How 'House of the Dragon' Differs from George R. R. Martin's 'Fire & Blood'
As you can imagine, the Game of Thrones showrunners had to make quite a few hard decisions while adapting George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series into eight seasons of television. Popular characters lived far beyond their original deaths, multiple siblings often combined into one, and a series of novels with no end in sight saw a definitive, controversial conclusion.
The team behind HBO's House of the Dragon, the Game of Thrones prequel series has an entirely new set of challenges. While House of the Dragon's team does have the added bonus of working from a completed story in Martin's Fire & Blood novel, it is not a story without its own difficulties. Written as a historical text from various fictional characters recounting the tale, Fire & Blood contains zero dialogue. The story, centering on a civil war in the Targaryen family that ended the Age of the Dragons," is instead told by sources like Archmaester Gyldayn and a court jester named Mushroom.
Presented with scores of rumors, inconsistencies, and differing opinions as to how the events unfolded, House of the Dragon's showrunners will be forced to choose definitive answers and confirm certain viewpoints. (Even those held by fools named Mushroom.) "We're taking more of the approach [of] playing with the history as it was written," co-showrunner Ryan Condel told IGN about their process. "Essentially, saying that this is the objective truth that happened. Some things will line up. Other things will be told very differently. But the idea is that, in the end, the events are the same. It's just the 'why' and 'how' they happened that changes as you see the actual history."
Now that Season One of House of the Dragon is behind us, let's discuss the differences between the show and its source material (so far).
Rhaenrya and Alicent Are Childhood Friends Now?
Season One has added missing emotional weight to the war's history. For example? Princess Rhaenrya Targaryen and Queen Alicent Hightower were not childhood friends in the original text. Since they'll end up on opposite sides of the war, causing destruction and murder to each other's families, it made perfect sense to give more weight to their strained relationship. They were also a lot younger in the story than they appear on TV. Thankfully, given how many children Rhaenyra and Alicent each have, the characters are now both in their 30s.
House Velaryon Was Condensed For, You Know, Clarity
Much like the Greyjoys from Game of Thrones, House Velaryon combined multiple family members into one to make things easier to understand. Instead of having multiple Greyjoy siblings sail the world to accomplish various tasks, Theon just had his sister Yara and their evil older brother Euron. House of the Dragon did something similar here, joining nearly a half dozen of Corlys Velaryon's cousins into one, dissenting young brother: Ser Vaemond Velaryon. Vaemond and his family are involved in some rumor-spreading throughout Westeros, making it easier to pin all of the gossip and treachery on one conniving character.
About Queen Aemma's Death...
See all the buzz on the Internet following HOTD's series premiere? Though Queen Aemma's horrifying death is only mentioned in one sentence of Fire & Blood, Episode One's brutal birth scene acts as a major catalyst for the war to come. The bloody, failed pregnancy also does not occur at the same time as the jousting tournament in Martin's work, but the showrunners wanted to pair the violence of the medieval competition with the dangers of giving birth in this horrid age.
Ser Criston Cole Isn't As Much of a Spontaneous Murderer
In two shocking scenes throughout House of the Dragon, Ser Criston Cole kills unsuspectingly. He beats Leanor's paramour, Ser Joffery Lonmouth, to death at Rhaenyra and Laenor's wedding. Later, he slams Lord Beesbury's head into a table, causing the old man to die. In Fire & Blood, Ser Criston defeats and kills Lonmouth in a jousting tournament, which would have been a more common occurrence. Some accounts in the books claim Ser Criston murders Lord Beesbury by slicing his throat or throwing him out of a window, but Grand Maester Orwyle, who was present at the Green Council, writes that Beesbury was escorted to the dungeons and died in his cold cell while awaiting trial.
Laena Velaryon Doesn't Beg Vhagar to Burn Her Alive
As her laboring looks increasingly doomed in Episode Six, Laena Velaryon goes out onto the castle walls and begs for her dragon, Vhagar, to burn her alive instead of dying on the birthing bed. Though still shocking, the book has Laena attempt to ride Vhagar one more time before her death. As the dragon takes flight, she collapses and perishes. House of the Dragon amended her death to make it more of her decision to end her life, but the book's account gives greater backstory to her bond with Vhagar.
The Ghost of Harrenhal
While the show clearly depicts that Larys Strong was responsible for the death of his father and brother, the fire at Harrenhal in the books goes largely unsolved. No one knows that it was Larys in House of the Dragon besides Alicent, however, leaving the mystery of their deaths intact for the rest of the realm. Many people end up blaming the fire on "The Ghost of Harrenhal," a curse that has killed every lord of the castle in its lifetime.
Laenor Lives?
In one of the largest changes to the source material, Laenor Velaryon is allowed to live instead of becoming just another casualty in the Dance of the Dragons. Rowing off in a boat with his knight at the end of Episode Seven, Ser Qarl, Laenor not only gets to live but could even return for more drama! In Fire & Blood, the Velaryon son is quite unmistakably murdered by Qarl at a fair, with Qarl escaping, never to be seen or heard from again.
Rhaenys Never Makes *That* Choice
After Aegon II Targaryen is crowned king in Episode Nine, Rhaenys bursts in with her dragon, Meleys, and issues a warning to Alicent and the new king. Instead of burning them alive and ending the war before it even begins, she simply flies off to Rhaenyra, claiming that this isn't "her war." In the end, as audiences see in the finale, she convinces her husband to side with Rhaenyra, essentially choosing a side in a war that she wanted no part of. In the book, Rhaenys is never presented with this opportunity. She's already on Dragonstone with Rhaenyra, nowhere near the crowning in King's Landing. Was it better to give her this moment in the show? Time will tell.
A Sprinkle of Game of Thrones References, For Good Measure
At the very beginning of House of the Dragon, fans were treated to a title screen that read, "173 years before Daenerys Targaryen." Though it gave crucial setting and timeline information to viewers, Daenerys has little to do with her late ancestors by the time Game of Thrones rolls around—save for bringing dragons back to Westeros.
There is also no mention of a dream King Aegon had of White Walkers, or an army of the dead in Fire & Blood, despite the fact that Viserys says on two separate occasions during Season One that the former king had a vision of the future. He also states that the dream came to be called A Song of Ice and Fire, which is insanely odd. Who names their dreams? Also, didn't that title technically not come up until Samwell Tarly writes the book that recaps the events of Game of Thrones in the final episode? What's happening here?
There were surely some groans from viewers at this Marvel Cinematic Universe-esque Easter egg. House of the Dragon's attempt to heal the damage of the final two seasons of the original series by tying its importance all the way back to King Aegon wasn't lost on anyone at home. As we all now know, Winter eventually coming wasn't all that scary. The coming of Game of Thrones Season Eight, though? Much, much worse. Hopefully, as House of the Dragon continues, HBO can learn from where it all went wrong in Game of Thrones. Stick to the source material, people.
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