George R.R. Martin takes a break from work to blog about House Of The Dragon’s time jumps

The Game Of Thrones author says it’ll take “four full seasons of 10 episodes each to do justice to the Dance Of The Dragons”

By Matt Schimkowitz  |  October 11, 2022 | 11:09pm
Aux News George R.R. Martin
George R.R. Martin takes a break from work to blog about House Of The Dragon’s time jumps
Introducing Endless Mode: A New Games & Anime Site from Paste
Paddy Considine as the iconic character Reader Awaiting The Winds Of Winter Photo: Ollie Upton (HBO)

Who’s ready for another House Of The Dragon take? George R.R. Martin’s got a few, and he’s again taking a break from writing The Winds Of Winter to blog about them.

As he has done off and on for the last decade, Martin powered up WordStar 4.0 on his DOS-powered computer to type up a little blog about the very popular TV shows based on his work. The author touches on several things, including praise for Paddy Considine, who he believes deserves an Emmy for that last episode, and the “supposed rivalry” with Rings Of Power, which “mostly exists in the media.” But, like Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal, he also loves the explosion of fantasy television in recent years.

“I am a fantasy fan, and I want more fantasy on television, and nothing would accomplish that more than a couple of big hits,” he writes. “The Witcher, Shadow & Bones, Wheel Of Time, and The Sandman, a glorious adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s groundbreaking comic series. Those are a good start, but I want more. I want Tad Williams, I want Joe Abercrombie, I want Patrick Rothfuss, I want a good adaptation of Le Guin’s Earthsea books, I want Alan Garner, I want Robin Hobb… oh, the list is long, I could go on and on… and would if I did not have a zillion other things to do.”

He also was japing around when he said he was going to “rewrite Fire & Blood.” Nevertheless, one must respect a man who still uses the word “jape.”

Finally, he addresses those time jumps, which he thinks Condal handled very well. Martin laments, “sure,” he wishes he “had more time to
explore the relationship between Rhaenyra and Ser Harwin, the marriage
of Daemon and Laena and their time in Pentos, the birth of various and
sundry children,” but “there are only so many minutes” of an episode and
“only so many episodes in a season.

“When I was a boy, shows had 39 episodes a season,” he writes.” By the time I was writing for Beauty And The Beast, it was down to 22. Cable shrunk that even further. The Sopranos had 13 episodes per season, but just a few years later, Game Of Thrones had only 10 (and not even that, those last two seasons).”

However, he gives a much more thoughtful answer that speaks to the changing landscape of television and what viewers expect from his shows. He continues:

If House Of The Dragon had 13 episodes per season, maybe we could have shown all the things we had to “time jump” over— though that would have risked having some viewers complain that the show was too “slow,” that “nothing happened.” As it is, I am thrilled that we still have 10 hours every season to tell our tale. (Rings Of Power has only eight, as you may have noticed, and my AMC show Dark Winds is doing six episode seasons).

At the rate they’re going, Martin anticipates that it’ll “take four full seasons of 10 episodes each to do justice to the Dance Of The Dragons.”

It’s a relief that there aren’t more episodes because, as Martin reminds us, he still has The Winds Of Winter on the docket. If there were more episodes of House Of The Dragon, he might spend all his time blogging about it.

 
Join the discussion...