House Of The Dragon Showrunner Wanted To Revive His Favorite Part Of Early Game Of Thrones [Exclusive Interview]

With "House of the Dragon," showrunner Ryan Condal has to do the impossible. First, he has to deliver a series that matches the ridiculous highs of "Game of Thrones," one of the most popular TV shows of all time. But he also has to deliver a series that unites fans again after the divisive (to put it mildly) finale of the previous show, which still ignites passionate conversation to this day (once again, putting it mildly). And while the first season of HBO's prequel series was a strong proof of concept, season 2 of "House of the Dragon" proves that the epic fantasy series is pulling off that balancing act, delivering its own unique story set in George R.R. Martin's fantasy kingdom of Westeros while capturing the intense and often horrifying tone that made "Game of Thrones" such a sensation. 

Ahead of the season premiere, I sat down with Condal over Zoom to talk about the series and found myself truly engaging with a proper "Game of Thrones" fan. We geeked out about the infinite pleasures of a great small council sequence, the tricky nature of adapting Martin's intentionally apocryphal "Fire and Blood," and how picking a side in the ongoing conflict is an exercise in madness. But we also talked about some of the major changes to series in season 2 (like that new opening credits sequence) and Martin's recent comments about adaptations, which reignited various arguments — and re-opened old wounds.

Note: This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

I want to talk about adapting "Fire and Blood." It's a fake history book. It's full of alternate takes, it's full of people who disagree. It's full of a lot of mysteries. You're making the definitive version of those events. After you've gotten your foothold in season one, what is the process of deciding what is the "actual" version of an ambiguous event from that story? How do you determine the truth?

Yeah, it's tricky. I don't know that we're making the definitive version. I think we're trying to make an objective story, a version of the history that — it's television, so we are not making "Rashomon" here, so we have to pick a lane with it. And what I think we're really trying to do is keep the show in active conversation with the book. And I think my hope is, and has always been from the beginning, if you've read the book and then you watch the series, the series enriches your enjoyment of the book because you get to see how those things interact.

The same for people that go in the other direction. If you see the series and then you go back and read the book, it enhances your enjoyment of the series because you see, oh, for instance, Daemon's wife in the book is just mentioned at some point of having fallen off her horse and having her skull crushed. And then you realize that in our take in the story was that Daemon had a hand in that, and the way the two things interact with each other. But we very much looked at the book as, "This is a version of the history. It's a version with an agenda." 

There are these three male accounts of this time period about two women and their families fighting over the throne. And the book is put together by another male, the Archmaester Gyldayn, who's collecting it, and what are the agendas in play there? Are they trying to give a true accounting of the history, or are they trying to set the record straight for the people that read this in the years to come? We obviously have to pick a path through it. So I think we go for the thing that feels the most true to the characters as we've written them for the television show, as they've been embodied by the wonderful actors that play them, and the thing that feels the most dynamic and interesting. Because while the book is there and we draw from it regularly — it's the well that we draw from — I think we are looking to try to put spin on it sometimes that brings about the historical events as rendered in the history, but in an interesting and unexpected way.

The marketing for this season is all about Team Black versus Team Green. But the show keeps you on your toes. I think very clearly in my heart that I'm Team Black, but in my head, I'm Team Green. I think one makes sense for a safe nation, one makes sense for what I want to see as a human. How do you maintain that balance where you're making people question their allegiance every episode? 

I think that's a great take on it, Jacob. I think that's the kind of things that I think we as writers want to hear about the story. It's less sort of, "Do you root for Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader?" [laughs] I think those things are less interesting. For me, it's always about the individuals on either side. And I think hopefully we've created a complex enough tapestry that you can find empathy and sympathy with characters on either side of the conflict, and also characters that you loathe and don't want to see in power on either side of the conflict. So it's really, I hope the audience is left wondering, "Do I really want to see either side come out of this in total victory? And what does that mean for the realm, and what does that mean for the subjects and the smallfolk in the kingdom? And at what cost are we going to see this throne won in the end of this if such a thing is to happen?"

I know you often get asked about the big battle scenes, and the dragons, and I appreciate and love those elements. But every single time I chat with my team to about the show, it's about small council scenes. We just love people sitting around the table conniving, pushing things around maps. What is the key to creating a great small council scene and why do we love them so much?

No, I love it. I'm one of those. We love writing them. I think that was the thing that I loved about early "Game of Thrones," that as the war gets bleaker and bleaker and most of the people standing around those tables were dead, I think it was the thing that I missed the most about the simpler days when everybody was strategizing instead of running from the walking dead. I think the making of a great small council scene is certainly conflict and differing points of view. You don't want a scene where it's just a bunch of people reporting the news. You want a scene where you have counselors that are trying to manipulate or navigate the sovereign sitting at the head of the table into a certain decision as they see it.

It's interesting, whether it's Rhaenyra or whether it's Aegon, who have obviously approached their counsel very differently. But I think that's what makes for a dynamic room. You want every voice at the table to have a specific position, and point of view, and a way that they're setting about their pursuit of the game of thrones and the way that they're plucking at the marionette strings. And I think when you have a dynamic where things are working on multiple levels, then that's when you have one of those council meetings that's really singing.

Earlier, you compared the series to a tapestry, so I've got to make the obvious segue here. The new opening credits now depict the formation of a giant medieval tapestry. What was the reason for changing it?

Yeah, I mean, it was after a lot of discussion, but I felt like the sort of ancestral credits were correct for season 1, the idea of this bloodline and family tree. But this story now in season 2, now that all that stuff has kind of been set and established and entrenched, it felt more like we were watching a living history and my feeling was continuing to follow the Targaryen family tree now that we're in real time — and really, I mean, maybe there will be some children born as we move forward from here into the future — that story had been set. But again, we're watching this living history as it unfolds. So it felt more interesting to see that dramatized in the way that histories were kept back in the Middle Ages, which was with beautiful tapestries. So I think as you'll see as the season goes, you'll see a bit of evolution in that version of the story we're telling. But I think these are the credits as we go from here to the end.

George R.R. Martin recently made headlines when he discussed adaptations and how he seemed very displeased with how a lot of people approach adaptations of books in general. Has he ever talked to you about his views on adaptations and these pitfalls? Have you taken his thoughts on the matter into account?

Yeah, I mean, we've talked about it certainly before, and he has very specific opinions on various, I think, texts that you and I probably care about a lot as well and how they're brought to the screen. And I think he approaches it from the point of view as a book author who is the sort of creator of the source material. But it's interesting because he's also, as everybody knows, was a TV writer for many years in his past. So I think he's lived the life of the creator and the adapter a bit. And look, he has his opinions and I certainly respect all that. 

I think the challenge of bringing any adaptation to life is trying to find the throughline through the source material that makes it appropriate and relevant for a TV audience, and taking into account whatever is going on in the world and the themes that we're interested in pulling on and how to bring those things to life. I think "Shogun" is a great example of something that was a modernized and updated take recently on a revered book that really landed and did well. So I think adaptations can take on their own life based on not just how the story is adapted, but the quality of the adaptation.

You're making a show that so many people are watching, that people are ready to be loud about and ready to make their opinion known on any and all public forums. But was there a moment in the aftermath of season 1 where you felt like there was a lesson learned or a comment made where you said, "That's actually really good, I want to do that in season 2"?

I don't think necessarily. I mean, I'm not on social media. I really do try to stay out of all that. And it was a decision I made when I got this job, because I didn't want that noise to be in my head, in a way, to certainly not affect anything I was doing artistically or creatively, but also I just didn't want to be haunted by the multitude of voices of the internet. I think it's a potentially dark path to go down when you're doing something that's as high profile as this.

But no, the thing I think I was most impressed about the general audience response in season 1, and this is in talking to people and also in talking to the other people that work on the show that do pay attention to what's going on online, is how sophisticated the audience is, and how smart they are, and how we threw 20 years of history with 16 names that sort of sound similar, and with multiple bloodlines, and with sort of weird also incestual bloodlines, and somebody's a husband and also an uncle, and how they all kind of bought into it and followed it through a major recasting at the middle of the season. And I think that was it. I think it was just realizing just how seasoned and sophisticated the audience was and knowing that you could trust them with complicated storytelling.

You felt you can be bolder and braver, rather than have to retreat in any way?

Exactly.

"House of the Dragon" season 2 airs on HBO on Sunday nights, and streams on Max.