House of the Dragon different from Game of Thrones in “significant ways”

We’re a scant few days away from watching the premiere of House of the Dragon, HBO’s highly-anticipated Game of Thrones prequel series. Set some 200 years before the original show, House of the Dragon will follow various members of the Targaryen family back when thee dynasty is at the height of its power. Eventually, they will fight each other in the Dance of the Dragons, a civil war that led to their decline. It’s a juicy tale filled with gray characters pulled from the pages of George R.R. Martin’s “fake history” book Fire & Blood.

Now that the show is so close, the hype is getting out of control, and HBO is doing everything it can to stoke those fires and get us talking. Just today, the official Game of Thrones podcast aired an interview with George R.R. Martin himself, where he talked about his career, his time working in television, the historical inspirations for his work, and of course, House of the Dragon. Let’s hit on some highlights.

House of the Dragon season 1 will span 28 years

First and foremost, Martin confirmed something important about House of the Dragon: the timeline. The story of House of the Dragon spans decades and involves multiple generations of Targaryens. From footage revealed in the trailer, we knew it likely spanned at least two decades, but now Martin is giving the final word:

"Of course, the show starts in 101 AC at the Great Council, which the old king Jaehaerys has called to let the lords of the realm advise him on who should succeed to the Iron Throne after he dies. Then the [Dance of the Dragons] war itself breaks out in 129 AC. So we have basically a 28-year run just in the first season here."

So now we know for certain: House of the Dragon season 1 will span 28 years or so, and will end with the realm descending into war. It’s going to be messy, people.

Martin also talked a bit about what it was that made the story of the Dance of the Dragons an appealing idea for HBO. “When I wrote A Game of Thrones, and A Song of Ice and Fire, part of fantasy is the worldbuilding,” the author said. “So I’m telling a story about these characters, but as I got deeper into it I’m creating more and more of a world. And the thing about worldbuilding is if you’re successful at it, after a period of time, you have a world. And a world contains many stories, not just one.”

"When HBO wanted successor shows for Game of Thrones, this is one of the things that came to mind because the Dance of the Dragons is a huge canvas, and it has lots of dragons and it has fascinating characters, and it has the same story about a contest for power. Characters that are driven by the same things that real people are driven by. They’re driven by pride, ambition, rivalries, revenge for slights, real or imagined, that people have done in the past. Fear for their future, you know love, lust, all of the things that make us human. The good story has all of those things."

House of the Dragon is inspired by history, but it is not allegory

It’s no secret that Martin draws a lot on real-world history for his work. Game of Thrones was famously based on the War of the Roses, while the Dance of the Dragons has its roots in the Anarchy. Despite this, Martin is careful to note that he’s not trying to retell history, he’s drawing specific elements from it and then creating fantastical stories around them.

"Yes, Game of Thrones was inspired by the Wars of the Roses, and House of the Dragon is inspired by an earlier conflict in England called the Anarchy. But it’s not one for one. I didn’t just take Empress Maud from the Anarchy and scrape off her name. I took certain things from her, certain changes to the situation, tweaked it."

Given that Martin has drawn so much from history, interviewer Jason Concepcion wanted to know if Martin has ever thought about writing something based on modern- day political struggles. “Maybe one day I’ll write about modern politics, although I don’t think so,” Martin said. “I’m not playing an allegorical game here.”

George R.R. Martin understands how TV works

Beyond his work writing novels, Martin also spent around 10 years of his career working in TV, first as a writer on shows like The Twilight Zone and Beauty and the Beast, and then developing ideas for new shows, none of which ever ended up going to air. This was after Martin had broken out as a novelist, but before he returned to prose with A Game of Thrones. Think of it as his own writerly version of Daenerys Targaryen’s time in Meereen.

“It did give me an advantage, some understanding of the process,” Martin said. “By the time I met David Benioff and Dan Weiss and we did Game of Thrones, I was actually in the beginning of that far more experienced as a television writer than either of them. Not so much with Ryan and Miguel, they’ve both done huge amounts of television. But I think it [adds] some understanding to the process.”

"I know a lot of novelists who work on the prose side of the field, they sell their books and then they…well, some of them, they don’t want to be involved. ‘Send me the check, do whatever you want.’ But there are others who have this idea that they’re gonna see their work translated faithfully to the screen, and then when it’s changed they don’t understand why, they get upset and angry about it and all that. Not that I don’t…yes, obviously, the way I write the story in the books is the way I want the story to be. But I also understand the practicalities of, sometimes you’re don’t have the budget to do that, sometimes there’s some other logistical problem, sometimes you’re running behind and you have to cut scenes to make your day, make your month, etcetera. So I do understand some of that process, which gives me some advantage I suppose."

House of the Dragon is “different from Game of Thrones in some significant ways”

Circling back around to House of the Dragon, Martin has a hard time picking out any one scene or character he’s most excited for viewers to see; he loves all his children equally. But he does have some intriguing comments about the show as a whole.

“I’m interested to see how the audience is hit by the whole thing,” Martin said. “I mean, House of the Dragon is different from Game of Thrones in some significant ways. Although yes, both shows involve issues of power and who will have the Iron Throne. But House of the Dragon is much more like a Shakespearean tragedy, it’s full of gray characters who you can love or you can hate. And guys who seem to be really sons of bitches and bad guys will do heroic things, characters who seem to be good will do awful things. Kind of like human beings.”

"A Song of Ice and Fire is in some ways that, but in other ways it’s more traditional fantasy. I mean, I brought in the White Walkers there — the white shadows, perhaps a better term for them — and the Others, which I actually call them in the book. And they are…I don’t want to use the word evil…but they’re an inimical force that’s going to end human life as we know it…But that’s not the case with House of the Dragon. House of the Dragon is very human grounded, and it’s people who were once friends coming to not be friends. It’s lust and love and power and ambition. And, you know, you slight someone and you make an enemy, and they get back at you later. All the kind of things that we really do in the real world.And one thing that sometimes vexes me as someone who reads a lot of history is, I see people who also read history, and they know a little history, and they look back in the past, and they have the benefit of hindsight. So they know what was the right thing to do, and what was the wrong thing to do. And the people who do the wrong thing, from the benefit of our time, are mocked as idiots or losers or evil or something. But in many cases, that’s not right. I mean, you have to really go back and put yourself in the head of the people making that decision…They did not have the benefit of hindsight. They did not know what was going to happen, you know?So I’m presenting issues here in House of the Dragon and some of the other things where I’m trying to engage the readers and get them to think about these things and what would they do. And it’ll be fascinating to see, which characters the viewers at home, the readers, like."

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

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