With so many seasons of Game of Thrones and now House of the Dragon (HOTD), it’s easy to forget that George R.R. Martin is the architect of the world. This means that showrunners consult him on narrative. Turns out he wanted things in HOTD to jump around a bit more.
In an interview with Penguin Random House, Martin gave a little preview of what HOTD would look like had writers listened more closely to his suggestions. Turns out there would be even more time jumps.
First of all, Martin explains that the discussions for what direction to take the show were “spirited.” One of those suggestions was to start the show’s timeline later than it did on HBO. In particular, someone suggested it open with King Viserys’ wife and cousin Aemma dying, or even start at Viserys death.
Of course, that death didn’t happen until the eighth episode. Martin said all the events before would’ve been covered through flashbacks. He also had another unorthodox idea:
“The other possibility we discussed — which was actually my favorite, but nobody liked it but me” — had the series opening “like 40 years earlier with the episode I would have called ‘The Heir and the Spare,’ in which Jaehaerys’s two sons, Aemon and Baelon, are alive. And we see the friendship, but also the rivalry, between the two sides of the great house.”
He went over some of the plot points from earlier storylines. These, by the way, are spoilers for the book.
“Aemon dies accidentally when a Myrish crossbowman shoots him by accident on Tarth, and then Jaehaerys has to decide who becomes the new heir. Is it the daughter of the older son who’s just died, or is it the second son, who has children of his own…?”
Martin’s proposed storyline would of course have altered the show significantly. Even Martin admits “you would have had even more time jumps, and you would have had even more recastings” in subsequent episodes had they gone his way.
“Yeah, I was the only one who was really enthused about that,” Martin said.
HOTD is currently streaming on HBO Max.