George R.R. Martin Reportedly Rejects 'House Of The Dragon' In Spat With Showrunner Ryan Condal: "This Is Not My Story Any Longer"

George R.R. Martin reportedly rejected the third season of the upcoming Game of Thrones spinoff, House of the Dragon, amid a spat with showrunner Ryan Condal.

In a profile piece for The Hollywood Reporter, George R.R. Martin ahead of the release of the A Knight of the Seven Kingdom series, Martin discussed his falling out with Ryan Condal that he originally made public in a now-deleted blog post.

In that blog post, Martin shared a number of issues he had with how Condal was changing his story. First, he took issue with how Prince Maelor will never even show up in the series and thus the heroism of Ser Rickard Thorne and Maelor’s tragic death will not be depicted.

Additionally, Martin notes how Maelor’s death drives Queen Helaena to suicide, but in Condal’s season three outline she still kills herself but “for no particular reason. There is no fresh horror, no triggering event to overwhelm the fragile young queen.”

Next, Martin pointed out how rumors began circulating that Rhaenyra had Helaena killed and that leads to an uprising and eventually “to the Storming of the Dragonpit and the rise of the Shepherd’s mob that drives Rhaenyra to flee the city and return to Dragonstone… and her death.”

He concluded the post writing, “And there are larger and more toxic butterflies to come, if HOUSE OF THE DRAGON goes ahead with some of the changes being contemplated for seasons 3 and 4…”

When asked about his relationship by THR, Martin admits it is not good, “It’s worse than rocky. It’s abysmal.”

He then shared how he felt Condal betrayed him, “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,” Martin recounted. “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.”

As for Condal he pointed to a statement he made to Entertainment Weekly last year, “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.”

While Martin did not provide any further comment with THR’s James Hibberd indicating he’s under some kind of legal agreement not to, he did share that the two allegedly took part in a Zoom call so Condal could present his vision for the third season. As part of this call Martin reportedly shared his objections and declared, “This is not my story any longer.”

An insider also added, “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.”

It’s hard to not imagine that this disagreement and broken relationship is one of the main reasons the show is ending after its fourth season. Condal announced it would end after season four on the Escape Hatch podcast. He said it would “be the last one” and reiterated there was “only one more left to go.”

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