Another year in Westeros has officially passed, as Season 2 of House of the Dragon drew to a close on Sunday. The phenomenal HBO blockbuster has spent a full season keeping everyone in suspense about the coming war between Team Black and Team Green, and it sounds like that suspense will continue well into the next season! But don’t worry! We’re at least getting some answers today, as we were able to attend a press conference with showrunner Ryan Condal on this exciting season of House of the Dragon!
Condal and team have done a terrific job succeeding the legacy of Game of Thrones with a compelling character study about internal conflict between family and friends alike when ambition and power consume them — but with dragons — and therein has been the north star for this recent season, with the stakes increasing, rivalries becoming more bitter, and, interestingly enough, hope becoming more prominent for Team Black and potentially Westeros as a whole.
Here are 15 facts we got from the House of the Dragon finale press conference:
1. House of the Dragon will be ending with Season 4!
When asked about whether or not he sees five seasons out of the series, Condal replied saying, “No, I think it’s four..We will be starting prep [on season 3] in the fall, and we should be in production again in early-ish 2025… There are so many great events that we’re already writing in season 3 as this war really comes to a big head at this point in the storytelling. I mean, if you look at season two, this is largely a metaphor for a nuclear conflict. If season 2 sort of the arming of the sides and the Cold War with… moments of actual conflict and explosion, I think, with Season 3, you really do start to see things boil over, from here to the kind of the end of the war. So, there’s, as always with this show, gonna be giant moments of spectacle. But also, you know, real moments of surprise and character nuance that you know that we’re very much looking forward to. And I think really some of my favorite moments in the book are, just as a reader (that I’m excited to adapt as a dramatist) are yet to come in the story.”
2. Fantasy is still a huge priority for the Game of Thrones Universe
Eagle eyed viewers who witnessed the green man from the Isle of Faces in Daemon Targaryen’s vision were reminded that, in between the political scheming and intrigue, this is a universe that puts fantasy first, and Condal wanted to remind folks about that.
“Yeah, I mean, I think that’s some of the biggest tricks of rendering a show like this… This is a high fantasy world, and George never shied away from any of that. I mean he kind of leaned into it, and I love the magic trick that he pulls off in the books where he tells you it’s a fantasy series right at the beginning, the fist pages of A Game of Thrones, the first book. And then he slowly walks you away from it, and then at the end, you know, a woman is giving birth to three dragons hatched out of stone eggs, she comes out of the fire unburned. And suddenly, you know, the night is alive with the music of dragons for the first time in almost 200 years. And we wanted to honor that world that George created.
“There’s a world is very rich in magic. Of course, it’s called House of the Dragon, the most present obvious magic is the existence of these dragons, but because of the way they exist in this world… they’ve been integrated so realistically into the world that you can forget that they are a magical beings… And I think the thing that we really wanted to do is keep alive the rest of the magic in this world.
“You know, George always made a big point about, in the original books, that when the dragons die off, you know, the magic goes out of the world in a big way. So, in theory, with all of these dragons alive, the most dragons, since the time since when Valyria fell, it made sense to us to try to keep the richness of the other magics in the world alive. Whatever is going on with the Targaryens, foresight and dreaming and prophecy, the very thing that preserves them from the doom; we see that alive. And then this idea of Earth, magic or green magic, whatever is going on in the Riverlands, those kinds of ideas that were presented to Daemon over the course of the season that he now can no longer deny. And now that… he’s seen it face to face, it’s changed him. So, it’s making it alive in the world, because that’s all fun and we love that kind of texture, but it’s also how it plays. The thing that we’re interested in as dramatists is how it plays with our characters.”
3. The long anticipated Battle of Gullet will be coming in Season 3
When asked about why battles were scarce this season and why Season 2 ends before the Battle of Gullet from the novels, Condal said:
“One of the challenges of making television at any scale, even this scale, which seems to be one of infinite time and resources, [is that it’s] just never the case. I mean, nobody has infinite time and resources… As a showrunner, you’re always in the position of having to balance storytelling and the resources that you have available to tell that story… And one of the things that really came into play in season 2 is, what is the final destination of this series and where are we going?
“And I think it was a combination of factors that led us to rebalance… knowing now where we’re going, and we know what that endpoint is. To rebalance the story in such a way that we had, you know, 3 great seasons of television to… further three great seasons of television to tell… to round out and tell this story. And we knew where we were going, and we know how those things kind of break up and break out. And when you’re trying to mount this show, which requires a tremendous amount of resources, construction, armor, costumes, visual effects. We were trying to give Gullet, which is arguably the most anticipated… action event of Fire and Blood, trying to give it the time and the space that it deserved. And as obviously as anybody that’s seen the finale, we are building to that. That event will happen very shortly in the time of the (in terms of the storytelling) House of the Dragon… It should be the biggest thing to date that we’ve pulled off, and we just wanted to have the time in the space to do that at a level that is going to excite and satisfy the fans in the way that it’s deserved. And we also wanted to build some anticipation toward it. I know everybody wants this to come out every summer. It’s just the show is so complex that we’re really making multiple feature films every season. So, I apologize for the wait, but I will just say if Rook’s Rest and The Red Sowing are any indication, the team that we have together is gonna pull off a hell of a win with the Battle of the Gullet in the future.”
4. Heleana’s psychic abilities are definitely going to evolve further
On the growing abilities of Helaena Targaryen, Condal revealed the following:
“She’s evolving. And also, there’s been extreme psychological pressure put on her, not only with the massive loss that she had over the over in early in the season, but just the stress of living in this chaotic environment. And I think we know this from anybody that’s read into people that have psychic experiences or things like that, or people that seem to be a medium that can like read into things or experience a haunting, moments of physical stress can bring those things out in a more pronounced way, whether you believe in any of that or not. And I think you’re seeing Helaena… she’s not just gonna, from the beginning of her life to the end, have the same sort of level of grasp of this ability. It’s we’re seeing it certainly change a little bit.”
5. We’ll be seeing a “Jamie Lannister” type change in Criston Cole
When The Nerds of Color asked about whether or not the character of Cole instantly regrets his involvement in the war, Condal stated:
“Criston’s in a in a dark place at the end of the season. And understandably, I mean he’s marched off, to link up with Vhagar, knowing that if that happens that the men on the ground, as they were at Rook’s Rest, are the cannon fodder. Even the knights on horseback, even the reserves of the cavalry.
“We’ve given the word of the dragons, and I think he’s realized and processed his own role in that, not only where his end is likely to be, which is not a pleasant one, but also where the end of this entire war is to be. As somebody that understands on a strategic level what… how warfare works, and how this thing is going to play out, and he’s seen it on a micro and macro scale at Rook’s Rest, and now he’s marched off at the end of episode 6 back, you know, back into the breach. And I don’t think there’s any reason for Cole to believe, given what we know about him, that he’s going to come home from that.
“And I think he’s reckoning with that in a big way, and what he probably saw his role in the history when he set out in Episode 3, in the shining armour with his gold chain of office… his handling on and how he perceives his role, and what’s going to happen now. And we had him, you know, Geeta, the director, had him stripped down in that scene. He was not wearing his armor, and it’s very, I think, subtle way of saying that this is a man who’s been kind of laid bare by these experiences, and now we see a very stripped Criston Cole.
“And I would just say, you know, Fabien Frankel, wonderful performer, who, you know, took on the role of playing a kind of heel character through this story. But is just a wonderful, wonderful guy, and a wonderful performer, and I just I’m very, very proud of his portrayal in that scene because I think it forces people to take a little bit of a different look at Cole, who, I think many people have pre- judged over the course of the season. And just another example of a great George R.R. Martin character, who you think you understand one way, and then they start saying things that you agree with at the end. And you realize maybe I have more in common with Jamie Lannister than I once thought.”
The full second season of House of the Dragon is now streaming only on Max!