George R.R. Martin Says Relationship With ‘House of the Dragon’ Showrunner Is ‘Abysmal’ After Season 2 Falling Out

“Game of Thrones” author George R.R. Martin has opened up further about the dissolution of his working relationship with “House of the Dragon” showrunner Ryan Condal, calling the state of it “abysmal.”

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter published Thursday, Martin described his bond with Condal as “worse than rocky.” The “Game of Thrones” author, who co-created both “House of the Dragon” and HBO‘s other, new “Thrones” prequel show “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” said his collaboration with Condal was strong throughout the first season of “House of the Dragon.”

Everything allegedly changed, however, during the making of “House of the Dragon” Season 2, which aired on HBO in the summer of 2024.

“I hired Ryan. I thought Ryan and I were partners. And we were all through the first season,” Martin said of Condal, whose previous TV credits include co-creating the USA sci-fi series “Colony.” “I would read early drafts of the scripts. I would give notes. He would change some things. It was working really well — I thought.”

“Then we got into Season 2, and he basically stopped listening to me,” Martin revealed. “I would give notes, and nothing would happen. Sometimes he would explain why he wasn’t doing it. Other times, he would tell me, ‘Oh, OK, yeah, I’ll think about that.’ It got worse and worse, and I began to get more and more annoyed. Finally, it got to a point where I was told by HBO that I should submit all my notes to them and they would give Ryan our combined notes.”

Original “House of the Dragon” co-showrunner Miguel Sapochnik, who directed some of the biggest episodes of “Game of Thrones,” stepped away from the prequel after its first season. That decision reportedly came after a disagreement between him and Condal, during which Condal asked for Martin’s support and received it.

“House of the Dragon” Season 2 earned far more mixed reviews than the show’s first. It received heavy criticisms, in particular, for building to a massive, pivotal battle in its finale only to punt that set piece to the show’s third season, reportedly for budgetary reasons. Martin and Condal’s behind the scenes disagreements were, meanwhile, made public in September 2024 when the “Game of Thrones” author published a since-deleted blog post titled “Beware the Butterflies.”

The post saw Martin outline some of the changes that “House of the Dragon” Season 2 made from its source material without his approval, as well as the author’s concerns about how the consequences of those changes were negatively reflected in Condal’s Season 3 outline. The post was pulled not long after it was published, reportedly by Martin’s assistant. 

Things are said to have come to a head during a Zoom call between “House of the Dragon” producers, HBO executives, Condal and Martin in which Condal pitched his vision for the show’s third season. The latter’s ideas allegedly prompted Martin to declare on the call, “This is not my story any longer.”

Martin was reportedly asked by HBO to step away from “House of the Dragon” after the call only to be asked back a few months later. Regarding the dispute and his reported return, Martin told THR, “I can’t talk about it.”

Condal, for his part, has kept fairly quiet about the conflict between him and Martin. However, regarding the matter, he did tell Entertainment Weekly in 2025, “I made every effort to include George in the adaptation process. I really did. Over years and years. And we really enjoyed a mutually fruitful, I thought, really strong collaboration for a long time. But at some point, as we got deeper down the road, he just became unwilling to acknowledge the practical issues at hand in a reasonable way.”

“I can only hope that George and I can rediscover that harmony someday,” Condal’s statement concluded. “But that’s what I have to say about it.”

“House of the Dragon” Season 3 is slated to premiere sometime this year. The show has already been renewed for a fourth and final season, which is in turn expected to debut on HBO in 2028.

Before either of those seasons premiere, though, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” is set to make its long-awaited debut Sunday night on HBO. A more modest series than either “Game of Thrones” or “House of the Dragon,” the prequel is based on the Martin-penned novella “The Hedge Knight.” It sounds like Martin’s relationship with “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” showrunner Ira Parker is in a much stronger place right now than his bond with Condal, too.

“George was there every step of the way. He’s been lovely. I think of him as a friend now,” Parker told THR of his and Martin’s collaboration together during the making of “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” Season 1.

“In my very first meeting with George, before I officially had the job, I promised I wouldn’t put anything in that he didn’t want — but it’s never come to that,” Parker added. “He’s pushed back on a lot of things. I just explain the reason why I want to do something and then he would explain his reasons why I’m an idiot.”

Martin, meanwhile, called Parker “terrific” and said he “seems to have the same priorities I do — he’s trying to do something that’s very true to the characters.”

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