With the second Game of Thrones spinoff, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, currently airing on HBO Max, now may be a good time to revisit the first prequel to the hit HBO fantasy series,House of the Dragon. Based on segments of Fire & Blood, George R.R. Martin's history of the Targaryen rule of Westeros, House of the Dragon has currently aired two seasons, with the first season taking home the Golden Globe for Best Television Series - Drama, an award its predecessor never managed to win.
House of the Dragon takes place around 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones, following the infamous Dance of Dragons civil war. After the death of King Viserys Targaryen (Paddy Considine), two rival factions of his family compete for the throne. His daughter Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D'Arcy, with Millie Alcock portraying a younger Rhaenyra), who Viserys named as his rightful heir many years before his passing, leads "the Blacks." Meanwhile, Viserys' widow, Queen Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke, with Emily Carey portraying a younger Alicent), heads "the Greens," who fight to keep her son Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney, with Ty Tennant portraying a younger Aegon) on the Iron Throne.
Much like Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon has become infamous for straying from its source material. As such, one of the most interesting elements from Fire & Blood became lost in translation. This character from Fire & Blood, who didn't make the cut for House of the Dragon, emphasizes one of Martin's most important themes.
Fire & Blood's framing device
Fire & Blood is not written as a novel in the same way as Martin's main series, A Song of Ice and Fire, nor is it a series of novellas like the basis for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, The Tales of Dunk and Egg. Instead, Fire & Blood formats itself as a historical document of the Targaryen's story as told by the fictional Archmaester Gyldayn.
Throughout Fire & Blood, Gyldayn cites several accounts for various interpretations of these events. Most of these sources are other Maesters who served House Targaryen, but one source stands out among the rest.
Gyldayn often refers to the account of a man named Mushroom. Rather than a Maester, scholar, or historian, Mushroom was a dwarf fool who entertained Targaryen nobles. They believed him to be so dimwitted they could trust him with their secrets, so Mushroom ended up learning a great deal of intimate details regarding the royal family.
No room for Mushroom in House of the Dragon
As of the first two seasons, Mushroom has yet to appear in House of the Dragon. However, the series incorporates several elements of his telling into its decisive canon. For example, in Fire & Blood, it is Mushroom who suggests that, shortly before the death of King Viserys, Queen Alicent's second son, Prince Aemond (Ewan Mitchell, with Leo Ashton portraying a younger Aemond) taunts his nephews, Rhaenera's sons Jacaerys (Harry Collett, with Leo Hart portraying a younger Jacaerys) and Lucerys Velaryon (Elliot Grihault, with Harvey Sadler portraying a younger Lucerys) as "Strong" boys, implying that their father is not, in fact, Rhaenyra's former husband Laenor Velaryon (John Macmillan), but instead her deceased alleged paramour, Harwin Strong (Ryan Corr).
While this may seem like a random, insignificant bout of family drama, this moment helps escalate the conflict between the Greens and the Blacks at a vital moment in their story. Since Viserys dies with tensions between the two factions as high as ever, their split becomes inevitable. Mushroom's detail helps illustrate a more dire situation within the Targaryen family.
Throughout Fire & Blood, Mushroom's account often proves to be more cynical than his more higher-up contemporaries', a fact that Archmaester Gyldayn often alludes to in the text. This showcases how much of the history books have been "cleaned up," so to speak, by the scholars, while Mushroom, who witnessed much of these events first hand, allows his story to feel much grittier.
In sticking with several of Mushroom's details for the adaptation, House of the Dragon incorporates these less polished moments into a version of Fire & Blood with one fixed canon, rather than several conflicting accounts. However, in leaving out the man himself, the show barely touches on Martin's theme of a grittier, perhaps less often told truth lying beneath the pretty history books, and how important who is telling the stories can be.
For more from the world of Westeros, make sure to tune into A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which airs new episodes on Sundays at 10:00 p.m. ET on HBO Max.