In May 2024, ahead of House of the Dragon season 2, we interviewed Ryan Condal, showrunner for House of the Dragon! You can watch this episode on YouTube here, or listen to it in podcast form here. You can find Ryan’s podcast, The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of, here. You can find our previous interview with Ryan here, and our interview with George R.R. Martin here.
We are also including a transcription below, under the cut, for those who prefer to read their interviews, but we hope you check out the video!
[00:01:42] Aziz: Hello, and welcome back, everybody, to the beginning of our Season 2 coverage for House of the Dragon, starting with this very special episode. Our schedule is as follows. Every Monday, we do non spoilery reviews at 6 Eastern, and on Saturday, we do preview episodes, which are full of spoilers, at 3 Eastern.
We’ll have some content on Wednesdays around 7 Eastern, some livestreams, some pre prepared, scripted content, TBD. Or just go to our YouTube channel and click on the live tab as you can see here. A lot of you send in great questions for Ryan Condal and we came up with some of our own. Let’s get to it.
-We interviewed Ryan Condal two episodes into season one almost two years ago. Now here we are just before season two. We’d like to revisit some questions from last time to start off and share some effusive comments as well, then get into some heavier questions. We had listeners calling you things like the Showrunner that was Promised and marveling about you, you know, your passion and knowledge and just being a fan like the rest of us and we completely agree. We’ve seen lots of evidence of that and there’s this photo that I think encapsulates this vibe really well, and the Entertainment Weekly spread that has you on set, like in the midst of everything, you have your headphones on, and there’s a whole bunch of things happening around you, and it’s kind of iconic, I think, because it’s like, you’re in the middle of it, which is appropriate, because you’re the showrunner, but you have your headphones on, you’re very focused, you’re thinking about what you need to think about, but you’re smiling, which to me is like, that’s what really makes it all, puts it all together, because you’re really in your element, you’re doing what you wanted to do, and that, it’s just, I think it’s perfect, so I wanted to start with that, and get your reaction to how things are going so far.
[00:03:24] Ryan: Great, thank you, thank you guys for having me on. I love the service that you do, for greater fandom, and you have fans within our show that say that this is, you know, one of the very top, you know, I think, fan… pieces of fan content, shall we call it? I hate that word, but I think it’s fair in this, created for/around the universe, so, so, you know, well done to you guys, and appreciate all of the, you know, the support that you give the show, because I think that was very important, particularly in season one when we were trying to, you know, make, carve out our way in the greater lexicon and lore of Westeros.
So we really appreciate that. Yeah, I mean things are, we’re in a fever pitch right now. Sort of everything is going on at once, press and promotion have begun for season two. We are still in the post process and will be for some weeks to come. We are, in fact I came up, to this from mixing episode four, doing a sound mix on episode four.
So I’m not doing the mix, but I’m listening to the mix and giving notes to our lovely sound team. So yeah, we’re right, you know, we’re right in it and, episodes are being delivered kind of, you know, fast and furious now, so that they can be subtitled and dubbed and all those fun things that happen as they go around to the international territories And, yeah, press really kicks off kind of today, tomorrow, for me, for the next, like, two weeks straight of answering lots of questions, and talking about the show, and, yeah, it’ll be, it’ll be, you know, like I said, fast and furious and fun, we have, like, there’s like three different premiere events that I’m, that I’m going to and, yeah, in like three different cities, in three different time zones.
So it’s, yeah, it’s pretty, pretty, pretty nuts. And then, and then, you know, shortly thereafter, season two will be done, dusted, and delivered. And then we’re kind of off, you know, off in the early days of season three as the dragon has three heads, all at once. It’s always trying to eat me.
[00:05:49] Aziz: All three heads always trying to eat you. That’s a lot. That actually brings me to a question we had scheduled for a little later, but it’s just kind of sticking on topic here. I think hearing you talk about listening to the sound mix and giving notes on that, it’s always a curiosity to a lot of us, what things you personally take a hand in and what things you have to delegate, because there’s so much to do as a showrunner, so, like, what level of involvement do you have, say, in the trailers? Like, what they can reveal and what they can’t, because that’s obviously a pretty big deal, what they are, what they’re gonna, you all know that we scrutinize every second of those trailers, so, you must want to be careful about what gets included and what doesn’t, and we’re curious where that, how that decision’s made.
[00:06:28] Ryan: Yeah, I’m very careful about all that stuff, and they, and look, HBO is great, they’re wonderful partners and they, they do very much care about what the showrunner thinks. So they do share everything, as with anything, television is a collaborative medium, you’re constantly collaborating with the artists around you and also the needs of the corporation and the needs of the marketing team to promote your show so that people will come and be excited to watch it. And marketing, marketing is one of those particular kind of push pulls where they, you know, they always want to, as is their job, they want to dazzle the audience with as much memorable water cooler imagery as they, as they can and, and sound bites and things like that. And I’m in a place where I have to sort of play the game of like, which shell are we willing to turn over?
You know, for me, it’s really just, I want to preserve the experience for the audience who’s watching the show for the first time. So that the surprises happen in the well crafted dramatic reveals that we’ve worked for two years now to create versus in a trailer or in a, you know, in an interview or something like that.
So, they do show me everything. The trailers are made, they aren’t made by our post team because they’re very busy making episodes, so those tend to be made by a marketing, you know, an advertising agency, a marketing agency, that HBO partners with. And then they send over, you know, here’s, here’s, here’s the thing that we’re happy with.
And then is there anything in here that concerns you? And then we talk. And there’s sort of a back and forth. Sometimes I actually rewrite the dialogue a little bit in the sense that like, you know, as we know from trailers, sometimes we put together, there are sentences or conversations that are put together for the sake of the trailer that aren’t that really that way that this plays in the show.
So sometimes I’m not really rewriting, but it’s sort of like editing so that while I don’t. You know, I’ll say sometimes I don’t think the show really delivers on that point, but I think this is a fair one to do, you know, and make suggestions and things like that. And sometimes I’ll suggest a different shot.
And then there’s also, frankly, there’s visual effects concerns that come into it, too, with what our team can deliver in time, because the trailers happen so much earlier than the show does, and as you know, visual effects. Particularly with dragons, run right up to the end in, in terms of iterations and, and passes.
Some things aren’t possible to deliver in the trailer, which is why in early trailers, you don’t see a lot of dragons because the dragons don’t exist yet. Yeah, yeah. And then the last, the final trailer, a bunch of those dragon shots were actually already done. So those were things that we could share.
Right. That’s kind of the process on that. But they do involve me with everything.
[00:08:56] Aziz: Cool. That’s good to know.
[00:08:57] Ash: You know, we noticed that in the trailers ourselves. We love, we love when we notice that that happened. For example, like with Rook’s Rest or something like that. We’re like, they’re not being sneaky here. They just didn’t have that done.
[00:09:06] Ryan: Yeah. Didn’t have, didn’t have the castle yet.
[00:09:09] Ash: On the subject of sets and whatnot. Now that we’re a couple seasons in and you’ve been on a lot of sets. Which one was your favorite? Which one, like, got you, like, oh, this, this is it. This is what it’s all about.
[00:09:20] Ryan: I mean, I’m, it’s such a privilege and delight to be working with the great Jim Clay, who is just a master designer, and really everything he builds down to little, you know, little funeral altars that he builds out on our locations are just incredible and they’re always real and in world, but for me, I think, the one set that stands out the most this season is probably Harrenhal and, people probably know from reading the book that Harrenhal plays a big role in this part of the story, but what, what our team built, for that, I’m very excited for people to see because I think it’s a big, a wholly unique set and, and castle and, and world, and it has such a presence in the lore of this universe that I’m, I’m excited for, for our, our version of it, our take on it.
[00:10:11] Aziz: Yeah, we’ll get to maybe see some parts that we haven’t of it. That’s, that’s really exciting, you know. Yes.
[00:10:16] Ash: That’s real big.
[00:10:17] Aziz: Yeah, there’s room for places we haven’t seen there. That’s for sure.
[00:10:21] Ryan: It’s so huge. Yeah, it’s so it’s so it’s the biggest castle in Westeros. And yeah, the set the set that we built is huge. But obviously the set is not the entire castle. But I think with the clever sort of use of location work, we have exterior backlots. And then we have a bunch of interiors that we built for you really do get a sense of the massive scale of the place in a way that I don’t think we have before.
[00:10:42] Aziz: Oh, that’s cool.
[00:10:43] Ryan: On TV.
[00:10:44] Aziz: Well, speaking of, yeah, you, you guys took the chance to make some elements of the show more book accurate this time, like the Iron Throne, and that’s, it was done in a way that’s explainable, like, yeah, they could have just reduced that later. Were there any discussions of changing other things, like making Valyrian steel swords a little darker, or Targaryen eyes purple, or anything like that, or was that just like, nah, it’s, it’s too late, or, or something like that?
[00:11:06] Ryan: Yeah, well, the Valyrian steel, I think we got right. I’m actually pretty proud of where we got to with that, where it’s readable on screen, particularly in the close, in the close ups. And if you, I mean, anybody who cares has seen close ups of the, of the props and they’re beautiful. Yes. And they’re actually made in the, they’re, they’re made, it’s folded steel.
It’s poly steel. So there’s more than one kind of steel sort of fused together. And that’s what creates that, the swirl. The sort of woodgrain pattern that’s in the steel. And that’s what George was referring to. Damascus steel, they call it, which is sort of a, sort of a, a bit of a misnomer because Damascus is a place and not a thing.
But it’s, Damascus steel is a fine word for it. Pattern welded steel is usually what creates that effect, the wood grain effect, the swirls and the dark smoke and all the things that George describes in the book. So I think we’ve done a really good job of making that present and readable on the weapons, but you do have to get kind of close to them to really see it.
But I think it makes the blades generally darker and things like that. So we did do that, and that was present on these props in the original series, it’s just as you know, we had more resources at hand when we were making these things. Particularly in season one, when Ice and Longclaw, and the catspaw dagger and all those things were, you know, were made that we just, you know, the technology is better.
We’re, you know, we’re in a better place with that. As far as the purple eyes, I mean, it’s something we debated. I think David and Dan made the right call in the original show in, in not doing it because it is, it is a visual effects boondoggle. Especially over eight episodes and with as many Targaryens as we have.
And I just think it’s, it’s an element that I do love from the book, but when you actually see it, it does become a bit fantasy. And because the Targaryens already stand out so much because of their silver hair and their dragon world that they live in, it feels like it, it. It others them in a way that makes them feel not like everybody else in, in the room.
And sometimes it’s helpful. And other times it’s, you want to have a human, a real meaningful human connection. And all of these people’s eyes are so beautiful the way that they are, that I like leaving them untouched.
[00:13:13] Aziz: Well said. What have been some of the highlight moments from your props podcast, The Stuff Dreams are Made Of so far?
Do you have any upcoming episodes you want to tease? I’ve been listening, I’ve most recently listened to the, How to Ride Your Dragon episode. That was, very informative. Oh, fantastic. A lot of us are so curious about how this stuff is made because, I mean, there have been dragon movies before, but you guys are really taking it to another level.
I mean, this is just way more than, than what has existed in pretty much any production I’ve ever seen.
[00:13:41] Ryan: Yeah, and we upped the game again this year, as you will see, the technology has all taken steps up and improved, because as you go and make these things, you sort of iterate the toys and the tools that you make, so the rig got a little better, the saddles got a little better, I think the camera, the camera arm that we’re using, it’s all very technical, but all that stuff kind of improved this year, that was a Mike Dawson episode, Mike was our special effects guy.
Supervisor, department head, so he works in all, he creates all of the fire and the rain and also, you know, anything that involves a multi articulated dragon riding rig, his department’s responsible for building all that stuff. So yeah, I mean, we’re actually, our season finale airs today, which is, we’re recording this May 22nd.
Oh! So check that out, and we’ll be off for probably, you know, a couple weeks, and then we’ll come back in the, in the summer as new auctions come around and things to talk about. But it’s, yeah, it’s, it’s been fun, it’s really enjoyable, and, we do plan to have more key crew from the show on, in the future.
I just have to figure out, like, you know, sort of a topic around, you know, ways to have people on so we’re not just doing the, hey, we have this person from that, that show everybody likes, come listen to the podcast. We try to make it pointed and relevant.
[00:14:59] Aziz: I highly recommend that episode, everybody. Once again, it’s the Stuff Dreams Are Made Of podcast that Ryan does with David Mandel.
[00:15:05] Ash: Who we love.
[00:15:06] Aziz: We love David Mandel. Yeah, we love so many of the shows he’s made, too, we’re big comedian fans. yeah, so big, lots of great takes in that one, you’ll hear about, like, famous directors like Steven Spielberg and, and there’s some great anecdotes in that one that, that’ll make you chuckle.
[00:15:21] Ryan: Yes, it’s our, it’s our movie collecting podcast. And we actually did do an episode with Peter Johnsson who is the guy that made our, made Dark Sister and Blackfyre. He’s a real blacksmith, a real sword maker. It’s a prior episode from a couple of years ago, but you can go search it in the history and find it, it’s a fascinating discussion with a guy who actually makes, like, real swords the old way that they were made thousands of years ago and did it for our show. So, really incredible.
[00:15:46] Aziz: Wow. That’s really cool. What about things that you’ve taken for yourself? Any HOTD props that you, you own or that you’re particularly proud of or that you want to take home that you haven’t yet?
[00:15:59] Ryan: Yes, I do, I do have stuff, of course. Things that leave with me. Yeah, I mean, I have, I have a couple of, a couple of things. I have a squishy dragon egg that got, that got damaged that I, that I loved and took, when Daemon and Rhaenyra were playing dragon egg football on the bridge of Dragonstone, so they made a squishy, a squishy version of that, so it was safe for the actors. It’s like a nerf, it’s a nerf version, but you can’t actually tell it’s nerf until you pick it up, which I just loved about it.
[00:16:31] Aziz: Wow.
[00:16:31] Ryan: And I have one of Daemon’s dinged up tournament helmets from the tournament, the first episode, just because I love that design so much that one got kind of, you know, they were getting like sort of damaged, taking them on, taking them off on, on set and the, the wings were made soft for safety and all that. So, so I just grabbed one that they, that was sort of beat up because I love, I love that stuff. Nice. But yes, love, love all that, love all that stuff.
[00:17:00] Ash: I want to talk to you about one of my favorite props. this is a listener question as well from listener Dom Tartaglia. He asks, which small council orb is your favorite? And I want to add on and say, how do we get HBO to sell us orbs? Yeah, we want the orbs. Gimme orbs. I wanna ponder orbs.
[00:17:14] Ryan: Orb. Give me orbs. Those are a great invention, by the way. I love this idea. Yeah, that was actually, that was Claire Richards, who’s our set decorator and her department. I forget who actually had the idea.
It might have been Ellie Murphy, who was also on the podcast at some point, is lovely as our prop maker. I forget whose idea it was, but it was essentially like, we know this is kind of, you know, it’s kind of not silly, but sort of unnecessary. But they loved this idea of there being this bit of formality to taking a seat at that table.
And I loved it as soon as they pitched it, of course. Props and physical interaction with beautiful things. Probably Viserys’s would be my favorite from the first series because it was just so ornate and beautiful. There’s a bunch of new cool ones. We actually, they actually made them, you’ll see it this season, they’re a touch larger than they were.
And they’re all very intricate and beautiful. And it’s funny because the characters, the, like, The characters, the actors that interact with it, they get very attached to it and they really… don’t touch my orb, don’t touch my ball as they go and they go and sit in and, yeah, it plays, there’s one that actually plays a bit of a story role, this year. So I will, I will leave it at that, but there’s a, there’s a nice one.
[00:18:30] Ash: One played a story role last year. Yeah.
[00:18:32] Aziz: Yeah. For that one. That’s also true. That killed poor Beesbury. Did he get to keep his orb? Poor Beesbury.
[00:18:39] Ryan: We let him. He left with it still embedded in his eye socket, so yes. Brutal, brutal. Great Bill Paterson.
[00:18:46] Ash: We use trackball mice in this household, and I always really want one that’ll just slot right into my trackball. Like, it’s my fantasy. Yeah,
[00:18:54] Ryan: I’ll talk to products about that. I think I like, I really like this idea. You should be able to, we should be able to go online and 3D print your own. I think we should be able to do that.
[00:19:02] Ash: Absolutely, it’ll sell.
[00:19:03] Aziz: Moving on to some maybe character specific stuff, despite all the tragedy surrounding her, we love the development of Helaena, the maesters didn’t record much about her personality, which is what you would expect from maesters. Unlike her famous ancestor, Daenys the Dreamer, Helaena doesn’t have a lot of book, doesn’t have a book of her prophecies to prove that she has this ability. Have any other characters like taken note of it or is that something we can read into like her family or any servants or anything that have they caught even a hint of this or we’re just curious about her in general.
[00:19:35] Ryan: I mean, I think I think Helaena is regarded as a bit odd by those around her and I think some people do
pay a bit of closer attention to her, and then, you know, her story is developing. We actually do spend a lot of time with Helaena, who’s played wonderfully by Phia Saban, in the story, and we do get a lot more time with her in season two, so I don’t, you know, don’t want to give away or say anything too much, but It certainly is a feature of this, but you have to also remember that, like, we’re telling a story during a historical period where people didn’t have terms for things, so I think they just, a kind of, you know, she’s tended to be regarded as an oddity, and oftentimes dismissed, I think, or ignored, or they’re just used, oh, that’s Helaena but there definitely are people who are paying closer attention.
[00:20:21] Aziz: Hmm, cool.
[00:20:22] Ash: On the subject of people who might be paying close attention to Targaryen, activities, we noticed some sheep were included in the scene of Aegon’s coronation, and it got us wondering if there’s any chance the Shepherd was part of the crowd watching Aegon’s coronation. This is a question from listener Danny Black 70. Those sheep really got us.
[00:20:44] Ryan: Oh, that’s interesting. Yeah, I mean, that’s, so the sheep, the sheep thing there, that story will get connected more, I think, as, as you watch the show, one of the, I mean, one of the things we were sort of fascinated with this season is like, you know, dragons as real world war machines and what that involves.
And if you imagine a bunch of these rather large creatures who probably have rather large appetites that are More dormant in times of peace. Once they get really active and are moving around a lot, there is a, there is a tax that comes along with that in the form of, of meats and feed and how does that affect the local economy.
So there is a bit of that underlying story, that you’ll, you’ll see, you know, running, running through the show. As to the Shepherd, like I love, I do love that. I do love that story and the feature from the book. I mean, you know, he’s a resident of King’s Landing, and, and has been for some time, and that’s sort of part of his story, so I think you have to imagine, he’s out there in, you know, in the population and is observing and, and, and watching, and I think that’s the fun with this show is that we spend so much time in these very… you spend more time in these locales like King’s Landing.
So the city itself kind of becomes a character. So as the story marches on, when you introduce new elements of that world, because you’ve spent time in the world itself, they often, even though we’re meeting this person for the first time, maybe in the, I don’t know, 20th episode, you understand the world around them, so they feel realized because the world around them is realized.
And that’s, that’s the hope of spending all that character work in, in, in and around King’s Landing. And we’ve done even more of that, this year that, you know, the, the smallfolk definitely do feature in a way that I don’t think they did in season one.
[00:22:37] Aziz: Ooh, that’s exciting. We love to hear that.
[00:22:39] Ash: Kind of brings me to a related question, I think, from one of my favorite listener names, baseborn manjack says, In Game of Thrones, some characters were off page for multiple books, as in the case of, say, Theon Greyjoy, but they chose to adapt his story by showing what was happening to him during that off page interim period. Will House of the Dragon choose to do anything similar with some fan favorite characters who do have large stretches of off page time? You don’t have to get too into details, but Are you adding that type of material or choosing to just let them be off page?
[00:23:19] Ryan: I mean, it’s always a case by case basis. I mean, the real thing with television, it is a POV medium, meaning it’s told in point of view.
And I think the best television is told in a, it’s told in sometimes one character’s or multiple characters’ POV. And, for me, I always gravitate towards point of view stories in film and television versus kind of objective God like views where, okay, we’re over here now with this person, we’re over here now.
The way that, the way that we like to tell the story because it is so huge and world spanning is that we follow, we, we link in with certain point of views, in this case, in this show, it’s often the larger Targaryen family that we’re following, this mixed and blended family of Viserys and his offspring and their, you know, cousins and all the blood and that crazy mixed up bloodline.
So, I think that’s the kind of story that we’re telling. It is a POV story. So, take that as, as you will, but that is the general approach to how we follow the story along. And sometimes the, a device that I think works in a linear novel format, sometimes lends itself well to the adaptation of television.
Other times, in order to keep that character’s story alive, you do have to follow them and figure out, you know, what they’re up to. And sometimes that’s the fun of this adaptation is getting to fill in those blanks. We know that the character started here and ended up, started at point A and ended up over at point D.
And what’s the B and C along the way? And what would that have looked like?
[00:24:52] Aziz: And you have to contend with the multiple sources in Fire and Blood, which gives you, sometimes they give wildly different takes. Sometimes they’re pretty in line, but sometimes they give wildly different. And you have to choose which one to go with or maybe do something that maybe pays a little bit of service to both in order to explain how that view could have developed and yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s pretty neat.
[00:25:44] Aziz: The dragon bond is something that people are really fascinated by. Sometimes it seems like a human dog relationship where the dog seems to kind of understand, but there’s, but other times it seems like maybe there’s a little more going on. Is that something that gets explored more this season or is it something that you like to think about or anything you can say about the dragonbond, I think people would love to hear.
[00:26:03] Ryan: Yeah, I mean, it’s an important feature of the show. And I think, the fun and the challenge of making House of the Dragon is I think that there are so many dragons and dragon riders, which creates a really rich tapestry.
But if you do the same thing all the time with if everybody has the same, the same claiming experience, the same bonding experience, the same relationship with their dragon, it. It can become a bit, you know, why are we doing this? This is an opportunity we felt in the TV show for some, some, some world building.
So yes, I think you’ve intuited the right thing that some of those relationships are different than others. Some seem more intuitive. I mean, the way we kind of look at it is it’s like, you know, in the world of Star Wars, the Jedi’s connection with the Force, some just have this more, a stronger connection, some of it manifests in a different way, and I think that can be a number of things, it’s the bond with the dragon, it’s the time spent in the bond, it’s flight hours in the cockpit, all those things, but I think, yeah, I mean, I think that’s it.
The individual rider’s bond with the dragon is going to be different on a rider to rider and dragon to dragon level. And that is intentional. And sometimes it’s in the subtext of the story and other times I think we lean more, a little more into it in the text of the storytelling.
[00:27:24] Aziz: That’s neat. I’m sure some of that has to do with the personalities of the riders and the dragons, too, because I know y’all got to play around with different versions. It’s not just, we just got Daenerys, basically, in the original show, so there wasn’t a lot of, there was just the kind of one experience, maybe Jon as well, but that, that wasn’t super developed, so yeah, I think people are super excited about that.
[00:27:43] Ryan: Yeah, and in Daenerys in the original series, it was, that was a world where nobody had seen dragons in, you know, 150 years. So that was the concept in that world building is what, you know, what does introducing a dragon into this world do and what happens and Daenerys doesn’t have any training for it.
I mean, she can go back and read books, I guess, but there’s no one there. There are no dragon keepers there or other, you know, older dragon riders who have been doing it for a while to give her tips and advice, whereas this world, dragons are a feature of the infrastructure, so there’s dragon pits and dragonmonts and dragon keepers, and when they fly over King’s Landing, a lot of people don’t even look up because that’s living near Heathrow Airport, you see, you see 747s go by all the time, it’s just, it’s just a different world, but that requires our world to paint it into the subtext a little bit more, than it would be in a world where dragons were brand new.
[00:28:38] Ash: So now that we’re at the point where they’ve all or nearly all been put on the screen, who is your favorite dragon or what’s your favorite dragon rider relationship perhaps? And has that changed? Yeah, has it changed?
[00:28:52] Ryan: I mean, I do love them all. It’s so, it’s so fun and I get to spend so much time with them because of the intricate making of one and how it’s, how it’s designed in 2d and then modeled into 3d. And then as they come alive in the sound world, with our incredible sound team, as they develop their personalities that way. I mean, I, you know, I, it’s a maybe a basic answer. I go back to Syrax. I mean, that was the first dragon that we really saw rendered. And I think her relationship with Rhaenyra is so specific.
And I just, I really love it. And Syrax has to now, in a way that Rhaenyra is a ruler, a sovereign. Syrax has to kind of take on that mantle a bit now of, of being, you know, being a, I don’t know, an emblem of the crown in a way, and I just really enjoy, I love that design, particularly her, you know, her, her crown and the rendering of that dragon, so I’ve always gravitated towards that, but there are a number of new dragons this year that I can’t talk about now, but, yeah. I really enjoyed introducing all of them into the show.
[00:30:06] Aziz: It’s almost like we asked you which of your children is your favorite, so sorry about that. Yeah.
[00:30:11] Ash: One of the dragons that we saw last season was Vermithor, and we got to hear Vermithor’s little lullaby. We also got to hear Nymeria’s song that season. Are there any new in world songs to look forward to either this season or in the works for a future season? Is that on your radar?
[00:30:28] Ryan: Uh, yes, there is. There are.
[00:30:32] Ash: Hell yeah. Yes, exciting. We love those.
[00:30:33] Aziz: Yeah, we do love those. They were fun to sing along, yeah. One of our favorite aspects of season one was how you guys fleshed out the relationships and dynamics between the characters more than in Fire and Blood, which is to be expected.
It’s a history book. But y’all did such a fantastic job of bringing these characters more to life. For example, we, we thought Alicent and Aegon’s relationship was fascinating. A lot of real world mother son troubles that you might see with all this power thrown in, which is quite a toxic thing to put into any relationship.
But which relationships were you maybe most excited to explore going into season two? Or are there any in particular that maybe caught you by surprise as you were developing them? Or maybe the opposite? Just in general, we’d love to hear about that process.
[00:31:17] Ryan: Yeah, I mean, I mean, look, again, that’s the big, the big challenge,
and also the fun of adapting a book like Fire and Blood, which is a history book, it is a… it is intentionally an outline of events that happen and it’s not a, it’s not a narrative, where you’re inside a character’s head the way you are in, you know, A Song of Ice and Fire and the text of those pages.
So it does require a lot of us to differentiate these characters and imbue them with flaws and faults and personalities and wants and dreams and things like that that aren’t necessarily painted in so clearly on the page. And that’s, frankly, that’s the thing that attracts me to dramatic writing, is those interrelationships, and we have such a wonderful ensemble cast of characters on this show, with great characters and also played by great actors, that a lot of the fun of that is finding those textured relationships in the show. And I would say, look, they’re all great. We have… this cast is a garage full of Ferraris. It’s such a delight to walk in every day and get to take somebody for a spin with your dialogue. And they make, you know, they make everybody look better, you know, the writers, writers especially, with the way they perform this.
But I think the thing that I’m most excited about, sort of on a, on a larger dramatic level, narrative level in season two is just getting to live with all the kids. The kids that we barely got to know in season one. Alicent’s children, you know, Aemond and Aegon and Helaena, you know, Rhaenyra and her relationship with Jace.
And then on some level too with, you know, Baela and Rhaena and their complicated relationship with their father and their family and where they fit into everything. And I think just all of those interrelationships, the way they interact with the adults and also with each other, does create a lot of the dramatic texture of season two.
And I’m excited for people to see it because it’s just a cast of, you know, these wonderful young actors, and I think they’re really going to shine in a way that we, they just didn’t have time to in season one because they didn’t have the screen time.
[00:33:29] Ash: On the subject of characters that you maybe don’t have screen time for, we understand, we like to refer to the law of conservation of characters, we got used to it for Game of Thrones, but I gotta know for my own purposes, As a queer woman, there were three fairly notable queer slash sapphic relationships in the Dance portion of Fire and Blood, which was really pleasant. I’m not going to spoil any of them for our listeners, but I’m curious if we’re going to see any of those relationships on the screen, either this season or later, or adapted, because sometimes you might merge some of that into an existing character, but are we going to see any of that type of relationship going forward?
[00:34:06] Ryan: I mean, I will just say stay tuned, without wanting to give anything away, but I, I, you know, I think going back to the previous question, I just think that’s part of the textured fun of this world, and we know that, we just get to spend a lot more time with people and get into their heads a lot more, and, and, their wants and dreams and things that they’re thinking about, so, I would just say, you know, stay tuned, this continues to be a very rich and textured world.
[00:34:36] Aziz: We got the chance to hear Matthew Needham speak about his character Larys at a convention in Los Angeles that you spoke to remotely, and he had some extremely insightful things to say about his character, but of course, he’s not the one writing him, so his take, as brilliant as it was, isn’t from the perspective of the people who invented this character or fleshed him out. who do you think that Larys maybe has the most in common with, either from the series or maybe from a completely different series, because he’s fascinating and interesting and really fits in that role, that long line of expert intriguers that we’ve come to expect from Game of Thrones and he even has a name that kind of lines up pretty well with that. Just speak to us about Larys and how y’all designed him and things like that.
[00:35:21] Ryan: Yeah, Matt Needham is just a fantastic actor and he’s one of the many casts on the show that you write a line for and you’re just delighted to watch him read it on set and see how he turns around and what he does with it. And we love writing for Matt. And also, I would say, a character who’s very unlike the character that he plays on screen, which I think is important to do, to differentiate. But he, I mean, look, that’s the fun of this world. It is an escapist fantasy world, as intricate and as adult as it is.
You know, A Song of Ice and Fire is a world of archetypes. I mean, part of the genius of the way George drafted characters, I think, in A Song of Ice and Fire was taking archetypes like the Lancelot character and Jaime and sort of saying, well, what if Lancelot really existed, and he was a complete dick mess?. And how do we, how do we, how do we take him and turn that on its ear and then, and then, you know, create an evil character out of Lancelot, but then redeem him. And I think, I think that’s the fun of this show. And then, and then because A Song of Ice and Fire is now so world renowned and famous, you have archetypes within the world.
And the, the schemer, the court, the courtly schemer that’s, you know, not a, not a knight, but a, you know, warrior of the mind, I think has become an archetype in, in a good way in this show. And we’re, of course, we know Varys and Littlefinger very well at this point.
Larys fits into that rubric, but I think he’s different because he is, you know, as we’ve seen, I think he’s just, he’s detached from, human emotion in a, in a way that maybe the others aren’t. And, you know, Varys was a you know, loyal servant of the realm to the end. I mean, he sort of plays like a mincing schemer, but then we kind of realize that there is an honorable streak to him.
And Littlefinger, you know, he’s damaged and broken in his own way. Yeah. But he’s also, you know, he also has real human wants and needs and, and they’re, they’re, they’re twisted at times, but he does, there, there is a, there is a core sort of injury. He does have, you know, the guy, the, the bad guy in Ratatouille, we realize at the end that, you know, it’s just this, this, there’s this core injury in his, in his, in his childhood.
And I think Littlefinger has, has a similar streak. It was the bullied kid who was in love with a girl that got, you know, got the jock, and he was the nerd that didn’t, and that, and that sort of defined him as a character. Larys is, is very different, and we’ll see how that develops this year. I mean, he certainly, he fits into the archetype, but of course we’re not just recreating one of the, one of the old characters from Thrones, and, and I think you see where it goes. It has, we have many seasons ahead for Larys of stories to tell. So, I’m pleased to know that we have such a great actor piloting him because it means that we can kind of go anywhere.
[00:38:09] Aziz: Yeah, we totally agree. He does really come out as a different character.
[00:38:16] Ash: On the subject of modifying, fleshing out characters, this is a listener question from BetrayedKing that I’m quite interested in. When you’re creating or modifying original characters for the show, what goes into the decision making process when you’re deciding when to make changes, like names, for example, in some minor arcs surrounding the Dance? The example I’ll give is modifying Samwell Blackwood and Amos Bracken to Willem Blackwood and Jerrell Bracken in Season 1. We understand that it has to happen sometimes, but I’m really curious to know what factors play into the decision of when you decide to rename a character and when you decide to keep their original name.
[00:38:54] Ryan: I mean, you know, those characters are actually never really named on screen, so I think that’s probably being taken from, it might not be, don’t always trust the source on it unless it’s actually, they’re actually name checked in the story. And I think sometimes with characters like those, we try to be rather oblique because we, unless we need to name them, sometimes it’s better not to because it’s easier to, you know, hold the continuity of the story. And look, sometimes you, things you plan far in advance and other things are, it’s the nature of storytelling. You just kind of develop as you go along. Remember that, you know, Darth Vader wasn’t Luke’s father until Empire Strikes Back.
[00:39:33] Aziz: true.
[00:39:34] Ryan: So I think, you know, we always try to hold true to the text of the book. And particularly when the character has a true, sort of rooting in the history and in the timeline of the history. They go on to have important sons or daughters. We want to keep all those things intact so that, you know, anything that we’re kind of, you know, fussing with in this timeline doesn’t, you know, affect things on, on, on down, on down the road. And we, we try to hew to the, you know, to the, to the text when, whenever possible. Sometimes because time has been compressed a little bit in the show. You know, we compress the time as, as many, as long, as many years as were covered by the first season, it was still a little more compressed than actually those, those years happened between Rhaenyra’s childhood and the beginning of the Dance of the Dragons. So I think some of that requires a bit of, you know, shuffling around. But I don’t think we’ve made any big moves in that way intentionally, because we always have an eye on, you know, how is this going to affect this show, and possibly other spin offs and things on down the road. We’re very keen to that. And then thankfully I have, you know, I have not just me, but other Fire and Blood history experts in the room with me to sort of check on that stuff as we go.
[00:40:51] Aziz: Yes, indeed you do.
[00:40:52] Ash: You know, we actually were kind of tickled by there being different Blackwood Bracken names because it just kind of speaks to the feud being so eternal that there’s always going to be another Blackwood and Bracken you know? We kind of liked it.
[00:41:05] Ryan: They just hate each other. They will fight over everything and anything.
[00:41:10] Aziz: We just did a full episode on that feud a couple weeks ago, so we’re recently very fresh on that. But turning to an entirely different, long running aspect of Westeros and the entire world, the supernatural elements of the world building is something that George uses very carefully and cautiously, but they’re always present. Are there any particulars there that you feel drawn to or that you wanted to draw out more? And do you kind of lean on George’s style for that or do you kind of have to do it differently because it’s a different medium or just any, any kind of commentary on where you get your inspiration for the supernatural elements? If you want to speak to that in general, we would love to hear.
[00:41:46] Ryan: Yeah, for sure. And look, I love, I love this stuff. I mean, it’s what attracted me to, I, the thing that I remember the thing grabbing me when I first read A Game of Thrones, the novel A Game of Thrones, you know, probably 25 years ago at this point, was that
that great opening prologue at the top of the book with Waymar Royce, you know, wandering around the North and the reveal at the end. It feels like, it feels so real and just a bunch of rangers and squires and things out ranging in a, in a cold place. And then suddenly you realize that there are ice monsters and the undead and, and, and the way, the way the weird played in with the, the, the very real and textural world that George had created and that, that always stuck with me, but I’m a weird fiction fan.
You know, I love, I love all of that stuff and Robert E. Howard and, and Conan and H. P. Lovecraft. And I love the way that stuff is realized in these very textured worlds where it doesn’t feel cast off and not special and there’s a cost to it. And it’s not always fully explained either, which I also think is important when you get into the didactic rules of a magic system.
Those books interest me less than ones that are a little bit more, out there in the ether and not fully understood by the characters that don’t occupy that world. So we definitely tried to stay true to George’s world. I think there’s less fantasy. There are less fantasy elements immediately apparent in the Dance of the Dragons, other than the giant dragons, but that stuff is all very alive in this world, as we know from A Song of Ice and Fire, where you have wargs and face changers and the undead, and I’m not saying those things are in our show, fire magic, but we know those systems exist in this world, and green magic and all those things, so I think we’ve tried to, I love that stuff, so I’ve definitely tried to employ it where it, it seems sensible and, like, good storytelling, and we’re not just doing it, gratuitously.
But yeah, I love it all and I lean into it and I think, I think we’re drawing, you know, drawing from George’s world and the way that this stuff has been rendered in, in great genre fiction. Great.
[00:44:03] Ash: I think we have one final question to leave off with for you. Last year we talked to you a bit about some of your favorite other eras in Fire and Blood. We wanted to get kind of a sense of you, your other interests in the, in the world. So I wanted to ask. Who’s your favorite Targaryen from a non Dance era, barring Egg, who you mentioned last time, and who everyone loves Egg.
[00:44:24] Aziz: Yeah, we probably love him even more now that we have a casting and, you know, a head shaving video and all that.
[00:44:29] Ash: We love that little boy, he’s been so adorable. But, barring the Dunk & Egg mention, who are some of your favorite Targaryens?
[00:44:37] Ryan: I mean, I immediately go to Bloodraven. I just find Bloodraven absolutely fascinating. Yeah, I would say Bloodraven or Visenya. I found a great affinity for Visenya in writing this story because her history is, even though it’s a hundred years old in this world, I think she casts this very tall shadow. Aegon the Conqueror is constantly mentioned in our show, as we know. Everybody’s invoking Aegon all the time, like he’s this, you know, everything Aegon did was great and unimpeachable. And if it was good enough for Aegon, it’s good, it’s good enough for us. Except, of course, for conquering Dorne, which he failed to do. But I, I love the, I love the shadow that Visenya casts over, over our history, particularly, as a strong female sovereign type, even though she wasn’t actually the sovereign, in a world where we have a female sovereign, I will say, I just think that’s a, it’s something that I got more and more attracted to Visenya in the writing and creation of this show than I probably thought I would.
[00:45:34] Aziz: That’s really cool. Yeah, I remember last time we asked you about this era and you said you were, you were excited about Aegon II and that was a great comment because we were, we’re all seeing, you know, the, the dynamics of this character and you were right. You were right. He is very… I love Aegon II. He’s, he’s a great, I wouldn’t call him a villain, but he’s not a good guy either, you know.
[00:45:55] Ash: I love to watch him!
[00:45:55] Ryan: You’re in for such a treat. Tom is, Tom Glynn-Carney is such, is such a genius, and, I just, you’re in for, you’re just in for a treat, with his portrayal of Aegon.
[00:46:07] Aziz: I mentioned that Game of Thrones convention in Los Angeles, which he was on stage for several times, and yes, he, he dazzled us all, his commentary was great, especially his time with Jack Gleeson and they, did a little skit about being in, born of incest and yeah, you really got to see their chops there. They’re such great guys.
[00:46:27] Ryan: Yeah, Aegon was born of state approved incest.
[00:46:32] Aziz: That’s true. Joffrey, not so much. That’s a great term. State approved incest. We’ll remember that one. Well, Ryan, that’s all the questions we have. Thank you so much for your time. I know you have so much to do. You’re super busy. The show comes out so soon. So, I mean, I know you don’t, you don’t do a lot of podcast interviews, so we’re particularly thankful for that.
[00:46:49] Ash: And we’ll be looking forward to all your, I know you said you have a bunch of interviews coming out the next couple weeks. We will be listening and reading them all.
[00:46:56] Aziz: We will be, for sure. Great. So, yeah, so Great. Thank you, guys. Alright. Thanks, everybody. We’ll be back with more content soon. Thanks again, Ryan.
Well, that was a lot of fun. We had a great time interviewing Ryan. Once again, our streaming schedule for Season 2 is Mondays at 6, non spoilery episodes. Saturdays at 3 Eastern, spoilery episodes where we talk about everything we know that might be coming. No leaks, but definitely what we know from the books.
And some Wednesdays, we’ll have content at 7 Eastern, whether scripted or live streams, you’ll find out, and you can always check our YouTube channel, the live tab has all the up to date information. Also, most Fridays at 6 Eastern, I’m playing a dynastic role playing game over at twitch.tv/HistoryofWesteros
It’s a lot of fun and highly detailed, come check that out if you are so inclined. You might want to check out our first interview with Ryan Condal, or our interview with George RR Martin. You can find the links and a lot of other information to things we’ve talked about on our website, historyofwesteros.com. Thanks to everyone who made this possible, those of you who support us and those of you who share the interview and share our content in general, we appreciate it. You can also hit us up at westeroshistory at gmail. com if you have any further questions or comments. Until next time, Valar Rereadis.
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