George R.R. Martin blasts House of the Dragon…
He’s going full dracarys.
“Game of Thrones” writer George R. R. Martin is slamming Ryan Condal, the creator of the spinoff “House of the Dragon.”
“It’s worse than rocky. It’s abysmal,” Martin told The Hollywood Reporter about the state of their relationship.
Martin, 77, added that he “hired” Condal and thought the two males have been “partners.”
“And we were all through the first season. I would read early drafts of the scripts. I would give notes. He would change some things. It was working really well — I thought,” he said in the story, which printed Thursday.
Ryan Condal and George R.R. Martin are seen onstage during HBO’s “House of the Dragon” FYC Screening at Directors Guild Of America in LA on March 7, 2023. FilmMagic for HBO
Ryan Condal and writer George R. R. Martin take a selfie onstage at the HBO House of the Dragon panel during Comic-Con International in San Diego, California, on July 23, 2022. AFP via Getty Images
“House of the Dragon” has at the moment aired two seasons, and is renewed for two more. It will end with Season 4.
“Then we got into season two, and he basically stopped listening to me,” Martin said about Condal.
The writer griped, “I would give notes, and nothing would happen. Sometimes he would explain why he wasn’t doing it. Other times, he would tell me, ‘Oh, OK, yeah, I’ll think about that.’ It got worse and worse, and I began to get more and more annoyed.”
“Finally, it got to a point where I was told by HBO that I should submit all my notes to them and they would give Ryan our combined notes.”
Ryan Condal speaks onstage during HBO’s “House of the Dragon” Season 2 FYC event held at Saban Media Center in North Hollywood, California, on March 6, 2025. FilmMagic for HBO
George R.R. Martin attends Game of Thrones’s A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms HBO Premiere at Zoo Palast in Berlin. BACKGRID
The Post reached out to Condal for remark.
This isn’t Martin’s first time criticizing Condal. In Sept. 2024, Martin printed a weblog post that was rapidly taken down.
In the now deleted post, the well-known writer wrote about “toxic” modifications that “House of the Dragon” was making to the books.
Then he slammed the creator for — spoiler alert! — writing a death with little obvious narrative lead-up.
“In Ryan’s outline for season 3, Helaena still kills herself … for no particular reason,” said Martin. “There is no fresh horror, no triggering event to overwhelm the fragile young queen.”
Season 3 has not aired yet or gotten a premiere date. Helaena (Phia Saban) is still alive on all the episodes that have aired so far.
Emma D’Arcy in “House of the Dragon.” Photograph by Ollie Upton / HBO
Milly Alcock and Matt Smith in “House of the Dragon.” Ollie Upton / HBO
Martin told THR on Thursday that his weblog post upset an HBO exec, who relayed the message to Martin’s supervisor and assistant, main to the post getting taken down.
He said that the weblog post was initially supposed to be one of six posts describing his issues with “House of the Dragon.”
After Condal and Martin had a Zoom call where Condal offered his concepts for Season 3, per THR, Martin reportedly said, “This is not my story any longer.”
Rhys Ifans, Steve Toussaint, Emily Carey, Matt Smith, Paddy Considine, Josh Gad, George R. R. Martin, Eve Best, Fabien Frankel, Ryan Condal and Olivia Cooke attend the FYC Special Screening for HBO Max’s “House Of The Dragon” at the DGA Theater Complex in LA on March 7, 2023. WireImage
Ryan Condal attends the FYC Special Screening for HBO Max’s “House Of The Dragon” at the DGA Theater Complex in LA on March 7, 2023. WireImage
In assertion he gave to EW last 12 months, Condal said, “I made every effort to include George in the adaptation process. I really did. … But at some point, he just became unwilling to acknowledge the practical issues at hand in a reasonable way .. I just have to keep marching forward for the sake of the crew, the cast, and for HBO, because that’s my job … I can only hope that George and I can rediscover that harmony someday.”
Meanwhile, the second “Game of Thrones” spinoff, “A Knight of The Seven Kingdoms,” will premiere Sunday (10 p.m. on HBO).
Showrunner Ira Parker told The Post that he had a good relationship with Martin.
“[Martin was] pretty much always my first read on any script,” he said.
“I would send him scripts, even before I sent them to HBO. We’d have great conversations about them. I told him pretty early on that I wouldn’t put anything in that he didn’t want me to.”
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