The cast and crew of House of the Dragon just held a For Your Consideration event where they talked about their work on the second season of the show while teasing what lays ahead in season 3, which will start filming soon. People who turned up included showrunner Ryan Condal and executive producer Sara Hess, as well as cast members like Emma D'Arcy (Rhaenyra Targaryen), Matt Smith (Daemon Targaryen) and Olivia Cooke (Alicent Hightower).
But one prominent face was absent: George R.R. Martin, the author of Fire & Blood, the book on which House of the Dragon is based. Years ago, Martin turned up for a similar event to promote the first season of House of the Dragon; that picture is above. But he sat this new one out:
Now, this is a probably a coincidence. After all, every Game of Thrones fan knows that Martin has been working for years on a new book in his Song of Ice and Fire series: The Winds of Winter. He's got stuff to do. And it isn't as important to promote a show after it's already established as it was when it was just getting off the ground.
And yet, it's hard for me not to think about what happened late last year, when Martin publicly criticized the direction of House of the Dragon, complaining that it was straying too far from his book and losing meaning and structural integrity along the way. He talked directly about things in the season 3 outline, effectively giving spoilers in a spoiler-phobic industry, and gave fans a dire warning: "[T]here are larger and more toxic butterflies to come, if HOUSE OF THE DRAGON goes ahead with some of the changes being contemplated for seasons 3 and 4…"
Martin deleted the post soon after it went up, HBO put out a statement, and he's been mostly silent on the topic since, criticizing House of the Dragon only by omission. "My various television projects ate up most of those months," he wrote in a blog post published on September 24, 2025. "Some of that was pleasant (DARK WINDS, and THE HEDGE KNIGHT), most of it was not." Sounds like House of the Dragon was in the "not" category. In another post praising the upcoming Game of Thrones prequel A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms for staying faithful to his Dunk and Egg novellas, he joked that "you all know how incredibly reasonable I am on that particular subject."
It was pretty remarkable to watch an executive producer on the series, the writer of the source material, and one of the driving forces behind the series House of the Dragon spun off from openly criticize the show like this in the middle of its run; I can't remember ever seeing anything like it. I've enjoyed House of the Dragon, but they've made a ton of changes from the source material that didn't sit right with me, and I'm nervous Martin's warning will prove true.
So with all that hanging over the show, I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that Martin skipped the latest FYC event because he didn't want to make things awkward with the cast and crew, or because they didn't want him there. I'll hope for the best, for him, for the show and for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which airs on HBO and Max later this year. The third season of House of the Dragon won't be out until 2026.
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