"House of the Dragon": Showrunner Ryan Condal & Creator George R.R. Martin Have An Abysmal Relationship

Dan Lalonde
Jan 15
2 min read

What is your favorite season of 'Game of Thrones'? Unpopular opinion, but my favorite was the last one, season 8. I finally found the pacing fast enough to enjoy. I came into the show very late, but I could still understand why fans didn't like the series finale, which wrapped things up way too fast with the heroes making out-of-character choices. I'm looking at you, Daenerys Targaryen, for killing all the castle people with the dragon.

'A Song of Ice and Fire' creator George R.R. Martin has revealed a rocky relationship with 'House of the Dragon' showrunner Ryan Condal in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. And it has to do with a breakdown in communication after season 1, where Martin even went for bat for Condal in his fight with original co-showrunner Miguel Sapochnik.

"It’s worse than rocky. It's abysmal. I hired Ryan. I thought Ryan and I were 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. Then we got into season two, and he basically stopped listening to me. 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."

Condal, for his part, talked about the situation last year with EW: “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.”

HBO tried to patch things up in a Zoom call with producers and Martin, which famously ended with Martin angrily expressing, “This is not my story any longer.” Martin would later return for the production of season 3, which he wouldn't discuss further.

An HBO insider would later reveal, “George and Ryan had a disagreement on the direction of season three. At that point, it was clear that the process and communication with them was broken and needed a reset. So there was naturally a period where everyone took a step back for a while until we could figure out a new way forward.”

Are you excited for more 'House of the Dragon'? Comment below with your thoughts.