House of the Dragon is coming off a polarising second season — a lot of fans quite liked it, even if it wasn’t quite at the standard of the show’s stellar opening season, while others were critical of season two’s slower pacing and narrative filler. Some of this latent negativity was amplified following a post from George R.R. Martin, who criticised elements of the adaptation.
In a now-deleted blog post, Martin expressed dissatisfaction with the opening episode of season two, which altered some details from Fire & Blood. He referenced the ‘Butterfly Effect’ of changing seemingly minor details that would have major implications in future seasons, and ended the post with, “And there are larger and more toxic butterflies to come if House of the Dragon goes ahead with some of the changes being contemplated for seasons 3 and 4.”
Martin’s comments triggered a wave of dissent from fans. In typical internet fashion, extreme individuals began to harass the show’s cast and production staff.
The Fury of Fandom
Olivia Cooke, who plays Alicent Hightower, addressed this scorn in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
“Some of the fans have been f**king horrible to our cast,” Cooke says. “It makes me really angry that we’re then supposed to just bow down and [pay] obeisance to these people that only want to say the most debased, hate-filled things. But thankfully, we’ve all experienced it in our own way and we’ve got each other, which doesn’t make it right.”
“They’ll take a picture, and then they’ll be like ‘We HATE your character!’ Sometimes people do that with a lot of malice,” she continues.
Cooke goes on to describe the “huge emotion” in the Game of Thrones fandom, which can have both positive and negative consequences. She’s pleased with the positive attention her co-star, Emma D’Arcy (Rhaenyra Targaryen), has been receiving, because “they’re f**king fantastic and such a beautiful, wonderful human as well.” Matt Smith (Daemon Targaryen) has been a great help to Cooke, as his stint on Doctor Who acclimated him to the “fury of fandom” and he “takes it on the chin” as a result
House of the Dragon’s third season is currently in production, continuing the adaptation of Martin’s Fire & Blood. In a separate interview with Collider, Cooke says the third season will begin with “a bang” because the first two episodes of the upcoming season were originally intended to be the finale episodes of season two.
The show’s third season is currently in production and doesn’t yet have a release date.
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