George R. R. Martin, the writer of the Game of Thrones novels and the Fire & Blood spin-off upon which HBO series House of the Dragon is based, had a lot to say about a major change made in the show. On September 4, Martin published a post on his blog called “Beware the Butterflies,” which goes into great detail about his qualms with a specific scene in season two of HotD. However not long after publishing the post, Martin deleted it entirely.
Based on the post, which you can read in archived form here, Martin took serious issue with the way House of the Dragon showrunners changed a moment known amongst fans of Fire & Blood as “Blood and Cheese.” In the show, Queen Helaena is accosted in the castle by two intruders, who demand she point out which of her two young children is a boy, ostensibly so they can murder the heir to the Iron Throne. She shakily offers them her necklace, but when they persist, she points to Jaehaerys, her son, who the intruder swiftly murders.
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In the novel, Helaena actually has three children, Jaehaerys, Jaehaera, and Maelor (Maelor is not in the show, though Martin claims in the now-deleted blog post that he was told he’d be in the third season). When Blood and Cheese (as they’re known in the novel) break in, Helaena first offers up her own life, then reluctantly points out Maelor, who is the youngest, for the murderers to slay. But the intruders realize that she’s avoiding pointing out Jaehaerys, next in line for the throne, and kill him anyway, with Cheese whispering to Maelor that his mother chose him to die before leaving the castle.
Martin claims he argued with showrunner Ryan Condal about the change, but not for long “or with much heat,” saying that Condal gave him enough reassurances that he could accept the change. “[He] had what seemed to be practical reasons for it; they did not want to deal with casting another child, especially a two-year old toddler,” Martin wrote. “Kids that young will inevitably slow down production, and there would be budget implications. Budget was already an issue on House of the Dragon, it made sense to save money wherever we could. Moreover, Ryan assured me that we were not losing Prince Maelor, simply postponing him. Queen Helaena could still give birth to him in season three, presumably after getting with child late in season two. That made sense to me, so I withdrew my objections and acquiesced to the change.”
Though Martin ultimately “still [loved]” the episode despite the changes, he has a much bigger issue with the alleged removal of Maelor outright, writing, “Sometime between the initial decision to remove Maelor, a big change was made. The prince’s birth was no longer just going to be pushed back to season 3. He was never going to be born at all. The younger son of Aegon and Helaena would never appear.”
He then references the “Butterfly Effect,” the philosophical notion that a very small thing, as small as the flap of a butterfly’s wings, can, across time, have major implications on things seemingly unrelated. Martin then warns readers of spoilers, writing that “If you have never read Fire & Blood maybe it does not matter, because all I am going to ‘spoil’ here are things that happen in the book that may NEVER happen on the series.” I’ll give you a spoiler warning of my own, as there’s major story beats in the novel coming now.
In Fire & Blood, Helaena commits suicide not long after the death of Prince Maelor. Since she is beloved by the smallfolk, when rumors spread that it was Queen Rhaenyra who killed her (as Rhaenyra has taken over King’s Landing at this point), rather than Helaena jumping out of a window of the Red Keep, the people of King’s Landing flood the streets, demanding justice for the beloved ruler. “It is the beginning of the end for Rhaenyra’s rule over the city, ultimately leading 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,” Martin writes.
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He continues, writing, “Maelor by himself means little. He is a small child, does not have a line of dialogue, does nothing of consequence but die…but where and when and how, that does matter. Losing Maelor weakened the end of the Blood and Cheese sequence…it undercut the motivation for Helaena’s suicide, and that in turn sent thousands into the streets and alleys, screaming for justice for their ‘murdered’ queen. None of that is essential, I suppose… but all of it does serve a purpose, it all helps to tie the story lines together, so one thing follows another in a logical and convincing manner.”
Martin then ominously ends his post with a warning that there are “larger and more toxic butterflies to come if House of the Dragon goes ahead with some of the change being contemplated for seasons 3 and 4…”
I find it funny that Martin never got this publicly bitchy about the ending of Game of Thrones, which didn’t just deviate from his source material but created new storylines entirely, as he hasn’t yet finished the mainline novels. And I find it even funnier that he posted such a scathing takedown of a series I believe is doing adaptation the right way. But perhaps Martin did what so many of us who are terminally online do, and tweeted and deleted after having a bit of clarity. We shall see.
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