Stop asking him about Daemon.
Warning: This article contains spoilers from theHouse of the Dragonseason finale.
Ryan Condal played out his ownTed Lassofantasy, thanks toHouse of the Dragon.
Ryan Condal.HBO
An added perk of the visit was access to the field and the VIP suite.
“And I feel like I’ve done that.”
The ratings would agree.
Ryan Condal discusses a scene with Prince Daemon Targaryen actor Matt Smith on the set of ‘House of the Dragon.'.HBO
Condal made an active attempt to remain in this zen bubble he created for himself.
He left social media afterColony, the previous three-season sci-fi show he made for USA web link.
He doesn’t want to be colored by viewer response, good or bad.
Matt Smith as Prince Daemon Targaryen.HBO
Still, he is very much aware of the fanbase.
I am as in it as you’re free to be.
I care about it immensely as both a fan and as the steward and the showrunner.
Dreaming of dragons
Condal first contacted Martin as a fan ofGame of Thronesin 2013.
He was making a pilot for NBC, his first foray in television.
Condal looks back on it as his version of film school.
“I really wanted to do ‘Edgar Wright does Tarantino,'” Condal recalls of that concept.
“I wanted Edgar Wright to direct the pilot.
It’s a little tongue in cheek.
It’s a little bit of a send up of a Western.
The main character is a bit of a Han Solo jot down.
He can’t believe that he got dragged into yet another mess.
It seems Westeros was already on his mind, if only in the subconscious.
Their correspondences continued and Martin even visited the set ofThe Sixth Gun.
I need to take you out to lunch.
You have to tell me everything you know about the character,'” Condal recalls.
“And I sat down and I was like, ‘OK, here we go.’
I got my sketch pad.
‘He’s the Boba Fett ofGame of Thrones.’
I guess he was a fan of the show but had not yet read the books.
I was like, ‘This is insane.
It’s amazing.’
Then he was ‘Pedro Pascal’ from that point forward.”
Condal, too, was moving on to bigger things.The Sixth Gundid not move forward to series.
Condal immediately went back to Carlton to find something else to work on together.
What came next was a detailed pitch for a World War II allegory.
Instead of Nazis, there were aliens.
IfThe Sixth Gunwas his film school,Colonymade Condal a producer.
But also, every show has a limited pool of resources," he says.
“EvenHouse of Dragonhas a limited pool of resources.
It’s a thing that it’s possible for you to only learn by doing it.”
More so than onThe Sixth Gun, Condal learned how a script page is translated to the screen.
It was also a fast-moving, ever-evolving show.
“I think withColony, we really didn’t have time,” he notes.
It’s a muscle he now values onHouse of the Dragon.
“George was like, ‘I’m trying to do all these spin-off series.
“It was fairly ordained in terms of what George was giving me,” Condal remembers.
“It was this specific period in history.
This is the thing that he wanted to cover.
As soon as I heard it, I said, ‘Of course!
This is the spin-off that should be made.’
So it just made sense for me.”
The only thing Condal and Martin debated was where to start the story.
The events leading up to and during the Dance take place over the course of years decades even.
HBO, Condal says, was more eager to get to the action.
“It very much is the pilot that we made,” he adds.
Martin has been included in the process ever since.
Condal will write something, send it to Martin, and the two will talk.
A good example is the Daemon discourse, which fans have been discussing at length on social media.
That would be when Daemon bashed Lady Rhea Royce to death with a rock.
That seems to be Condal’s guiding light for all ofHouse of the Dragon.
That’s the nature of this thing,” he explains.
“It’s incredibly messy and complex and gray, and it’s one family fighting each other.
This is not Starks vs. Lannisters.
This is an extended family doing battle with one another.
So it’s harder to find those entrenched sides.”
But Condal’s mission remains the same.
Condal clarifies they never got to that level of specificity in their conversations.
So I think the question with this story is more: Where do you let the curtain fall?"
Then it becomes about whereHouse of the Dragongoes from there.
Condal agrees there are seasons upon seasons of material that could be spun out of those stories.
And if Condal gets to visit more Premiere League soccer clubs along the way, so be it.
