Season two of HBO’s “House of the Dragon” wrapped up Aug. 4this Wednesday with a season finale that promised fire and blood in season three. Since then, George R. R. Martin, the author of the series’ source material, has raised some serious concerns with the direction of the show. 

“House of the Dragon” is an adaptation of Martin’s 2018 book “Fire & Blood,” a companion text to his “A Song of Ice and Fire” series which was adapted to screen as “Game of Thrones.” The show is a prequel to the main series, telling the story of the civil war that ravaged House Targaryen nearly two centuries before Daenerys Targaryen. 

On the heels of “Game of Thrones’” disastrous final seasons, fans of Martin’s world were delighted with the first season of “House of the Dragon.” While it had some issues, it was a return to form that reminded many of the early seasons of “Game of Thrones.” 

Season two, however, disappointed many with storylines that kept characters in holding patterns, retread the same dialogues and conflicts, or were just poor writing. It seems it was too much for Martin to stay silent. 

Martin thus far has remained fairly quiet on the television adaptations of his work. He offered some praise for earlier seasons of both shows, which he was involved with. After the airing of season one of “House of the Dragon,” Martin told showrunners that their version of King Viserys was better than the one he had written. 

After season two episode one, Martin joked about how the show had omitted a character from a scene, jokingly calling him “Maelor the Missing.” Maelor, who in the book is the second son of Aegon and Helaena, has been written out of the show. 

After teasing that he had additional thoughts late in August, Martin posted a blog post on Sept. 4 digging deeper into this omission, and how it lessens the impact of certain events in the story and hamstrings the show’s future. The post is titled “Beware the Butterflies” and Martin argues that Maelor’s absence makes certain storylines fall apart and removes other characters’ motivations. 

The blog post was deleted shortly after being posted, possibly due to spoilers for season three. For those not afraid of spoilers, it has been archived here. 

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