How ‘House of the Dragon’ Season 2 is different from George R.R. Martin’s ‘Fire and Blood’

Home of the Dragon Season 2 has flown again onto our screens, bringing with it loads of dragons, Targaryen household drama, and modifications from its supply materials, George R.R. Martin’s Fireplace & Blood.

A number of of those modifications construct on these in Season 1. Largest amongst them is the easy incontrovertible fact that Home of the Dragon is a story TV present, whereas Fireplace & Blood is offered as a historic account. The distinction in type signifies that Fireplace & Blood operates on a bigger timescale, spanning centuries, whereas Home of the Dragon can dive deeper into sure scenes and character moments or flesh out “historic” ambiguities.

An instance of that fleshing out is the connection between Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy) and Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke), whose fraught dynamic within the present advantages from the additional layers of seeing them develop up collectively earlier than changing into bitter enemies. That sturdy adaptation selection is considered one of many who carries into Season 2, however there are loads new deviations from Fireplace & Blood on the way in which. Which of them work and add depth to the story of the Dance of the Dragons? Which of them are much less profitable? Let’s break it down.

Listed here are all the largest variations between Home of the Dragon Season 2 and Fireplace & Blood.

Episode one: We’re again on the Wall!

Home of the Dragon Season 2 opens with pictures of snowy forests and the acquainted sounds of Ramin Djawadi’s Winterfell theme, which may solely imply one factor for Home Stark followers: We’re so again.

After spending the primary season principally in and round Dragonstone and King’s Touchdown, it is a delight to revisit the northernmost reaches of Westeros. Rhaenyra’s eldest son Jacaerys (Harry Collett) flew up there within the Season 1 finale to deal with with Lord Cregan Stark of Winterfell (Tom Taylor), and by the point we meet up with them at first of Season 2, it looks as if they’ve turn into good friends. They’re taking a discipline journey up the Wall, bantering in regards to the time Torrhen Stark bent the knee to Aegon the Conqueror, and discussing how the North can support Rhaenyra in her battle efforts.

Home of the Dragon skips over fairly a bit of fabric to get to Jace and Cregan’s allyship. In traditional Fireplace & Blood vogue, there are a number of conflicting accounts of Jace’s time in Winterfell in Martin’s work. Of his many historic “sources,” Grand Maester Munkun writes in his True Telling that the 2 turned inseparable and swore a blood oath of brotherhood, whereas Septon Eustace claims that Jace badgered Cregan about changing to the Religion of the Seven. Essentially the most scandalous of all of the accounts belongs, naturally, to court docket jester Mushroom, who says Jace fell in love with and married a bastard named Sara Snow, though he was betrothed to his cousin Rhaena (Phoebe Campbell). With solely eight episodes on this season, Home of the Dragon possible did not have the time to get into all this potential Northern drama. We have the Dance of the Dragons to kick off, individuals! Nonetheless, you possibly can guess we’ve not seen the final of Cregan Stark.

Episode one: Alicent Hightower and Criston Cole’s torrid affair.

Olivia Cooke in “Home of the Dragon.”
Credit score: Ollie Upton / HBO

In a transfer I did not see coming (and that actually is not in Fireplace & Blood), Dowager Queen Alicent and Lord Commander of the Kingsguard Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) are getting it on. Primarily based on Alicent’s assertion that they should not hook up once more (as if that is going to work), we are able to assume this affair has been happening for some time. So, when did this tryst start? When did Cole come again round on the entire “breaking his Kingsguard oath of chastity” factor? When did Alicent resolve, “Eh, screw it,” and begin doing precisely what she hated Rhaenyra for doing?

Alicent and Criston’s hypocrisy right here does not trouble me, as it’s very in line with their overly righteous characters. And it simply is sensible that one thing would occur between these two. They’re principally joined on the hip, and their joint animosity in direction of Rhaenyra provides a candy psychosexual twist. Plus, as Alicent reckons with the more and more unpredictable males in her circle, like her sons Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney) and Aemond (Ewan Mitchell), it additionally is sensible that she’d attempt to reclaim her energy elsewhere.

What does trouble me about this alteration is that Criston is having intercourse in any respect. He does not deserve it. No good issues for Criston, please!

Episode one: Let’s discuss Blood and Cheese.

Phia Saban in “Home of the Dragon.”
Credit score: Ollie Upton / HBO

In what’s undoubtedly one of many darkest scenes ever featured in Home of the Dragon and Sport of Thrones, two assassins — identified merely as Blood (Sam C. Wilson) and Cheese (Mark Stobbart) — sneak into the Purple Maintain and homicide Aegon and Helaena’s (Phia Saban) toddler son Jaehaerys. The monstrous act comes on the behest of Daemon (Matt Smith), who seeks “a son for a son” in retribution for the loss of life of Lucerys (Elliot Grihault).

Within the e book, Blood and Cheese power Helaena to decide on which of her sons she desires them to kill. When volunteering herself does not work, she chooses her youngest, Maelor, as Jaehaerys is inheritor to the Iron Throne. In a nasty twist, Blood and Cheese kill Jaehaerys as a substitute — and inform Maelor that his mom desires him useless.

Issues play out a bit of in another way in Home of the Dragon, though the ultimate final result is similar: Jaehaerys dies, and Helaena is traumatized for all times. First off, Blood and Cheese’s authentic goal within the present is Aemond. That change already complicates the blame of Jaehaerys’s loss of life. It lets Daemon off the hook a bit of for bankrolling little one homicide, simply as Vhagar’s unauthorized chomping within the Season 1 finale means Aemond technically did not homicide Lucerys. However technicalities do not matter when youngsters are useless.

As a substitute of discovering Aemond, Blood and Cheese encounter Helaena and the twins Jaehaerys and Jaehaera. (Maelor is lower from the present completely.) They make a snap judgment that one Targaryen son is pretty much as good as one other and make Helaena inform them which of her youngsters is Jaehaerys. She factors him out, however there is a transient second during which Blood thinks she’s making an attempt to double-cross them. In any case, why would she hand over the inheritor to the throne so simply? Absolutely she’s truly pointing to Jaehaera. Cheese calls her bluff although and accurately surmises that she’s truly singled out her son. With that, Jaehaerys turns into one other sufferer within the Dance of the Dragons.

This model of the Blood and Cheese scene nods a bit to the e book model, with Helaena nonetheless having to make an inconceivable selection and there being trickery concerned. Nevertheless, there’s an additional layer of tragedy right here. Primarily based on a rat-centric assertion in direction of the start of the episode, Helaena possible foresaw the arrival of Blood and Cheese in a prophetic dream. Meaning she’s had fairly a little bit of time to consider this second, and perhaps even put together for it. Her try and throw Blood and Cheese off of Jaehaerys’s scent was her last-ditch effort to cease the inevitable. In failing, her motion turns a horrifying scene into one thing even sadder.

We’ll be updating this text as Home of the Dragon Season 2 continues airing, so test again weekly for extra variations between the present and Fireplace & Blood.

New episodes of Home of the Dragon air Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and Max.