House of the Dragon fixes George R.R. Martin’s least favorite scene in Game of Thrones

House of the Dragon Episode 3 has finally fixed George R.R. Martin’s “least favorite” scene in all of Game of Thrones.

When Game of Thrones first began in 2011, Martin – the author behind the Song of Ice and Fire series of novels – was heavily involved. However, as the show went on past the source material, his contribution was reduced to the foundation he put down.

Nevertheless, he was delighted with most of the first season. Ned Stark’s death was a personal highlight – “It could not have been done better,” he said – and he appreciated how its showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss handled and developed Cersei.

However, one scene in Season 1 really bothers him, even after all these years. Thankfully, House of the Dragon has righted its predecessor’s wrongs.

How House of the Dragon Episode 3 fixes George R.R. Martin’s least favorite Game of Thrones scene

In Episode 3 of the prequel series, King Viserys (Paddy Considine) takes a large hunting party to kill the “White Hart”, a near-mythical white stag that once represented royalty prior to the Targaryen’s dragons.

In the first season of Game of Thrones, King Robert Baratheon (Mark Addy) dies after he’s gored by a boar. When compared, the scale of the two scenes is quite different, with House of the Dragon emphasizing how much of an event the hunt itself is.

In Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon, a book chronicling the “uncensored story” of the original show, Martin explains: “Where we really fell down in terms of budget was my least favorite scene in the entire show, in all eight seasons: King Robert goes hunting.

“Four guys walking on foot through the woods carrying spears and Robert is giving Renly sh*t. In the book, Robert goes off hunting, we get word he was gored by a boar, and they bring him back and he dies. So I never [wrote a hunting scene]… but I knew what a royal hunting party was like.

“There would have been a hundred guys. There would have been pavilions. There would have been huntsmen. There would have been dogs. There would have been horns blowing — that’s how a king goes hunting! He wouldn’t have just been walking through the woods with three of his friends holding spears hoping to meet a boar.”

House of the Dragon Episode 4 will be available to watch on September 11 in the US and September 4 in the UK.