George RR Martin’s House of the Dragon tantrum is just childish

George RR Martin is one of the greatest fantasy authors of all time, and his Song of Ice and Fire books are personal favorites. However, the man needs to learn when to bite his tongue.

Why am I attacking a man I admire? Well, good old George has taken a break from not finishing his books to complain on his blog about the quality of House of the Dragon Season 2. Specifically, he’s upset about changes made to Prince Jaehaerys Targaryen’s death and the impact that will have on Helaena Targaryen’s character later on.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with that in theory. I’ve made a living out of doing two things: drinking and complaining about things, and it’s got me pretty far… or at least it’s got me out of my mum and dad’s spare room. But I’m going to be honest: Martin’s recent attack left a bitter taste in my mouth.

So strap in. We’re playing Game of Moans; you either win or you get so bored of people complaining about a TV show that you wander away and do something productive with your life! 

Doom and gloom

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We’ll start by quoting George’s blog – it’s since been deleted, but Maesters on the internet managed to secret a copy away before he scrubbed it forever. In the post, he calls the episode where Jaehaerys dies “terrific”. Still, he complains about the decision to exorcise the character of Maelor (Aegon and Helena’s youngest son), adding that this will have huge ramifications in the future. 

While we can quibble on whether the decision to remove Maelor was right or wrong, there’s an element of bad-faith criticism here. George is concerned that without Maelor, Helaena’s arc will be damaged, but how does he know that? Is he a green seer with the ability to see the future? No, he just presumes that whatever the House of the Dragon showrunners do will be worse than his version. 

You can’t even argue that he’s part of the writer’s room; George admitted he’s not had much to do with Season 3, and they only started writing it last month. He may know more than he’s letting on about the House of the Dragon Season 3 (although he admits in the blog to only seeing an outline). Still, it’s also just as likely he’s just on his Balerion-sized high horse about other people taking creative license when adapting works of literature.

Same old complaints

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I’ve written before about Martin’s aversion to people taking liberties with his ‘sacred texts’, before but basically, he believes that adaptations never improve on the original. In fact, he said, “Nine hundred ninety-nine times out of a thousand, they make it worse.” I’m sorry, but that’s bobbins. There are countless examples of excellent book adaptations on the small and silver screen, and Martin’s failure to acknowledge this is just irritating. 

There’s art in adaptation. Take something like The Shining film; it could not be more different from the book, but it’s widely regarded as one of the best horror movies ever. Why? Because it took creative risks, turning King’s brilliant ghost story into something far more fiendish.

What annoys me most about this is that it’s perfectly possible to like the book version of something, and its adaptation is not like Stanley Kubrick organized mass book burnings after his film came out. It’s just a weird strain of puritanism we’ve allowed to creep into pop culture discussion by people with too much time on their hands.

The worst people you know…

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And that brings me to another point. When Martin makes posts like this, he emboldens the worst parts of the fanbase.

If you took a quick glance at any of the Game of Thrones subreddits, you’ll see comments like, “Hopefully they fire showrunner Ryan Condal” and “Writer Sara Hess toxified the series.” I don’t really know what that means, but I do know I find screeching on the internet for people’s careers to be ruined because you don’t like a TV show is a bit weird. 

The people who work on these shows, those names you see in the credits, aren’t just letters on a screen. They’re real people with lives who just so happened to make a show you don’t like. It’s OK to criticize them; God knows I didn’t like everything about House of the Dragon’s sophomore effort, but I don’t feel the need to attack people personally for it.

But when George uses language like “toxic” to describe the changes made to his work, he stokes the flames and makes these people feel like they’re right, when actually they’re the worst part of the fandom. 

Finally, to end my rant (I promise I won’t delete this after posting it), I want to quote a friend of Martin’s, Neil Gaiman. Gaiman once defended his friend’s tendency to let deadlines zoom by saying, “George RR Martin is not you b*tch” and he was right.

But George, if you’re reading, might I suggest that Ryan Condal isn’t your b*tch? You’re the one who signed the contract, letting them make the changes. You can’t whine about it now and wring your hands about the horrors of adaptation, mainly because those hands should be busy typing Winds of Winter.

For a slightly less opinionated take on Martin’s deleted post, read how he spoiled a big part of Season 3 here. We’ve also got guides to new TV shows like Knight of the Seven Kingdoms and written about how the Aegon’s Conquest series could solve one of Westeros’s biggest mysteries. Finally, if you want to know more about the history of the Seven Kingdoms, you need to check out our exhaustive article breaking down all the Targaryen Kings… yeah there’s a lot.