GRRM, Condal, and the Perils of Adapting Fire & Blood

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-06

[00:00:00]Fire and Blood is quite different from George RR Martin's other work in Westeros or frankly most books that I have read in my entire life. It is an in universe history book for Westeros covering the first half or slightly less than half of the Targaryen reign and it is quite interesting because it is in universe. It's not a perfect text. We do not have some omnisient narrator telling us the history of A Song of Ice and Fire and of Westeros and of the Targaryen dynasty. Instead, it's actually written in universe by historical sources that are oftentimes inaccurate or biased. And that is a massive point of order with the book itself. The book is meant to be parsed and interpreted by the reader kind of individually. And you are meant to buy into different explanations that might seem more uh, you know, intuitive to you specifically. But there are indications that George R. Martin has a different method of reading in mind for Fire and Blood. It seems as though he has a core kind of series of ideas that he wants to stick to and that are the kind of golden path correct interpretation of fire and blood. And today I want to delve into that. It makes sense that Martin would have a version of events that is correct as to what actually went down in Westerosi history. This is the universe's history.

[00:01:15]There needs to be some series of events that has happened. But it is interesting in adapting it into a television show as is happening on House of the Dragon because there are so many different versions of so many different events and we see so many of them combined or remixed or new things happening entirely and in a lot of those instances things aren't directly suggested in the book.

[00:01:35]It's just kind of you a mishmash of different elements that are alluded to or maybe not alluded to. And I think that is part of why Condell and George R. Martin have this quote unquote abysmal relationship as Martin said in an interview with Hollywood Reporter this past January. But it's curious to me what elements of the story are worth criticizing for their changes specifically to George RR Martin because he has been fairly selective in what he has criticized so far. Martin has gone on record and criticized two specific elements of House of the Dragon that do give him concern for the integrity of this story as they are different than what he lays out in the books. And each of those two instances is unique in the relationship to the text. And I want to examine both of them. And it is worth noting Martin likely has more issues with House of the Dragon that he hasn't shared as one of those two known issues came about in a blog post now famous Beware the Butterflies that ended up getting deleted for some reason or another and that was intended to be the first in a series of blog posts. So we know there is more issues than that, but it is still interesting to examine that specific issue because there are some, you know, framing things there that don't quite align with the book. And the other issue that Martin presented which has to do with dragons in the series doesn't actually reflect the reality of the text as it currently stands. Before delving into those two issues because I think that will get spoilery and I'll give you a warning before then. I do briefly want to discuss Fire and Blood as a work and House of the Dragon as an adaptation because I think House of the Dragon has a very unenviable task here.

[00:03:06]Fire and Blood is not something of a, you know, narrative. It's a history.

[00:03:10]It's a book that is designed to be kind of parsed by the reader individually.

[00:03:15]And because of that, we don't really have any real characters. We have historical figures. We have notes about what they might have been like, but there's very little dialogue. There's very little in the way of an actual, you know, narrative arc to this because certain plot lines are very much brought up and dropped unceremoniously as is the case in the normal course of history.

[00:03:34]And I think because of that, there are issues in structuring House of the Dragon as a traditional, you know, narrative television structure. And I think we've hit a lot of those in the translation of this work to the screen.

[00:03:47]The first issue discussed in George R.

[00:03:50]Martin's Beware the Butterflies blog post is Mor the Missing. For those who might not know, Aegon II has two kids in the show, but three kids on the book.

[00:04:00]given the fact that the two twins were, you know, present in both, but he also had a younger son named Mor that was present in the book with the blood and cheese incident and being forced to choose which child to kill. In the book, it's between Jiharis and Mor, the two sons, as opposed to in the show being between the two twins. Martin's issue with the changes to the sequence in the show are that the removal of Mor means that certain other elements of this plotline will also be removed because these two children of Aegon, despite the fact that they, you know, aren't really characters because they're children in a history book each individually have narrative trajectories and things that happen to them and things that are done around them. And by condensing them into one child, some of those are by necessity going to be lost. And that is his issue with removing Mor should I say one of his issues because I think going from there the title of the post being beware the butterflies does indicate that Martin is concerned with the butterfly effect of that decision kind of rippling downstream as it continues.

[00:05:02]And this is where I'm going to begin to get into spoiler territories. If you don't want spoilers, leave a like, subscribe, comment, all the typical YouTube stuff. Otherwise, we're going to delve into some actual book spoilers and some spoilers for the show because I think that is probably why the Beware the Butterflies post got yanked down because Martin does spoil something from season 3 in that post because he says something is one way in Ryan Condell's outline that doesn't quite match the books. George R. Martin's biggest issue with omitting Mor is the fact that one of Aegon's children needs to survive.

[00:05:33]Jihara needs to survive. She has a role in the endgame of the war. Mor on the other hand in Martin's head and version of the story needs to die as a prerequisite for Helena's death because we know that she jumps from the window of the right of keep but we don't quite know why that happens as is the case with fire and blood there are a billion different interpretations of events in this instance there are actually four different versions of Helena's death that we get in the text but by saying this Martin very much confirms one of them and one strict interpretation as being the right way forward and I'm going to quote this section from the text as I It's worth examining in full.

[00:06:09]Quoting from Fire and Blood, Reneer overthrown. After half a year of captivity, why should Aegon's queen choose this knight to end her life?

[00:06:17]Mushroom asserts that Helena was with child after days and nights of being sold as a common But this explanation was only as credible as the tale of the brothel queen, which is to say, not credible at all. Grand Master Monkin believes the horror of seeing Sir Thornton and Sir Dennis die drove her to the act. But if the young queen knew the two men, it could only have been as gallows. And there's no evidence to suggest that she was a witness to their hanging. Septin Eustace suggests that Lady Misaria, the white worm, chose this knight to tell Helena of the death of her son Mor and the grizzly manner of his passing. Though what motive she would have had for doing this is beyond is hard to fathom beyond simple malice.

[00:06:54]Maesters may argue about the truth of such assertions. But on that faithful night, a darker tale was being told in the streets and alleys of King's Landing, in the inns and brothel and pot shops, even holy septs. Queen Helena had been murdered, the whispers went, as her sons had been before her. Prince Dron and his dragons would soon be at the gate, and with them the end of Reneer's reign. So, as you can see, there are four potential routes, all of which are suggested as options as to why Helena had died. And only one of them has to do with Mor. One has to do with the brothel queens, one has to do with two deaths that Helena might have witnessed, and the other is that she was murdered and did not jump of her own accord. And this is interesting to me because Fire and Blood as a text is something that I do think there is value in interpreting. I think it's fun that people can have different interpretations and remix things. And I think it lends itself to having a variety of opinions on any given issue. And Martin's issue with the show's version of events of Helena's death is that according to him, according to Ryan's outline for season 3, Helena was to jump out of the tower for no reason at all, which I it's weird to me in terms of the interpretation of events there and just the nature of outlining generally because the book does not present anything in terms of a concrete story. It actually pokes holes in every single one of those stories, which always led me to believe that it was just kind of a confluence of factors that were all kind of getting to be too much for the young queen. And I do think that would make sense in terms of a way of interpreting things because as mentioned, Mor's death was like half a year beforehand. I don't know why that would trigger this in this instance, unless Mazzaria or someone else just told her to try to be spiteful and maybe cause this. I don't know. It's hard to tell. But regardless of that, I think the issue with Condle's outline and just kind of saying that Helena does it for no reason might have been a misunderstanding of sorts in outlines.

[00:08:43]You're not really going to have a ton a ton of details. And overall, it does make sense that maybe that was just an ending note for the season because I imagine it would be very near the end of season 3. I think any of these angles as presented, except maybe the brothel Queens, I don't think that's a good story, nor should it be adapted. But beyond that, the other three angles could make sense or some combination of them could all make sense for Helena.

[00:09:05]What I wouldn't want and what I would very much understand having this level of negativity for is if Helena died just as a product of these visions we've seen her have throughout the past two seasons. Because season one, Helena, I liked her having these visions. Her prophecies were still kind of mysterious and things were not certain and it was unclear what level of magic or what she was tapping into in any given instance.

[00:09:28]But season 2, especially at the end of season 2, some of the things she was saying, she was just blatantly saying things that were going to be true at the end of the story. That's not really how prophecy works in Ice and Fire. Things tend to be a lot more vague and abstract. And I feel like if this is just the product of Helena having a vision and then doing this as a result, then this is absolutely something worth getting upset over. But it's unclear if that is the case at this point. Right when I was getting ready to finish this video, be done editing and upload it, the new trailer for House of the Dragons season 3 came out. And in it, we have a shot of what appears to be Helena giving birth, which is quite interesting because as mentioned, there is this issue with Mor the missing going on because Martin was very upset about that. And it seems they might be adding Mor into this new season. But that is kind of weird because we know for a fact that Aegon could not have conceived this child after Rook's rest last season. And last season, there was no indication that Helena might have been pregnant at all. And additionally, why would we be, you know, birthing this baby just to have him killed assumably in this same season? It would have to be the same season if we end with Helena's death.

[00:10:35]Anyway, it it's just kind of weird and I'm not sure the direction they're going with it. And I hope it is a direction that Condle is consciously choosing and not just kind of a response to this criticism for Martin because I could very much see it as a response from this criticism for Martin because it is the most public portion of that, you know, spat as it were given the fact that that was the one blog post that Martin was able to post before, you know, getting pulled and banned from doing so in the future seemingly. The other interesting tidbit comes from earlier. It was in July around the time the fourth episode of season 2 was airing and George R.

[00:11:09]Martin on his blog went into great detail on the habits of dragons in A Song of Ice and Fire. Specifically often talking about the fact that they are not necessarily nomadic. they tend to remain in one place and dragons lived on Dragonstoneone and wouldn't really go to live other places, which I've always found interesting because not only does that post contain a lot of new dragon lore generally, it also doesn't fit with not only what is in Fire and Blood, but what is in the main series as well. And it is interesting to compare and contrast that because there are examples from the main series and Fire and Blood of Dragons going off to live elsewhere, places that aren't Dragon Stone or wherever. In the main series, we have throughout most of Dance with Dragons, Drogon is going off out of Meereen to live somewhere else, and he only eventually comes back to get and then goes off again to wherever he has made his home, which we later learn is the Dothraki Sea. And then sight spoilers for Fire and Blood. We have a dragon that goes to live in the veil at the end of this story as sheep stealer and Nettles both go to live in the veil and become, you know, a fire witch queen, which is really cool. And I wish we had Nettles in the show, but I digress. You could argue that that is Nettles making that choice and the two of them fleeing as a pair with the human rider being the one to do that. But additionally, we have Silverwing settling in a lake in I believe the Reach, which is not Dragon Stone and is pretty much a distant departure from where she would have lived otherwise, which I do think is kind of, you know, fitting into what Martin says dragons don't do in the series. All of this to say, it's interesting to examine the ambiguous text of Fire and Blood when we have sort of two different interpretations of it happening live and in front of us.

[00:12:50]George R. Martin of course knows exactly what happened in all of these instances.

[00:12:55]He knows better than all of us at any point. But the text itself doesn't necessarily reflect that at every point because the text by design is something that is ambiguous and doesn't know what it's talking about necessarily because these are sources that are in the historical record and don't have access to the full breadth of information.

[00:13:12]Where the frustration comes from, I believe, between Condell and Martin, one of I mean, I'm sure several areas of frustration is the fact that Martin has this version of events that he sees as being the way things should and have played out. And Condle's that was maybe my worst voice crack ever. Condle's vision differs from that. I think probably because Condell read this book before he would have contacted Martin. I think he has his own interpretation of things and that results in some conflict between the two, between the two visions. And it is it's not great. And I'm I'm interested to see how that develops going for further. I'm interested to see if George comments any further because even this recent comment in January about their relationship being abysmal was more than I thought he would address it. And all of this really does make me wonder what Martin's bigger criticisms were, what the rest of that series of blog posts was intended to be back before it all got canned. Because there probably were contractual issues with revealing spoilers about the show before they actually happened. But overall, there are a lot of, you know, room for interpretation issues in terms of Fire and Blood's execution, and I do think it's a fairly difficult text to adapt because of that. With that said, there's still a lot of changes I do not like in this show whatsoever. Things like cutting nettles and cutting other major plot lines. I just I don't find that very compelling, especially when you could very easily have cut a different dragon seed in Ulf and combined him with Hugh much more easily.

[00:14:37]It's just a minor annoyance of mine.

[00:14:38]Overall, I do think that this is going to be an interesting series to see continue to unfold into the future. I mentioned at the top that Fire and Blood is unlike any book I've ever really read before, and that's true in terms of traditional books. But as I was writing this video, I had a realization as to what it reminds me of. Specifically, this channel for reference. Quinn the GM stands for Quinn the Game Master. I used to talk about tabletop role playing games and Dungeons and Dragons. And Fire and Blood does really remind me of like setting books for Dn D because these books oftentimes do contain details about the world and the world's history to kind of flesh out not only the world building but just this area so people can run campaigns in them. And that's honestly the tone that Fire and Blood kind of strikes. And I do really like it for that reason. Brief important announcement before closing. I recently conducted a poll where I asked viewers and readers their favorite viewpoint character in A Song of Ice and Fire. It was a lot of fun. I got over 3,000 responses and I'm doing another one where I'm asking the inverse question.

[00:15:37]Your least favorite viewpoint in A Song of Ice and Fire and why. The link to that poll is in the description of this video. I might put it in the comments as well. Be sure to fill it out. The more responses I get, the more comprehensive the poll becomes. And I really appreciate any and all support on it, on this video, and on that eventual video.

[00:15:53]So, subscribe so you don't miss it.

[00:15:55]Thank you all so much for watching. If you enjoyed this video, be sure to leave a like and subscribe. I really appreciate it, and it does really help grow the channel. many more videos for you on A Song of Ice and Fire, House of the Dragon, and Out of the Seven Kingdoms, and Game of Thrones in the very near future here, especially as we are getting closer and closer to season 3 of House of the Dragon. I'm very excited to cover that show as it is airing, and I hope you will join me in so doing, but I also will stick to stuff analyzing the books like this video.