House Of The Dragon's New Rhaenyra Tease Reaffirms Season 3 Is Sticking To Its Divisive Changes

House of the Dragon’s new Rhaenyra tease confirms the HBO prequel series is sticking with its story, and that’s a good thing. House of the Dragon season 3 is well underway, with filming already in progress for a hopeful 2026 release. The pressure has never been higher for the series to perform, following season 2’s mixed reviews.

Fans of the Game of Thrones prequel series have a broad range of emotions on what went wrong with House of the Dragon season 2, and as a massive fan of both George R.R. Martin’s books and the television medium, I resonate with most of them. That said, I still believe there’s only one course for the show going forward.

Emma D’Arcy leads House of the Dragon’s cast as Rhaenyra Targaryen, and the 33-year-old actor recently spoke with Awards Radar about the process of filming season 3. Regarding how they use the source material book, Fire & Blood, as a reference to inform their performance, D’Arcy said the following:

“Any sort of historical document tends to be deeply subjective and requires context for understanding. I feel that part of our job is to offer some of that context. But it’s funny, I wouldn’t go back to the book now, possibly until we finish this journey. House of the Dragon now needs to run its course.”

House Of The Dragon Season 3 Is Sticking To Its Guns

House Of The Dragon Is Picking Up Where Season 2 Left Off

Essentially, what Emma D’Arcy is saying is that House of the Dragon isn’t just here to tell the same story as Fire & Blood; it’s providing a subjective contextualization of a fictional historical text. This has always been the case, with the show’s writers taking plenty of creative liberties in bringing the book to life.

With two seasons in, it’s too late for House of the Dragon to try to turn things around and become something it’s not. At this point, they have to move forward, for better or for worse. At this point, Emma D’Arcy can’t use Fire & Blood as a resource to contextualize her character because House of the Dragon has already deviated from the text.

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This means, heading into House of the Dragon season 3, audiences can expect more changes. Rhaena will likely ride Sheepstealer, Daemon will continue to ponder White Walkers and the Three-Eyed Raven, and Rhaenyra and Alicent might continue to have a more complicated relationship than book readers expected.

House Of The Dragon’s Angle Was Always A Subjective Fire & Blood Adaptation

This Show Hasn’t Ever Been Close To Book Accurate

While a fair amount of the story changes have received divisive responses in House of the Dragon, there have also been plenty that worked well. For example, the Aegon’s Dream prophecy has provided book readers with a renewed supply of material to theorize about, especially given that this was Martin’s idea.

Another obvious example is Viserys Targaryen, who Martin even admitted was more compelling than the version he wrote in the text. Actor Paddy Considine brought the Targaryen monarch to life in a way no one saw coming, and it goes to show that the writers are more than capable of embellishing the material.

Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke) in a green dress in House of the Dragon season 2

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With two seasons in the books, House of the Dragon belongs to the team working on it at HBO. It’s unfortunate that George R.R. Martin and a portion of the audience pool aren’t satisfied with the show’s ideas, but this is the process of adaptation, especially when it involves a book formatted like Fire & Blood.

Fire & Blood isn’t a full-length novel like the A Song of Ice & Fire books, and the writers are forced to fill in gaps with supplementary material. There are other changes that are harder to explain, but they are tied to the subjective perspective aspect. Crucially, season 1 proved this method could work.

It’s Too Late For House Of The Dragon To Become More Book Accurate – & That’s Okay

HBO’s Dance Of The Dragons Adaptation Is Its Own Story Now

Emma D'Arcy as Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen looking surprised in House of the Dragon's season 2 finale

Something I’ve been saying since House of the Dragon season 2 was on air is that we can’t really tell if the changes they make are good or bad until we’ve seen the full scope of things. At this point, the only course for audiences is to accept that this isn’t going to be Fire & Blood brought to life one-to-one.

House of the Dragon season 3 isn’t going to suddenly become the Dance of the Dragons adaptations some fans might have hoped for. We might get to see more epic battle sequences, which are hard to go wrong with, even if the story elements aren’t working; however, the character drama is going to pick up right where Season 2 left off.

When all four seasons are completed, we can reflect on them and examine the narrative changes that made it better or worse than the book.

HBO and the writing staff of House of the Dragon made their bed, and now they’re lying in it. Audiences are judging every story change as if the adaptation is heading toward the ending they expect, but that’s likely not where the story is headed.

The Game of Thrones prequel might end with similar beats to the book version of the Dance, but House of the Dragon is its own story. When all four seasons are completed, we can reflect on them and examine the narrative changes that made it better or worse than the book.