- Warning: Spoilers follow for House of the Dragon Season One Episode Three: Second of His Name.
- George RR Martin once said that the smaller budget for the first “GoT” season led to a disappointing scene.
- Now, “House of the Dragon” went all-in on an episode that recreates Martin’s vision of a royal hunt.
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When HBO embarked on the monumental task of adapting author George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels, no one knew for sure that it would become one of the most popular television shows of all time.
According to Variety, Game of Thrones Season 1 averaged about $6 million. And that smaller budget — especially compared to later seasons’ $15 million episodes — was the reason for Martin’s least favorite moment of all eight seasons.
In 2020, Game of Thrones reporter James Hibberd released a book about the HBO series called Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon. Speaking to Hibberd for the book, author Martin said that King Robert’s royal hunt was completely different on the show than he imagined.
“Where we really fell behind in terms of budget was my least favorite scene in the entire series, in all eight seasons: King Robert goes hunting,” Martin said. “In the books Robert goes hunting, we find out he was gored by a boar and they bring him back and he dies. So I never did [a hunting scene].”
“But I knew what a royal hunting party was like,” he continued. “There would have been a hundred guys. There would have been pavilions. There would have been hunters. There would have been dogs. Horns would have been blown – that’s how a king goes hunting!”
Martin added, “He wouldn’t just have run through the woods with three of his friends with spears hoping to hit a wild boar.”
Game of Thrones and House of Dragons. HBO
The scene in Game of Thrones (Season One Episode Six: “A Golden Crown”) lasted less than two minutes and featured only King Robert, Ser Barristan Selmy, Renly Baratheon and Lancel Lannister. The men discuss sex and the good old days (at least in Robert’s eyes) and then all the rest of the hunting action happens offscreen.
Showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss had to make customization decisions that fit their tight budgets. They added a lot of scenes with a few characters talking in rooms instead of filming expensive celebration and ceremony and fight scenes that Martin had in mind.
But over 10 years later, the first Game of Thrones prequel series was greenlit with a bigger budget, grossing less than $20 million per episode.
The latest episode of ‘House of the Dragon’ brings a generous parallel to the brief Kingswood scene in ‘Game of Thrones’
A shot from the set of Season 1 Episode 3 of House of the Dragon. HBO
In season one, episode three of House of the Dragon we see the full production of a royal hunt at the Kingswood, complete with the gazebos and hunters and hounds that Martin talked about in Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon.
Co-showrunners Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochnik, along with episode director Greg Yaitanes, made full use of the budget to give Westeros more agency early in the show.
The episode takes the time to zoom out and shows the Red Keep and King’s Landing in the distance to orient the audience to that location. We see an elaborate miniature throne room set up in a tent for King Viserys, and he is accompanied by well over a dozen men, soldiers and lords as he sets out to slay a stag.
Like King Robert, King Viserys enjoys many cups of wine during this little adventure, but the results of the day are drastically different. In House of the Dragon, we see King Viserys’ men actually track down the stag first and tie him up, giving Viserys an easy killshot (but he still messes up the first time).
Princess Rhaenyra in The House of the Dragon. HBO
Although we never saw Robert’s attack on the boar, we do know that his drunkenness and refusal to help a more able soldier take out the animal led to his death. The boar killed King Robert and impaled him squarely in the torso.
“House of the Dragon” doesn’t stop at a parallel, however. The episode showed Princess Rhaenyra fighting a boar in self-defense, eventually killing it with a barrage of point-blank knife thrusts, and then confidently walking back to the royal camp, covered in the boar’s blood.
If there are two major takeaways from this episode, it’s that Rhaenyra Targaryen is able to do where King Viserys and King Robert faltered, and House of the Dragon attempts to bring Martin’s visions to life wherever possible .
“House of the Dragon” airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO. To find out more about the series, read our breakdown of the 11 best details you may have missed in the latest installment.