House of the Dragon season 2 will be shorter than the first chapter

House of the Dragon Season 2 opted for a shorter runtime, consisting of just eight episodes. It’s two arcs shorter than the critically acclaimed first season, which weaved a dark fantasy tale based on George RR Martin’s “Fire & Blood” novel – set 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones. While that series ended in disapproving mounds of ashes due to a rushed ending and weird creative decisions, this prequel series won back its core fan base with a well-structured narrative about the successor to the Iron Throne and earned a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Drama Series. The reduced episode count naturally cast some doubts, and now one of its returning directors, Clare Kilner, has explained why.

“There are eight wonderful episodes with so much going on in each episode, and sometimes we have a hard time cutting them all down to one hour,” director Kilner told The Hollywood Reporter. “Ryan’s (J. Condal) decision was to give it a good opening and a good ending, and they’re packed with emotional and visually exciting events.” This reduction is easily comparable to the mistake Game of Thrones made with seasons 7 and 8, where the quality began to decline as co-creators David Benioff and DB Weiss tried to rush things, presumably based on certain footnotes given to them by the author Martin. The latter still hasn’t finished the book series, and so the series lacked a solid foundation to build on. However, with House of the Dragon Season 2, the goal is to give the chapter a good start and ending, rather than forcefully stretching or condensing oncoming arcs to favor a 10 limit. episodes.

Part of the fan concern stems from author Martin’s comments from last year, where he mentioned that it would take four full seasons of House of the Dragon to portray the Targaryen saga, each comprising 10 episodes. Now, if a showrunner’s vision doesn’t match the vision of the original creator/source, it’s bound to cause some level of outrage. We’ve seen this time and time again with movies, with directors complaining that the final cut never matched their creative vision – a good example being Todd McFarlane’s issues with Venom’s small build in Sam’s Spider-Man 3. Raimi. However, in House of the Dragon, you have to consider that Martin was just thinking about his blog – at first – and that he trusted Condal’s creative decisions completely.

Condal is now considered the sole showrunner for Season 2, since his original partner Miguel Sapochnik stepped down after the end of the first season. Alan Taylor, who has already directed some episodes of GoT like “Battle of the Bastards”, came to help us, but in what capacity it is not clear. Instead of rushing the arc like the penultimate and final season of Game of Thrones, Condal plans to take his time with HOTD season 2 to ensure the story is well paced and the development of events seems deserved. A season finale needs to end on a high note — a cliffhanger, for example — rather than delivering a lackluster ending that wouldn’t work well with 10 episodes. Implementing a time jump to deliver a better season finale would seem rushed, in turn degrading the quality and namesake the series earned. Basically, quality trumps quantity.

Another thing to note is that “Fire & Blood” isn’t exactly a full-fledged novel like Martin’s other books, but rather functions as a weird mix of an encyclopedia and a collection of short stories that explain the story. history of the Targaryens. This scenario is reminiscent of the highly polarizing The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, which also comes from the appendixes of JRR Tolkien’s main LOTR books, without any direction or direct influence, due to his passing. However, in the case of House of the Dragon, Martin is working closely alongside Condal and Taylor to ensure the best television representation of his characters, as Season 2 prepares to introduce familiar locations such as Winterfell and House. Stark.

House of the Dragon Season 2 is expected to release sometime in 2024 on JioCinema in India and Max wherever available.

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