Game of Thrones prequel won’t be a “cover of the song you’ve heard before”

Ryan Condal, the guy behind HBO’s upcoming Game of Thrones prequel, explains how the new show will be different from the original…and how it won’t.

We recently had the opportunity to speak Ryan Condal and David Mendel about their new Hollywood memorabilia podcast The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of. It was interesting stuff, but of course, we also had to ask Condal about HBO’s upcoming Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon, since he’s serving as co-showrunner alongside longtime GoT director Miguel Sapochnik.

We kept our discussion spoiler-free, but Condal was still able to talk about his approach to this hugely anticipated show, which will explore the Targaryen civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons. How will the show keep up the tradition of Game of Thrones? How will it stand as its own thing?

"Without saying anything, because they have a device inside my head that they can just detonate remotely and replace me with someone else, if I say anything, I think any writer, any time you approach a project, you ask, ‘Why are we telling this story?’ And that’s usually a theme question. So the original series has certain themes, and I think Miguel (Sapochnik) and I found together this thematic that runs very much through the Targaryen dynasty that we are very excited about."

The Dance of the Dragons is a war, and a tremendously bloody and destructive one at that. In this way, it has a lot in common with Game of Thrones, but while the original show dealt with different families jockeying for power, House of the Dragon mainly features one family — the Targaryens — divided against itself. But there should still be plenty of overlap thematically.

“That to me, gives you the sort of all the familiarity of the original series that people love so much, while having a very different thing to say about the show,” Condal continued. “Miguel always says ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ We’re really trying to approach this show, and honor all of the things that were great about the original, while not just doing a cover of the song you’ve heard before. It’s trying to be original without completely trying to break the box.”

Sapochnik directed some of the best episodes of Game of Thrones, including “Hardhome,” “Battle of the Bastards” and “The Winds of Winter,” so I’m gonna go out on a limb and say the man knows what he’s talking about.

In any case, Condal appears happy with the progress that’s been made so far. “That’s the balance we’re trying to walk, and I’m very proud of what we’ve done. Look, I’m trying to write the series that makes me very happy as a two decade fan of this thing. I think if I can accomplish that, then I’ve done most of the work that I would expect of whoever else was doing this, sitting on my couch as a fan of this.”

Thanks to Ryan David for their time!

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