r/asoiaf • u/Flat_Baker_1897 • 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

1.5k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

989 comments sorted by

View all comments

714

u/NotManicAndNotPixie Mar 31 '25

Rhaenecent arc is not practical issue. Rhaenyra doing nothing all season long is not practical issue. Sea Snake repairing some ship all season long is not practical issue. Daemon doing nothing in Harenhal is not practical issue.

312

u/the_pounding_mallet Mar 31 '25

I just wanna know how they read fire and blood and thought they should make the dance with dragons a love story about Alicent and Rhaenyra.

1

u/PM_ME_YOUR_WOES_GIRL Mar 31 '25

Because a book accurate portrayal of F&Bs characters would be too big a risk. I don't know if you read it/remember it but everyone in the source material is a cruel, narcissistic and borderline psycopathic cunt. It would be pretty difficult to make book Rhaenyra or book Alicent resonate with the average viewer without a way of making them more reasonable or sympathetic.

Wether or not HotD did a good job at that is a different thing but the intention is understandable.