Hated ‘House of the Dragon’s Time Jumps? George R. R. Martin Wanted Even More!

Game of Thrones author George R. R. Martin just revealed his thoughts on the first season of HBO’s House of the Dragon and his biggest quibble with the series might surprise you. Yes, the maestro himself, George R. R. Martin, didn’t like how House of the Dragon handled its contentious time jumps. It turns out he advocated early on in the development process for more of them. Martin revealed this, plus the truth about Baelon Targaryen’s death, in a rather candid interview for Penguin Random House.

George R. R. Martin is currently promoting his latest Game of Thrones-related project, an illustrated history of the Targaryens called The Rise of the Dragon. During a chat with author David Anthony Durham for his publisher, Martin opened up about seeing rough cuts of House of the Dragon — in which Paddy Considine had to hilariously stab at two blue-clad stunt men standing in for Episode 3’s stag — and how difficult it was for the House of the Dragon writers to figure out where to start the show. According to Martin, this debate is what led to the time jumps…and he wanted more of them.

Before launching into why, Martin pointed out that House of the Dragon had been in development in one form or another since 2016. There had been multiple writers attached to the show before current showrunner Ryan Condal came on board.

“One of the big issues with all of these writers was where to begin,” Martin said. “[Condal] began in 101 with the Great Council where the Lords vote that Jaehaerys’s heir — he’s just lost his son Baelon, who has died of appendicitis — so who is his heir now? And the lords vote to choose Viserys over Rhaenys.”

This seemingly offside comment about Baelon’s death is rather huge as it confirms that his death was natural. There are fan theories that he might have been poisoned, but Martin has just soundly put the kibosh on those. But, I digress…

“I don’t know if I should reveal this,” Martin later says. “That [beginning] was not handed down by some muse from Ancient Greece. We — myself and the other writers — had a lot of spirited discussions about where to begin that story.”

“One of the writers wanted to begin it later. Wanted to begin it essentially with Aemma dying. So skip the Great Council. Skip the tournament. A scream sounds out. Aemma is dead. That’s where you begin. So that was one possibility.”

“Another of the writers wanted to begin even later than that. To begin with Viserys dying. So you open Act I, Scene I, Viserys is [death croak] and what happens there? Well, then you have to present all that material in flashbacks or dialogue. That becomes challenging, too.”

“The other possibility we discussed — which was actually my favorite possibility, but nobody liked it except me [laughs]. I would have began it much earlier. I would have began it 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.”

“You know, 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 sons of his own and is a man and she’s just a teenage girl?”

“But then you would have had 40 more years and you would have had even more time jumps and you would have even more recastings and, uh, yeah, I was the only one who was really enthused about that.”

So if you hated the time jumps and cast shuffles on House of the Dragon, consider yourself lucky you were spared a whole episode about Aemon and Baelon’s brotherly rivalry and Baelon’s wife Alyssa bringing little baby Daemon Targaryen upon her dragon for “Mommy & Me” dracarys lessons. But if you are a fan of all things George R. R. Martin, weep for the extra glimpse of Targaryen history we could have had, but lost. Like Alyssa Targaryen!