Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin hints at difficulties in early 2024

George R.R. Martin is the author of the Song of Ice and Fire series, which HBO adapted as Game of Thrones, one of the most successful shows of the past decade. Martin's fame has risen right along with it. And HBO is still reaping the benefits of its partnership with Martin; the Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon is based on his book Fire & Blood, and has been a big ratings winner for the network.

That's why it was so shocking when, earlier this month, Martin harshly and openly criticized House of the Dragon for deviating from his source material. Is the author behind HBO's biggest hits in a feud with the people adapting his work?

Since that first blowup, Martin has been fairly quiet on the subject, aside from the occasional reference here and there. He seems to reference it again in a new blog post mainly focused on his trip to Europe earlier this year:

"It was a splendid trip, and one that did wonders to restore my bruised and battered spirits and relieve some of the stress that I had been under before we left.   The first few months of 2024 had been… well, no fun, let us say.   January, February, March… things just kept getting worse until we came to April Fool’s Day, when it finally dawned on me that I was the fool, and had been for years.   But I do not want to talk about that now.  (Or maybe ever.  We shall see)."

Martin has written before about going through it earlier this year, and it wasn't all related to House of the Dragon; for instance, he's talked about how upset he was over the passing of his friend and fellow fantasy author Howard Waldrop. Still, the part where he writes about learning "that I was the fool, and had been for years" strikes me as more misgivings over the ways things have progressed on House of the Dragon, which has indeed changed so much about Fire & Blood that it's more or less unrecognizable as Martin's story. That doesn't mean it's bad, but I get why Martin might be upset, especially after Game of Thrones stuck much closer to his source material (until it ran out, anyway).

Of course, that's just me speculating. Martin promises to write "much, much more" about his trip in the future. We can probably expect him to write about his time on the set of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, another Game of Thrones prequel series that Martin sounds much more enthusiastic about. In the meanwhile, he also recommends picking up the new autobiography by Game of Thrones alum Kristian Nairn (Hodor)!

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