George R.R. Martin mulls House of the Dragon continuing beyond the Dance of the Dragons

Speaking recently on a livestream with Portuguese magazine Bang, A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin recently explained why HBO’s popular TV adaptation of his work, Game of Thrones, was called Game of Thrones and not A Song of Ice and Fire. Why name the adaptation after the first book in the series rather than the series itself?

“[T]he TV networks make these decisions,” Martin said. “They purchase…the film and TV rights to my books, and for whatever reason they wanted to call it Game of Thrones rather than A Song of Ice and Fire. I suppose they did some kind of internal testing or something as they always do and settled on that thing.”

Martin has no problem with them calling the show Game of Thrones, for the record. He’s worked in TV before so he’s used to this kind of stuff. Something similar happened with HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon, which is about an inter-family Targaryen war called the Dance of the Dragons as set out in Martin’s book Fire & Blood. “The new show, we have the same situation with,” Martin said. “House of the Dragon, the prequel show, is based on a part of Targaryen history called the Dance of the Dragons. So they could have called it the Dance of the Dragons, but for whatever reason they decided not to. [They called it] House of the Dragon instead. Which is a good title.”

In this case, there’s another reason that Martin likes the title House of the Dragon: “It means when the Dance is over we can continue the story.” Hmm…

Will House of the Dragon keep going after the Dance of the Dragons is over?

If you’ve read Fire & Blood, you know that the section on the Dance of the Dragons is only one part of the book. Before that, it covers the coming of Aegon the Conqueror to Westeros, the rise and fall of his son Maegor the Cruel, the long reign of King Jaehaerys I Targaryen, and more. And after the Dance of the Dragons, there are things Martin intends to cover in another volume of Fire & Blood, including the Blackfyre rebellions and the War of the Usurper, which kicked Daenerys Targaryen’s father the Mad King off the Iron Throne and set the stage for Game of Thrones.

In theory, all of this could be adapted to TV under the banner of House of the Dragon. The idea has been discussed among fans, but it’s cool to hear that Martin is thinking about it, too.

Not that Martin is the final decision-maker here. He doesn’t have final say on the titles of these show and he doesn’t have final say on whether House of the Dragon continues beyond the Dance of the Dragons. Things are complicated further by the fact that HBO has already ordered a series based on Martin’s Dunk and Egg novellas called A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight. The second Blackfyre Rebellion kind of happens in the background of those novellas, so depicting them under the banner of “House of the Dragon” could get weird.

And to complicate things even further, HBO is developing other Game of Thrones spinoff ideas, although it’s hard to know which are still on the table; they’ve at least talked about a spinoff revolving around Aegon the Conqueror. So they may want to tell these stories piecemeal rather than under the umbrella of “House of the Dragon.” Then again, giving them all one heading does mean fans wouldn’t have to learn new titles every few years.

What do you think? Should House of the Dragon end when the conflict between Rhaenyra Targaryen and her half-brother Aegon ends, or should it keep going and explore the lives of other Targaryens?

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