How ‘Home of the Dragon’ is totally different from George R.R. Martin’s ‘Fireplace and Blood’

The Sport of Thrones prequel collection Home of the Dragon is lastly right here, bringing George R.R. Martin’s huge fantasy tome Fireplace & Blood to the small display screen.

Fireplace & Blood tells the historical past of Home Targaryen as they dominated over Westeros, together with occasions like Aegon’s preliminary conquest and the civil battle knowns because the Dance of the Dragons. Home of the Dragon focuses on the Dance and the occasions main as much as it, together with the rivalry between Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen and Queen Alicent Hightower. Nonetheless, identical to with the TV adaptation of Sport of Thrones, Home of the Dragon makes a number of adjustments from the supply materials with a view to make the transition from web page to display screen. Don’t be concerned, ebook loyalists: Change generally is a good factor, and in Home of the Dragon‘s case, a grand majority of the difference selection work to boost the narrative as an alternative of detract from it.

From structural variations to lacking characters and extra, listed below are the largest adjustments Home of the Dragon has made to this point.

A historical past ebook vs. a TV present

Beginning out, the largest distinction between Fireplace & Blood and Home of the Dragon is every work’s particular person construction. Fireplace & Blood is written as a historical past ebook by the fictional Archmaester Gyldayn, whereas Home of the Dragon is a story TV present that adapts solely a small portion of the centuries-long historical past coated in Fireplace & Blood.

All through Fireplace & Blood, Gyldayn discusses his differing sources for his work, particularly through the part coping with the Dance of the Dragons. These sources embrace conflicting experiences from Maesters and Septons, in addition to a courtroom jester named Mushroom. Every supply offers us a barely totally different tackle key moments that happen behind closed doorways, Rashomon-style, with Mushroom’s accounts tending to be probably the most lascivious and excessive. Whereas characters like Mushroom don’t determine into Home of the Dragon, will probably be fascinating to see which course of occasions Home of the Dragon chooses to painting, because it should take a definitive stance on a few of Fireplace & Blood‘s extra ambiguous moments.

An thrilling component that comes with adapting a historical past ebook (albeit a fictional one) is the prospect to mess around inside the historic framework. Fireplace & Blood not often delves into scene-level element, which implies Home of the Dragon will get so as to add new scenes or embellish occasions which can be already within the ebook. So whereas ebook readers might know the overall story arc of Home of the Dragon, they will not have the ability to anticipate a few of the extra granular, character-focused scenes. It is a great way to maintain viewers on their toes, and to maintain this adaptation considerably unpredictable.

A match and a delivery

The primary episode of Home of the Dragon is constructed round two key occasions: the delivery of King Viserys and Queen Aemma’s son, and the match to have a good time it. Scenes of preventing, just like the brawl between Prince Daemon and Ser Criston Cole, are juxtaposed straight with Queen Aemma’s painful labor, hammering dwelling her earlier level to her daughter Rhaenyra that childbirth is a girl’s battlefield. Whereas Aemma’s labor and the tourney introducing Criston don’t occur on the similar time within the books, the selection to deliver them collectively is a brilliant one. We get the thematic parallels talked about beforehand, in addition to a very good, old school Sport of Thrones-style match. The lavish celebration additionally indicators simply how necessary a male inheritor is to the realm: If Aemma has a son, peace will probably proceed. If not, questions concerning the line of succession will fester.

Aemma’s loss of life throughout childbirth is not detailed in nice quantities in Fireplace & Blood. Nonetheless, Viserys’s dilemma about whether or not to kill Aemma with a view to make certain his son is born truly occurs to different characters within the ebook. A lot earlier within the Targaryen dynasty, Queen Alyssa Velaryon, mom to King Jaehaerys, experiences a equally painful delivery. The maester tending to her tells her husband, Lord Rogar Baratheon, that there is nonetheless an opportunity they’ll maintain the kid, however Alyssa is bound to die; Rogar chooses to save lots of the kid. The truth that Home of the Dragon is drawing from occasions like this all through Fireplace & Blood to complement its narrative is fascinating, and proof of the pliability the present has given its supply materials’s historiographical nature.

Childhood pals: Rhaenyra and Alicent

Home of the Dragon makes the superb resolution to heart Rhaenyra and Alicent’s friendship proper from the beginning. The rift between them is what brings concerning the Dance of the Dragons, so it is smart that Home of the Dragon begins creating their relationship within the very first episode.

In Fireplace & Blood, Rhaenyra and Alicent aren’t notably shut earlier than Alicent marries King Viserys, however in Home of the Dragon, they’re quick pals. Their in-show childhood bond guarantees to make their fallout much more heartbreaking, which is bound to present later episodes even higher emotional weight.

A tune of ice and what now?

Throughout the first episode’s ultimate moments, King Viserys drops a reality bomb on Rhaenyra. Their ancestor, Aegon the Conqueror, conquered Westeros not simply due to ambition, however as a result of he had a dream. That dream foretold the top of mankind, introduced on by a horrible winter — White Walkers, anybody?

There’s nothing in Fireplace & Blood that implies Aegon had this dream, however provided that the ebook not often delves into its characters’ ideas, there’s nothing saying that Aegon did not have this dream both. Maybe this was Martin’s intent all alongside. Nonetheless, I am not a fan of this specific storytelling tweak. It is means too neat a connection to Sport of Thrones, and after the hostile fan reactions to Season 8, Home of the Dragon wants as a lot of a recent begin as it could possibly get. Plus, the reveal of Aegon’s dream — which he known as A Music of Ice and Fireplace, eliciting an enormous eye roll from me — shifts focus away from the politics of Home of the Dragons in favor of reminding us of a Massive Unhealthy we already know is coming. Heck, we already know that the Evening King fails to beat Westeros, so why hassle tying it again to Aegon? In a collection that has to this point made many sensible adaptation choices, that is the one one I outright disagree with. We do not want “winter is coming,” spherical two — Home of the Dragon already has loads of nice characters and plot factors to select from.

The showdown at Dragonstone

The second episode of Home of the Dragon, “The Rogue Prince,” offers us a tease of what full Targaryen-on-Targaryen violence may appear to be. When Prince Daemon steals a dragon egg with the intent of giving it to his little one with paramour Mysaria, King Viserys will not let that stand. He sends his Hand, Lord Otto Hightower, to Dragonstone to retrieve the egg.

Nonetheless, it will take greater than a mere Hightower to vary Daemon’s thoughts. Simply when violence between Daemon’s gold cloaks and Otto’s troopers threatens to interrupt out, Rhaenyra arrives on Dragonstone together with her dragon, Syrax. She faces off with Daemon, goading him to kill her if he really needs to be the inheritor. He relents and returns the egg, and the assembly concludes with out bloodshed. Rhaenyra returns triumphantly to King’s Touchdown, solely to face the ire of Viserys for her disobedience.

Whereas the egg saga takes up a large chunk of “The Rogue Prince,” Martin particulars it in only a few sentences in Fireplace & Blood:

When he realized that his concubine was pregnant, Prince Daemon offered her with a dragon’s egg and woke his brother’s wroth. King Viserys commanded him to return the egg, ship his whore away, and return to his lawful spouse, or else be attainted as a traitor. The prince obeyed, although with ailing grace…

Once you examine this passage with Home of the Dragon‘s model, you actually see the present’s adaptation course of. Take a key incident from the ebook and make it the point of interest of an episode, all whereas looping in additional of your central characters, resembling Rhaenyra.

The present’s framing of the Dragonstone showdown locations Rhaenyra in opposition with each her father and her uncle. This helps us perceive simply how a lot she has to supply, in addition to how a lot she, as a girl on this male-dominated world, has to combat with a view to be seen as a viable inheritor.

Plus, we get to see Caraxes and Syrax in full drive, and it by no means hurts to see extra dragons.

Alicent and Viserys

Like in Fireplace & Blood, King Viserys chooses to marry Alicent Hightower in Home of the Dragon. Within the ebook, Alicent is described as having been the previous king Jaehaerys’s companion earlier than he died, however we do not hear far more about her between then and the wedding announcement. Nonetheless, extra disreputable sources ( you, Mushroom!) declare she had sexual relationships with Daemon and Jaehaerys, and even with Viserys whereas he was nonetheless married to Queen Aemma. Fortunately, the present doesn’t take this route.

Within the TV collection, Alicent is pressured to realize Viserys’s affection by her personal father, the sneaky Otto Hightower. She’s clearly uncomfortable with this, however obeys, performing as a companion to Viserys in an analogous approach to how she accompanies Jaehaerys in Fireplace & Blood. Her interactions with the king are early proof of her crafty and manipulation. Plus, they proceed to arrange the approaching rift between her and Rhaenyra.

We’ll be updating this text weekly with extra adjustments between Fireplace & Blood and Home of the Dragon, so be sure you verify again in after every episode airs!

New Home of the Dragon episodes can be found each Sunday on HBO and HBO Max.(opens in a brand new tab)