments about what to expect from this story have me jazzed too. He noted that this show is a character piece, and it won’t be like the action-packed episodes we’ve come to expect, writing:

I’m not a big battle gal. While they’re epic, and I think they’re cool, they are not what drive me to watch a show. So, the idea of this series honing in on its characters and telling the stories of Dunk and Egg in a faithful and personal way makes me bump up A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms on my most anticipated shows of the year list.

Overall, the character-driven nature of the series that Martin explained along with his high praise of the project excites me to no end. While I was stoked about this show before, now I’m ready to start counting down the days to A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms premiere.

While we probably won’t be seeing HBO’s House of the Dragon appear on the 2025 TV schedule, the world of Game of Thrones will definitely be present. As what we know about A Knight of Seven Kingdoms puts it on track for a debut some point this year, a return to Westeros doesn’t seem out of the cards. That sort of progress is the exact opposite of what’s going on in author George R.R. Martin’s literary source material, which has been pointed out once again in the pop culture landscape.

As you could imagine, the people of the internet certainly feel that pain in their bones. Which is probably why when author Larry Correia included a cheeky dedication in his new book Heart of the Mountain, there was quite a response. Shown below, the message is short, sweet, and slightly snarky:

One of the seemingly never ending cycles in pop culture has taken yet another turn of the wheel. Someone has implied Martin’s lack of progress on The Winds of Winter, and the fans did not hold back. We recently saw this happen last summer, as the internet countered George R.R. Martin’s upset about House of the Dragon with some choice words that highlight the extended wait for the penultimate entry of A Song of Ice and Fire.

While what we’re about to share isn’t a passage from The Winds of Winter, there’s definitely a chill in the air with some of these comebacks. Here’s a handful of some of the finest clapbacks from the Game of Thrones fandom:

• “Don't worry, angry George R.R. Martin fans! George can just clap back at Larry Correia on the dedication page of WINDS OF WINTER. Oh wait.” - @SCWKorsgaard
• “lol It's deserved! I'm sorry, but the people defending GRRM... almost 15 years! 15 years!” - @Chris_M_Author
• “GRRM should dedicate his next HBO tv series to Correia.” - @musicalcolin
• “I just know he deleted 50 pages just because of this” - @d4rks1ster_
• “Do not provoke that man. He'll spite us and prolong WoW another ten years” - @DanyDayne

In all fairness, there are some comments that snark Larry Correia for making such a dedication to begin with. And yet it’s also a fair bet that the number of fans giving up on The Winds of Winter won’t show any signs of slowing. Even in light of George R.R. Martin declaring his intent to finish this book while hyping his plans surrounding A Knight of Seven Kingdom’s production.

As much as the internet may have had some laughs at George R.R. Martin’s expense, he’ll certainly get the last one. While The Winds of Winter is still in play, there’s no telling how it might evolve. Some of those fan comments above might hold a kernel of truth, inspiring Martin to replicate that time A Song of Fire and Ice ditched a book over a scene so harsh even they couldn’t believe it.

For all things Westeros, a Max subscription is a must, as Game of Thrones’ entire run and both of House of the Dragon’s current seasons are available on that platform. A Knight of Seven Kingdoms will join them at an undetermined date, but at least we know that’s coming before The Winds of Winter hits bookshelves.

Even though it ended five years ago, to this day, people still talk about Game of Thrones’ most gruesome deaths and shocking moments. From the Battle of the Bastards to the death of Ned Stark to so much more, countless scenes have taken viewers' breath away or made them exceptionally stressed and/or angry. So, on that topic, George R.R. Martin revealed the moment from the show’s source material that left fans throwing their books away, and let’s just say that when I watched the same scene, I wanted to chuck my TV too.

I’m, of course, talking about The Red Wedding – a GOT moment that truly still shocks most people even though the book it's in was released in 2000 and the episode that featured it aired over a decade ago. In both the show and the books, the absolute massacre of the Starks took fans by surprise and left them screaming, crying and maybe even throwing up. According to Geroge R.R. Martin, this sequence made readers throw their books too, as he told Rolling Stone in 2014:

In A Storm of Swords, Robb and Catelyn Stark along with many of their soldiers are murdered. It’s an absolutely gruesome scene, and thankfully, Martin understands just how horrific it is, and he even had a hard time writing it.

He noted that in the same interview, explaining that this infamous moment was something he avoided, because it was hard for him to kill off such beloved characters. However, he knew it had to be done:

While I haven’t read the books, I distinctly remember watching the Red Wedding, being so upset, and understanding the value it added to the story. It caused a massive shift in the show, and it totally changed the trajectory of the Stark family as the two running it were brutally killed.

In terms of the show, Season 3, Episode 9 – “The Rains of Castamere” – has gone down as one of the episodes of Game of Thrones with the most meaningful deaths and it’s remembered as one of the most disturbing and jarring moments in the whole show. In fact, Martin thinks the scene is “worse” in the series than it is in the books, and he explained why, saying:

Not only were Robb and Catelyn killed – marking painful deaths and the departure of two beloved Game of Thrones cast members (Richard Madden and Michelle Fairley) – Robb’s wife and child were also taken out in a brutal fashion. Overall, it’s a remarkable, unforgettable and brutal scene that left me and so many who watched the scene in shock.

So, yeah, I get why it was this moment that caused Game of Thrones readers to throw their books across the room; I would have too. Now, to go back and watch this infamous and legendary sequence from the fantasy series, you can stream GOT with a Max subscription.

George R.R. Martin is a busy man. When he’s not crafting new Westeros stories for the 2025 TV schedule like the upcoming A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, he’s plugging away on those final A Song of Ice and Fire novels (and yes, I’m still holding out hope they’re coming!). But recently, the beloved fantasy author dropped an intriguing hint about a potential new project with Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams—and all I can say is, where do I sign up!?

In a recent post on his famous blog, hilariously titled Not a Blog, Martin shared some highlights from his summer travels, including a visit to London, where he had the chance to reunite with the Arya Stark actress. Though he kept most details under wraps, the visionary novelist’s comments have already left fans like myself wondering if he and the New Mutants star might be collaborating on some sort of Game of Thrones project spinoff—or perhaps on a new venture altogether. According to the mega-star writer:

As if those few cryptic lines weren’t enough, Martin has been deeply immersed in a variety of creative projects lately, including House of the Dragon (though he has aired some grievances) and a stage adaptation of the tourney at Harrenhal titled The Iron Throne, both bringing his work back into the spotlight. While this could hint at another Westeros-related project, there’s also the possibility that Martin and the former Game of Thrones cast member might be discussing something completely fresh. Given The New Look veteran’s versatility as an actress and the prolific storyteller’s ability to create rich, imaginative worlds, the thought of a new collaborative project has a ton of appeal.

Some fans are indeed crossing their fingers for a potential Arya spin-off. Williams’ character remains one of the most beloved figures in Game of Thrones lore, and her mysterious journey west at the series’ end has always begged for more exploration. While HBO has previously been cautious about revisiting original characters outside the prequel format, with the long-talked-about Jon Snow spin-off being canceled earlier this year, a creative team-up between the former The Beauty and the Beast series screenwriter and Gen: Lock series performer might be the push needed to bring Arya’s post-Thrones story to life.

Of course, it’s worth noting that while George R.R. Martin is best known for A Song of Ice and Fire, he’s also written several other captivating novels that could make fantastic upcoming book-to-screen adaptations—especially with Maisie Williams in the mix. His science fiction novel Nightflyers, for example, explores themes of isolation and mystery aboard a spaceship and would be a perfect fit for her intensity and range. Or there’s Fevre Dream, a gothic horror novel set on the Mississippi River, where the Bristol-born star could easily bring life to the gritty, suspenseful world of steamboats and vampires. Another intriguing option could be Windhaven, a collaboration with Lisa Tuttle about a young woman who dreams of flight in a society where only an elite few can soar through the skies.

Williams, now 28, has a knack for portraying adventurous, strong-willed characters and could make an ideal fit for one of the Best Seller’s lesser-known but equally compelling worlds. And I would be excited to see another property from America’s Tolkien getting the big screen or small screen treatment.

For now, fans will have to settle for George R.R. Martin’s teasing blog post and revisit Westeros by streaming all the GOT content available with a Max subscription. Don’t forget to check out our 2024 TV schedule to catch the exciting shows coming up in the remainder of the year!

When it comes to HBO’s House of the Dragon, George R.R. Martin is not afraid to share his thoughts on it. Earlier this fall, in fact, he really aired his HOTD grievances in a blog post that is now deleted. Now, HBO and Max’s Chairman and CEO Casey Bloys has addressed the author’s criticisms as well as the network's relationship with him.

At a press presentation, Bloys was asked about Martin’s criticisms, and he responded (via Variety) by keeping things positive while admitting that “like any marriage, sometimes it gets rocky:”

For context, in Martin’s blog post, he wrote about how much he disliked the show for not including the youngest child of Aegon and Helaena, Maelor. It was a long post, and it was clear the author was upset about the omission.

Meanwhile, in the past, showrunner Ryan Condal has been clear about the challenges of adapting this project, noting that when they are transitioning Fire & Blood from page to screen they do a lot of “coloring in the lines that we’re given…and a lot of that color is admittedly our own.”

Now, on top of his complaint about Maelor not being in Season 2, Martin has also had specific criticisms about the dragons in the show. The Game of Thrones author has shared his general take on HOTD too, at one point writing on his blog that he does not look forward to writing about “everything that’s gone wrong with House of the Dragon.”

During this presentation Bloys did, he reiterated his point that they are still working with Martin. While it might not be all hunky dory all the time, the boss claimed that that is simply the nature of creative relationships:

Now, with Season 3 of House of the Dragon in the works, and other upcoming Game of Thrones shows – like A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms – on the way, it will be interesting to see if we learn more about Martin and HBO’s relationship. As of right now, though, it’s clear George R.R. Martin isn’t thrilled about House of the Dragon, while it seems like HBO is working to maintain their relationship with the fantasy writer.

With Season 3 of HOTD coming and various other projects in the works, we’ll be sure to keep you posted on the evolving relationship between Martin and the network that has put his words to the screen. In the meantime, to watch the show that caused this back and forth, you can stream the first two seasons of House of the Dragon with a Max subscription.

Female Game of Thrones characters were truly badass, whether they could work a sword like Arya and Brienne of Tarth or were politically intuitive like Sansa and Daenerys. However, many of them went through the wringer on the HBO series in ways that fans have taken offense to. There was a time when George R.R. Martin, the author of the A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy book series, responded to the criticisms of his female characters by saying, “I take issue.”

Women on Game of Thrones went through so much violence with moments still leaving us shocked today. Most notably was back in Season 6 when Sansa was raped on her wedding night by her new husband, Ramsay Bolton. Fans criticized that the scene focused too much on Theon Greyjoy’s heartbreaking reaction rather than Sansa’s reaction. Plus, that violent moment never happened in the books. U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill said she’d no longer watch the series after that episode and news outlet The Mary Sue said they’d no longer cover the series.

George R.R. Martin, whose bestselling books inspired the Emmy Award-winning series, spoke to Time in 2017 about the criticisms regarding the violence brought onto his female characters. The famed author admitted to being surprised by the negative fan reaction to those violent scenes:

It looks like George R.R. Martin was trying to be realistic in taking inspiration from elements of war he found in history books. It’s no wonder the kingdoms in his books were against women if he turns historical moments “up to 11.” The American author argued that culture in Westeros was no more misogynist than a similar period in real-life history. It may be brutal to watch, but true war stories from history for sure weren’t short of gruesome violence to any gender.

Another controversial moment from Game of Thrones that didn’t happen in the book series was Khal Drogo sexually assaulting Daenerys on their wedding night. George R.R. Martin revealed the original wedding night scene was very different from when original Daenerys actress, Tamzin Merchant, filmed the pilot:

According to Business Insider, the first book in the A Song of Ice and Fire saga had Daenerys and Drogo's wedding night portrayed as technically consensual, but showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss felt the transition from fear to a joyful relationship would have been too quick for TV and not make sense. Even Emilia Clarke apparently had issues with the way the wedding night scene was originally written and felt it wasn’t working for her. Instead, the adaptation showrunners felt it would be best to show Daenerys’ abusive situation from the start and see how the relationship transforms.

While Game of Thrones fans may have taken issue with seeing the female characters of Westeros endure violence, these badass characters didn’t allow themselves to be victims. Even though the trauma Daenerys went through after her wedding night wasn't fully explored, the eventual Dragon Queen slowly learned to assert power over Khal Drogo which further develops their marriage. Sansa ended up being a strong force with her Game of Thrones ending being Lady Stark, Queen in the North. Seeing these strong women go through traumatizing violence may have been heartbreaking to watch, but it's a comfort knowing they eventually found the strength and courage to take power back.

You can watch all eight seasons of Game of Thrones on your Max subscription.

There have been a lot of tough cancellations in 2024. However, the hardest one for me (and a lot of fans) was the axing of My Lady Jane after it premiered its first season on the 2024 TV schedule in June. Now, it turns out George R.R. Martin is also a fan of the Amazon Prime series, and he’s hopped on the train to save it too!

It’s not unusual for writers, creators, actors and more to hype up shows they love and try and help save them. However, having a person like George R.R. Martin in your corner is a very big deal. He revealed his adoration for what should be considered one of Amazon Prime’s best shows in a blog post, writing:

I couldn’t agree more! The show is widely creative and fun, and it deserved way more love and seasons than it got.

Also, much like how The Boys creator Eric Kripke posted about his love for My Lady Jane and his connection with its showrunner Meredith Glynn when it premiered, Martin pointed out that he knows Glynn and has worked with her. So, that connection mixed with his love for this tale and shows like The Great makes him a shoo-in for someone who would adore the romantic fantasy.

Along with his musings about how much he liked watching the series, Martin plugged the petition My Lady Jane fans have pushing, by linking out to a Movie Web story about it and writing:

At the moment, the change.org petition Martin mentioned has 69.7 thousand signatures, with a goal of 75 thousand. It was started on July 15, a month before the show was officially canceled, and it boasts the title: “DEMANDING Amazon Prime to Renew My Lady Jane for a Second Season.”

After it was canceled, the petition started making the rounds on social media, and it’s gotten consistent support in the month since the news broke that the show wouldn’t be coming back.

Obviously, as a fan of the show, I’m thrilled to see someone like Martin give it its stamp of approval as fans continue their campaign.

This My Lady Jane endorsement is also reminiscent of Stephen King posting about his love for canceled shows like Evil, Y: The Last Man and, most famously, Manifest. He actually boosted the movement to save Manifest, which eventually came back for one more season on Netflix between 2022 and 2023. What I'm saying here is that powerful people can help shows reach a bigger audience, and in some cases, it can help them get saved from cancellation.

Hopefully, this post from the Game of Thrones author can help My Lady Jane come back from cancellation. As a fan of the series, I adore Martin’s kind words about it, and it gives me a bit of hope that maybe we’ll get to see Jane on screen again. She changed her story in the show, so why can’t we change My Lady Jane’s destiny in real life?

If you want to see what all the hype from Martin and fans is about (and try to save the show too) you can stream My Lady Jane with an Amazon Prime subscription.

Any time a book is adapted for the screen the people doing the adapting risk the ire of everyone who adores said book by making changes, however small those may be. In the case of House of the Dragon (which will return for Season 3 in the future), fans have had a lot to say about the differences between Season 2 and Fire & Blood, but it’s also pretty clear that author George R.R. Martin has some strong thoughts on the matter. After he went off about the drama in a now-deleted blog post, the showrunner has already addressed the “challenge” of adapting Martin’s book.

What Did House Of The Dragon’s Showrunner Say About The Challenges Of Adapting Fire & Blood?

By now, we all realize that it would be extremely difficult to win every viewer over when adapting the work of George R.R. Martin for a television show. Despite its enduring popularity, there’s still controversy over how things were handled on Game of Thrones, so it’s little surprise that the same has been true for House of the Dragon across its two seasons so far.

The second season wrapped on the 2024 TV schedule in early August, and Martin was originally rather dramatic when indirectly writing about his thoughts on the many changes by describing the “gloom” of having to eventually address his feelings on Season 2. Then, Martin unloaded on HOTD about the absence of Maelor, a character who becomes very important in the narrative of his book. Now, in a conversation with HBO’s official HOTD podcast, showrunner Ryan Condal has addressed the many challenges of turning such complex material into a TV show, saying:

Condal noted that he has, since the beginning, looked at Fire & Blood with as much “reverence as possible and respect,” adding “but it’s important to draw the line between reverence and worship.” As he pointed out during his interview (and something that more casual fans who haven’t read the book might not know), the tome on which this series is based isn’t told as a narrative, but as a history that’s been documented by “three unreliable narrators.” This means that there are either purposeful holes in the historical account or places where the narrators disagree on the “how and why” of what occurred.

So, along with compressing events, removing characters, etc., Condal and his team also had to choose a point of view for the story (those in the Targeryen family tree, specifically Viserys’ massive extended family) and then construct things in a way that explains the “how and why” of what happens from that POV. He added:

Basically, the writers had to choose characters to focus on and also create motivations for those characters’ actions, because those things aren’t usually spelled out in F&B. I’m sure a lot of fans are sympathetic to Martin’s position on the changes, as well as many likely feeling the same way for Condal and his team. It will be a while before we see how those differences impact Seasons 3 and 4, but we can all hope that the story continues to be engrossing even if it does veer greatly from what was previously written.

Nearly a month has passed since the second season of House of the Dragon came to an end with the Targaryen family tree smaller than it was a season before, and that was evidently enough time for Fire & Blood author George R.R. Martin to put his thoughts in order about what happened... or, more importantly, what was majorly changed from the pages of his book to Ryan Condal's HBO adaptation. As expected, he had a lot to say about Blood and Cheese, and despite HBO's response, I'm a little surprised that he didn't mention what I see as Season 2's second biggest omission.

George R.R. Martin Weighs In On Season 2

Spoilers ahead for the Blood and Cheese section of Fire & Blood. Fans knew that some blunt words were probably coming after Martin's dramatic post about House of the Dragon just last week, and Season 2 delivered enough changes from the book to speculate about what got to the author. In a post that has since been deleted from his Not A Blog website, Martin went into detail about the changes to the characters involved in Blood and Cheese (up to and including Cheese not having a dog).

His biggest issue? How Season 2 cut out Maelor, the third and youngest child of Aegon and Helaena in the book, whose existence was not only part of why the whole sequence was so much more heinous on the page, but continues to affect the story beyond Blood and Cheese. Martin wrote of his conversation with showrunner Ryan Condal:

Martin went on to note that "Sometime between the initial decision to remove Maelor, a big change was made," and Helaena and Aegon's youngest child will never be born. While I won't get into spoilers here about how the absence of Maelor affects one character's game-changing decision, Martin certainly did by saying that it will happen for "no particular reason" in Season 3.

All in all, I'm not shocked that George R.R. Martin decided to delete his lengthy post about his problems with Blood and Cheese's omission of Maelor, since he was a lot blunter than I would have predicted. Still, what seemed like a minor change for practical reasons to start Season 2 will force massive changes for story reasons down the line, and reading the author's take on Maelor left me surprised that he didn't express similar sentiments about another omission this season.

First, though, HBO has a response to Martin's comments.

How HBO Responded To George R.R. Martin's Take

Martin had already deleted his post from his website by the time an HBO spokesperson responded (via Variety), but his comments were already circulating on the web. In a far more diplomatic statement than what the author expressed, the spokesperson said:

Some changes from book to screen are always necessary, and Martin had seen plenty of them happen over the years of Game of Thrones, particularly the later seasons after the show overtook the available source material. Still, as somebody who has been bothered by Daemon clobbering his first wife with a rock ever since that particular episode of Season 1, I'm certainly not one to judge about disliking seemingly minor changes.

Of course, adapting Fire & Blood is different from A Song of Ice and Fire, and not just because this particular chapter of Targaryen history has already been written in full by Martin as opposed to the unfinished ASOIAF. Fire & Blood is an in-universe history book penned by maesters in Westeros, so it's full of unreliable narrators and conflicting events.

That said, there are certain situations like the existence of Maelor – and yes, Daemon killing Rhea Royce – that aren't disputed by any of the sources in Fire & Blood, which leads to the change that I'm surprised George R.R. Martin didn't bring up in his post based on his logic about Blood and Cheese.

Warning: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD for Fire & Blood. If you don't want to know what happens next, check out now and/or revisit the first two seasons of House of the Dragon streaming with a Max subscription.

What About Nettles?

The Red Sowing of Fire & Blood and House of the Dragon was used to find smallfolk with enough Targaryen blood to claim a dragon, with the same episode that dropped some info on George R.R. Martin's lost Targaryen featuring Hugh claiming Vermithor and Ulf claiming Silverwing. Readers know that perhaps the most important dragonseed of Fire & Blood is actually Nettles, who may or may not have Targaryen blood but tamed the dragon Sheepstealer by feeding him sheep.

And readers also know that Nettles and her ambiguous relationship with Daemon will push Rhaenyra to a breaking point (with no small amount of prodding from Mysaria) and eventually lead to Daemon's epic suicide mission to kill Aemond... that is, that's what readers would likely expect if the show had introduced Nettles. Instead, House of the Dragon seems to be merging Rhaena and Nettles. By George R.R. Martin's logic of how omitting Maelor will have a butterfly effect on later parts of the story, it would track if he feels similarly about cutting Nettles.

Rhaenyra snapping and ordering the death of a commoner who she thinks has seduced her husband makes sense for the Black Queen at that point in her storyline; Rhaenyra ordering the death of her niece/stepdaughter/cousin really doesn't. After all, parent/child incest is taboo even in the Targaryen family, which was a carryover from Fire & Blood to House of the Dragon if Daemon's reaction to dreaming about his mother is any indication. Surely she wouldn't believe anything unseemly between Daemon and Rhaena, right?

And as much as Maelor's absence from the show undercuts any motivation Helaena would have for leaping to her death from the guilt and madness of it all, I think a lot of readers are going to be upset if substituting Rhaena for Nettles undercuts Daemon's last stand above the Gods Eye lake.

Having read all of A Song of Ice and Fire as well as Fire & Blood, I'm confident in saying Daemon vs. Aemond is one of the most epic sequences that George R.R. Martin has ever written and would make for some spectacular television if it's adapted as closely as possible.

Only time will tell, however, and it's possible that Martin doesn't see the omission of Nettles the same way that he does Maelor. At the very least, it'll likely be some time before we find out what House of the Dragon Season 3 has in store. Variety has already confirmed that production won't start until early 2025, which likely means the next new episode won't air on HBO until 2026.

Martin closed his since-deleted Not A Blog post by warning of "larger and more toxic" twists to come if the show does go ahead "with some of the changes being contemplated for seasons 3 and 4," but nothing is seemingly certain at this point. For now, we can wait and see if Martin has more to say about House of the Dragon as the wait continues for his next chapter of A Song of Ice and Fire with the long-delayed Winds of Winter.

The second season of House of the Dragon ended in early August with a finale that delivered the show’s strongest connection to Game of Thrones so far. The ratings for Season 2 weren’t quite what they were for the first season back in 2022, but HBO had already ordered a third season earlier this summer. Recently, though, A Song of Ice and Fire and Fire & Blood author George R.R. Martin heavily hinted that he’s not too happy.

Of course changes are required in any adaptation from book to screen, and we were never likely to get every Targaryen riding their dragon and every battle shown in minute detail. But since it seems like a very safe bet that George R.R. Martin’s issues are with how the show adapted his source material, let’s look back at what I see as the five biggest story changes from Fire & Blood.

And let’s start with the biggest, which also happens to be the one that I can’t really defend even as a fan of Season 2.

Warning: MAJOR SPOILERS ARE AHEAD for House of the Dragon Season 2 and George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood.

Blood And Cheese

If there was one thing that Fire & Blood readers could be fairly confident of after Season 1 ended with the death of Lucerys, it was that Blood and Cheese was going to happen early in Season 2. As a supporter of Team Black, I wondered if the tragedy about to befall the Greens would be enough for viewers to switch loyalties from one side to the other. After all, Blood and Cheese is really, really, really bad in the book.

While the murder of a young boy in his bed was still really, really bad in the show, I never imagined how much House of the Dragon would soften the incident. Not only was it presented as the assassins deciding to kill Prince Jaehaerys on their own rather than Daemon ordering it, but the actual scenario was less nightmarish.

In the book, Helaena was the mother to three children: Jaehaerys, Jaehaera, and Maelor. Assassins broke into Alicent’s rooms and killed all the servants so as to take the young queen by surprise when she brought the children in. Blood and Cheese promised to only hurt one but only if Helaena chose which of her children would be killed, with the threat that Jaehaera would be raped if she took too long to choose.

Sobbing, Helaena chose young Maelor to die, prompting Cheese to whisper to the youngest prince that his mother wanted him to die before Blood beheaded Jaehaerys in front of Helaena, Alicent, and both of his siblings. It was a truly despicable act, and being forced to choose slowly but surely drove Helaena mad over the rest of her short life.

In the show, Helaena didn’t have to make a choice, and really seemed to recover from her son being murdered quite quickly. The choice to give Helaena visions of the future has been mostly interesting in House of the Dragon, but her resignation to Jaehaerys' death rather than how the character responded in the book really lessened the impact.

It didn’t help that Alicent was absent from the scene in the show and in the middle of a tryst with Ser Criston Cole instead, which brings us to…

Alicent's Affair With Criston Cole

House of the Dragon wasted no time in Season 2 in establishing that Criston Cole and Alicent started sleeping together. Neither really felt great about it, with the affair weighing on the dowager queen’s conscience and Cole was past the point of bothering with moral quandaries. As far as I recall, the only rumored partner that Alicent ever had other than Viserys in Fire & Blood was King Jaehaerys before him, and that rumor only came from Mushroom.

There’s nothing in the book to suggest that anything was actually happening between Alicent and Cole beyond his role working alongside Aegon and later Aemond. There’s certainly some hypocrisy from both of them in the act, but the question that has been bugging me ever since Alicent required some moon tea is of how much time actually passed from Season 1 to that point in Season 2.

While moon tea has been used in the show as a contraceptive, A Song of Ice and Fire proved with Lysa Arryn that it can also be used as an abortifacient to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. All of Alicent’s actions in that particular episode struck me as her attempting to force a miscarriage, not preventing pregnancy in the first place. Since Viserys didn’t die all that long ago and wasn’t really in any condition to be making babies toward the end of his life, the implication is that Alicent was pregnant via Criston Cole.

And if she was far enough along to know that she was pregnant, the timeline suggests that she was sleeping with Cole before Viserys died unless Season 2 snuck in a bigger time jump than was necessary. Is it possible that I’ve put way more thought than intended into the timeline leading to Alicent drinking moon tea? Sure, but I see it as another sign that the affair with Cole really hasn’t added anything good to the series.

Daemon's Loyalties In Question (And Visions At Harrenhal)

Daemon may not be the most morally upstanding character of Fire & Blood, but his political loyalty to Rhaenyra was never in question, and he certainly didn’t spend his time in Harrenhal considering whether or not he should try to usurp his niece/wife/queen.

Even when Rhaenyra was past the point of reason and ordered that Nettles be executed, the closest Daemon came to betraying her was helping Nettles escape alive and then going after Aemond instead of rejoining his wife. Plus, HOTD Daemon knowing courtesy of Alys Rivers where he’s supposed to die might lessen the impact of his decision to face Aemond later on, although that’s presumably at least one season away from being adapted on the show.

Admittedly, I’ve never been a huge fan of House of the Dragon stretching to tie everything to Game of Thrones and Daenerys, so I’m a bit biased, but Daemon only declaring his loyalty to Rhaenyra after getting a vision of Dany didn’t do The Rogue Prince any favors.

The show playing up the love story of Daemon and Rhaenyra’s marriage has been fine, in my eyes, but toying with Daemon betraying her to make a claim of his own goes against Fire & Blood in a way that bugged me for a lot of Season 2, even though the entire Harrenhal setting was quite impressive and I’m officially one of many fans for whom Ser Simon Strong was the MVP of the storyline. Daemon’s loyalty to Rhaenyra in Fire & Blood was one of his defining qualities, and it was lacking in Season 2.

Omitting Nettles

Technically it’s possible that House of the Dragon intends to bring in the character of Nettles but just hasn’t yet, like the delay in introducing Daeron Targaryen until his cameo with his blue dragon in the Season 2 finale. But unless Rhaena is burned to a crisp in the Vale, it certainly seems that instead of incorporating Nettles, House of the Dragon is giving a modified version of the Sheepstealer storyline to Daemon’s daughter.

And while some characters in a book as packed as Fire & Blood are inevitably going to be left out of a TV adaptation, no way would I ever have predicted that Nettles would be cut. Not only is she an example of possibly how a non-Targaryen could tame a dragon, but her ambiguous relationship with Daemon is a major plot point toward the end of the Dance of the Dragons.

Deeply paranoid after being betrayed by several of the other dragonseeds by this point, Rhaenyra came to believe that Nettles and Daemon were having an affair and demanded Nettles’ death. Not only did this set off the chain of events that ended with Daemon’s death, but Rhaenyra demanding that Lord Manfryd Mooten violate guest right to kill Nettles prompted him to flip to support the Greens.

It’s hard to imagine what Rhaenyra could be convinced of about Rhaena that she would order her death. Even the Targaryen family tree doesn’t partake in parent/child incest, which is why Daemon’s dream of his mother was a step too far even for him. I don’t have any idea what the show intends to do by merging Rhaena and Nettles (or why nobody noticed Rhaena was missing long enough for her to trek through the Vale), but I’m guessing that George R.R. Martin has thoughts.

Rhaenyra And Alicent's Bond

Rhaenyra and Alicent’s friendship was one of the earliest major changes from the book to the show, as House of the Dragon aged up Rhaenyra and aged down Alicent to make them peers and pals. It tracks that the history between them would continue to affect them as war ramps up between their two branches of the warring Targaryen family, but Rhaenyra sneaking into King’s Landing dressed as a septa was a stretch.

In hindsight, though, Rhaenyra sneaking into King’s Landing is downright normal compared to Alicent sneaking herself to Dragonstone to reveal Aemond’s plans and tell the Black Queen when she should move against King’s Landing. Alicent basically gave up Aemond and Aegon for dead so that she could escape with Helaena, which… is one way to go with her character, but my biggest bummer is that it takes away some of the triumph of how Rhaenyra and Daemon took King’s Landing in Fire & Blood. That was a major win for the Blacks, not the result of Alicent spelling out how they could enter the capital.

All of this may sound like I hated House of the Dragon Season 2, but I did enjoy it for the most part. Having read Fire & Blood, though, I can definitely see changes from the book that diverge pretty wildly from what George R.R. Martin wrote and might not sit well with him. For now, we can only wait and see what he plans to say about it, and/or rewatch House of the Dragon streaming with a Max subscription.

When Season 2 of House of the Dragon came to a close on the 2024 TV schedule, it’s safe to say that many were left with a sour taste in their mouths. While HOTD’s ending included a strong Game of Thrones connection and some epic moments, overall, it was a divisive finale. It turns out, the man behind the books all of this is based on, George R.R. Martin, is also not thrilled with the GOT prequel at the moment. However, after he dropped a dramatic post about it, fans popped off at him over The Winds of Winter.

George R.R. Martin Posted A Dramatic Statement About House Of The Dragon

As we know, George R. R. Martin is very active on his site, Not A Blog, and most recently he wrote about the Burning of Zozobra. For the most part, the post is about the history of the Santa Fe-based event, however, he also wrote about how it’s been “a pretty wretched year.” He then opened up about his travels and what he’ll write about more later.

However, notably, he also called out the fact that he’s not looking forward to writing about House of the Dragon, explaining:

He really just kind of threw that in at the end of his post with basically no elaboration. However, while the author did like the addition of the dog and praised Tom Glynn-Carney’s performance as Aegon this season, he also has specific complaints about HOTD. So, this statement isn't exactly a surprise.

Plus, considering fans disliked Daemon’s Harrenhal plot and some had complaints about the Season 2 finale being anticlimactic, I can see why Martin is not thrilled at the moment.

However, fans are not here for Mr. Martin’s dramatics either, because while he’s not happy about House of the Dragon, they’re not thrilled that Winds of Winter still isn’t finished.

Fans Are Popping Off About It And The Fact That Winds Of Winter Still Isn’t Finished 

Now, George is clearly upset about House of the Dragon, however, he didn’t elaborate on why in that post. So, naturally, in true Game of Thrones fandom fashion, many called out the fact that his book Winds of Winter still isn’t finished, and they’re still waiting for it.

For example, @shwinnypooh wondered why he was blogging instead of working on the book, explaining:

On the same wave-length, @mattglesias retweeted an X post about Martin’s HOTD take and wrote:

Meanwhile, @mbapadre is also upset that this blog post went up and we still don't have the long-awaited book:

Keeping the trend of aggressive posts alive, @Bern2688 commented about their frustrations regarding Winds of Winter and Martin’s latest blog, writing:

Again, frustration is the overall name of the game here. While Martin is clearly flustered about House of the Dragon, his fans are still angry about the fact that they can’t read Winds of Winter.

@Alia_MovieGirl posted a funny picture of Tom Glynn-Carney on his phone behind the scenes of HOTD (which you can see in the final slide of the actor’s original IG post embedded below) and wrote:

Overall, there’s just a lot of annoyance and bitterness going around the Game of Thrones fandom at the moment.

Hopefully, in the near future, we’ll learn more about why George R.R. Martin is mad about House of the Dragon. Then, maybe someday he’ll finally appease fans and publish The Winds of Winter.

In the meantime, I’ll provide you with something you can do right now, in preparation for HOTD Season 3, you can stream both the first two seasons as well as Game of Thrones with a Max subscription. And as we learn more about all the drama we talked about above, we’ll be sure to keep you posted.

Spoilers ahead for the Season 2 finale of House of the Dragon.

In the wake of House of the Dragon's final episode of Season 2, the wait has officially begun for Season 3 to continue the stories of the increasingly twisted Targaryen family tree. By the time the final credits rolled, three of the riderless dragons in House of the Dragon had been claimed by dragonseeds, with Rhaena presumably on the verge of claiming the wild dragon in the Vale. The forces of the Blacks and the Greens were marching and/or sailing towards war, all setting up a huge Season 3 premiere.

But more than a day after the finale, I find myself thinking back to a much more minor moment from the episode and how it may have debunked a rumor from George R.R. Martin's Fire & Blood that he never gave a definitive answer for. And that is regarding Corlys Velaryon and the two bastard boys of Hull.

New Background On Alyn And Addam Of Hull

House of the Dragon hasn't really played it coy in Season 2 about who the father of Alyn and Addam of Hull is, with even Rhaenys pointing them out to her husband shortly before her emotional death. Corlys is clearly their bio dad, with Addam being more or less okay with his status as the Sea Snake's bastard. Alyn, on the other hand, had quite a speech for Corlys in the Season 2 finale. He said:

By the look on his face, Corlys clearly had not packed up his baggage to go on this guilt trip with Alyn! Honestly, with how much has happened since Season 1, it feels like the deaths that Alyn referred to – Laenor, Laena, and Lucerys – happened a very long time ago. Alyn also wasn't done with his speech to the Sea Snake:

To add insult onto injury for Alyn, only he of the two brothers seems to have inherited the white hair of the Targaryens and Velaryons, as his dragon-riding brother Addam has dark hair. All in all, this was an emotional scene between a father and his unacknowledged bastard son, and gave Abubakar Salim the chance to show off some acting range opposite Steve Toussaint, but really didn't tell us much of anything we didn't know or couldn't have guessed... regarding the show, anyway.

The situation with these two bastard brothers is a lot stickier in George R.R. Martin's Fire & Blood, and Alyn's wording in his allusion to Laenor seems to settle a rumor from that fictional Targaryen history book.

What George R.R. Martin Wrote In Fire & Blood

Spoilers ahead for Fire & Blood through the dragonseeds portion of the chapter called "The Dying of the Dragons – The Red Dragon and the Gold."

Just as how Addam being able to claim Seasmoke seemed like a subtle clue that Laenor had truly died somewhere off-screen based on the rules of dragonriders from George R.R. Martin's written works after faking his death in Season 1, the latest allusion to Laenor is a lot more meaningful when it comes to Fire & Blood than just Alyn taking Corlys on a guilt trip in the show.

In the book, Addam did indeed claim Seasmoke, and the book describes the dragonseed as a boy "whose origins remain a matter of dispute amongst historians to this day." He and his brother were the bastard sons of Marilda, who gave birth to Addam at the age of 16 and Alyn when she was "barely 18." By their looks, it was clear that the boys were bastards with Valyrian blood, but Marilda didn't claim the identity of their father until the call went out for dragonseeds.

And she didn't claim that Corlys was their father, but Laenor. Martin writes:

The tale that Laenor was the father of Addam and Alyn was recorded in Fire & Blood in-universe by Grand Maester Munkun and Septon Eustace, but the cruder court fool Mushroom presented a different theory: that they "had been sired not by the Sea Snake's son, but by the Sea Snake himself." The text reads:

In the book as in the show, Corlys is clearly the much more likely candidate to have fathered the bastards, but Laenor was not ruled out. It's a different story in House of the Dragon, all thanks to Alyn recalling when he saw Corlys walking Laenor through the market when both sons were just boys. In the show, Laenor simply wouldn't have been old enough to be believable as a possible father for Addam and Alyn.

Therefore, just like how House of the Dragon settled the rumor of what happened with Daemon and Rhaenyra that led to his second exile back in early Season 1, the HBO series seemingly settled that the father of Addam and Alyn is unquestionably Corlys, with the Sea Snake not having the option of trying to sell that the young men were the product of anything other than an affair with a commoner while married to Rhaenys.

Will this matter in the long run of the series? Probably not, since everybody amongst the Blacks and the Greens probably has much bigger concerns as of the end of Season 2 than Corlys siring a pair of bastards with no different candidate as their bio father. Plus, it's pretty clear at this point that show canon and book canon diverged a while ago. Still, as a Fire & Blood reader, I enjoy getting these moments of debunking and settling.

And who knows? Maybe I'll reread Fire & Blood over the course of hiatus to see if I missed anything while watching House of the Dragon Season 2. If the break between seasons is similar to what it was last time, we may not get Season 3 until 2026. Either way, you can revisit the first two seasons of HOTD and all eight seasons of Game of Thrones streaming with a Max subscription. Plus, there are many other upcoming viewing options that you can find on our 2024 TV schedule now.

Spoilers ahead for Episode 7 of House of the Dragon Season 2, called "The Red Sowing."

House of the Dragon is quickly approaching its finale in the 2024 TV schedule, thanks to Season 2 running for two fewer episodes than Season 1. The Blacks have been in disarray for much of the season, with Daemon sulking (and hallucinating) after his arrival at the spooky Harrenhal, Rhaenys dead with Meleys in battle, and Rhaenyra stuck on what course to pursue to defeat the Greens with minimal loss of life to the smallfolk. Well, she made some very significant progress on that front in "The Red Sowing," in a story that surprisingly dropped a reveal about a Targaryen who left the game of thrones in George R.R. Martin's Fire & Blood book.

Or to be more specific, a Targaryen who was disinherited from the game of thrones by her father in Fire & Blood! Let's get into what "The Red Sowing" revealed about this lost Targaryen and Hugh from King's Landing. Note: light spoilers are ahead for Fire & Blood but none for the era of the Greens vs. the Blacks.

Hugh's Targaryen Mother

As was foreshadowed earlier in Season 2, the dragonseeds – a.k.a. the bastard children of various Targaryens who spent their nights in low places – have an important part to play. With some help from Mysaria, Rhaenyra realized that these bastards might have enough Targaryen blood to claim dragons... just without the Targaryen status.

And when word spread in King's Landing that the Blacks were on the lookout for smallfolk with Targaryen blood to claim dragons, Hugh and Ulf were among those tempted. In justifying his desire to go to Rhaenyra, Hugh dropped a bombshell on his wife:

While Hugh didn't actually name his mother among the women in the Targaryen family tree, there can be no doubt of her identity unless House of the Dragon invented another daughter of King Jaehaerys and Queen Alysanne. In the show's canon, Hugh is the son of Princess Saera, who the younger sister of Baelon and Alyssa, who in turn were the parents of Viserys and Daemon.

Saera's story isn't a happy one in the pages of Fire & Blood, like the stories of most of Jaehaerys and Alysanne's thirteen children. Stubborn and spoiled, she was the ninth child overall and fifth daughter of the king and queen, with Alysanne seeing through Saera more than Jaehaerys did. The princess and two of her friends spent a great deal of time with three men, to the point that Jaehaerys in Fire & Blood eventually demanded:

Saera responded by saying that she "gave it to all three," leading Jaehaerys to say that she was "no longer my daughter." The princess was sent to stay with septas to repent, but ultimately ran away to a "Lysene pleasure garden." Saera was said to become an "infamous" but wealthy woman, and three of her illegitimate sons vied for the Iron Throne at the Great Council that eventually led to Viserys becoming king.

She chose not to return to Westeros to try and press her own claim to become queen because she "had her own kingdom" in Essos. All in all, even with relatively little conveyed in the show about Saera, it does seem that her fate is more tragic in the show as opposed to the book, since George R.R. Martin had her accumulating wealth in her own right.

The timeline is also a little fuzzy if we try too hard to merge book Saera with Hugh's unnamed mother in House of the Dragon, but that has always been the case with this show. There is some irony in the fact that the daughter that Jaehaerys declared was dead to him bore a bastard son who would go on to claim Jaehaerys' own dragon! Vermithor even roasted a bunch of other dragonseeds first.

So, House of the Dragon revealed that the Saera, the lost Targaryen princess, was the mother of one of Fire & Blood's most important dragonseeds, and I'm starting to get nervous about the Season 2 finale.

Why I'm Getting More And More Nervous

Now, Hugh claiming Vermithor and Ulf claiming Silverwing made for a pretty epic sequence in "The Red Sowing," and Aemond turning Vhagar away from Dragonstone when he spotted the two new dragons was a satisfying cliffhanger to lead into the finale. But these dragonseeds getting their dragons gives me an idea of whereabouts House of the Dragon is in adapting the Fire & Blood sequence of events, and... well, some of those are events that I'm pretty confident are going to be stressful for some of my favorites.

Just as I was pretty sure of when Rhaenys was going to die, I think fans should probably steel themselves for what's to come. Even some comments from Hugh's conversation with his wife have me at least a little on edge!

That's not to say that all of the sky is going to be falling in the Season 2 finale on August 4. I'm sure there will be a crisis or two after how Season 1 ended on Luke's death, but none of the twists that I'm particularly dreading are necessarily going to come. I do hope that the upcoming finale addresses the question of Addam's mother. While there has been enough Targaryen/Velaryon weddings in Fire & Blood that even a bastard of just Corlys could conceivably have enough Targaryen blood to claim a dragon, that didn't seem to occur to Corlys in "The Red Sowing."

Only time will tell what House of the Dragon manages to pack into its final episode of the second season, although the finale director opened up about dropping clues earlier in the season. For now, you can just plan on watching the Season 2 finale on Sunday, April 4 at 9 p.m. ET on HBO or streaming with a Max subscription. You can also find every earlier episode of Season 2 and the full first season on the streamer, as well as all eight seasons of Game of Thrones.

Spoilers ahead for House of the Dragon's fifth episode of Season 2, called "Regent."

House of the Dragon Season 2 is approaching its finale in the not-too-distant future of the 2024 TV schedule, and while the Greens of King's Landing and Blacks of Dragonstone have been making moves recently, Daemon Targaryen has been all but wallowing in the spooky walls of Harrenhal. Daemon's visions have certainly been interesting from a character point of view, and book readers likely caught some foreshadowing from George R.R. Martin's source material in them. The latest vision crossed a line even by Targaryen standards with an incestuous love scene between Daemon and his mom.

House of the Dragon has delivered plenty of incest over just a season and a half so far, and Game of Thrones delivered its fair share as well, but parent/child is a new one involving a major character. So, I revisited George R.R. Martin's Fire & Blood to see what he said about the Targaryens' – to quote Alicent in Season 1 – "queer customs."

What Happened In Daemon's Vision

Daemon's vision didn't immediately seem like a love scene involving his and Viserys' mother, although her pale skin and light hair certainly suggested that she was probably a close family relative. As the sex scene escalated, I thought that maybe this woman was supposed to be a younger version of Aemma, since the vision was telling him that he should have been king instead of his brother. Then, the woman uttered what I'm guessing will go down as an infamous House of the Dragon line, telling Daemon: "If only you were born first …my favorite son."

Well, now that I've moved past my knee-jerk cringing and wondering if House of the Dragon really went so far to include parent/child incest when Game of Thrones thoroughly condemned that with Craster, I can point out that the love scene wasn't a replay of something that actually happened, since Daemon was very young when his mother died. It's also not a conscious fantasy of Daemon's, but seemingly a vision concocted and implanted in his mind by Alys Rivers, who is nearly as spooky as Harrenhal itself.

But considering that we're talking about a guy whose parents were siblings, whose wife is his niece, whose father-in-law was his brother, and whose sons are also his great nephews, Daemon's vision of a love scene with his mom is reason enough to revisit what George R.R. Martin wrote about Tagaryen customs.

What George R.R. Martin Wrote In Fire & Blood

Warning: spoilers ahead for Fire & Blood through the chapter called "A Time of Testing – The Realm Remade."

Fire & Blood is a fictional history book of the Targaryen dynasty drawing on sources like septons, maesters, and one particularly memorable fool named Mushroom, and House of the Dragon is certainly not following the source material to the letter. Even Blood and Cheese unfolded differently on the show, and that's one of the most pivotal events of the book. So, it was interesting to revisit what George R.R. Martin wrote about Targaryen incest and compare to the show.

As a crash course on the particulars of Fire & Blood in case you haven't read it – incest between the Targaryens was allowed in Westeros due to the Doctrine of Exceptionalism, which basically stated that the Targaryens could marry their own because they weren't part of the Faith of the Seven, while the rest of the realm couldn't marry within their immediate families. The Doctrine of Exceptionalism seemed like an option for Game of Thrones to justify Jon and Dany's relationship after he learned the truth, and tracks with why pretty much nobody other than pre-time jump Alicent on House of the Dragon was disturbed by the "queer customs."

Even Viserys' objections to Daemon and Rhaenyra before the time jump seemed more to do with the fact that Daemon 1) was married at the time, 2) had ruined her while out on the town, and 3) was Daemon, not that they were uncle and niece. Who knew that Season 1 could seem like such a simpler time by this point with creepy visions in the riverlands?

In Fire & Blood, it was specifically noted that mother/son unions were not generally allowed in Westeros. Martin wrote:

The believers in Exceptionalism went with the idea that those rules against incest just didn't apply to Targaryens, and Fire & Blood doesn't get into the specifics of which – if not all – kinds were allowed within the ruling family. But the point remained that the Targaryens were not like the rest of the people of Westeros, down to "their eyes, their hair, their very bearing... and they flew dragons."

Later in the book, a Targaryen ally by the name of Septon Alfyn was recorded saying this to a man in support of Exceptionalism:

In this defense of the doctrine in Fire & Blood, the only example of permitted incest was between brother and sister. Uncle/niece was presumably a stretch, but the implication seems clear that parent/child relations were out of the question even among Targaryens. While George R.R. Martin doesn't specifically condemn what happened in Daemon's vision in Fire & Blood, even though the Targaryen family tree has fewer branches out than most, there are no marriages between parent and child.

Basically, everybody would be pretty grossed out by Daemon's vision with his mom, and he might want to vacate Harrenhal sooner rather than later if those are the kind of experiences that Alys Rivers is seemingly planting in his head. He was already enough of a wild card before she was messing with him!

Find out if Alys somehow has anything grosser in store for Daemon with new episodes of House of the Dragon on Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO. If you've missed any of Season 2 so far, you can revisit episodes streaming with a Max subscription. All eight seasons of Game of Thrones are available on the streamer as well.

Major plot points for the most recent episode of House of the Dragon Season 2, Episode 5 “Regent” can be found throughout this story. A lot’s happened every episode this season, and this article is dark and full of spoilers.

It’s been a bleak few episodes since House of the Dragon premiered on the 2024 TV schedule. We already lost a fan-favorite character in Rhaenys with foreshadowing regarding more deaths to come. While Aegon is inexplicably burned over most of his body but not dead, Aemond is taking control of King’s Landing in his stead, which led to one moment that really struck a chord with me during House of the Dragon’s most recent “Regent” episode. But to explain why the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment was so emotional we need to backtrack a bit.

The Saga Of The Ratcatcher And The Dog

A few weeks ago, you may remember that Daemon sent Blood and Cheese, a guard and ratcatcher, to murder Aegon’s son. During that episode, we were shown Cheese had a loyal canine companion – and one he didn’t treat particularly well. In fact, the episode took great pains to show Cheese mistreating his pupper, and he kicked the dog during the episode.

This actually got to the point where it garnered some ill will online, and the actor who played Cheese, Mark Stobbart set the record straight, and actually came out and ask people to “chill” about the dog’s mistreatment during the episode proper.

He had a great time on set, so much so that the show purposefully brought him back again in Season 2.

The Moment That Left Me Emotionally Torn During House Of The Dragon This Week 

After Aemond began making decisions for The Greens, one of the first things he noted was that the ratcatchers his brother had murdered should be cut down. Among them was the actual traitor Cheese. There’s a quick moment during the episode in which we see the tough task getting done and the ratcatchers getting carted away. We also see Cheese’s little dog, loyal to the end, following the cart of dead bodies as they are being taken away.

Honestly, it’s a quick shot and really relegated to the background of what’s going on at the time, so I’m not sure how many viewers really latched onto what was happening. However, I found it to be positively heart-wrenching that this poor little guy, who didn’t even have a good owner, was loyal until the very end.

As it turns out, this was a very calculated and thoughtful decision the showrunners made to pull on our heartstrings a bit. In an interview with USA Today, director Claire Kilner said the dog's return was an idea she'd planned.

George R.R. Martin had previously commented about how much he loved the addition of the dog in the HBO series. He mentioned Cheese’s pupper absolutely “broke” his “heart” while watching the episode and that it’s the rare change to his works that he was totally fine the series took creative license with. (In fact, there are more examples of issues Martin has taken with HOTD choices.) He hasn’t commented yet on the dog returning in Sunday’s episode, but that small plot within the larger world of chaos and revenge has been really emotional for me.

There’s no way the House of the Dragon creators could have known that adding a dog would resonate so deeply with fans –or Martin – while they were filming the popular fantasy drama months and months ago, but it’s an example of the awesome attention to detail that pays off for this series in spades later. As Cheese’s arc is really kind of done, this may be the end of the road for the dog, but it’s a storyline that will stick with me and reminds me that it’s the little things that often stand out most.

House Of The Dragon fans are riding high after a fantastic fourth episode of the second season. “The Red Dragon And The Gold” has a double-take worthy 9.6 fan rating on IMDB and is one of the most acclaimed in the entire history of the larger franchise. Author George RR Martin himself gushed about how good it turned out, saying he doesn’t think we’ve ever gotten a better dragon battle in any TV show or movie. He heaped praise on everyone involved in a recent blog, except when it came to one minor detail.

George RR Martin, always one to speak his mind honestly and openly, is not happy with the sigil the show is using for The Targaryens. More specifically, he’s not happy with the fact that the dragon depicted on the banners of our leading family has four legs, not two. According to him, that is absolute nonsense, and he gave us a multiple paragraph write-up on his website explaining why.

Apparently Medieval heralds were quite fond of drawing dragons, but since no one had ever seen a dragon in real life, there was plenty of variance in the drawings. Some people drew them with two legs and some people drew them with four. As things became more standardized, they started calling the ones with two legs wyverns and the ones with four legs dragons. From Martin’s vantage point, however, that’s ridiculous. Both dragons and wyverns should have two legs because birds have two legs and two wings, as do flying dinosaurs. 

During the first four and a half seasons of Game Of Thrones, the show depicted the dragons on the Targaryen sigil as having two legs, but those involved in the show later changed it to four legs, which House Of The Dragon has continued using. Here’s a portion of Martin’s analysis…

Now, you might be saying, why is he so worked up about something as minor as what’s on a flag? On the one hand, you’d be right. It’s a bit unusual that we were just given one of the greatest episodes in the history of the franchise, and days later, Martin is complaining about something so seemingly innocuous. On the other hand, however, Martin’s complaint here is a microcosm of why Game Of Thrones is so freakin’ good. Everything is mapped out in such vivid detail and planned out so far in advance that it all logically fits together. The same drive that pushes him to care about the flag is the same drive that pushes him to add minor details that can be called back to multiple seasons later, which is why fans are always nervous or frustrated when Thrones/ HOTD departs from the source material (even if sometimes it's a positive).

House Of The Dragon is in the middle of its second season. You can catch new episodes on Sunday nights on HBO, Max and various other streaming options in other countries.

Spoilers ahead for the A Song of Ice and Fire book series.

George R.R. Martin famously has not yet finished The Winds of Winter as the sixth installment of the seven he has planned for his A Song of Ice and Fire saga, and July 12 marked the 13th anniversary of when A Dance with Dragons was published as Book 5 back in 2011. The book hit shelves just months after the Game of Thrones pilot aired, and at the time, there was no reason to worry that the show would end before Martin would finish the next book. Those were the days, right?

Well, I've had Westeros on the brain lately with House of the Dragon Season 2 airing new episodes on HBO, and seeing that July 12 marked thirteen years since A Dance with Dragons set me flashing back to when Game of Thrones adapted that novel... or, more specifically, didn't really adapt that novel in its later seasons. As the wait continues for The Winds of Winter, I really find myself wishing that one ADWD plot hadn't been cut from the show: Aegon Targaryen.

The Prince That Was Promised (In The Books)

Now, when I mention "Aegon Targaryen," I'm not talking about the show establishing that Aegon was Jon Snow's real name at birth, or any of the many Aegons from George R.R. Martin's Fire & Blood. The character I'm referring to in fact may not truly be a Targaryen, but he certainly was set up in A Dance with Dragons by players like Varys as a legitimate claimant to the Iron Throne. Notably, his place in the Targaryen family tree would rank him ahead of both Daenerys and Jon in the Targaryen line of succession.

And that is because this Aegon is purportedly the eldest son of Rhaegar Targaryen and his wife Elia Martell, who survived the sack of King's Landing as an infant at the end of Robert's Rebellion after Varys smuggled him to freedom and replaced him with the son of a commoner. This Aegon is also known for his alias of "Young Griff" that had been used to protect his identity and the fan nickname of "fAegon" among those who believe he's a fake. He was raised in Essos with all the training and education needed to make a pretty great king, all things considered.

Is Aegon A True Targaryen And Jon's Older Brother?

I don't want to get too far into the weeds about whether or not ADWD's Aegon truly is the firstborn son of Rhaegar Targaryen and therefore Jon Snow's elder brother, although it's worth noting that the odds are good that he's actually a Blackfyre – a.k.a. born of a bastard Targaryen line – whether he knows it himself or not. It arguably doesn't even matter whether he's truly a Targaryen or not.

What matters is if enough people believe and support his claim, and as of the end of A Dance with Dragons, Aegon was convinced by Tyrion to land in Westeros to begin his invasion while Dany – who is currently the only confirmed surviving Targaryen in A Song of Ice and Fire – was still stuck in Meereen. (The books technically haven't established that Rhaegar + Lyanna = Jon just yet, let alone settled whether or not Rhaegar annulled his marriage to Elia to make Jon his true heir.) If nothing else, Aegon has a head start on Dany, which could make a big difference.

A Possible Daenerys Vs. Aegon Plot

A Dance with Dragons set up a potential clash between Dany and Aegon, and I so wish that Aegon hadn't been cut from Game of Thrones to make the story impossible on the small screen. Would this story on screen have made Daenerys admit to herself that she's seeking the Iron Throne by conquest rather than birthright, since she would be behind Aegon (and Jon) in the Targaryen line? Would Cersei have been knocked out of the game of thrones earlier than the end of the last season if Aegon was around? If Dany is going to roast King's Landing at some point, would a conflict with her purported nephew have set it up better than what happened on HBO?

And would Game of Thrones have a stronger legacy than its divisive series finale if it had lasted as long as George R.R. Martin wanted and included Aegon vs. Dany? Alas, we'll never know. As a Stark fan who generally prefers the first three A Song of Ice and Fire books to A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons as the fourth and fifth, I've historically always been more bitter about Lady Stoneheart being cut from the show than anything from the most recent two novels, but I'm starting to rethink that.

Was Aegon The Worst Cut From Book To Show?

Just as Catelyn Stark's resurrection as Lady Stoneheart could have made Jaime and Brienne's stories in the later seasons much more interesting, Aegon's inclusion could have made for some great development for Dany and perhaps even another Dance of the Dragons. An Aegon interlude also could have helped the end of Thrones feel less rushed and maybe let the Night King march south for more than a few episodes.

Sure, this undoubtedly would have been a very expensive plotline to produce for TV, but dang it, I would have loved to see it. While we won't know for sure how important this Aegon Targaryen – or fAegon of Blackfyre descent, depending on your point of view – actually is in the grand scheme of George R.R. Martin's saga until The Winds of Winter comes out, I think it's safe to say that Game of Thrones' last few seasons would have been quite different if the character hadn't been cut.

Just imagine if we'd gotten to see a Targaryen (or Targaryen pretender) who actually had the training to be a good ruler, and how Dany might have reacted! I was always way more invested in the Stark-adjacent storylines – see: why I'm still bitter about Lady Stoneheart – but Aegon in the mix could have made Dany's story a lot spicier on Game of Thrones.

For now, I can only wonder what might have been... and perhaps cross my fingers again that The Winds of Winter could be ready for publication sometime in the foreseeable future. Earlier this year, George R.R. Martin at least confirmed that he doesn't intend to write any more Dunk and Egg stories until after he finishes Winds, but given that this is the author who once expressed hope that he'd have the book ready by 2016, I find it's best not to get one's hopes up too high without proof.

If you want to revisit Game of Thrones, you can find the full series streaming with a Max subscription now, as well as every episode of House of the Dragon so far. New episodes of Season 2 are currently releasing weekly on Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO in the 2024 TV schedule.

House of the Dragon Season 2 has been delivering banger after banger episodes since the premiere on the 2024 TV schedule. George R.R. Martin may be the acclaimed author behind the A Song of Ice and Fire Universe, but even he has to admit when those adapting his source material have come up with some great additions. Recently, the writer shared his thoughts on the latest season of the HBO fantasy series in a heartfelt blog post. Among the many changes made by the show's writers, one addition, in particular, surprisingly caught Martin's attention—and his approval: the introduction of a scruffy dog.

The writer recently took to his personal blog on Friday to sing the praises of the HOTD team for adding a canine companion to one of the series' most despised characters. He wrote:

In the gruesome Season 2 premiere of HOTD, we see Cheese, the ratcatcher, and Blood, a thug hired by Daemon, infiltrate the Red Keep with the intent of killing Aemond Targaryen. These two cannot find the eyepatch-wearing baddy, so instead, they devastatingly turn their attention to killing Helaena and Aegon’s son, Jaehaerys. Throughout the entire episode, Cheese's loyal pup never leaves his side. In a moment of frustration on their way to commit the murder, Cheese kicks his devoted pet, and fans lost it. In the follow-up episode, when the rat catcher and all the others in the city are wrangled up and hanged for the crime, the final shot lingers on the dog, forlornly looking up at his owner, who is gone for good.

It’s a heart-wrenching addition that Martin acknowledged, highlighting the unexpected emotional depth it brought to the character. There is a reason House of the Dragon is easily one of the best fantasy series streaming today.

The 75-year-old New Jersey native isn’t usually thrilled when screenwriters tweak his original work by adding characters, but even he had to admit, the dog was an excellent addition. He continued:

We were all pretty ticked off at Cheese after he kicked the dog. But here’s the real kicker: George R.R. Martin himself admitted to being envious of the creative choice. He added:

This acknowledgment from a master storyteller like George speaks volumes about the subtle genius behind the show's adaptation choices. Still, the series has been praised and critiqued for its departure from the source material. For example, the showrunner skipped a lot of the lore about the North, giving us a bad feeling about the shorter season 2.

Overall, it's fun to see Martin's take on the show and his reactions to change, and I have to admit that his latest thoughts surprised me in the best way.

House of the Dragon Season 2 airs on HBO and is available to stream with a Max subscription every Sunday at 9:00 p.m. ET. I'm eagerly looking forward to the new episodes, especially if they keep adding sweet, scruffy dogs to the cast.

I don't think Hollywood ever really stopped trying to bring upcoming video game adaptations to TV and movie audiences, but after the recent streaming success of Fallout and Super Mario Bros. Movie's billion-dollar box office, more studios than ever seem to be searching for the next big game adaptation. The director of the smash hit Elden Ring, who also happens to run FromSoftware, was recently asked about the possibility of it getting a series or movie, and combined with George R.R. Martin's cheeky comments, they have me just as excited as I have been playing the latest DLC.

The Shadow of the Erdtree DLC recently launched for Elden Ring fanatics, and it's reminding many of us why this challenging fantasy epic won Game of the Year in 2022. Now, talk is surfacing that this twisted world from Hidetaka Miyazaki and George R.R. Martin might become a series or movie, possibly giving at least one studios a fantasy saga to challenge HBO's House of the Dragon and Prime Video's LOTR: The Rings of Power. And those comments follow months of fan speculation about this universe getting the live-action treatment, so let look at what's being said that has me so pumped to see this game brought to life. 

Hidetaka Miyazaki Is Open To An Adaptation Under Specific Circumstances

Hidetaka Miyazaki is a famed game director, and has been a key part of many difficult fantasy games like Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. (To the point where Souls-like became shorthand for hard AF games.) Miyazaki recently spoke to The Guardian about the latest DLC for Elden Ring and was asked his thoughts about an adaptation of his beloved series. Here's what he had to say: 

To that end, Miyazaki and FromSoftware collaborated with quite the famous author in George R.R. Martin, who famously works with HBO and Max on adaptations of his Song of Fire and Ice series (which are available to stream with a Max subscription). The question I'd like to know is if HBO would go in on another fantasy series, given it already is working on more Game of Thrones shows, or if an elite competitor would snag the Elden Ring's rights? For now, the answer to both of those questions remains unclear. 

George R.R. Martin Hinted An Adaptation Is Being Considered

One thing that does seem to be clear is that George R.R. Martin clearly knows something about Elden Ring potentially being adapted. The author made a cheeky blog post comment in regards to the latest speculation surrounding the game, and in a way that fans are used to seeing him tease his and others' projects.

The writer admitted to nothing, but the comment clearly hints that something is up behind the scenes. In short, it looks like we may be waiting even longer for him to finish writing The Winds Of Winter if anything starts moving on the video game front, though that should be nothing new for Game of Thrones fans at this point. 

Why I'd Be Pumped For An Elden Ring Adaptation

Elden Ring is a game with a relatively open narrative, as the player is in the role of a "Tarnished" looking to unify the shards of the "Elden Ring" following a great war that resulted in demigods all holding dominion over parts of the land. The objective of the Tarnished is to defeat these demigods and become an Elden Lord, though the motive for doing so is up for debate. Some argue that the Tarnished is good, and others say that the leading player is the real villain of Elden Ring. 

The truth of the matter is that there's so much room for interpretation that Elden Ring feels ripe for an adaptation that could definitively answer some questions game players have about the lore, while also providing mainstream audiences with a series that borders more on nightmarish fantasy than medieval power struggles.

After battling some of the new undead warriors, giant birds, dragons, and the like, I would love to see someone adept with visual flair signing on to adapt this series. I can imagine it'll be expensive to make all those beasts as well, so hopefully, whoever commits to a series or film has some very deep pockets. 

CinemaBlend will keep an eye peeled for news on an Elden Ring adaptation, and continue to track updates for shows on the 2024 TV schedule. Summer is finally here which can mean there's less appointment television and more time for gaming, but I would certainly make time for some of the shows on that list coming up. 

Warning: major spoilers are ahead for Episode 2 of House of the Dragon Season 2.

House of the Dragon delivered a doozy of a twist to end the second season premiere in the 2024 TV schedule, but any reader of George R.R. Martin's Fire & Blood knew that the death toll was only going to rise following Blood and Cheese. Episode 2 revealed how the Blacks and the Greens handled the murder of young Jaehaerys, culminating in two more key deaths with twin brothers Erryk and Arryk dying at each other's hand (sort of). This confirmed to me the identity this year's wild card character, who isn't the one I expected.

And I really enjoyed the twist as somebody who read Fire & Blood long before House of the Dragon Season 2 premiered, but fear not, show-only fans – any book spoilers will be marked ahead of time.

What Happened In Episode 2 To Set Up The Wild Card

If anybody had asked me prior to Episode 2 who the wild card of the Blacks vs. Greens in House of the Dragon, I would have been split between Aemond and Daemon. After all, Aemond guaranteed war within the Targaryen family tree when he led Lucerys to his death, and Daemon went rogue from Rhaenyra to order Blood and Cheese. They have been set up as each other's mirror, on opposite sides, and it's not even particularly subtle. Aemond's name is just Daemon's, slightly rearranged!

But Episode 2 changed my mind, with Aemond admitting in the brothel that he regretted Luke's death and Daemon pretty believably – if inadequately – insisted to Rhaenyra that he'd only intended to Aemond to be killed, not Prince Jaehaerys. Aegon was pretty wild, but more in a blind rage than in any kind of controlled violence. (Case in point: all the Red Keep's ratcatchers hung from the castle walls.)

But it was Ser Criston Cole whose actions in this episode leave me convinced that he could be the most dangerous man in Westeros, and both the Greens and the Blacks should probably be happy he doesn't have one of the dragons of House of the Dragon. He was in crisis mode as he had to find an explanation for the murder of the prince while concealing his affair with Alicent, and unlike Alicent, he's not burdened by guilt.

Like he told her in Episode 2 (available streaming now via Max subscription), he doesn't see a path to absolution for himself, as "there is none for what I've done," which suggests that there's no moral line he's currently afraid to cross. Cole sending Ser Arryk on a solo suicide mission has dangerous implications. Whether or not he thought Arryk could succeed in killing Rhaenyra, he seemingly didn't intend for Arryk to make it back.

Why Ser Criston Cole Is The Wild Card After The Cargyll Brothers' Deaths

Honestly, it's more luck than skill that Arryk got as close to killing Rhaenyra as he did, since the odds were not in his favor of passing himself off as Erryk to infiltrate Dragonstone. While this plan seemed less doomed than Blood and Cheese attempting to kill Aemond, Arryk wasn't wrong when he pointed out to Cole that he was unlikely to survive. Even though he got close – and I have to assume Mysaria's intervention is what sent Erryk to Rhaenyra's rescue – the plan really was never going to work.

And whether you're on Team Green or Team Black, it was hard to root for anybody in the showdown of the Cargyll brothers. Erryk ultimately prevailed and struck the killing blow on his twin; then, unwilling to live with himself for it, he stabbed himself in the belly. Criston Cole set this doomed plan in motion, making it easy to understand why Otto Hightower was angry at Aegon naming the knight as his new Hand.

All in all, I think it's safe to say that Cole is a dangerous man to trust as Hand of the King, with the added layer of believing that he's incapable of absolution and therefore has no moral grounds he's unafraid to tread. With Otto out of King's Landing, Alicent vulnerable, Aegon weak, and Aemond wanting war, Cole has a lot more power among the Greens than he should.

Warning: spoilers are ahead for George R.R. Martin's Fire & Blood through the chapter called "The Dying of the Dragons – The Red Dragon and the Gold."

What I Expected To Be Different Based On Fire & Blood

Last chance to avoid book spoilers! Based on House of the Dragon through the Season 2 premiere and reading Fire & Blood, I would have named Aemond wild card for the Greens and Daemon wild card for the Blacks. Sure, Criston Cole was a force to be reckoned with on Aegon's side in the book, but Aemond on Vhagar and Daemon on Caraxes gathering forces? Wild cards all the way.

But House of the Dragon made changes to both Daemon and Aegon that softened their earliest kinslayings into mistakes and made Cole look a lot more unhinged. Not only was Luke's death an accident due to Aemond failing to control Vhagar, but Daemon seemingly really did want Blood and Cheese to take out Aemond rather than Jaehaerys. The murders that started the war on HOTD were tragic errors – albeit still entirely Aemond and Daemon's faults.

In contrast, Cole knew what he was doing with sending Arryk to Dragonstone, isn't bothered about needing absolution for the affair with Alicent, and is a proven killer. I think it's fair to argue that he never really expected Arryk to succeed in killing Rhaenyra and make it back, and Arryk was even more reluctant to go on the mission in Fire & Blood, with George R.R. Martin writing:

Interestingly, the show's version of events presented Cole's plan as more effective than it was on page. In HOTD, Arryk got very close to actually killing Rhaenyra, and might have succeeded if he hadn't hesitated long enough for Erryk to arrive. In contrast, Martin wrote in Fire & Blood:

Of course, not much is ever straightforward in Fire & Blood, and another telling presented the fight as lasting "only moments" with "no declarations of brotherly love," with Erryk nearly cutting Arryk's arm off before Arryk stabbed Erryk in the belly with a dagger. Arryk was dead by the time guards arrived in this version, while Erryk "took four days to die of his gut wound," screaming in agony and "cursing his traitor brother all the while."

In both show and book, the brothers died as a result of Cole's plan, but Arryk didn't even get close to Rhaenyra in Fire & Blood. Combine this HOTD change with Aemond and Daemon's plans going awry rather than being deliberately brutal, and the show seems to be setting Cole up as more of a wild card than the other two, and I love it as a twist on Fire & Blood. That book after all is about the Targaryen dynasty; the series can show the roles of other players – including Cole and Alicent – with more nuance. And I'm on Team Black!

Plus, with Daemon heading to Harrenhal and Aegon eager exact some revenge via Vhagar, I think it's a safe bet that Daemon and Aemond will still have plenty of wrath for the riverlands. Keep tuning in to HBO on Sundays at 9 p.m. ET for new episodes of House of the Dragon, and/or stream Season 2 with a Max subscription.

Spoilers ahead for the Season 2 premiere of House of the Dragon, called "A Son for a Son."

The premiere episode of House of the Dragon Season 2 delivered plenty for people to talk about while waiting for Episode 2, ranging from the brutality of "Blood and Cheese" to a dog being kicked while assassins broke into the Red Keep. It's easy to overlook what started the premiere in light of how it ended, particularly since Cregan Stark and Jacaerys' time in the North was reduced to one sequence early on.

While the screentime was surely a treat for any who have been missing the Starks and the North since Game of Thrones' series finale back in 2019, readers of George R.R. Martin's Fire & Blood know that there was a lot of lore that didn't make the cut from the book to the show.

Now, I say "lore" rather than "story" because – as with almost everything in George R.R. Martin's fictional history Targaryen book – there are multiple sources telling slightly different stories of what happened when Jace went North. But all of those sources agree that more happened than Jace visiting the Wall and Cregan promising 2,000 "greybeards" to fight for Rhaenyra. So, let's look at what happened in Fire & Blood for why the changes to the story in the North make me a little concerned about how Season 2 is going to be shorter than Season 1 when I was previously only optimistic.

What Happened In The North, According To George R.R. Martin

Spoilers for George R.R. Martin's Fire & Blood through the chapter called "The Dying of the Dragons – A Son for a Son."

It's normal in any book adaptation for changes to be made from page to screen, and most of them don't really matter. Will it change the course of House of the Dragon that Jace's meeting happened during the summer rather than the autumn, like in Fire & Blood? I doubt it. Was the Season 2 premiere incomplete without the full paragraph of exposition about Cregan's origin as Lord of Winterfell? No.

The points that are presented as undisputed facts from Fire & Blood are that Cregan gave Jace a warm welcome while the North was preparing for the coming winter, but the Targaryen prince didn't stay long because "snow and ice and cold made Vermax ill-tempered." The two came to an agreement, as George R.R Martin writes:

While these book details were omitted from HOTD's return, Cregan dropped some cryptic comments about the Wall that seemed designed as callbacks to Game of Thrones more than anything else. (His comment about King Jaehaerys and Queen Alysanne's dragons refusing to fly over the Wall did come from Fire & Blood, though.)

In this particular chapter of Fire & Blood, there were some stories about Jace's trip to the North that were juicy, but differed from source to source. According to Munkun, Cregan and Jacaerys "took a liking to each other" since Jace reminded the Stark lord of his late younger brother, and they "swore an oath of brotherhood, sealed in blood." According to Septon Eustance, Jace spent most of his visit with Cregan trying to persuade him to "give up his false gods and accept the worship of the Seven."

The court fool known as Mushroom provided the most salacious tale, as was the case with what happened between Daemon, Rhaenyra, and Criston Cole. According to Mushroom, Jace fell in love with Cregan's bastard half-sister, Sara Snow, and "he lay with her of a night." Sara told her brother that Jace had married her secretly in the Winterfell godswood. Mushroom also claimed that Vermax "left a clutch of dragon's eggs at Winterfell," but other sources dismissed this, since Vermax was – as far as anybody could tell – male and had never produced any eggs.

Why I'm Getting Nervous About Season 2 After Jace's Trip North

Perhaps I'm a bit biased due to my love of the Starks in Game of Thrones, but I would have preferred to get more of George R.R. Martin's lore in Season 2 of House of the Dragon when it comes to the North, which might have been possible with ten episodes instead of a season trimmed down to eight. The details of the "Pact of Ice and Fire" would have been interesting, at the very least. I also won't get into spoilery details too far ahead, but some of what happened with Jace securing the support of the North could be pretty pivotal in future seasons.

More than House of the Dragon leaving out the facts of the Pact of Ice and Fire, though, I would have loved to see the show settle what truly occurred and what was false from the pages of Fire & Blood. That's what happened when Mushroom's tale of Daemon smuggling Rhaenyra to brothels was used in the show, rather than one of the less scandalous options from Fire & Blood that seemed more likely.

HOTD could have shown a blood oath of brotherhood between Jace and Cregan, introduced Sara Snow if she did in fact ever exist, and/or revealed if Vermax did leave any eggs at Winterfell. (I don't think we need HOTD to confirm that Jace didn't fly North to preach the Faith of the Seven.) The scene that aired in the first episode of the 2024 TV schedule felt like dropping the bare bones of exposition before moving back to conflict within the Targaryen family tree, and I feel like that might not have had to happen if Season 2 produced ten episodes like Season 1 instead of just eight.

Co-creator Ryan Condal explained the reasoning behind opening Season 2 in the North, saying to EW that that had been the hope for a long time but that "as fun as that sequence is, beyond Cregan agreeing to send soldiers South, there isn't any real inherent drama in that scene."

If House of the Dragon could skip out on adapting, confirming, and/or debunking the Winterfell rumors from Fire & Blood, what else could be skipped in this shorter second season? It's already curious that certain key book characters haven't been confirmed for the show, and it remains to be seen what Laenor faking his death means for Seasmoke as one of the dragons of House of the Dragon.

Did I love that HOTD changed Fire & Blood's lore about Daemon killing his first wife or that Alicent was absent from Blood and Cheese? Maybe not, but I can imagine that Jace's trip North might have been meatier if there was more time in Season 2 to spend outside the Dance of the Dragons.

All of this said, House of the Dragon is about the Targaryens, not the Starks for those of us who were Team North during the Game of Thrones days, and I'm looking forward to what else Season 2 has in store. New episodes of House of the Dragon air on Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and can be found streaming with a Max subscription.

Warning: spoilers are ahead for the Season 2 premiere of House of the Dragon on HBO, called "A Son for a Son."

War was inevitable in House of the Dragon Season 2 after first blood was drawn with the death of Lucerys in the first season, but the civil war in the Targaryen family tree didn't start with the fire and blood that some fans may have expected. No, if Luke was the first loss for the Blacks last season, then Daemon struck the first blow against the Greens with an event known to George R.R. Martin readers as "Blood and Cheese," which resulted in the death of Aegon's young heir.

And the sudden shocking brutality may raise some comparisons to the unforgettable Red Wedding from Game of Thrones, which has really become the standard when it comes to tragic shockers on TV. I haven't seen anything that can truly rival the scale of the betrayal that removed the North from the War of the Five Kings in one fell swoop, and I still think Michelle Fairley deserved all the awards for her scream of despair as Catelyn watched Robb die.

On the whole, there just wasn't enough build or scale for Blood and Cheese to really strike me as the Red Wedding 2.0, but there is another iconic Game of Thrones moment that I was flashing back to after the end of "A Son for a Son" in the 2024 TV schedule. Read on for why, starting with what went down in the Season 2 premiere.

What Happened In House Of The Dragon's Season 2 Premiere

"Blood and Cheese" refers to the two men hired by Daemon Targaryen to commit a murder within the walls of the Red Keep. While the plan went down differently in the pages of Fire & Blood than on the show, the end result was the same: a ratcatcher and a killer murdered Prince Jaehaerys, the eldest son of King Aegon and Queen Helaena, in front of Helaena herself.

Helaena survived and was able to escape with Princess Jaehaera while the two assassins were preoccupied with her son, fleeing to her mother's room, where Alicent was... occupied in bed with Criston Cole. As far as we can tell after the premiere, Blood and Cheese went rogue in killing Jaehaerys. Whatever Episode 2 reveals about the incident and Daemon's role, an innocent young boy was killed in his home due to the actions of adults playing a game of their own, and all hell may be about to break loose because of it with all the dragons in House of the Dragon.

There are certainly similarities to the Red Wedding beyond just the gruesomeness, since oathkeeping is of such importance to Northerners that Roose Bolton's involvement arguably equated to kinslaying. One could even point out parallels to Tyrion killing his father in the dead of night in the Red Keep. My mind went elsewhere, however, to somebody who once seemed like a far worse villain than Daemon Targaryen. Yep, I'm thinking of Jaime Lannister.

The Thing Jaime Lannister Did For Love

Perhaps this is due to my recent rewatch of Game of Thrones' pilot, but once I finished processing how Jaehaerys died and HOTD's changes from book to screen, I was flashing back to the end of the very first episode of the original series. As a refresher for any who might not have watched the episode since 2011, Bran was innocently climbing the towers of Winterfell when he entirely by accident found Jaime and Cersei having sex.

He didn't really know what he had seen, but a panicking Cersei kept repeating that he'd seen them. There was a brief moment after Jaime steadied Bran to keep him from falling out the window where it seemed like everything was going to be okay... followed by Jaime uttering his immortal line: "The things I do for love."

And he shoved Bran out of the window, fully intending for the boy to die and take the incestuous secret with him. Jaime pushing Bran from the Winterfell tower is really the moment from the Game of Thrones series premiere that hooked me to the point of needing to see the next episode ASAP. Not the ice zombies or the intrigue or the nudity – Jaime, Bran, and the window.

At the time, I hadn't read any of George R.R. Martin's books, and I 100% assumed that Bran had died from the fall. Really, it's a compliment to House of the Dragon that the Season 2 premiere tragedy flashed me back to the moment that hooked me and likely many others to Game of Thrones... even if I think Blood and Cheese on HOTD pales in comparison to GOT's Red Wedding.

How Do They Compare?

There are definitely parallels between the violence at the end of Game of Thrones' Season 1 premiere and House of the Dragon's Season 2 premiere. Both involved an innocent young boy being attacked in his own home by people playing a larger and very nefarious game. Both arguably even happened due to love and loyalty to family, since Jaime, Cersei, and their children likely would have been killed if Bran told his tale and Daemon was seeking revenge for the death of Luke after Rhaenyra declared that she wanted Aemond.

But I have to say – Game of Thrones did it better. Admittedly, there was a lot of shock in Jaime pushing Bran out of the window back in 2011 because GOT was just getting started. Social media was in much earlier stages and the events of George R.R. Martin's books weren't quite as widely known. "Blood and Cheese" was being openly discussed on Twitter back before House of the Dragon even premiered thanks to readers of Fire & Blood, so there was no way HOTD could recreate the shock of "The things I do for love."

The GOT scene also benefited by having Cersei there as a third party to heighten the tension. As a reader of Fire & Blood, I was expecting Alicent to be there during Blood and Cheese, as she was present in the book along with a key second son of Aegon and Helaena. I missed having a strong reaction to what Helaena had to do that would have come from Alicent.

Plus, Game of Thrones did more with less, if you ask me. We didn't see or hear Bran hit the ground, whereas we could definitely hear the horrific sound effects of Jaehaerys being killed. Plus, Jaime was clearly being set up as an important character for Game of Thrones, whereas Blood and Cheese literally don't even have actual names. A main player attempting to murder a child just hits harder than a pair of bumbling but brutal assassins.

None of this is to say that Blood and Cheese didn't pack an emotional punch, and I think it's a safe bet that Daemon just guaranteed a swift start to an all-out war on both sides. But I also think the Game of Thrones moment is just stronger than what happened on House of the Dragon, and I kind of wish it hadn't popped into my head after the final credits rolled on "A Son for a Son."

If you want to revisit Game of Thrones or check out the Season 2 premiere of House of the Dragon, you can find every episode of both shows so far streaming with a Max subscription. New episodes of HOTD will continue airing on Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.

Warning: MAJOR SPOILERS ARE AHEAD for the Season 2 premiere of House of the Dragon on HBO.

Almost two years have passed since House of the Dragon’s first season ended with war all but guaranteed within the Targaryen family tree. The premiere of House of the Dragon Season 2 involved Daemon pursuing vengeance against the Greens for the death of Lucerys, and his move was one that readers of George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood have been eagerly awaiting and/or dreading. The gruesome end of the episode delivered the expected twist, but there were some major changes from the book that are a big deal for Daemon.

I will eventually get into spoilers for Fire & Blood, but the first section below is spoiler-free for anything other than the Season 2 premiere. Let's start with the game-changing and gruesome ending!

A Son For A Son: What Happened In The Season 2 Premiere

Season 2 picked up with Rhaenyra MIA from Dragonstone looking for proof of Luke’s death while Daemon tried to rule in her absence… with limited success. Once Rhaenyra was back and declared that she wanted Aemond, Daemon had a mission and it didn’t involve the fire and blood on dragonback he originally envisioned. Instead, he recruited the help of Mysaria to sneak back to King’s Landing, where he bought the assistance of a still-loyal gold cloak and a ratcatcher.

Daemon ordered them to sneak into the Red Keep to "find and slay the prince Aemond Targaryen." The episode didn’t show Daemon’s response when they asked what to do if they couldn’t find Aemond, but they had their assignment: a son for a son. And sadly, there was a reason why the prophetic Helaena was worried about rats, as well as why I’d originally thought there might be a hidden layer to her concern about the “beast beneath the boards” in Season 1.

The ratcatcher and gold cloak found Helaena and the twins before they could track down Aemond, and made the most of the situation by forcing the young queen at knifepoint to name which of the sleeping children was the boy. There was some debate about whether she was telling the truth about which was which, but as they were short on time, they ultimately chose a twin to behead, giving Helaena the chance to grab her other child and run to her mother.

Her mother was busy in bed with Ser Criston Cole, of all people. Crumpling to the floor and holding her surviving child to her, Helaena confirmed: they’d killed the boy. The episode ended before showing the aftermath, but Aegon has lost his heir in brutal fashion, and if war wasn’t guaranteed after Lucerys, it certainly is now. A son for a son. Now, let’s get into how this incident happened quite differently in George R.R. Martin’s book.

WARNING: SPOILERS are ahead for FIre & Blood through the end of the chapter called “The Dying of the Dragons–A Son for a Son” about the death of Prince Jaehaerys and no further.

What Fire & Blood Did Differently

The murder of the little boy is undoubtedly one of the most despicable acts of House of the Dragon so far, but believe it or not, Jaehaerys' death was actually much worse in the pages of Fire & Blood. The incident is known as "Blood and Cheese," and it's so truly awful that the I've been speculating since December that some Team Black supporters might jump ship to Team Green over it.

Daemon's immediate reaction to Luke's death in Fire & Blood was iconic: "An eye for an eye, a son for a son. Lucerys shall be avenged." He proceeded to reach out to Mysaria, who arranged the "terrible vengeance" with two men: a murderous former gold cloak who was remembered to history as "Blood," and a ratcatcher remembered as "Cheese." As in the show, they used the tunnels into the Red Keep from the time of Maegor the Cruel.

George R.R. Martin writes that "some say their quarry was the king himself, but Aegon was accompanied by the Kingsguard wherever he went, and even Cheese knew of no way in and out of Maegor's Holdfast save over the drawbridge that spanned the dry moat and its formidable iron spikes." In the book, Aemond was never the target, nor was Aegon. The target on page was always Aegon's son.

Blood and Cheese crept into Alicent's room and waited for Helaena to bring her three children, at which point the servants were killed and the intruders announced that they were "Debt collectors." They only wanted "an eye for an eye, a son for a son," and wouldn't hurt any but the one boy. Helaena begged them to kill her instead, but Blood and Cheese insisted that she had to choose one of her two sons. George R.R. Martin writes:

Even more awful than the Season 2 premiere, right? I won't get into spoilers about the aftermath since the show might adapt that to start Episode 3 next week, but both show and book established that Helaena and her surviving children – or child, in the case of HOTD – survived the encounter with Blood and Cheese. (Much like how Alicent's fourth child hasn't appeared yet, Maelor wasn't present.)

Jaehaerys' life was taken on Daemon's orders in retaliation for Luke's death, and Aemond was never the target. Alicent was present, not in bed with Cole. And as hard as it is to celebrate anything after Blood and Cheese, how the show changed it from the book kind of evens the field after one of my biggest issues with Season 1, which concerned the portrayals of Daemon and the Greens.

What It Changes For Daemon

My perspective on the Dance of the Dragons has always been that the Greens started it, and all the fire and blood that followed was on them for usurping the throne. And as ruthless as Daemon would become by the end, he really wasn't all that villainous (by George R.R. Martin standards) before the Dance began. So, I was quite annoyed when House of the Dragon had Daemon murdering his first wife, since he definitely wasn't responsible in the book.

And that was only one of many instances of how I felt House of the Dragon was changing from the book to make the Greens look better than the Blacks, often to Daemon's detriment. Since there was no way "Blood and Cheese" would be cut from Season 2, the first season softening the Greens' worst actions just felt unfair to me. But the Season 2 premiere evened the field somewhat.

Alicent hooking up with Criston Cole wasn't a good look for either of them, and the change of having her in bed with the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard instead of with Helaena for "Blood and Cheese" really knocked her down some moral pegs. I didn't exactly celebrate this massive departure from the book for Alicent, but... turnabout is fair play, I guess?

Plus, Daemon not telling the assassins on screen to murder Jaehaerys if they couldn't find Aemond makes him look marginally less responsible for the boy being beheaded in his bed, if we're going to split hairs. If Aemond didn't mean to kill Luke, perhaps it's fair from a story perspective if Daemon didn't mean for Jaehaerys to die?

Could Episode 3 open with Daemon announcing that it actually was his idea for Jaehaerys to die if the assassins couldn't find Aemond? Sure, and I truly hope there's a larger point to Alicent/Cole than just HOTD wanting to include some non-incestuous sex on an HBO show. But I appreciated that this was finally a change from the book that didn't make Daemon look worse while making the Greens look better, and that could mean a lot for his character as the Dance truly begins.

I'm willing to wait and see what's up with Alicent and Cole, and I'm glad I didn't have to watch GRRM's "Blood and Cheese" in live-action. Keep tuning in to HBO on Sundays at 9 p.m. ET for the remaining episodes of House of the Dragon Season 2, which will be two episodes shorter than Season 1. You can also stream the series with a Max subscription.

House of the Dragon Season 2 is set to ignite on June 16 in the 2024 TV schedule, and HBO has already guaranteed that fans can rest easy about the future of the show... even if it's much too early to rest easy about the state of the Targaryen family tree. The premium cable network renewed the first Game of Thrones spinoff days before Season 2 premieres. With the hours counting down until the return, some comments from Matt Smith have me thinking beyond the premiere for when arguably Fire & Blood's most iconic sequence will happen.

And don't worry – we won't get into spoilers for George R.R. Martin's fictional Targaryen history book until a later section here, and I'll note in BIG BOLD LETTERS before we do. Let's start with what the HOTD star said!

What Matt Smith Said That Got Me Thinking

Matt Smith of course plays Daemon Targaryen, the Rogue Prince whose status as a wild card and fierce supporter of his wife/niece/queen Rhaenyra was part of the Greens' justification for Aegon usurping her in Season 1. The actor made a strong (and fun) argument for the Blacks ahead of Season 2, and then said this in an interview with The Guardian about Daemon's sword:

It's hard to blame Matt Smith for seizing the opportunity to take Daemon's sword before leaving set. Even by House of the Dragon standards, Daemon has a remarkable weapon: he wields Dark Sister, one of the two Valyrian steel swords of House Targaryen. Unlike his nephew Aegon, who carries Blackfyre, he actually had his sword bestowed upon him by a king instead of handed over after a king's death. (According to Fire & Blood, Daemon's sword was given to him by King Jaehaerys.) But if Smith has Dark Sister now, what about Season 3? The actor said this about returning:

All in all, that's a lot to be optimistic about, right? Maybe not for Matt Smith as he faces filming dragon scenes in simulated rough weather, but those are some fun comments for fans looking ahead not only to Season 2, but Season 3. So, why do his comments make me a little nervous about a positively epic moment from George R.R. Martin's history book?

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD FOR FIRE & BLOOD. IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW THE FATES OF SEVERAL CHARACTERS, TURN BACK NOW.

The Iconic Fire & Blood Moment

Even show-only fans of House of the Dragon could guess by the end of Season 1 that all hell is about to be unleashed due to Aemond killing Lucerys. Deliberate or not, Luke's death is first blood in what is set to become a Targaryen civil war, and neither the Blacks nor the Greens are going to come out looking great. (With Blood and Cheese presumably happening early in Season 2, I can imagine some Team Black fans turning cloak over to Team Green.) It's going to get very, very, very ugly with a lot of death.

But all of the death and destruction are going to lead to a scene that I've been wanting to see on screen ever since I first read Fire & Blood back in 2018. That would be the – LAST CHANCE TO TURN BACK FROM SPOILERS – final showdown between Daemon and Aemond. Not only is there some great dialogue between the uncle and nephew in George R.R. Martin's source material, but their battle on the backs of their dragons happens above the God's Eye lake with a setting sun, and...

Well, I feel like you should read at least the "Dying of the Dragons" chapter of George R.R. Martin's Fire & Blood for the full impact of what happens, but how the two meet their ends is bound to be incredibly cool, whether you're Team Black or Team Green. (Admittedly, maybe a bit cooler for those of us on Team Black.) Even the description is fairly cinematic, and this is one plot point that I truly hope isn't changed too much from the book, unlike the change from Season 1 that still annoys me almost two years later.

But I don't need to see it anytime soon, and Matt Smith's comments made me think back to past bits of House of the Dragon news.

When Will The Daemon Vs. Aemond Battle Happen?

While I would say that Daemon and Caraxes killing Aemond and Vhagar before also perishing is arguably the climax of the Dance of the Dragons in Fire & Blood, there are still some huge events before the Dance actually ends that I don't think can be cut. Namely, the Storming of the Dragonpit and Prince Joffrey's death. This isn't a situation like Game of Thrones needing to end just because Dany died. Daemon vs. Aemond will presumably happen when there's still plenty of story left to be told.

Now, Matt Smith saying that he was able to nick Dark Sister from the set of Season 2 of course doesn't mean that the iconic fight above Harrenhal is going to happen before the end of the second season, but it reminded me of Daemon's death enough that I flashed back to the news that was reported back when it broke that Season 2 would be shorter than Season 1.

At the time in 2023, Deadline reported that while House of the Dragon's creative team had envisioned three or four seasons for the Dance, the plan as of the shortening of Season 2 was for four seasons. The previous year, George R.R. Martin had written on his blog that it is "going to take four full seasons of 10 episodes each to do justice to the Dance of the Dragons, from start to finish."

And Matt Smith's comments inspiring me to rethink Fire & Blood's chronology and revisit those reports from 2022 and 2023 lead me to wonder if Daemon vs. Aemond could actually happen at the end of Season 3 instead of Season 4. That would mean a final season without Daemon and Aemond, which would be a shame, but could also do justice to the rest of the Dance and perhaps explore the aftermath a bit without rushing through the remaining relevant parts of Fire & Blood to the end.

On the whole, I'm somewhat worried that House of the Dragon could deliver the epic final showdown between uncle and nephew too early, and leave too much story left to tell without the Dance's two biggest wildcards causing chaos in what's left of Westeros. At the same time, the Dance is really Rhaenyra's story more than either of those two, and I hope HOTD gives her swan song the attention and time that it deserves. So, at the end of all this speculation, my hope is for Daemon vs. Aemond no earlier than the Season 3 finale, but no later than very early Season 4.

On the whole, I do think it's very unlikely that we should be concerned about this happening in Season 2. After all, Nettles is key to Daemon deciding that he's lived too long and ready for his last stand, and Nettles wasn't on the list of new Fire & Blood characters arriving in Season 2. For now, fans can look forward to the Season 2 premiere of House of the Dragon on Sunday, June 16 at 9 p.m. ET on HBO, or stream the episode with a Max subscription after it airs live.

Many of the movies and television shows we love so dearly (as well as tons of the ones we like a whole lot less) are actually based on books, comics, graphic novels and other printed media that came before. One such incredibly popular series was the long-running fantasy hit Game of Thrones, which is, of course, based on the work of author George R.R. Martin. The writer has now made a passionate claim that most book to screen adaptations don’t work, but I couldn’t agree more with his one exception to that rule.

What Did George R.R. Martin Say About Most Adaptations Not Working?

It may have taken well over a decade, but once someone found a way to adapt George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels, there was basically no turning back. As we all know, HBO’s Game of Thrones was an impressive mega-hit (despite backlash about the last season and series finale) with long legs. We’re about to go into House of the Dragon Season 2, and several other GOT universe adaptations (including the upcoming A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight, which is about Dunk and Egg) are being worked on, so Martin knows a thing or two about the process.

He recently wrote on his Not a Blog that adaptations almost never work, and said:

He’s not wrong. If you’ve ever been eager to see one of your favorite books turned into a show or movie, you have certainly heard screenwriters/producers say those types of things and then become worried about whether or not they’ll actually be able to nail the adaptation. Martin continued:

And, we’ve certainly all been here. We waited and hoped and now the screen version of a novel we hold dear to our hearts has arrived and…WTF did they do to it?!?! But, every now and then the creatives behind an adaptation really do hit it out of the park, and manage to bring the source material to life in a way that satisfies fans old and new, and I really do agree with his assessment that one recent project hits the right note. As Martin said:

Ah, yes. Everyone and their great-great-grandmother has been talking about Shōgun, and it’s nearly impossible to deny that the adaptation is a thorough and thrilling retelling of the original story. So, why is this historical drama, which is based on James Clavell’s 1975 novel of the same name, different from so many others?

Why Does George R.R. Martin Think Shōgun Is An Adaptation That Works?

Part of the obvious issue with adaptations is that people will have major expectations, especially for something that was already a massive hit in book form, and it’s impossible to please everyone. But, Shōgun is a recent effort that has pretty much managed to do just that, with even our own Rich Knight finding more to love about Shōgun than not, and the miniseries being popular/well-received enough that two additional seasons are (Surprise!) now in the planning stages. Martin admitted that he was “dubious” when he found out another screen version of Shōgun was on the way, but added:

Therein lies the trick, I suppose. As the writer noted when he spoke about adaptations at an event in 2022, he believes that “legitimate” changes are limited to things like budgetary concerns for productions, and what can logically be created for the screen given the money available. However, other attempts to “make the story their own” count as “illegitimate” updates for him, and, honestly, that seems to be true for many other book lovers who are dying to have novels they love faithfully turned into TV shows and movies.

The Game of Thrones fandom can be a fierce one. Fiercely loyal to the stories crafted by George R.R. Martin and to the dragon-filled dramas they spawn on HBO…until, that is, they think something wasn’t adapted for the screen correctly. At any rate, as we all await the arrival of House of the Dragon Season 2 and more updates on the next GOT spinoff, The Hedge Knight, Martin has now made a very specific claim about (FINALLY) finishing The Winds of Winter so he can prep more stories for that new series.

What Did George R.R. Martin Say About Finishing Winds Of Winter As He And HBO Work On The Hedge Knight?

For those who are unaware (or who have simply forgotten, because it’s been oh so many years) George R.R. Martin has yet to finish the saga that started this Game of Thrones and spinoff business (all of which you can watch with a Max subscription), A Song of Ice & Fire, as he’s been giving updates on The Winds of Winter (the sixth book) since 2011, and even said in 2015 that his hope was to finish it by (wait for it…) 2016. Meanwhile, he also has plans for a seventh novel, A Dream of Spring, which I can only imagine is still in the primordial stages, considering how long book six is taking.

While writing on his Not a Blog site, the author gave an update on production for The Hedge Knight, and then laid out his (hoped for) specific timeline for completing TWOW, and said:

Alright, I fully admit that I had to read this twice to figure out how he wants to lay out his whole writing process for his many different projects, so let’s break it down to the nitty gritty. THK is nearly done casting and is set to be filming by this July so it can be released at some point next year. Martin (who warned about growing “toxicity” in TV and movie fandoms recently) hopes to complete TWOW before the new show comes out in 2025. 

Now, I know most fans have fully given up on the writer actually, truly, honestly finishing The Winds of Winter by this point, but this plan sounds solid. That is, until you think about what he said just in November 2023, when he admitted that “it’s a big mother of a book” and he was “struggling with it.” But, you know, that was literally half a year ago at this point, so a lot could have really changed by now. Maybe he cracked the code and got that mofo under control so his idea of getting it done by some point in 2025 is realistic at this point. We’ll just have to (continue to) wait (more) and see.

Even if you never watched a single second of Game of Thrones, you probably know at least one thing about it, and that’s that the hit fantasy was a lot. It was a lot of drama, murder, crossing and double crossing. The show also featured a lot of blood (obviously), undead killing machines, villains, and (probably even more obviously) sex. Well, the author of the source material, George R.R. Martin, knows that many fans think his popular book series is “gratuitous,” but he has a great one-word response for those people.

What Did George R.R. Martin Say To Fans Who Think Game Of Thrones Is ‘Gratuitous’?

When the HBO mega-hit, Game of Thrones, wrapped its eight-season run in 2019, it was already pretty clear that fans would basically never be able to fully stop talking about the best moments or all the things we disliked about GOT Season 8, especially in that highly contested series finale. The creators even came out recently and admitted they get asked about Thrones now, five years after it ended, so it’s kinda still top of mind for a lot of people. 

The Official Game of Thrones Cookbook was just released, and in his foreword, George R.R. Martin opened up about why there is so much food in his books and how all of his descriptions for pretty much everything have been labeled “gratuitous” by many, saying:

I can reveal here that I’ve never read any of the writer’s GOT books, so I had no idea that his descriptions of the feasts and other food-related things was something that annoyed readers. The TV series never spent too much time on that, likely because, as he notes later, it “did not advance the plot” and there just wasn’t the space for such things on the show. Though, as he also mentioned, the “gratuitous sex” stepped in easily for getting the “biggest complaint” when it came to the show, with one actor even having to clarify her comments about filming the sex scenes being a “frenzied mess.”

So, what does Mr. Martin have to say to all who feel his desire to thoroughly describe everything is way too much? Get ready:

LOL. I mean, you gotta love it, right? Listen, the man who has been promising to deliver Winds of Winter for well over a decade is not beholden to your word limits or anything else when it comes to his epic fantasy novels, OK? His foreword continues, and says that he believes fiction should be about “the journey” and “not the destination.” For readers to “live” his stories they have to “taste the food” (And…have the sex, I guess? Murder the people? He may not have fully thought this through…) so they can be completely immersed in the world he created.

If readers are really that uninterested in all of his food talk, I think they would have simply stopped reading his work by now, but they haven’t. So, clearly he’s doing something right.

The Game of Thrones action on the way next is House of the Dragon Season 2, but new details have emerged about a different project to tide fans over until the return in the 2024 TV schedule. One spinoff previously in development as an upcoming Game of Thrones show was called 10,000 Ships and would have told the story of Nymeria, whose ways were engrained in Dornish society by the time of Oberyn Martell.

That project isn't currently moving forward, but one writer detailed what it would have been about, and I consulted author George R.R. Martin's source material to see just how faithful it would have been to his lore.

What 10,000 Ships Would Have Been About

Writer Brian Helgeland recently opened up about the plans for the 10,000 Ships series when speaking with Inverse, saying that he thinks the reason that HBO didn't move forward with it is because "they felt the period of my show was too far removed from the pillars of the original," although he noted that "nothing is ever dead." He went on to describe the plan he had for the spinoff:

In true Game of Thrones style, traveling around in search of a new home wouldn't be straightforward or easy, and I'd say that even imagining the visuals of her floating band of refugees is pretty incredible. The writer continued:

The writer went on to share that he'd met with A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin about the premise, saying that Martin "signed off on" it, but wasn't able to work with him closer since the show wasn't picked up.

Helgeland didn't name the ASOIAF encyclopedia that gave him the "little blurb" about Nymeria, but I decided to consult my handy copy of The World of Ice & Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and the Game of Thrones, by George R.R. Martin, to see how accurate the writer's description was to Martin's canonical legend.

What George R.R. Martin Tells Us About Nymeria

Like the fictional history book Fire & Blood that is the source material for House of the Dragon, The World of Ice & Fire is an in-universe history tome, penned by Maester Yandel for King Tommen around the era of the fifth A Song of Ice and Fire book. (Yes, that Tommen.) In it, George R.R Martin tells the story of the people who lived along the river Rhoyne many, many years before the Game of Thrones era, who fought against the Valyrians and were defeated after "three hundred or more" dragons entered the fray.

Princess Nymeria, who hadn't wanted to wage an unwinnable war against the Valyrians in the first place, acted before her own city met the same fate as other Rhoynish settlements. As Yandel, George R.R. Martin writes:

That's certainly sounds like a story fit for a Game of Thrones spinoff! Brian Helgeland didn't exactly get into the "bloated, floating corpses" when describing what he'd read about Nymeria, and I have to wonder if 10,000 Ships would have shown much of the war that sent the Rhoynish princess on her journey across the water. The World of Ice & Fire continues:

The story of Nymeria and her ten thousand ships is a little less glorious when considering that they weren't thousands upon thousands of mighty warships at her command, but that element of the story makes it easy to understand why the writer compared her story to that of Moses from the Old Testament of the Bible. Via The World of Ice and Fire, George R.R. Martin continues:

The scrapped spinoff writer's comments about the characters coming ashore to try and find their "promised land" connect to what is explained in more detail in the book. To get into some lore, Martin says in the history book that Nymeria and her people arrived first at the Basilisk Isles, with disaster befalling them again on Ax Island and the Island of Toads. Then, they tried the continent of Sothoryos, the island of Naath, and the Summer Isles before sailing for Westeros... and eventually arriving in Dorne.

And if it wasn't clear by the fact that Aegon's coronation in House of the Dragon included "King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men," Nymeria and her Rhoynish survivors' arrival in Dorne stuck. She famously burned her 10,000 ships after settling in what would later become one of the Seven Kingdoms, leaving Dorne with a different set of customs from the rest of Westeros.

Would 10,000 Ships Have Worked As A Series?

As somebody who initially doubted that the story of Nymeria really had enough substance to fuel an ongoing series, I'm glad that I revisited what George R.R. Martin wrote in The World of Ice & Fire. While the book may not be about Nymeria and the very early days of Dorne, there's enough in the source material to set up a pretty great premise for a TV show, but not so much that there wouldn't be room for writers to go explore new directions.

Besides, George R.R. Martin's world is about more than Targaryens and the Iron Throne, and it'd be great to see that via the Nymeria lore. Just imagine how much less incest there could be in 10,000 ships as opposed to House of the Dragon and even The Hedge Night, given that the latter is set before the fall of the Targaryen dynasty!

Of course, I'd be even more glad if HBO changed tunes and gave 10,000 ships a chance. Any reader of Fire & Blood can guess that House of the Dragon won't be running for eight seasons a la Game of Thrones, and The Hedge Knight – which just cast the two lead roles – draws from a very different kind of source material. 10,000 Ships could be something fresh, new, and pretty epic.

For now, fans of the world of Westeros can look forward to the arrival of House of the Dragon Season 2 in June, rewatch Game of Thrones streaming via Max subscription, and/or try to hold out hope that George R.R. Martin will finish The Winds of Winter one of these days as the sixth A Song of Ice and Fire novel.

Updates about the upcoming Game of Thrones shows have been so all over the board between the Jon Snow show being scrapped and the casting of Duck and Egg for a different spinoff being announced. Now, we’ve gotten details about another spinoff that was in the works, 10,000 Ships. While the future of the show is murky at best, these new details proved to me that the series really should be greenlighted by HBO, because it sounds epic. 

Opening up about the details of his show 10,000 Ships, screenwriter Brian Helgeland explained the concept for his Game of Thrones show and its current status at HBO to Inverse. While it looks like HBO isn’t moving forward with it, the overview the writer shared made me think that it really should be worked on more because it has major potential: 

When he says “too far removed” he might be referring to the fact that the story of Queen Nymeria takes place 1,000 years before Game of Thrones. However, timelines aside, the show sounds very compelling, even if it's not directly tied to the world of Westeros we know. 

The writer found out about this character and her story through the Westeros encyclopedia. Continuing to speak about this show, Helgeland said:

I love the parallels he’s making to Moses’ tale, I also think it would be enthralling to watch a story of survival like this. To see a woman leading her people so far would be intense, and there’s no doubt in my mind that every episode would involve new and intriguing challenges. Since they’re always on the move, everything would be changing, and the uncertainty that comes with that makes for a show I’d love to watch. 

For context, Nymeria is part of the House Martell, and she eventually ruled over Dorne for decades. If you remember, Oberyn Martell (who was played by Pedro Pascal in the GOT cast) is from Dorne, he played a vital role in Season 4 of Game of Thrones, and he had one of the most gruesome GOT deaths. Also, in the flagship fantasy, the Queen’s name, Nymeria, was the name of Arya’s direwolf. So, she has a few subtle yet meaningful connections to the original series. 

Continuing to break down the details for 10,000 Ships, Brian Helgeland said:

That sounds excellent to me! I’d watch that show even if it wasn’t related to Game of Thrones. However, its Westeros connection certainly makes things more interesting. Adding more reasons for why this show should be greenlighted, the writer explained that the original GOT author was a fan of his idea too, saying:

He’s right, you never know what will happen with a show. So, hopefully, something will happen with this. The scope of the series sounds grand, and Nymeria’s journey seems like one that would fit perfectly into the televised world of Westeros. 

Fingers crossed that we’ll get some positive updates about 10,000 Ships, because, as Helgeland said “nothing is ever dead.” If we learn more about the prequel series, we’ll be sure to keep you posted. In the meantime, you should be getting excited for our upcoming trip to Westeros, because GOT’s greenlighted and going prequel, House of the Dragon Season 2, will premiere on the 2024 TV schedule on June 16. 

Yes, many of us were scarred by that Game of Thrones series finale, and yes, there are a large number of fans who are still waiting for the final book in George R.R. Martin’s fantasy series. Between the constant questions about when it’s coming out, the creation of and lawsuits over AI-generated endings and more, the situation with GOT has scarred many fantasy fans. Now, with the upcoming book-to-screen adaptation of the beloved Fourth Wing on the way, people are wondering if the Empyrean series all about Violet and her journey as a dragon rider will meet the same fate the HBO project did when it comes to making the show while the books are being written. 

Thankfully, Rebecca Yarros, the author of Fourth Wing, has weighed in on this topic, and she assured fans that her series wouldn’t meet a similar fate. The series for Fourth Wing has been in development with Amazon and Michael B. Jordan’s Outlier Society since October 2023. Speaking with Variety about her books and the TV series, Yarros was asked if there’s a plan to “avoid an A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones situation,” meaning: Will all her novels be published before the show is finished? She quickly made sure to “promise” fans this wouldn’t happen, explaining:

In 2023, Yarros told Today that her series is completely plotted out, and there’s a plan to publish five books. The first two, Fourth Wing and Iron Flame came out in April and October of 2023, respectively. The third book in the series, Onyx Storm, was announced on GMA, and it is set to come out on January 21, 2025. 

Game of Thrones had to diverge from the books’ path, because the show caught up with the novels, and by Seasons 7 and 8 they had passed the source material. To this day, this is a hot topic in the GOT community, and fans still can’t get over the show’s ending. 

While she made a point to say that Fourth Wing fans won’t have to worry about the show getting to a point where it doesn't have a book to base a season on, Rebecca Yarros also said she’s slowing down a bit. After releasing the first two books in 2023, fans will have to wait nine more months for book three, meaning it will be released over a year after Iron Flame. However, it’s for the best, as Yarros said: 

Along with completing her book series while the show is being made, Yarros is serving as an executive producer on the Amazon project. While she couldn’t give many updates, she did say there’s a writer’s room working. Even though the show more than likely won’t premiere on the 2024 TV schedule, it seems very possible that Season 1 will come out before the book series is completely published, because pre-production is in full swing.

Personally, I trust Yarros, and I believe that her books will all be done before the final season of Fourth Wing comes out. It sounds like a solid plan is in place for her series, and I’m so excited to find out what happens to Violet, Xaden and co. both on screen and on the page. 

Here’s hoping that like Game of Thrones (with the exception of the end), Fourth Wing becomes a beloved fantasy television series. I know I have faith in the plan that’s in place, and while we wait for the release of Rebecca Yarros’ third book in the Empyrean series and more news about Season 1 of its adaptation, I’ll be reading and re-reading the books and re-watching GOT with a Max subscription. 

The legacy of Stephen King is about to hit a major milestone. On April 5 of this year, Constant Readers around the world will be celebrating, as that will mark the 50th anniversary of Carrie – the first novel that King got published and the work that launched his phenomenal career. That date is still a little over a week away, but this week’s edition of The King Beat is jumping the gun a little bit with three stories and a new Recommendation Of The Week linked to the special half-century anniversary.

Between testimonials from incredible talents about King’s work, an essay about Carrie by best-selling author Margaret Atwood, and news of an event recognizing the history of The Shining later this year, there’s plenty to discuss, so let’s dig in!

With Carrie About To Turn 50, Tom Hanks, George R.R. Martin And Sissy Spacek Speak To Stephen King’s Legacy

The works of Stephen King mean a lot to a lot of people – and that includes other creatives. As I’ve come to understand from my own interviews over the years, filmmakers, actors, photographers, authors, musicians and more have recognized the remarkable impact that King has had on both their work and pop culture at large. There are a great many people who have nothing but great things to say about the legendary writer – and in celebration of Carrie’s 50th anniversary, The New York Times has collected a number of wonderful testimonials.

The article includes paragraphs from by a wide collection of individuals with an appreciation for Stephen King – including people who have very close affiliations with his work. For example, there is an entry from Tom Hanks, who doesn’t actually mention his time making Frank Darabont's The Green Mile and instead focuses on how he came to read his first King novel back in the 1970s: The Stand. Hanks writes,

George R.R. Martin, creator of Game Of Thrones and writer of the forthcoming The Winds of Winter, marvels at Stephen King’s productivity, and notes that he can only say he’s “pretty sure” that he’s read all of the author’s books because some of the great number may have slipped by him. That being said, he writes,

There is even a quick entry from Sissy Spacek, who earned her first Oscar nomination for playing Carrie White in Brian De Palma’s beloved adaptation of Stephen King’s debut novel:

The whole article, which also includes testimonials from Diablo Cody, Senator Angus King, Josh Malerman, Mick Garris and Jeff VanderMeer, is terrific and worth a read.

Margaret Atwood Has Published A Magnificent Reflection On Carrie

In celebration of Carrie’s semicentennial, this week saw the publication of a new hardcover of the classic book, and one of the exciting additions included with the edition is an introduction from The Handsmaid’s Tale author Margaret Atwood. The book is available for purchase now, but Atwood’s essay has also been adapted for the New York Times book review section as an article titled “Stephen King’s First Book Is 50 Years Old, and Still Horrifyingly Relevant.”

In the piece, she discusses the well-known history of the book – which was thrown in the trash by Stephen King before it was rescued by his wife Tabitha – but it also provides a fascinating dissection of the work on both micro and macro levels. Atwood points to the fact that Carrie is part of a historical trend where stories about “Female figures with quasi-supernatural powers” coincide with key points in the history of women’s rights, but she also examines the different voices that are represented in the epistolary novel and analyzes the character’s names (including “Chris” Hargensen being an “anti-savoir” and Carrie’s last name being better associated with “white trash” than innocence).

It provides fascinating insight into Carrie as the work celebrates its fifth decade of existence, and should be read by anyone who celebrates the work.

Getting In On The Stephen King Anniversary Celebrations, The Stanley Hotel Has Announced Plans For An Event This Fall Centered Around The History Of The Shining

Naturally, the 50th anniversary of Carrie is the first of many half-century celebrations in the years to come for Stephen King fans… but it won’t just be the publication dates of his books that inspire festivities. For example, fans won’t be getting the opportunity to reflect on 50 years of The Shining until January 2027, but there will be revelries later this year inspired by the fortuitous hotel reservation that inspired the creation of that book.

It was 50 years ago this coming October that Stephen King and his wife Tabitha made arrangements to stay at The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado – the couple staying in the infamous Room 217 as the establishment emptied out for the winter season. The experience of staying at and exploring the place was what gave him the idea to write The Shining. That’s a pretty big deal considering that the book is one of the most beloved tomes published in the 20th century, and it’s thusly appropriate that there is going to be an event this fall to celebrate that special history.

The Estes Park Trail Gazette reported this week that The Stanley is going to host a happening later this year dedicated to Stephen King and The Shining. Specific details about the revels are not included in the article (it simply notes that a “lineup of events will be announced this summer”), but Constant Readers may want to mark their calendars for September 30.

Having had the opportunity to stay at The Stanley a few years ago in the run-up to the theatrical release of Mike Flanagan’s Doctor Sleep, I can say from personal experience that the hotel is a magnificent place that wonderfully embraces its place in Stephen King’s legacy (as I wrote about a few weeks ago in The King Beat, it will soon add to its brand as a destination for horror fans by opening a genre-centric space in coordination with Blumhouse). When more details are announced about the forthcoming anniversary, you can be sure that you’ll be able to find them in an edition of this column.

Recommendation Of The Week: "I Was A Teenage Graverobber" a.k.a. "In A Half World Of Terror"

Given that this week’s King Beat has a specific focus on the very start of Stephen King’s career, it makes sense to keep that theme going with my Recommendation Of The Week. Carrie may have been the first novel that King had published, but it was far from the first time that he had successfully sold some of his writing. Nine years before Carrie arrived on bookstores, the young author’s first professionally printed work was the short story “I Was A Teenage Grave Robber,” which was later rewritten and retitled “In A Half-World Of Terror.” This quick taste of horror has never been republished in any of King’s many collections, but it’s easy enough to hunt down if you search for it online.

“I Was A Teenage Grave Robber” is a tale that centers on a destitute protagonist named Danny – an 18-year-old orphan who is forced to drop out of college after he is conned out of the last remaining money from his inheritance. He is desperate to reenlist, and an opportunity comes to him when he is approached by a stranger in a bar and offered the chance to work for a man named Steffen Weinbaum. As it turns out, Weinbaum is a mad scientist who conducts experiments using radiation on dead bodies, and what he needs Danny for is to procure him his test subjects. Needless to say, it’s not pleasant work… but the real trouble are the horrors that his employer is hoping to unleash upon the world.

That does it for this final edition of The King Beat in March 2024, but I’ll be back next Thursday with a new column. Be sure to head back to CinemaBlend then, and in the meantime, you can explore my series Adapting Stephen King, which dives into the full history of King stories adapted in film and television.

The wait for the second season of House of the Dragon started all the way back in October 2022, but HBO gave fans something to look forward to with the news that it would arrive in the 2024 TV schedule with a summer release date. Now, an exec has narrowed down that time frame considerably, and fans can rest easy knowing that House of the Dragon Season 2 will arrive in June. The news makes me think back on George R.R. Martin's Fire & Blood source material, and why I have mixed feelings about revisiting it ahead of new episodes.

When To Expect House Of The Dragon Season 2

During an interview at Morgan Stanley's Technology, Media, and Telecom conference (via Variety), Warner Bros. Discovery streaming and gaming chief J.B. Perrette dropped some news that's particularly encouraging in light of House of the Dragon's second season reshoots. According to the exec, the premiere will release on HBO in June, although no precise date has been confirmed at the time of writing. Assuming that the show will return to the Sunday night time slot, however, we can say that the first episode of the Game of Thrones spinoff's Season 2 will air on June 7, June 14, June 21, or June 28.

So, civil war is coming to what remains of the Targaryen family tree after the bloody end to Season 1 in just a few months. That leaves some time to check out shows like Game of Thrones...or to check out George R.R. Martin's Fire & Blood, whether for the first time or a reread to refresh before the dragons in House of the Dragon begin to wreak havoc in June.

My Mixed Feelings On Fire & Blood

Now, I had actually read Fire & Blood after it released back in 2018, and I revisited George R.R. Martin's fictional Targaryen history book prior to the premiere of House of the Dragon's first season. In fact, I had fun comparing the show to the book and even recommended reading Fire & Blood shortly after the Season 1 finale. I appreciated how the show was able to answer some questions from the book's conflicting accounts, like what happened between Rhaenyra and Daemon that tarnished her reputation and resulted in his second exile.

But to this day, I'm also annoyed about how House of the Dragon made changes from the book to make the Greens look better compared to the Blacks, a.k.a. the Hightower-Targaryens vs. Rhaenyra and Daemon's side. For example, I can can go on at length – and have gone on at length – about how HOTD did Daemon dirty by having him kill his first wife when there was no question that he was innocent of that in the book. Having expectations can make for a frustrating experience in watching a TV show, which isn't really fair to the show.

If I don't revisit Fire & Blood before the Season 2 premiere in June, then perhaps I won't raise my expectations or hopes too high. There are some spoilerific moments – including one that I suspect will make some non-readers switch sides from the Blacks to the Greens – that are impossible to forget after reading George R.R. Martin's source material, but do I really need to revisit the battles and squabbles of the Targaryen civil war prior to seeing them adapted?

Honestly, I probably will revisit the book, not least because the Dance of the Dragons portion of the Targaryen dynasty only makes up part of Fire & Blood, which covers about 150 years of the family's time ruling Westeros. It's an interesting read... albeit one so full of Targaryens named "Aegon" that a family tree comes in handy. So, I will most likely revisit Fire & Blood in the coming months, but I also might not recommend it to anybody who hasn't already read it.

For now, fans who don't choose to check out Fire & Blood can always revisit the first season of House of the Dragon streaming with a Max subscription. All eight seasons of Game of Thrones are available on the streamer as well.

As the wait continues for House of the Dragon Season 2 later this year in the 2024 TV schedule, HBO has some big news for the world of Westeros on the small screen. A second Game of Thrones spinoff is set to debut on HBO in the foreseeable future now that a premiere date has been announced, and there's plenty of time to catch up on George R.R. Martin's novella source material ahead of the A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms' arrival... but I'm not sure I want to do that this time around after Game of Thrones.

This spinoff is set a century before Game of Thrones begins with the Targaryens still in power, but well after the timeline of House of the Dragon. It'll tell the stories of Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire Egg, a.k.a. future King Aegon. Now, let's look at the latest about the show!

A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms

Of all the upcoming Game of Thrones projects in development, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is set to arrive in late 2025, according to Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav during the company's Q4 earnings call. The project was already ordered to series, but the premiere window as well as Zaslav's confirmation that preproduction has started is encouraging for the prospect of the company debuting a season of Game of Thrones spinoff action each year. Zaslav said:

It remains to be seen if the specific mention of Max means that it will only stream for people with Max subscriptions and not air on HBO at all. Considering the wait of almost two full years between the last two seasons of GOT and the first two seasons of House of the Dragon (depending on how late in the summer it premieres), I'm on board with the idea of more content in the form of a second spinoff to make up for any prolonged hiatus. Fortunately, HOTD Season 2 wasn't affected by the WGA writers strike for some key reasons, which is not the case for many other series.

And as somebody who read A Song of Ice and Fire after the first season of Game of Thrones hooked me on the world of Westeros, as well as somebody who really enjoyed comparing the story of House of the Dragon to the Fire & Blood fictional history book, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms getting some very good news would normally motivate me to want to check out the source material. That's not the case this time around, though.

George R.R. Martin's Source Material

George R.R. Martin has published three novellas as part of his A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms work, all centered on Dunk and Egg, with the first season of the spinoff based on the first of the novellas, called The Hedge Knight. The pilot was penned by House of the Dragon writer Ira Parker.

On his Not A Blog website back in 2023, Martin said that the "hope would be" to adapt The Sworn Sword and The Mystery Knight, presumably one per season, which would "take a few years." At the time, he wrote:

And therein lies the reason why I'm not falling over myself to grab a copy of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: George R.R. Martin has a lot on his plate and Game of Thrones famously outpaced the A Song of Ice and Fire source material due to the long delays in the release of The Winds of Winter. The previous book in the A Song of Ice and Fire saga, A Dance with Dragons, was released in 2011.

Looking at the dates for the releases of the three Dunk and Egg novellas, it seems all too possible that it could happen again. The Hedge Knight released in 1998, followed by The Sworn Sword in 2003, then followed by The Mystery Knight in 2010. With The Winds of Winter still on the way along with the second volume of Fire & Blood, I find it difficult to be optimistic about A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms not running out of novellas to adapt.

None of this is to say that I won't watch or enjoy the show when it releases in 2025, and you don't need to have read Fire & Blood to follow House of the Dragon, so the same is likely true for Dunk and Egg's adventures. Still, I was previously always up on the source material for the Game of Thrones world, and that won't be the case for Dunk and Egg unless something changes over the next year or so.

For now, you can always revisit every season of Game of Thrones and the first season of House of the Dragon streaming on Max now, and wait for updates on what's coming to HBO and Max from the world of Westeros in the coming years.

Game of Thrones was one of the best TV shows out there. It was a hit with fans and at the Emmys, winning more than any other drama series. That’s why it was a real when shame the series finale ended up being so polarizing series fans and even the franchise’s author George R.R. Martin wouldn’t pick it as the best finale in TV history. Now, Martin is opening up about how “toxicity is growing” among TV and movie fandoms, and I’m flashing back to that rather disappointing season eight finale.

On social media, it’s apparently more fun for some to send hate toward a movie or TV show online instead of creating glowing posts about it. Game of Thrones’ George R.R. Martin mentioned in his blog post that when he’s felt bogged down by the world’s problems, he tends to find more solace in books than movies or television as fan culture is toxic and “growing.” The author explained why he thinks this, writing:

George R.R. Martin’s reflections on social media make me think about when fans were enraged by the Game of Thrones series finale. An angry fan petition reached one million signatures for HBO to re-do the final season. Of course, realistically, that wasn’t going to happen as a whole season of an epic fantasy series takes a lot of time and work. People also went as far as to google how to “cancel HBO” which led to a drop in subscribers. Just like in the wars in Westeros, the power of the internet really could rally a whole army to hate something.

If you need a refresher about what happened in the final episode of Game of Thrones, brace yourselves. The one who ultimately rules The Seven Kingdoms is Bran Stark after Jon Snow killed Daenerys for her destructive nature. Sansa was named Queen in the North, Arya went on a voyage towards the unknown parts of Westeros, and Jon Snow was sent back to where he started on the Night's Watch. Tyrion became hand to Bran the Broken.

As a Game of Thrones fan myself, the most disappointing parts of the finale came from Bran ultimately being the ruler of The Seven Kingdoms. I was sure (and hoping) that Jon Snow would have sat on the throne. It would have been a great character transition to see him go from being ridiculed as Ned Stark’s “bastard” to rising on top and being the ruler the people of Westeros needed. 

I, along with many fans, was disappointed by the ending, and as I mentioned, things got aggressive online. So, the author of the GOT series' comments about toxic fandom makes sense, because he's witnessed it firsthand. 

As George R.R. Martin said, it’s sad that we live in a world where people love to take their hatred for a show or movie out online. It’s understandable not wanting to get involved in that type of toxicity. With the possibility of Kit Harington coming back as Jon Snow for an HBO spinoff series, hopefully, this show will get more love than its predecessor. To relive classic episodes of Game of Thrones, they’re available to watch on your Max subscription.

With the hype train fully restarted for House of the Dragon Season 2 thanks to the first footage and some early praise from George R.R. Martin, Game of Thrones fans are able to earnestly look forward to returning to the fantastical universe. Beyond HOTD, multiple other spinoffs are in varying stages of development through HBO, though without a whole lot of updates to hinge expectations on. 

But with his final blog post of 2023, Martin actually did provide the latest on the previously revealed animated projects. Amusingly enough, the reveal just so happened to be buried in heaping praise for one of Netflix’s most recent animated shows, the highly acclaimed Blue Eye Samurai. (A bit more on that lower.) With the topic of animation at hand, Martin then shared this about the current state of upcoming Game of Thrones projects outside of live-action:

The author did go on to say that even those shelved projects may come to life in other ways, “perhaps as graphic novels,” so diehard fans may well indeed enjoy those stories in the future. Of course, even that kind of unofficial update should be taken with a grain of salt, since Martin has a way of talking about written projects that end up permanently affixed to the horizon. (See: the still unfinished Winds of Winter novel, which fans have started to give up on.)

He continued, shining light on one project’s transition from live-action to animation:

With both Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon known to be among the most expensive TV shows ever produced, I can certainly understand the instinct to take the more cost-effective route whenever possible for whatever projects make it past the script development process. 

Sure, a large-scale concept like Nine Voyages would probably be better in live-action, but if the choice is between an animated series or nothing at all, beggars can't be choosers. Assuming anything beyond House of the Dragon comes to fruition. 

In early November, HBO boss Casey Bloys shared his own update, saying that nothing from the world of Game of Thrones was “close to a green light” at the time. But even that could have been a way to detract from too many follow-up questions about anything that was nearing an official thumbs up.

It sounds like George R.R. Martin might push for one or more of the three in-development shows to land the same animation studio as Netflix's Blue Eye Samurai, as he and wife and Parris McBride are apparently huge fans of the action series, which boasts Maya Erskine, Masi Oka, George Takei amidst a larger ensemble of A+ voice talent. He goes so far as to recommend it to fans of his own work, even though the similarities are more thematic than anything else.

For audiences who can't wait for Season 2, House of the Dragon's first ten episodes can be streamed with a Max subscription, along with the entire run of Game of Thrones, while a Netflix subscription is needed to catch Blue Eye Samurai's first season.

House of the Dragon Season 2 is officially confirmed to arrive on HBO in 2024, but that still means a long wait to see what's next for Rhaenyra and Daemon Targaryen on the verge of civil war in the Seven Kingdoms. While fans are beginning to give up on George R.R. Martin finishing the A Song of Ice and Fire saga, the fantasy author has published plenty of reference material about the Targaryens in the years since the last ASOIAF novel. Luckily for House of the Dragon fans, his most recent book about Targaryen history, called The Rise of the Dragon, is available now for a great Black Friday deal to help fill the wait before Season 2.

Unlike earlier books from George R.R. Martin and his collaborators that revealed the history of Westeros and the Targaryens, The Rise of the Dragon: An Illustrated History of the Targaryen Dynasty includes 180 illustrations that are brand new to the book, which runs for 352 pages. The price on Amazon is usually $60 for the hardback edition, but you can find it now at just $24.11 for 60% off. 

Any viewer of House of the Dragon can attest to the fact that the Targaryen family was already incredibly complicated just one season in, not least because there were two characters named Aegon and two characters named Viserys. The book elaborates on the stories of the Targaryen family tree going back to the earliest members arriving in Westeros. Much of The Rise of the Dragon is devoted to George R.R. Martin's text and the illustrations, but there is also a very handy Targaryen lineage spread to help differentiate between each Rhaenys, Rhaenyra, and Rhaena, not to mention every Aegon, Aemon, Aemond, and Daemon.

Along with co-writers Elio M. Garcia Jr. and Linda Antonsson, George R.R. Martin's The Rise of the Dragon isn't just a reprinting of Fire & Blood – which I've already recommended reading ahead of House of the Dragon Season 2 – with pictures. There are differences in how the story is told, and the illustrations are absolutely gorgeous. You can see the book's visual take on scenes that were already filmed as part of the show, as well as scenes that haven't yet made it into the HBO series. With no set date for Season 2 in 2024, why not venture into Westeros in a new way? 

While this is a book, I'd say that it qualifies among the best Black Fridays deals for movie and TV fans available now. Whether you read it cover to cover or just want to check out the illustrations, it's worth the Black Friday deal price of less than $25. As 2023 winds down, you can also revisit House of the Dragon Season 1 (and all eight seasons of Game of Thrones) streaming with a Max subscription now.