Ryan Condal, a series co-creator on House of the Dragon with George R.R.
Martin, answered some of our burning questions.
Warning: This article contains spoilers fromHouse of the Dragonepisode 6.
Matthew Needham as Larys Strong in ‘House of the Dragon’.Ollie Upton / HBO
It’s a major expansion of the character compared to whatGame of ThronescreatorGeorge R.R.
Martinoriginally wrote in his bookFire and Blood.
At this time, the queen is frustrated.
Emma D’Arcy and John MacMillan step into the roles of Rhaenyra Targaryen and Laenor Velaryon.Ollie Upton / HBO
This leads to one night when Alicent confides her anger to one of her only confidantes, Larys.
Larys takes matters into his own hands.
), Viserys' dagger, and deleted scenes.
I was curious how you settled on these particular times and events for each of the episodes.
RYAN CONDAL:The challenge of this season was its structure.
It began with Viserys and Otto and their daughters.
So it was unique for a season of television because it was covering so much time.
I would say it’s the hardest season that I’ve ever had to participate in structuring.
I definitely saw a visual echo of the late Queen Aemma in Rhaenyra giving birth herself.
Can you talk a little bit about the construction and composition of these two opening tracking shots?
That’s largely in the hands of the world-class filmmaker that shot them [Miguel Sapochnik].
We built those sequences on a story level in the room.
Sara Hess wrote the script.
We’ve seen her get married as a young woman in the previous episode.
Now we’re catching up to her 10-plus years later in this episode.
That stuff was all, I would say, scripted.
And then Miguel brought his visual mastery to it.
What were the discussions on your end about that?
They definitely knew each other.
We definitely introduced them.
I remember actually the first day that Milly and Emily came on set.
We were shooting episode 7, actually, ‘cause that was shot very early in our order.
We brought them over to introduce them to their older counterparts.
We told them to go through their own process.
Emma and Olivia were much more experienced actors, obviously.
Milly and Emily had their own different experiences.
Milly, Emily, we would view you as children in this world.
Emma and Olivia, you’re grown adults with children of your own and marriage."
I was just completely floored, in a good way, by Larys Strong.
Was it George [R.R.
Martin]’s idea to expand that character or did you naturally gravitate towards this character in the book?
He was fascinating in the book.
We knew he was operating in those places, but he was wise.
So nobody really knew what he was actually up to.
Of course, you’re only looking at what’s in the historical records.
So that doesn’t mean these things didn’t happen.
We looked at what George gave us in the text.
We talked to him, of course.
How is he going to play and what is this person actually gonna do?
You just want to turn the page and read more, but there’s not much there.
I have a couple of burning questions.
There were mistakes made.
It was a different time.
Alicent saves his life.
That’s what that final scene is telling you.
And then he is absolutely, as we see in episode 6, 100 percent devoted to her.
I don’t know.
What do you think?
I’ve had a lot of debate about this with some of my colleagues.
Is that fair to say?
I think, yeah.
I love how observant you and our audience are.
I mean, things fell out of every episode.
We never filmed a wedding.
That didn’t happen.
That was a progression of ideas.
We talked through a bunch of things.
We ran with that idea.
That artifact moved around so much in the original series.
Will we ever learn the complete history of this Valyrian dagger?
I think more will be said about it at some point.
