George R. R. Martin Revealed A Big House Of The Dragon Season 2 Problem (And A Spoiler)

This article contains a discussion of suicide.

Remember when George R.R. Martin said he was going to spill the tea over season 2 of “House of the Dragon?” He just did — and not only did he make it quite clear that he’s got several bones to pick with showrunner Ryan Condal’s plans, he tossed out a major spoiler for the forthcoming third season.

In a since-deleted post titled “Beware the Butterflies” on his blog — which he’s dubbed Not a Blog — Martin circled back to the season 2 premiere, “A Son for a Son,” and explained precisely why the major changes made to the “Blood and Cheese” storyline will ultimately have cause a butterfly effect later down the line (in his opinion). After saying that some fans loved the sequence and others were bothered by the changes, Martin declared he agreed with both camps before really getting into it.

As Martin points out, Queen Helaena Targaryen, played by Phia Saban on the show, has three children in his source material “Fire & Blood,” whereas on “House of the Dragon,” she has two, Jaehaerys and Jaehaera. Jaehaerys is the one killed by assassins “Blood” (Sam C. Wilson) and “Cheese” (Mark Stobbart) in both the book and its adaptation, but in “Fire & Blood,” it’s a little different, which Martin describes in his post. 

“As Helaena has two sons, however, they demand that she choose which one should die,” he writes. “She resists and offers her own life instead, but the killers insist it has to be a son. If she does not name one, they will kill all three of the children. To save the life of the twins, Helaena names Maelor. But Blood kills the older boy, Jaehaerys, instead, while Cheese tells little Maelor that his mother wanted him dead.”

The fact that Maelor wasn’t initially included in the season 2 premiere of “House of the Dragon” didn’t worry George R.R. Martin at first, according to the author of “A Song of Ice and Fire” (which, of course, inspired “Game of Thrones”). Still, Martin says he pushed back after being told that it was simply easier not to cast a second extremely young actor. “When Ryan Condal first told me what he meant to do, ages ago (back in 2022, might be) I argued against it, for all these reasons,” Martin says. “I did not argue long, or with much heat, however. The change weakened the sequence, I felt, but only a bit.”

Based on what Martin says next, though, it seems like Condal, the main showrunner for season 2, made some promises about Maelor that he ultimately didn’t keep. Despite the fact that Martin says Condal told him Maelor would eventually show up in season 3, that ended up creating the “butterfly effect” he’s now worried about. “Sometime between the initial decision to remove Maelor, a big change was made,” Martin continues. “The prince’s birth was no longer just going to be pushed back to season 3. He was never going to be born at all. The younger son of Aegon [Tom Glynn-Carney] and Helaena would never appear.”

So, what happens now? Can the story continue without Maelor? Martin has some serious misgivings … and manages to make a dig at Condal while expressing it: “I have no idea what Ryan has planned — if indeed he has planned anything — but given Maelor’s absence from episode 2, the simplest way to proceed would be just to drop him entirely.” That sounds fine at first; characters are left on the cutting room floor during the adaptation process all the time. So why is Martin so peeved?

In the midst of criticizing the second season of “House of the Dragon” over a character he dubs “Maelor the Missing,” George R.R. Martin does something really shocking — he outright tells his readers what Ryan Condal has planned for season 3. As Martin reminds fans of “Fire & Blood,” the Team Green army tries to safely transport Maelor to safety as Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) prepares to sack King’s Landing, but Ser Rickard Thorne is waylaid in an area known as Bitterbridge. In the resulting chaos, something horrific happens. “Prince Maelor is torn from his arms … and then, sadly, ripped to pieces by the mob fighting over the boy and the huge reward that Rhaenyra has offered for his capture and return,” the author clarifies in his post.

It’s then that Martin just … goes ahead and spoils season 3 of the HBO series! “In Ryan’s outline for season 3, Helaena still kills herself … for no particular reason. There is no fresh horror, no triggering event to overwhelm the fragile young queen,” Martin writes, recalling the storyline in the book where Helaena, overwhelmed with grief over losing the son she once offered to assassins, dies by suicide. This is a pretty bold move, and as of this writing, Condal hasn’t said anything about the fact that Martin just put his planned storyline out into the world. The author, however, continued explaining why he thinks Helaena’s death won’t be as impactful without Maelor in the mix.

George R.R. Martin concludes his argument thusly: Helaena’s eventual lack of motivation (according to him) surrounding her death by suicide won’t give the same gravitas to her passing and won’t give the people of King’s Landing a reason to rage against Rhaenyra’s Team Black. In “Fire & Blood,” the citizens of the Westerosi capital find themselves deep in mourning for their young queen … and angry at Rhaenyra, particularly as rumors spread that the Black Queen had her own step-sister killed while controlling King’s Landing. This obviously affects Rhaenyra’s hold on the city, which just intensifies the Targaryen civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons.

“Losing Maelor weakened the end of the Blood and Cheese sequence, but it also cost us the Bitterbridge scene with all its horror and heroism, it undercut the motivation for Helaena’s suicide, and that in turn sent thousands into the streets and alleys, screaming for justice for their ‘murdered’ queen,” Martin declares in his post. “None of that is essential, I suppose … but all of it does serve a purpose, it all helps to tie the story lines together, so one thing follows another in a logical and convincing manner.” With all of that in mind, is Martin right? Is the whole Helaena plotline basically ruined from this point on?

It’s perfectly understandable that George R.R. Martin, without whom we wouldn’t even have the fictional world of Westeros, is protective of his work — and isn’t happy with larger structural changes that he feels will irreparably alter the trajectory of “House of the Dragon.” I’ll say it, though: this does feel like a bit of an overreaction at the end of the day. It’s possible Martin’s had second thoughts, too, given how quickly he deleted his post after publishing it.

“Fire & Blood” is told in the style of a history book or encyclopedia; it doesn’t delve too deeply into the interiority of its characters, which means “House of the Dragon” has a lot of creative license when it comes to its performances. Phia Saban, who plays Helaena, has done an exemplary job playing the troubled young queen ever since she debuted partway through season 1 (courtesy of a time jump), and in the aftermath of Jaehaerys’ death, the audience doesn’t exactly think Helaena is doing just fine. In fact, it’s quite apparent that the queen — whose husband-brother Aegon II is also grievously injured during the course of season 2 — is constantly struggling with the loss of her child.

Martin’s other concern, though he only mentions it briefly, is that Jaehaera is supposed to marry Rhaenyra’s son Aegon III later in the narrative, so she can’t replace Maelor as Helaena’s second great loss. This is, frankly, just not a big deal. The series is only going to span four seasons, so it’s not like we’re going to see Jaehaera all grown up at any point, and it centers on the Dance of the Dragons specifically, not the sprawling aftermath. There are already, like, 400 characters on “House of the Dragon” and 90% of them are named Aegon. It’s fine to leave a minor character like Maelor, a literal toddler, out of the story entirely.

“House of the Dragon” seasons 1 and 2 are currently streaming on Max.

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