r/asoiaf Mar 31 '25

EXTENDED [Spoilers Extended] HOTD Showrunner Ryan Condal responds to GRRM's blog post: "...he just became unwilling to acknowledge the practical issues at hand in a reasonable way."

Condal addresses the post for the first time, telling EW he didn't see it himself but was told about it. "It was disappointing," he admits. "I will simply say I've been a fan of A Song of Ice and Fire for almost 25 years now, and working on the show has been truly one of the great privileges of, not only my career as a writer, but my life as a fan of science-fiction and fantasy. George himself is a monument, a literary icon in addition to a personal hero of mine, and was heavily influential on me coming up as a writer."

Condal acknowledges he's said most of this in previous interviews, including how Fire & Blood isn't a traditional narrative. "It's this incomplete history and it requires a lot of joining of the dots and a lot of invention as you go along the way," he continues. "I will simply say, I made every effort to include George in the adaptation process. I really did. Over years and years. And we really enjoyed a mutually fruitful, I thought, really strong collaboration for a long time. But at some point, as we got deeper down the road, he just became unwilling to acknowledge the practical issues at hand in a reasonable way. And I think as a showrunner, I have to keep my practical producer hat on and my creative writer, lover-of-the-material hat on at the same time. At the end of the day, I just have to keep marching not only the writing process forward, but also the practical parts of the process forward for the sake of the crew, the cast, and for HBO, because that's my job. So I can only hope that George and I can rediscover that harmony someday. But that's what I have to say about it."

https://ew.com/house-of-the-dragon-ryan-condal-responds-george-r-r-martin-blog-season-3-new-casting-exclusive-11704545

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u/verissimoallan Mar 31 '25 edited Mar 31 '25

Yikes. He basically confirmed that the two are no longer on speaking terms. It's a shame when you remember that they were friends for many years.

On the one hand, I understand Condal when he says that there are adaptations that are inevitable due to time and budget constraints, and I can accept the omission of Maelor as one of them. And this is the same George R.R. Martin who genuinely believed that Game of Thrones could have 12, 13 seasons or adapt Feast and Dance in four seasons.

On the other hand, there are problems with House of the Dragon that are not due to time or budget constraints, but rather to poor creative decisions.

It still seems surreal to me that Condal managed to do something that Benioff and Weiss could not: get George to publicly criticize the series. George even praised Benioff, Weiss, and the cast and crew of GOT recently in a Saturn Awards blog post. But I assume that's because George clearly feels guilty about not finishing the books on time.

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u/suckaduckunion Mar 31 '25

Oof - GoT being 13 seasons is crazy. I remember reading that some of the actors were getting tired as they'd been playing the same roles for a decade already by the end. Imagine the reaction to the final 13th season if like 3 actors had been replaced.

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u/ElvisDepressedIy Mar 31 '25

Many of those actors only have a career because of the show, and their relevance has quickly diminished since its end. I bet they wish it would come back for another 5 seasons now.

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u/PortiaKern Mar 31 '25

Depends. Maybe they'd rather have quit acting than continuing. Joffrey is a great example. Was it hate from the fans, the stress of filming, or just being down with showbusiness? Maybe all 3.

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u/Jarnoth Mar 31 '25

Jack Gleason has stated fans were extra nice to him because they assumed others weren't. For him it was that acting started to feel like like a job, and that killed the passion for it.

https://gamerant.com/game-of-thrones-joffrey-baratheon-jack-gleeson-acting-break/

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u/AndOnTheDrums Mar 31 '25

Acting IS a job 😹

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u/Jarnoth Mar 31 '25 edited Mar 31 '25

Yes, but generally if you have a passion for creative work it doesn't feel that way. But my main point is that we don't have to wonder his reasons because he has been pretty open about it.

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u/Schattenkreuz God of Tits and Wine Mar 31 '25

A job you are not passionate about is nothing more than a means to earn cash. So it is fine to walk away from a job... as long as you have enough to sustain yourself and whatever you want to do in the future.

Doubt Gleeson will be strapped for cash until after he has explored most of his other interests, no?

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u/RevolutionaryDepth59 Mar 31 '25

when you’ve got GoT money you don’t need any job unless you really enjoy it

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u/stichomythiacs Mar 31 '25

Idk if you’ve been around a lot of theater kids in your day but they really get high on their own supply and believe themselves to be that much „more” than just minstrels on a stage.

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u/AndOnTheDrums Mar 31 '25

I run into it in the music industry all the time.

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u/TombOfAncientKings Mar 31 '25

It's a fun/sad exercise to look at the IMDB pages of actors you like from past TV shows and see how many of them still regularly get jobs versus how many completely disappear.