House of the Dragon has been lauded for being more faithful to George R.R. Martin 's books than Game of Thrones was, but some of the changes in Season 2 devastated fans. The author himself may have commented on these changes well before they aired on TV in allusions on his blog. However, it's hard to tell if Martin was trying to critique the show indirectly, or just sharing his thoughts.
Fair warning: there are spoilers ahead for House of the Dragon and Fire & Blood! By far the most controversial change to House of the Dragon Season 2 was the overhaul to Rhaena Targaryen's (Phoebe Campbell) story, and the exclusion of the fan-favorite book character Nettles. In both stories, Rhaena was sent to the Vale of Arryn along with Rhaenyra's (Emma D'Arcy) youngest children to protect them from the horrors of war. In exchange for sheltering them, Lady Jeyne Arryn (Amanda Collin) asked for a dragon to protect her mountain stronghold, but Rhaenyra's sons only had hatchlings, not fighting dragons.
The change comes in Rhaena's quest to finally get a dragon of her own. In the book, Rhaena manages to hatch a dragon egg during her stay at the Vale and bonds with the hatchling, Morning, but she is still not able to participate in the war. In the show, Rhaena sees evidence of a wild dragon living in the mountains, and Jeyne explains that she wanted a dragon-rider at her castle not only to deter attacks, but to protect from this wild beast. Rhaena goes chasing after the wild dragon and, in the final scene, comes face to face with it.
For the most part, fans are devastated because they are assuming this dragon is Sheepstealer, and that Rhaena will ride him instead of his rider in the book, Nettles. There are some glaring issues with this change, but in hindsight, Martin's July 11 blog post brought up one problem that fan commentary has ignored: the habits of dragons themselves. Martin wrote at length about the dragons in his books, comparing them to dragons from other franchises and explaining how he decided to characterize them in certain ways. One long section focused on their territorial nature and their penchant for volcanic areas.
"My dragons are creatures of the sky," he wrote. "They fly, and can cross mountains and plains, cover hundreds of miles... but they don't, unless their riders take them there. They are not nomadic. During the heyday of Valyria there were forty dragon-riding families with hundreds of dragons amongst them... but (aside from our Targaryens) all of them stayed close to the Freehold and the Lands of the Long Summer... Think about it. If dragons were nomadic, they would have overrun half of Essos, and the Doom would only have killed a few of them. Similarly, the dragons of Westeros seldom wander far from Dragonstone."
"Elsewise, after three hundred years, we would have dragons all over the realm and every noble house would have a few," Martin went on. The three wild dragons mentioned in Fire & Blood have lairs on Dragonstone. The rest can be found in the Dragonpit of King's Landing, or in deep caverns under the Dragonmont... You won't find dragons hunting the riverlands or the Reach or the Vale, or roaming the northlands or the mountains of Dorne. Fantasy needs to be grounded. It is not simply a license to do anything you like... Ignore canon, and the world you've created comes apart like tissue paper."
In hindsight, knowing how Season 2 ended, it sounds like Martin is not pleased with the show's change to Sheepstealer. The author pointed out several potential plot holes that could emerge if we accept that wild dragons might wander all the way from Dragonstone to the Vale in search of prey or territory. However, he did not mention the change directly and he published this post the week before Episode 5 aired, when Rhaena first saw charred sheep bones in the Vale. The author may have been getting his musings out early, or he may have been on an unrelated tangent.
After Season 2 ended on a cliffhanger, we can't be sure that House of the Dragon is removing Nettles from the narrative altogether. Even if it does, the show has adapted other fantasy elements of Martin's world that Game of Thrones refused to show, so it deserves some credit. House of the Dragon is streaming now on Max, and Season 3 is currently in pre-production. Martin's books, including Fire & Blood, are available now in print, digital and audiobook formats.
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