George R.R. Martin would've preferred to start House of the Dragon 'much earlier'
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Now that House of the Dragon season 1 is complete, it's time to reflect on the creative choices that were made. The HBO fantasy series was quite bold with the way it used time jumps and casting changes to tell its story over the course of years. But were these the right choices? That's what Westeros creator George R.R. Martin, whose novel Fire & Blood is the basis for House of the Dragon, discusses in a new interview with fellow fantasy writer David Anthony Durham.
House of the Dragon begins with the Great Council convened by King Jaehaerys Targaryen (Michael Carter) to decide whether his heir should be Princess Rhaenys (Eve Best), the daughter of his eldest son, or Prince Viserys (Paddy Considine), the son of his second son. They choose Viserys, but the Great Council occurs about halfway through Fire & Blood. That means there were plenty of other options for where to begin House of the Dragon, and Martin now says this led to "spirited discussions" among the writers.
"One of the writers wanted to begin it later, with Aemma dying. Skip the Great Council, skip the tournament, a scream sounds out, Aemma is dead, that's where you begin. That was one possibility," Martin says. "Another of the writers wanted to begin even later than that, with Viserys dying. But what happens there? Then you have to present all that material in flashbacks or dialogue, that becomes challenging too. But we discussed all these possibilities."
Martin's preferred starting point — which he says "no one liked except for me" — would've been "much earlier" in the Targaryen history.
"I would've begun it like 40 years earlier, with an episode I would've called 'The Heir and the Spare,'" Martin says. "Jaehaerys' two sons, Aemon and Baelon, are alive, and we see the friendship but also the rivalry between the two sides of the great house. Then Aemon dies accidentally when a Myrish crossbowman shoots him by accident on Tarth, then Jaehaerys has to decide who becomes the new heir. Is it the daughter of the son who's just died, or the second son who has children of his own and is a man where she's a teenager? You could've presented all that stuff, but then you would've had 40 more years, and even more time jumps and recastings. I was the only one who was really enthused about that."
Ultimately, Martin says, there's no wrong answer. He doesn't seem particularly bitter about missing the history of Aemon and Baelon on the show.
"There are many ways you can approach these things," he says, "and if you do it well, it can work."
Watch Martin's interview above.
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