As House of the Dragon gears as much as take us again to Westeros, we’re lastly getting some readability as to what went awry in the previous few seasons of Game of Thrones. In a New York Times article, A Song of Ice and Fire creator George R.R. Martin shed some gentle on the ordeal, revealing that whereas he was extra lively on earlier seasons—penning and studying episodes, serving to with casting, and being current on set—that wasn’t the case with later seasons of the hit HBO collection from showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff.

Citing that he merely bought busy and shifted gears to give attention to the long-delayed The Winds of Winter, Martin shared that “by season five and six, and certainly seven and eight, I was pretty much out of the loop,” which might have had some position to play in what led to the divisive finale.

Why precisely was he disregarded? Even Martin is uncertain. “I don’t know—you have to ask Dan and David,” he stated (Weiss and Benioff declined to remark to the Times). Martin additionally supplied a reminder that Winds of Winter—whereas “very, very late”—won’t resemble what we noticed on the present: “My ending will be very different.”

So what’s modified this time round with House of the Dragon? “He was very passionate about this particular story,” shared Miguel Sapochnik, showrunner of House of the Dragon, who additionally labored on Game of Thrones. He and Martin give credit score to co-showrunner and author Ryan Condal for getting him again into the televised world of Westeros. In Condal, Martin discovered a kindred spirit.“When we would get together we would, you know, talk like two fanboys do,” Martin stated; their mutual fandoms (together with Tolkien) led to conversations that bought Martin concerned in revisiting the Targaryen period—so this workforce looks as if maybe a extra pure match to maintain true to the realm.

House of the Dragon premieres on HBO and HBO Max August 21.

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