House of R - ‘House of the Dragon’ Season 3 Breakdown With Showrunner and Co-Creator Ryan Condal

Episode Date: August 10, 2026

Mal and Jo sit down with 'House of The Dragon' showrunner and Co-Creator, Ryan Condal! They discuss some of the adaptive changes made on the show, if they were tempted to keep Ormund around, the reveal of Alys's backstory, and more!(00:00) Intro(02:13) Morally Gray Characters in ‘House of the Dragon’(05:53) Aegon and Rhaenyra’s Dynamic(07:31) Rhaenyra’s Reign and Viserys’s Legacy(11:53) What’s Next for Mysaria?(14:28) Ormund’s Fate(17:55) Aegon and Aemond’s Relationship(20:02) The Targaryens and Their Crazy Shit(25:57) Alys Rivers’s Backstory Revealed(29:25) Dragon Bonds(37:14) Halaena’s Destiny and the Tapestry(42:32) Daeron’s CharacteristicsHosts: Joanna Robinson and Mallory RubinProducers: Carlos Chiriboga and Scott LeeStudio Production: Jacob CornettSocial: Jomi AdeniranAdditional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Greetings. And welcome to House of our very special episode. We have Ryan Condal here with us today. House of the Dragon showrunner to talk to us about the season three finale, season three overall, the series overall. We're just going to dive right in. But if you're wondering, where's the deep dive? It's still coming. Coming tomorrow. Coming tomorrow. Also, cut you off. I should just say, that's Mallory Rubin. I'm Joanna Robinson. Just in case you're tuning in for first time to see Ryan Condole. That's who we are. This is House of R. We go deep on House of the Dragon every single episode. So if you're just like hopping in for this Ryan Condal interview, we will be back again tomorrow with hours upon hours of discussion of the finale.

Instant reaction already up with Chris Ryan for Talk to Thrones. Check that out. And stay tuned to see what else awaits the rest of the summer, the fall. We got all sorts of good stuff coming. Follow along on Spotify wherever you get your podcast. Follow the ring of verse YouTube channel. a house of our pod. We're huge book readers, but there are no book spoilers in this conversation with Ryan Condal. Correct. All safe for you to enjoy if you're just a show watcher. And I'm excited

for you to hear what he has to say. All right, what a treat. Back on the podcast for, I believe, the fourth time, which might be a record. Wow. Season two primer, a brief appearance on a House of Recommends episode. And, of course, the props extravaganza. It's House of the Dragon Show, runner Ryan Condal. Welcome back. Hi, guys. Very good to be here. Thanks for coming. We're thrilled.

We have 975 questions for you, but we'll try to cut it down as we go in real time. We'll see. Hot off the finale. We have so many things we're excited to dive into and discuss. Theme, lore, character. Want to start with morality. The moral gray.

Okay. Because Team Black is, by design, increasingly hard to root for us the story on furrows. And obviously, the finale gave us some nice child murder and betrayal and a slaying of the man of the cloth, etc. to further that. Team Green, meanwhile, has proven to be, I think Joe and I would both say, more empathetic than we or most book readers ever dreamed possible. How, as you now wrap up season three and think about season four and just in general adapting this story, how do you balance living in the moral grade that is so essential to the story's core intention and certainly to the core focus of the corrupting nature of power

while giving audiences characters to root for, or is part of the appeal to you interrogating what it is that we root for and why and what the limits of that devotion and empathy might be and assessing why and how people lose their way, and when they do, whether there's a path back from that dissent. Yeah, I mean, I think you hit the nail on the head there, Mallory. I think, you know, Sarah and I were much more interested in the exploration of the moral gray

and feeling like the original show gave us the kind of classic goodies and baddies within a morally gray landscape, but we can all pretty much agree that, like, everybody at some point was rooting for John Snow and DeNaris and everybody was rooting against most of the Lannisters at some point, Whereas this show, it felt like to take this thing and kind of move it on, not that we're trying to make all deplorable characters, but it felt like we needed less of that, of that sort of white hats and black hats that we had in the original show, because the show had done the hard work of establishing this world

where that doesn't really generally exist. And we were just more interested in portraying these very complex characters that at times you could find sympathy and empathy and empathy, for and times can be rooting for and other times you could be kind of horrified by them and their actions. And I think we've done that, you know, fairly successfully throughout the three seasons, as it kind of goes up and down. And I love the response following episode seven, because we're recording this before anybody has really reacted to episode eight. The public has reacted to episode eight. But I love the response to episode seven where so many people have like texted me and

they're like basically like you fucker i'm rooting for egg on now how did that happen yeah and and also credit to tom glen carney's wonderful performance i mean it's just it's so it's so it's such a it's such a human uh sympathetic performance and the things the things that he's been through this year in the crucible so i love all that and i i think we we always promised as a show that you would you would kind of flop back and forth between team green and team black and that didn't mean that you would be doing that in episode three of the show, it just meant that over the course of the series, you would have these kind of tugs and pulls in either direction.

And I think what this series has revealed this year is everybody loves an underdog, and now that the table is totally flipped, and Rainer and Damon are in the power position, and Egon and Aymond, all the people that you thought would be all powerful for all time. Now that there are the underdogs, people are kind of interested in what they're doing.

Sunfire, taken the world by storm. Sunfire. Yes, everybody likes a little. I learned that people really like kind of disfigured dragons in Sheep Steeler and Sunfire, two of our most popular market research testers.

Considering everything you just said about Agon, Ronira, Damon, all the rest, and where you wanted to land here at the end of the season, was there a particular character arc that going into the season knowing where you were beginning and knowing where you wanted to end by episode eight,

you were most, I don't know, concerned about focused on. You were like, this is the one we really, really have to nail this season, and it's going to be the biggest challenge. Well, it just felt like Agon and Reneira.

It felt like the two, now that those two are kind of sitting at the center of the dance, which was, again, always the plan. It just takes a couple of seasons to get there. It felt like if we could, if we could do the magic trick of taking Reneer, into the sort of the edge of the abyss, perhaps, you know, starting to cross over,

and then bringing Egon back from it and having this redemption, this kind of Arthurian redemption arc where he draws the dragon from the stone, so to speak, and has people rooting for him. It felt like we could really, then we really, we had done our jobs because you've really taken the audience on a ride and ended them in an unexpected place. in a way that vaults you hopefully rather excitingly into the final chapter, the final act of this thing, because really then hopefully the feeling is that I don't know where any of this is going in a good way.

I don't know what to expect. I can't predict the end of this and how it's going to go. And who I'm going to be rooting for or feeling sorry for or unexpected tragedy, those kinds of things. We really want to put people there in the classic sort of Game of Thrones way. We want to ask you about a character who a lot of those things apply to is not in the season, but certainly loomed over every minute of it, Viseris. The dispector of Viseris and his legacy and his choices,

it was obviously inescapable intentionally this season for many of the characters and for many of the storylines, but obviously most of all, particularly for Reneira, whose relationships to the ideals and the methods that he represented and that he espoused, has undergone real evolution, especially in the last couple episodes. I'm curious, can Reneira, you know, the two wolves inside of us all, like balance pushing past the idea of living in that shadow and feeling like what Viseris, the peaceful said, had to be the policy or the approach that Reneira tries to enact, and reject that. as Ranira did start to do at the end of the season,

is not befitting this moment in time, while still then hanging onto and, like, maintaining sight of the series-defining lessons that he set the tone with at the very beginning of the series, you know, about the Harbingers over control and dragon power and illusions and the lessons of the doom of old Valeria, et cetera. Can she forge her own path and own identity but still hold on to what he taught her, Or is the rejection more sweeping than that? Yeah, I mean, I think that was the big question for Rainer over the course of the season,

is could she, could two things be true at the same time? Could she hang on to the things that made Beceras kind of a questionable king, but made him choose her to be heir and also be an effective ruler as a female during wartime? And that's the thing that she's struggling with the entire season. And that's why we kind of set up the triangle of Masaria, Dame, and Renira, Because while Massaria's political message is slightly different from Viseras, it's more, it's more of a kind of populist message. She is the Vesera's conscience and the reminder of the lessons of Vassaris taught her over the

course of the season, whereas Damon is, Damon, fire and blood, right? The prophecy justifies anything that we need to do. We need to burn out our enemies. You need to kill Darren. All the things he's telling you're empire builders. You're thinking about, you're worried about the missing coin in King's Landing. We should be thinking about Dorn and conquering Esos and all those things that. one would totally expect Damon to do.

That's completely the right lesson for Damon to take away from his experiences at Harenhall last year. It's like, well, now we can do any in your life because it's meant to be. So that's Reneiro's pull is can I have enough of Damon in me to be strong and be seen as legitimate and be taken seriously and feared enough to rule and still be Viseris? And she's trying and trying and trying all season long. and then Damon lies to her. She catches out his deception over Raina and Sheepstealer. Misaria is in his inner ear about this is why you can't trust this guy.

And then Egon comes back. And not only that, but the brilliant political move she thought she made of just declaring him dead has now bitten her in the ass because his dragon and him have been resurrected. And you know how people love a sign, a religious sign. And he's a high tower and the starry sept and all these things. And now she's created King Arthur, essentially. If she had just said he's missing, we don't know where he is, please help me find him. Maybe it doesn't have this, there's not this magical sort of aura around his return. But she kind of created this thing and then she just snaps.

Because the thing that she's been looking for all season is to be seen as that by the public. And then he comes back with his disfigured dragon and suddenly everybody's worshipping the guy again because people love an underdog and people love a male king. So that's the thing that finally sends her over the edge. And she's just like, Misaria has to go. And no offense to

Misari, the person, but Masari, the ideology has to go. And I now have to completely throw in with Damon's philosophy if I had any hope of winning this thing and hang on to the throne. So thanks, Allison,

for that brilliant idea to declare a gone dead, I guess. 3D chess, maybe Allison's 4D chess that Allison's like. Oh, man. I did want to ask you about Masari. You sort of answered my question

It's a sort of why Reneer sent her away. If you're like, if she represents the Reneer's conscious to a certain degree, she needed to send her away. So I guess, like, if there's anything more you want to say about that, but also whatever you can say maybe for book readers who might be thinking about Masaria out there, she's forever missing her ride out of Westrose, right? So she's out here in the streets of Kings Landing. She might have a grudge.

Book readers might be making some connections to some things that they know that might be coming. that Masaria might slot into another character. Anything you want to say about that, Ryan Condal? I mean, certainly, you know, certainly Masaria's business is not over. And I think, I think, I think, I think, I think Rineer realized that she could, she could not hold the center at home with Masari and Damon playing in the same space. Like, one had, one had to eventually go because it was just, it was going to come to a head

in somewhere or another, and they're both cutting at each other behind their back, they're in Reneira's ear. And also, Reneira doesn't know what they're doing outside of her view, right? She doesn't know who they're talking to and what kind of alliances they've formed on the side. I mean, Damon seems

less likely to have done that just knowing Damon. He works more with steel and fire. But Masaria's secrets and whispers and lies are kind of portrayed. So I think Reneer is thinking about all those things and tries to send her away in a way that's like,

you know, the golden parachute, the golden parachute to Esos. But I think Missaria, that wasn't what Misario was looking for. She was looking for, you know, access to the throne and, and to realize the rise that she saw

over the course of the last two seasons. She's not quite ready to go yet. And then I think she sees the turn in Renira. She goes, that great shot that, you know, that Andri got and that Sonoya performed is the, I think the, oh, hell no shot.

So we'll see how that, we'll see how that goes, but I think Misario's business is not done in the city. Our theory brains are activated. We're cooking. We'll say that. Speaking of our theory brains, something that, you know, when Joe and I do our deep dives, we spend a obviously astonishing amount of time

talking about every detail of the show. And then at the very end, we do book, spoiler sections. We're obviously not going to talk about spoilers here, But now that the finale has aired, we could say, like, one of the things we were talking about throughout the season was, they're going to find a way to keep Ormond alive because this is just, like, so fun, right? And so there's obvious, like, we knew that Ormond was fated to die at Tumbledon in the finale of the season. But James Norton was just so amazingly entertaining in the role. And Ormond was just such a, like, delicious villain from The Word Go from Minute 1. And we're curious, even though, again, without getting into any particulars, obviously, like, there are story reasons for him to be gone at this point and things that will happen after.

Did you consider when you saw how, like, instantly indelible this performance was going to be, did you consider keeping him around longer beyond the Battle of Tumbledon? James is so great. He's such a delight. I just, I, you know, he's just one of those people that has that, like, aura around him. and just everybody is just happy in his presence. And he's so goddamn handsome. It's really infuriating. And I was like, you know, I'm only a couple years older than him, but I was looking at it. I was like, how we age so differently when we're basically born in the same year?

I guess writing versus acting. Maybe had something to do with it. But some goddamn good genes there. But no, I mean, you know, on a practical level, like one of the reasons we were able to get a fantastic, actor like that is because we promised him it was like a one you know sort of a one season commitment and I think he actually loved he loved he loved doing the show and was actually very very sad and sorry to go and I think had a great time and you know he had his own experience

producing a medieval action show with with King and Conqueror with a friend of the universe Nikola Costa Waldo so I think he came into it with this sort of oh my god like look at all the toys that you have this is wonderful and this is so amazing in the custom armor and the custom story. He had this really kind of nice producerial reaction to being on the show. So we loved having him around and he was great. But I think one of the things,

I always say, I always say, like being a good show runner is you have to let the show speak to you and you have to be in communication with the show. And it can't always be what you want. You have to sometimes have the show tell you what you want. A great example of that is like Freddie Fox, Gwen Hightower. We thought he was fantastic when he auditioned.

He came in. We had this plan for him. And then he just delighted everybody. and it's like, well, this feels, and because he's a high tower, with relations sort of everywhere, bringing Ormond in the story, just feels like something that, you know, we can exploit

to the show's benefit. But then there are other times when I think you have to, like, just leave them wanting more in a way where this was the perfect arc for Ormond, and to have him go out that way because of his two sort of perhaps biggest flaws, his smell and substance issues and his rage issues kind of coming to a head in that final,

in that final act of the episode. It just felt like the right way to go. Plus his arc sort of serves to tee up the core greens who have been kind of on the run and on the lamb. And the work that Ormond did has empowered Egon and Amon in ways that they do not yet realize. So it felt like that it was a glorious sort of passing of the torch. Let's talk about the brothers, Egan and Eamon. This is a really, I think it's okay to say. I don't think this isn't in the book.

This doesn't happen in the book that Agan and Eamon get to meet in this episode, like the way that they do. Why was it important to you to bring Agan and Aman together here in the Heron-Hall sequence in the finale? Well, we wanted to tee up what was the common. And this is a good example of, though it is not in the book, it does not necessarily mean that it could not have happened. Simply because Egon sort of disappears from the record, we know he reappears over a and we don't, you know, we know that he does not interact, right, with Egon again in the text. But that doesn't mean that he didn't.

It just means that the historians writing the book didn't have a record of it. So it's a reasonable extrapolation that they could have crossed paths again and had plans. and maybe that's why, you know, the famous event that is yet to come for book readers happens in the way that it does. I mean, I think it's a reasonable extrapolation. For us, this is a great example of just like the difference between a TV show and a book. You have to exploit moments like this to bring your core central characters back together at moments of high drama. And we're heading into the final act here. And it's so clear now the sides have been so, you know, well kind of,

set up. You have Reneira and Damon at the core on the black side. You have Amon and Egonne on the core on the green side with Allison's out there and kind of perhaps a free agent, so to speak. We'll see what happens

when she comes back to King's Landing in possession of all the Valerian soldiers that have her. And then you have, you know, you have the other sort of, you know, the black free agents that are out there, you know, Bela and Raina, et cetera, et cetera. but the sort of core for Rainira Damon, Amon, it feels like that was the right place to set us up,

you know, vaulting us into season four because that's largely who the story is going to be about at this point in the telling. I think, you know, since you hit there, the distinction between a book, a text, and making a TV show, I want to kind of linger there for a second and ask you about the public declaration of the prophecy because in case there's anybody in the world, whether or not they're on the Zoom right now,

who has been like, how did this not make the history books if David said it at a small council meeting? And then, of course, you know, let's by an order of magnitude expand that one. Renira shouts it from the words of the sap. Really curious to hear how you've been thinking about this because, you know, on the one hand, of course, Westeroce history is peppered with like slight tweaks

and variations of some sort of savior prophecy that kind of feels like of a piece and of the same textual heft. And to go back a few seasons and a few years, when House of the Dragon started, I remember Joe and I were sitting next to each other at the premiere watching it, and it gasped when Agon's dream,

the song of ice and fire was introduced in the story. And from that minute onward, it's been such a source of fascination to us, not only for all of the character rich reasons, like, what do you do if this is a thing hanging over you, right? We've talked about that probably every single pod we've done since. But also just thinking about these questions of like, okay, when did this version, the Targaryen specific version of this prophecy, maybe get lost, who passed it along? When, when Raygar's discovering something in the scrolls, is it the dagger

of prophecy? Like, we've been nerding out about this stuff for so long. And so I'm curious, like, how did it not make the history books, this specific version of it, if Reneera made a big stump speech about it in front of the masses? Or were they all like, we're focused on the new eye makeup and the new look? I love the eye makeup.

Could be that. I'd be attractive. Yeah. Emma came to me one day and they were like, yeah, I'm going to do this. And I was like, okay. Wow. Incredible.

A genuinely incredible choice. Yeah. Sure. Sure. Yeah, when Emma Darcy and then, you know, Amanda Knight who did all of the makeup for all the Harry Potter movies and then every, you know, basically every big thing since. And they're like, this is our plan. You're just like, yep, that's cool. Were those materials available in the middle of times? Yes, they were. Cool. I'm, I'm good with it. There you go. So, I mean, that's a great question. You know, I think, I think this falls into the category of, you know, Targaryans probably say some crazy shit during the darkest parts of their reign.

And we know that Reneera was looked down upon at this point by the public. And look, in the book, you know, admittedly she kind of locks herself inside and is grieving and gets thick of waist and all the things that the book tells. We needed a more, we needed an active character to be the main character of this show. You know, that was not that, doing that story in its sort of, you know, fullness would not really have worked on, on, you know, in this, in this TV series. So that's where we come back to, you have to look at how, how histories are written. And it feels like if you read Fire and Blood with the eye towards that you have these three historians that sort of have an agenda, or at least two of them, because, you know, Mushroom, his agenda. is just the horniest version of history possible. Yeah.

But these two historians that kind of have an agenda to, not to like be all team green, but to kind of lay the blame for this horrible war that killed so many and that killed off the dragons and that weakened the Targaryen dynasty at the feet of, if not just Rainer and Allison sort of for, you know, for starting it. That was a very interesting place for Sarah and I to work from in the crafting of the show.

And that's not to say nothing in the book, happened and we throw it all out. It's just we had to take, we had to have certain looks at, metal looks at the way histories are put together and written. And it just feels to me that that is something that if you're trying to reconcile that, you know, versus versus the book, this is part of the Magor with Teets story and Renera becoming this despot and really desperately hanging on to power. And if you think of all these small folk who have never heard anything about magic and prophecies, and then the crazy lady from the Red Keep comes out in the Joan of Arc suit of armor and then says a bunch of shit about, you know, being the chosen one. It just, and that's

also why we had her say, The Prince of this Promise and High Gileering does not know what she's, right? No, no, no, no what she's saying. So, look, it's, we're taking liberties clearly, but it felt, you know, right and correct for the television show. And it feels like, it feels like with a sort of, you know, broad objective eye towards the way history is written generally it feels like it could possibly have just not made the record simply because they're doing the

do we believe that this happened? Do we believe that not? But we know that she was sort of an angry despot at this moment in the history. Right. I have the next question. I just want to really quickly

and our editor's going to apologize that I'm like plunging into darkness. It's very dramatic moody lighting. Really nothing I can do at this point. And our producers were like, Hey, Joanna. If you rely on sunlight, that might not go well.

So listen. This is your version of this is my new eye makeup. And it's going to really set the tone. The Dark Night of the Soul over here. Sorry about that. Are you just going to be two daffy-dap cartoon eyes in the darkness?

Probably. Possibly. Okay. Speaking of sort of, I don't know, taking liberties or I wouldn't put that way for this part, but like the backstory for Alice Rivers,

you get to write a backstory for Alice Rivers, who's such a mysterious character in the book, what was it like to come up with that backstory and what were some of the, you know, why this version of her origin? I wish I could remember who pitched that, and it's one of those things where it came so out of the collective, and this is one of the things that we, and this came in the course of breaking season two.

So this is something we've been sitting on for a while, because a lot of it was like, well, how do, you know, Alice is great fun, but how do we just keep her from just being the creepy witch lady that seems to know the right things, the right time? She has to have her own kind of internal story and backstory and the reason she's actually here. And you definitely get less of that with Damon because I think she was playing Damon a different way. I think Alice sort of sees, can read people and know what they need and definitely Damon needed somebody more at arm's length and Amen needed somebody very close that could kind of get in his head, get in his soul and really appeal to him.

So we really did a lot of work on that, you know, on her and we were kind of around and around about it. We had a lot of great ideas, but it's like how do we knit all this together into a cohesive thing where you can look even back in the Damon story and go, oh, I get what this all was. But it was really exciting when that, you know, when that came forward. in the room because it sort of was the grand unifying theory to sort of bring all this together. And we know, you know, we now know Alice's motivation in the where's and wise. And yeah, I mean, it just, it was, it was exciting in a way to tie back to the history of the castle and the, the great lore around that.

I mean, that's probably, other than the ancient Targaryans, it's probably the most sort of wondered about, character or characters or house, right? House Harron. Yeah. Or, no, it's House 4, right? Yeah, Heron, yeah. Yeah, which just, you know. So Alice, we were doing...

Alice War. Sounds like something Damon would say. Yeah. Yeah. Or maybe her name wasn't Alice at the time. Maybe she just was going by Alice. Or rebrand. Yeah.

Whatever. I mean, I imagine that. I imagine. Lady Heron's name was not Alice because people would just go, that's weird that they have the same name. But yeah, it was really exciting. It was fun to play with it. It kind of knit everything together and also kind of leaves open the idea that,

you know, maybe this is also just the story that Alice told, which is also a distinct, a distinct possibility. Intriguing. But we really like it. And, you know, certainly it helped Gail out a lot. portraying the character and she got many, many stern warnings for me as you do press. Remember, this comes out in the final episode. So please don't speak about it as you're motivating resin to try from the things you're doing in the second episode.

So I would say that other than vampires and musicals, Joanna's most fervent passionate life is which stuff go. So we'll just hit that. And we'll move into my number one passion, which is dragons. But it's all, you know, of a piece in terms of magic and the fantasy. Alice has dragon eggs. That's right. So it's a good crossover for you guys. I mean, just an absolute thrill for us.

The opening of the crate of eggs this season, we had a blast. You know, I have, like, cried on this podcast before talking about the way that this show has captured something really elemental about what, fantasy lovers, like lovers of genre stories who find something about that connection and that bond can appreciate when they're watching something like, I don't know, Maly's and Raney's sharing a look in their final moments together, right? So I'm curious, this was such a fascinating season for exploring things that could in some ways feel like they are contradictions or at odds with each other, but ultimately are all part of the, this is where my Baltimore accent comes out and Joe makes fun of me, part of the brew. Going down to the ocean, hon, part of the brew.

The Dragon Bond, the centrality of that, we've got the warnings about the hubris of control, the illusion of control, right? The Vesaris Harpengers and other characters have voiced, you know, very recently at the penultimate of the season. We had Helena voicing a lot, are you not altered? right? We're hearing this throughout the series and it's something that's on our minds. We're watching Gullet, et cetera, the shipwaker bay. The inability for the riders to control their dragons. One of our favorite, like, subtle examples of that this season was Carraxies telling Damon to fuck off. As you go into the mountain of the moon, as Damon is about to go lecture Raina on the Dragon Bond, right?

Just delicious. So we have that. And then we have Agon and Sunfire on and on the list. goes, Vagar's eye, flashing in Amon's dream, the examination

and genuine sincere interest of an appreciation for centering this bond. We've talked a lot on the pod about, you know,

the fire and blood passage that we love about like the dragons can channel their writers love and hate. And obviously so much in the canon

about the nature of that bond is like mysterious and still shrouded in questions. So, you know, I think one of the things that I love so much

about the the show is the way that the aspects of the dragon riding lore and mythology, when they are brought to the fore and fleshed out for us, it's consistently done through character arc and theme. And I'm wondering just, like, as an adapter and as the person, you know, making the show, which part of that is most interesting to you? Like, is it that you feel that it is an important, paramount thing in a fantasy story, in the dance of the dragons, where dragon war and the cost of dragon war, men are like dust beneath their feet, this. has to be centered? It has to be questioned, the doom of old Valeria. Or is there something about

the way that the dragons center the questions about power, strength, the choices we make, the hubris that can lead us astray, that you find yourself drawn to when it comes to unlocking the thematic questions that are most central for the human characters? Yeah, I mean, I'm interested in all of it. I mean, the big thing we're making the show that has, you know, 17 dragons in it, and look, whether we see every little one of them, but there were 17 dragons at this time in history, there better be distinguishing factors amongst them that aren't just like what color are they.

And if you're going to make them, if you're going to spend all the money and all the time and effort doing this, they better damn well be interesting. And the way that you make them interesting is by interlinking them with the human characters in the show and also weaving them into the semantics of the show. And one of the big semantics of this show is, particularly this season, is this idea of mutually assured destruction

and the fact that you have these nuclear weapons on both sides of the conflict that happen to be living sentient beasts with minds of their own. And some of them have been put into hands of the untrained and people that do not have years of loyalty and legacy behind them, like the Ulf and the Hughes of the world, to keep them in line because Alph isn't worried about dishonoring his house because he has no house, right? And so all of those things kind of feed into thematics and then character interaction. And we felt like the way to, because look, you sit there for, I mean, really, I don't see, I don't see proper dragons until like April before the show comes out. I'm looking at guys in blue Unitarbs. Yeah. Cargoy Cal.

Yeah, exactly. Bless him. Killing it. Bless him. Totally committed. all the time, committed forever. But that's what you're looking at as you're cutting the show

and trying to make this emotional story about the riders and their dragons. So I think the fear going into it was we better care about, you know, Renera's bond with Syrax if we're ever going to care about Syrax. And so it kind of started there and then I thought that stuff was really effective.

And then, you know, lo and behold, the dragons, they look great. Yeah. There's tons of characters. in their animation, and people actually really care about them linked to and also independent of their riders. So it was sort of working from both ends. So I was really interested in all that.

And then I'm a big theme guy, so I'm just really interested in all those thematics. And one of the big things that I was really hammering way back in the crafting of season one is we have to feel like these dragons aren't totally in control. Because that's how you keep the stakes up for the series. that this idea that you have a nuke, but like it has a brain of its own and has this human sentience to it. And it can just fly out of the silo when it wants and turn on you, turn on their rider, turn on another dragon. That stuff is really interesting because it does create this kind of anarchic chaos that feels reminiscent of the very doom. We don't really know what

the cause of it was. But the thing that brought down the Valerian Empire in the first place feels very similar to the warnings that came from that, feels very similar to the kind of themes and things that are going on in this particular period in the history. So that's stuff that we spend a long time, you know, working on. Because you want to ground the dragons and feel, like, as Dave Hancock said, you know, their big stinky warplanes with a need for abundant fuel, sheep, goats, you know, pigs, all the, all the things that,

taking the feet away from the people. So all that stuff is part of interesting. like a, you know, building your little civilization board and the economics of now we're at war, so the dragons are hungry because they're flying all the times and they eat all the sheep. And then the people don't have food and they get hungry and they don't have wool. And all that stuff gets really interesting. So there's like practical aspects of that. And then there's a kind of meta sort of magic bond thing that makes you care about it.

But all that stuff, we've been working very hard at that because it feels like that was something that was particularly unique to House of the Dragon versus Game of Thrones, where dragons were brand new. And every time they flew overhead, everybody. had to look up because nobody had ever seen a dragon before. Whereas Kings Landing, they fly overhead all the time. And it's just there's a dragon infrastructure. There's dragon keepers and dragon pits and dragon mons and saddlery and training and all that.

And yes, medical attention too. So as we've learned. They need it. They need it. Yeah. Yeah. As I continue to plunge into darkness, I want to ask you, it's really great guys. It's so happy.

It's very on the theme with that episode. Season 3 episode 8. It's true. It's true. It's true. This is my own doom that's happening around me. Let's talk about something very dark that happened. Helena, where Helena goes out the window.

We book readers knew it was coming, but it was still, I mean, all the work you, Fia did and the writers did all season to sort of build up to this, I thought, was really incredible and a dramatic visual as well. A couple details. I want to ask about the butterflies and sort of your idea of that metaphor of the butterfly what Allison sees, the hints we got earlier in the season. And then the tapestry of Rainera, which I think I'm interpreting as like her covered in cuts on the throne,

which is very Rainier in the book, is that what we're meant to take from what Rainier sees on Helena's tapestry left by the window? Well, I'll answer the tapestry one first. I mean, I think, you know, I think you should take another close look at, at the image. Thank you. When you can freeze, frame it.

I have a question for you guys, actually, but just to take a slight detour for a moment. When you get these early screeners, how are you watching them? Are you watching on like a big TV with loudspeakers? Is that possible? You're not watching on the iPod. No, yeah.

There's an Apple TV app for the screeners app. Yeah, there is. We can have it full screen. Okay. Fantastic. It just really stresses me out because I watch, you know, you watch this thing on like this big mix. stage. It's like a million dollar room you're sitting. Yeah. And then I'm thinking

in these people that are like, that are covering the show, watching it on an iPad or on their laptop or something like that, especially an episode like that. Let's just pretend I, let's just pretend I have already gone back in freeze framed and look at it. Why don't you just pretend that I got it right and tell me what I was looking at? Well, I think there's a lot to pull out of the, I think there's a lot of interpretation to pull out of the image. So I don't want to, I don't want to speak to it. I don't think it's helpful to, I think it's more interesting to be left a little up to interpretation. What I will say is that, you, Renair is not seeing a positive reflection of herself in the tapestry. And I think so much of that final moment that you see with her is her choosing,

what is she going to do if she actually believes that Helena is the dreamer that she is, and she's seen the rest of the tabliction. Helena has been stitching her own demise for quite some time now. If she chooses to believe that Helena is this thing that Theris insisted existed, and Helena told Rainer that Amid was in Haranol and Amid was at Haran Hall, then she has to maybe also believe that what she's looking at is her now or a future depiction of her. So I think that's the thing that she's struggling with in that final moment. She has to decide what am I going to do with it? And then, of course, you see her drop it and then close the window and we go to black.

So I think you can, I want to leave some of this stuff up to interpretation because I think that's the fun. But I would just take, you know, the tapestry, the embroidery work on that and the art that was done, the art department would, would, like, draw the image and then send it off to this incredible embroider that made the tapestry. It was just, it was just an amazing delight to watch. So it was something that we were really excited about for Helena across the season because it was something that was super visual that we could be. play with and play back to and see her working and not see exactly what she's working on. You've got these little snips of it, and then to end the season with this really, this big kind of reveal

of what she had been seeing or thinking about, yeah, before her end. And the butterflies. The butterflies. So, you know, so many characters over the course of the season are going through this kind of metamorphosis, this transformation. And we knew from Helena going back to season one when she was

played by, you know, a different actor, Helena has an obsession with the insect kingdom. And the idea of this season of Helena kind of going through her own metamorphosis of being very much for her life, a kind of caterpillar in a cage and then put into this kind of pupil state by being put into being put into Renera's prison and being obsessed with they're out of seas. and all the little snips that you get across the season. And then Sarah actually had this great image of Allison having this premonition at the end while she's on the road back to Kings Landing, having seen Helena deal with these caterpillars over the course of the whole season, seeing this cloud of butterflies come up and just having this,

she doesn't know anything, but she just, it's that motherly instinct that something horrible has happened. And we just really liked that image and we liked the sort of visual. metaphor and how tied back into Elena's character and and her the sort of sad tragedy of it is Helena setting herself free you know finally freeing herself and being given wings is is she had to you know take her take her own life and the life of an unborn child in the process right um from from one just gentle lovely soul to another Darren Yeah. You know, we longed, we waited, we yearned, and we were rewarded because this is just

wonderful rendering of the character, a wonderful performance. And we are, I don't know, we've had evolutions of who are we shocked to be most invested? And I think for a long time, Laris and Egon is like our favorite duo to spend time with was a shock to both of us. But I think we would both say that, you know, Laris Day One. Laris is your, you're a Laris lady. you always have been, even though he cowardly tucked tail and ran and claimed that he would make sure that all of Agon's great deeds. Or intelligently chose a different path.

Yeah, what was he going to do? He wasn't going to do. He wasn't going to fight. It would have been very out of character for him to stand around and die for that. I guess I'm Team Tyler Lannister, which is, again, a shock to me. But I do think that Gawain and Darren are just talking. hop on the list for us in terms of pairings that we are so just riveted, watching, and really emotionally invested in at this point. On the Darren front, you know, he's introduced into

the story midway through the series, other than obviously some mentions in season two, but like, it's really about, you know, we're setting up in these last few episodes, these big things with Darren, he's a character who's really taking seriously, what does it mean to be a good king? And not performatively. Like, he is earnestly assessing that, right? What went into deciding to make something like Darren the Daring as his moniker, an Ormond PR play, rather than something that Darren earned out in the field, you know, to keep Tessarian chained in the sept rather than entering battle at this point in the story. You know, and to position Darren as really at this point one of the few characters in the show

who we would like credibly believe would say and mean, I have no fear of insignificance. Like that's not, that's not how I make my decisions. That's not how I see what's right and wrong. Yeah. I mean, that's great to hear. I mean, that was, it's a thrill. I mean, that I think the Tumbleton story is one of our proud accomplishments this season just because it was brand new and to get everybody, you know, ramped up and that invested

in just a couple episodes was very exciting to see. And it's a credit to all the performances of those three tremendous actors that, you know, that played part of that triangle. And when we hired Ben, who's Benjamin Evan Ainsworth, who plays Darren, and alternatively, at times, also playing an elf in Hyrule. That's right. Yeah. We needed him for, like, a little pickup. So they had, poor kid had to, like, fly halfway around the world in March to say, like, one line that we just didn't catch. We didn't have the right angle of him saying one line.

So we had to have him come back all the way through from New Zealand. Get the red wig back. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Take off the ears and put on the way. And, but we told him when we cast him that basically, Ormond is the domineering father figure in your life.

And whether you, literal father or stepfather, however you want to look at it, kind of that, that he plays the father role. And then Gwain is the kind older, the kindly older brother who's trying to protect you from the, you know, the at times abusive father. And that was sort of the basic way that we gave him. But this kid who came in and just a very young actor and just has this incredible worldliness and emotional intelligence to him

that could extrapolate from all that and come up with these little things and the way he picks at his nails. And that was not something that we gave him. He watched all the shows and picked that up from Allison and said, I really want to, I want to do the thing that my mother was doing when she was my age.

Because that's the way that people will kind of see our connection. And so much of that he brought to the role and giving him the hair, you know, the hair that makes him look literally like, you know, like his mother and just like Kate Rose James casting and just finding these faces that, that look alike in a way that's credit, they're credibly related. It's just, it's just incredible. So we're excited about all that all that. And then, but then also like, how do we turn this thing on its head and make, you know, we know that Darren was the most in the book, the most sympathetic probably of the siblings in the story, well, but the most sympathetic. of the boy is certainly the sons, Allison's son. But do we need to just make this kind of Arthurian hero out of him to do that? Or is there another way about it that can explore character for both Darren and then also for Ormond to realize how he has worked his way close to the throne? Because Ormond is one of these great political operators in the great Thronean tradition.

My plan is not to be on the throne. my plan is to be standing at the foot of it as your hand, because that is actually where the true power lies. And for Ormond to do that, he has to dominate or Daron, control him a little bit, lift him up, make him feel great about himself, night him when it's important, and also keep his dragon chained up because the dragon is the thing that's a real threat to, you know, a threat to Orman.

And certainly I think Orman would have deployed Tesorian in battle if he had needed to and gotten there in the fight. But I think the feeling was with Karaxes on the field, and then Vermethore showing up, And with Silver Wing, hopefully, in play, Tasarian would really only be under threat at that point. It would kind of be a, it would seem maybe like a, you know, a poor side-ass move for him in that case. So it's not, I don't think the plan was never to use and deploy Tessarian. The plan was just to, you know, save that piece until he needed it and not, and to keep Darren in his place.

And also alive because that's all Ormond's power is derived. from Darren being alive and having a claim to the throne. Right. Well, the rats have eaten all the towel and the candles where I am. So I think I'm done, except I guess, here's my, it's not a question. This is my last thing that I'll say. It's not a question. On behalf of House Beesbury, my faves, I need to say that the line,

Honeyholt a trifle really hurt me personally on behalf of House Beesbury, and I just wanted to protest. Log my complaint from the darkness here. God's be good. Buzzing angrily. Yeah, stinging at you if I could. Sarah had this great joke and we

of just the Beesbury Army coming and they're coming over the hill and you just hear you just see all the little shapes to go over the hill. Beware our sting. Yeah, yeah. But yes, but I'm very glad

that Beesbury got its spotlight in the Night of the Seven Kingdoms. It felt like that guy was very proud that night was very proud to be a member of House Beerswaring. Took his B-theme very seriously. Oh, my God. When he came to the tournament. And is the dyed mustache iconic.

What an insight into the coffin procedures later. Ryan, thank you for being so generous with your time. Thank you for joining us. We hope you come back. Come back in season four. Talk to us again. I love to. I love to.

I will have a light. time, I promise. This is very, it's very Carvaggio. It's becoming Barry House of the Dragon here. House of Dragon season one, maybe. There you go. But, you know, I would just say to you guys, I just, you know, thank you for, you know, all the, you know, the very passionate coverage that you make for our show and I think for other shows

in the universe. I think the internet has become such a fraught place of kind of rage bait and clickbait these days, that to have a place where you can go where you can have thoughtful discussion of something and look there, you know, with warts and all kind of, you know, honest sort of debate over over the genre work that all of us works so hard to make is a really, you know, it's just a really good resource to have because it just feels like there's so many other places where it's just trying to make people either click or click angrily or some combination of both. So I think this is, I think, I think, you know, House of Our is just a great resource and we're all, you know,

lucky for it, better for it. Thanks, as nerds. The nerds unite. Thank you, Ryan. Seriously, thank you. Ryan, honorary, the R and Ryan House of our honorary member. Thank you so much for joining. Thank you so much.

Okay. How much did you enjoy the light source constantly draining out of my side of the video on that, Mallory? As I told you, I thought it was very compelling. Dramatic, moody. I quite liked it. I quite enjoy it. What wonderful chat. Ryan's the best.

Just a complete joy to get to hear all of his insights on the season, all these character arcs and all of the twists and turns and surprises in the finale. I feel like we got a solid verbal that we'll chat again in season four, so that's exciting. I already something to look forward to. I still don't know exactly what I'm supposed to be seeing on that tapestry. I have looked at the freeze frame since he mentioned it. Hobbes and Dragons at Gmail.com, if you have any deeper insights into what is on the tipestry. And speaking of deeper, we will see you tomorrow evening-ish for the deep dive,

depending on what time's on you're in. That's right. On the season three finale of House of the Dragon. It is sad. I'll miss it. Season four, a couple years away. We have a lot of really cool plans cooking for this fall, though. I'm really excited.

We'll see you then. Bye.