George R.R. Martin Slams House of the Dragon Season 2 Change From the Book [Update: Post Removed]

Warning: The below story contains full spoilers for House of the Dragon Season 2, as well as some potential spoilers for Season 3.

Update, September 4, 1:00 p.m. PT: Hours after George R.R. Martin published the blog post criticizing changes made to House of the Dragon, the post has now been removed from his website, with the link now leading to a 404 error.

HBO also released a statement on his blog post following its removal, which you can read below:

“There are few greater fans of George R.R. Martin and his book Fire & Blood than the creative team on House of the Dragon, both in production and at HBO. Commonly, when adapting a book for the screen, with its own format and limitations, the showrunner ultimately is required to make difficult choices about the characters and stories the audience will follow. We believe that Ryan Condal and his team have done an extraordinary job and the millions of fans the series has amassed over the first two seasons will continue to enjoy it.”

Previous story as follows:

After saying he would outline some of the issues with HBO's House of the Dragon Season 2, Fire and Blood author George R.R. Martin has fulfilled his promise, calling out a major deviation the show made from the source material in the second season. But not only that: he's warned fans that even more "toxic" changes might be on the horizon.

Martin posted the blog post on Wednesday, starting off by touching on the first two episodes of Season 2, calling them "terrific episodes: well written, well directed, powerfully acted." There's just one problem, however, according to Martin: the handling of the Blood and Cheese storyline, which saw the death of the young Prince Jaehaerys.

As Martin explains, in the show, Aegon and Helaena only have two children, the twins Jaehaerys and Jaehaera. But in Fire and Blood, they have three, with the addition of Maelor. In the book, to fill the mandate of "a son for a son," Helaena must choose between her two sons, or else see all three of her children killed. She also offers her own life, to no avail. Helaena ends up choosing Maelor, but Blood kills Jaehaerys instead, with the added cruelty of telling Maelor that his mother wanted him dead.

In the show, however, since there is no Maelor, Helaena is forced to identify which of the twins is the boy, which still sees the death of Jaehaerys. Instead of offering her own life, she offers the killers an expensive necklace.

While acknowleding that the scene in the show is "bloody and brutal," Martin writes, "I still believe the scene in the book is stronger."

"I thought the actors who played the killers on the show were excellent… but the characters are crueler, harder, and more frightening in FIRE & BLOOD," he continued. "...I would also suggest that Helaena shows more courage, more strength in the book, by offering her own own life to save her son. Offering a piece of jewelry is just not the same.

"As I saw it, the 'Sophie’s Choice' aspect was the strongest part of the sequence, the darkest, the most visceral," he said. "I hated to lose that. And judging from the comments on line, most of the fans seemed to agree."

Martin said he argued against the change with showrunner Ryan Condal at the time, but acquiesced based on an assurance from Condal. And he noted that he still loves the Season 2 premiere, "and the Blood and Cheese sequence overall. Losing the 'Helaena’s Choice' beat did weaken the scene, but not to any great degree," he wrote.

But there's another aspect about the absence of Maelor that concerns the author quite a bit.

Warning: Potential major spoilers for House of the Dragon Season 3 to follow.