House Of The Dragon Season 3 Finale’s Major Change From Book Explained

This article contains major spoilers for the latest episode of House Of The Dragon.

House Of The Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal has opened up about the decision to deviate from the show’s source material in its latest season finale.

Monday’s instalment of the Game Of Thrones prequel saw Emma D’Arcy’s Rhaenyra Targaryen not just delivering a rousing speech to the masses of King’s Landing, but also revealing the Prince That Was Promised prophecy (and how it relates to her) out in the open.

None of this featured in author George R R Martin’s books, on which House Of The Dragon was based, which Condal spoke about at a press conference coinciding with the finale.

“It’s not in the book and it’s not in the history,” he explained (as reported by IGN). “But there is a bunch of talk about how Rhaenyra became very despotic and became a tyrant at the end and was very unpopular with the people.

“So we saw it as ‘this could just be something that happened and there was disagreement over exactly what it was’, so it didn’t make the historical record.”

He quipped: “But my glib sort of toss-off from the historians is, ‘Oh, well, Targaryens say crazy shit all the time’.”

Condal continued: “So much of [the Targaryens’ existence] is this self-aggrandisement. And for the stone masons standing there in the crowd just looking up at this, it could just sound like somebody trying to make something of themselves because they have no idea of all the ‘real history’ that went into Rhaenyra making that speech.

“But we wanted something that felt like a real seismic change, a sea change in Rhaenyra’s relationship to her people. She’s seen the death of their religious leader. She’s standing outside of the church of the faith of most of the people standing there, as a member of a totally different faith.

“This old Valyrian faith of dragons and fire gods and blood magic, and pronouncing herself the chosen one, the leader that is going to take them through the fire and out of the darkness.”

“And so tremendously, virtuosically performed by the great Emma D’Arcy,” he enthused.

Back in January, US broadcaster HBO confirmed that the upcoming fourth season of House Of The Dragon will be the show’s last.

Condal, according to Variety, told the press conference that he’d been “taking time off” from the fantasy world of Westeros while season three was airing, as he “needed to step away from all of this”.

However, he noted that he’s already handed a first draft of a new episode in to HBO, insisting: “We have an incredible season coming. As crazy and big as season three was, I think season four is going to be even bigger.”

All three seasons of House Of The Dragon are now streaming on Now, Sky and HBO Max in the UK.