House of the Dragon has reached its first-season conclusion, and anyone hoping for a nice, neat resolution to Westeros’ ever-present question “which crazy blond gets to sit on the sword chair?” is no doubt sorely disappointed. However, fans of the show’s convoluted family politics, which are, according to co-creator and executive producer Ryan Condal, based largely on the real history of every disputed royal succession in actual world history, are no doubt already eagerly anticipating the next season as they draw up their “which in-law will be, poisoned, stabbed, burnt, or have their face melted off next” wishlists.
And they can definitely expect more of the same to come, according to Condal.
“We’re trying to make this as much like a real history as possible, and history is messy,” the producer told Variety. Indeed, the current family squabbles turned into actual civil war mirror similar real-life conflicts the globe over since time immemorial, many of which heavily influenced G.R.R. Martin’s worldbuilding for the realms of Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon.
In fact, Condal believes that House of the Dragon‘s source material, Martin’s 2018 book Fire & Blood, having been written in the style of a historical account rather than as a narrative in the vein of the Song of Ice and Fire allows greater creative freedom to reflect the messy nature of real history, as opposed to any slavish adaptation of a novel.
“What we’re fascinated with, on a meta-narrative level with this story,” he tells Variety, “is showing how messy and unreliable history is. I mean, this is a book written by one author with an agenda trying to filter through the accounts of three other authors, all with their own agendas. And we’re expected to take the one true history out of this book? No.”
“I think there are things that can be perceived as accidental are not quite as intended in real history, and that will happen in the show,” he goes on to note.
In other words, even fans of Fire & Blood can’t count on how the future seasons of House of the Dragon might play out. Even if they know the inevitable outcomes of the conflict. Meaning fans of all stripes can start anticipating all the certain twists and turns the story will take in Season 2.
