Is 'House of the Dragon' Based on Books? A Deeper Dive Into Source Material

The 'Game of Thrones' spinoff is based on a book, but not a novel.

By Michael Hein

House of the Dragon Season 2 is just over a week away, and many fans are diving back into the source material in preparation. The Game of Thrones prequel is based on a book, but not on a traditional novel like its predecessor. Read on for a deep dive into how House of the Dragon is expanding the potential of book-to-screen adaptations.

House of the Dragon is based on George R.R. Martin's book Fire & Blood, which is a fictional history book about House Targaryen's reign over Westeros. The book is written from the perspective of Archmaester Gyldayn, a character Martin created to narrate his reference books. Gyldayn is an unreliable narrator with incomplete information, leaving lots of room for mystery in the book. In particular, the portion of the book that House of the Dragon is based on references three primary sources which often contradict each other, so the reader is expected to choose between them and decide on how or why certain events played out.

Gyldayn's book was written during the reign of King Robert I Baratheon – so within a few years of the start of Game of Thrones. If all that weren't enough to obscure the narrative, the book covers about 140 years' worth of history. House of the Dragon has only covered a small portion of that time – though it does have about a third of the book's length to work with.

In many ways, this was a brilliant contrivance by Martin – Fire & Blood stands on its own and is legitimately fun to read, but it also serves as a perfect outline for multiple TV adaptations. With the mysteries left by the writing process, book readers will still tune in to see a more conventional narrative that answers some of their lingering questions. In fact, the potential of this book is already taking shape as another adaptation is now in development. Writer Mattson Tomlin is working on a series about Aegon's Conquest, the war when the Targaryens first united the Seven Kingdoms.

Still, the process of adapting House of the Dragon is far different from Game of Thrones. Martin is a famously verbose and prolific writer, and his novels are door-stoppers with more detail than a TV producer could hope to put on screen. A recent thread by YouTuber Joe Magician drove this home – if fans' predictions are right, House of the Dragon Season 2 will be based on just 30 pages from the book. For comparison, the first few seasons of Game of Thrones adapted roughly one novel each. The first book has 694 pages, and they grow in size from there with the fifth book having 1,056 pages. At that point, the greater challenge was to cut the story down for TV, not stretch it out.

This also changes the way spoilers and fandom discussions play out online. While Game of Thrones was on, book-readers would often complain about plot points that were skipped, or entire characters and arcs that were abandoned. They'd also hint at major events coming up. In the case of House of the Dragon, there is only a finite amount of text but it has been dissected meticulously. An event might have been described in three different ways, but the TV show will settle on one as the "truth." This puts a lot of pressure on the TV show, and has already hurt some feelings along the way.

So far, House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal has gotten a lot of praise for adapting the historical style of Fire & Blood into a straightforward TV narrative. There are some plot points coming up that make fans nervous, but commenters generally agree they want to give him the benefit of the doubt. Meanwhile, Tomlin just gave an interview where he remarked on how difficult it is to get the process started.

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"That one is very early days where I'm currently writing the script, currently doing a lot of great back and forth with George," he said. "In speaking to George, it became really clear, 'This is history, treat this like it is what happened.' Unlike the original series, I don't have thousands of pages to go off to adapt. I've got a couple hundred that I'm really focused on, and in those pages of Fire & Blood, there are a lot of clues. It kind of turns into doing Napoleon or doing Alexander the Great or doing some great historical figure where we know a lot about the guy. We know where he was, we know who he conquered, we know who lived, and we know who died. That all becomes the plot, and then it becomes my job to go, but what did it mean thematically? How did it feel? What were the emotions when this person died and this person lived? We don't have the context. We don't know what anybody said."

This format makes for both a unique book and unique TV show, but it also obscures some of the most simplistic critiques leveled at adaptations. Fans can't simply complain that producers should have followed the book if the book does not give a clear answer to every question. House of the Dragon Season 2 premieres on Sunday, June 16 on HBO and Max. Martin's books, including Fire & Blood are available now in print, digital and audiobook formats.

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