How ‘House of the Dragon’ Season 2 is different from George R.R. Martin’s ‘Fire and Blood’

House of the Dragon Season 2 has flown back onto our screens, bringing with it plenty of dragons, Targaryen family drama, and changes from its source material, George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood.

Several of these changes build on those in Season 1. Largest among them is the simple fact that House of the Dragon is a narrative TV show, while Fire & Blood is presented as a historical account. The difference in form means that Fire & Blood operates on a larger timescale, spanning centuries, while House of the Dragon can dive deeper into certain scenes and character moments or flesh out “historical” ambiguities.

An example of that fleshing out is the relationship between Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy) and Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke), whose fraught dynamic in the show benefits from the extra layers of seeing them grow up together before becoming bitter enemies. That strong adaptation choice is one of many that carries into Season 2, but there are plenty new deviations from Fire & Blood on the way. Which ones work and add depth to the story of the Dance of the Dragons? Which ones are less successful? Let’s break it down.

Here are all the biggest differences between House of the Dragon Season 2 and Fire & Blood.

Episode one: We’re back at the Wall!

House of the Dragon Season 2 opens with shots of snowy forests and the familiar sounds of Ramin Djawadi’s Winterfell theme, which can only mean one thing for House Stark fans: We’re so back.

After spending the first season mostly in and around Dragonstone and King’s Landing, it’s a delight to revisit the northernmost reaches of Westeros. Rhaenyra’s eldest son Jacaerys (Harry Collett) flew up there in the Season 1 finale to treat with Lord Cregan Stark of Winterfell (Tom Taylor), and by the time we catch up with them at the beginning of Season 2, it seems like they’ve become good pals. They’re taking a field trip up the Wall, bantering about the time Torrhen Stark bent the knee to Aegon the Conqueror, and discussing how the North can aid Rhaenyra in her war efforts.

House of the Dragon skips over quite a bit of material to get to Jace and Cregan’s allyship. In classic Fire & Blood fashion, there are several conflicting accounts of Jace’s time in Winterfell in Martin’s work. Of his many historical “sources,” Grand Maester Munkun writes in his True Telling that the two became inseparable and swore a blood oath of brotherhood, while Septon Eustace claims that Jace badgered Cregan about converting to the Faith of the Seven. The most scandalous of all the accounts belongs, naturally, to court jester Mushroom, who says Jace fell in love with and married a bastard named Sara Snow, even though he was betrothed to his cousin Rhaena (Phoebe Campbell).

With only eight episodes in this season, House of the Dragon likely didn’t have the time to get into all this potential Northern drama. We’ve got the Dance of the Dragons to kick off, people! Still, you can bet we haven’t seen the last of Cregan Stark.

Episode one: Alicent Hightower and Criston Cole’s torrid affair.

Olivia Cooke in “House of the Dragon.”
Credit: Ollie Upton / HBO

In a move I didn’t see coming (and that certainly isn’t in Fire & Blood), Dowager Queen Alicent and Lord Commander of the Kingsguard Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) are getting it on. Based on Alicent’s assertion that they shouldn’t hook up again (as if that’s going to work), we can assume this affair has been going on for a while. So, when did this tryst begin? When did Cole come back around on the whole “breaking his Kingsguard oath of chastity” thing? When did Alicent decide, “Eh, screw it,” and start doing exactly what she hated Rhaenyra for doing?

Alicent and Criston’s hypocrisy here doesn’t bother me, as it’s totally in keeping with their overly righteous characters. And it just makes sense that something would happen between these two. They’re basically joined at the hip, and their joint animosity towards Rhaenyra adds a sweet psychosexual twist. Plus, as Alicent reckons with the increasingly unpredictable men in her circle, like her sons Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney) and Aemond (Ewan Mitchell), it also makes sense that she’d try to reclaim her power elsewhere.

What does bother me about this change is that Criston is having sex at all. He doesn’t deserve it. No nice things for Criston, please!

Episode one: Let’s talk about Blood and Cheese.

Phia Saban in “House of the Dragon.”
Credit: Ollie Upton / HBO

In what is undoubtedly one of the darkest scenes ever featured in House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones, two assassins — known simply as Blood (Sam C. Wilson) and Cheese (Mark Stobbart) — sneak into the Red Keep and murder Aegon and Helaena’s (Phia Saban) infant son Jaehaerys. The monstrous act comes at the behest of Daemon (Matt Smith), who seeks “a son for a son” in retribution for the death of Lucerys (Elliot Grihault).

In the book, Blood and Cheese force Helaena to choose which of her sons she wants them to kill. When volunteering herself doesn’t work, she chooses her youngest, Maelor, as Jaehaerys is heir to the Iron Throne. In a nasty twist, Blood and Cheese kill Jaehaerys instead — and tell Maelor that his mother wants him dead.

Things play out a little differently in House of the Dragon, although the final outcome is the same: Jaehaerys dies, and Helaena is traumatized for life. First off, Blood and Cheese’s original target in the show is Aemond. That change already complicates the blame of Jaehaerys’s death. It lets Daemon off the hook a little for bankrolling child murder, just as Vhagar’s unauthorized chomping in the Season 1 finale means Aemond technically didn’t murder Lucerys. But technicalities don’t matter when children are dead.

Instead of finding Aemond, Blood and Cheese stumble upon Helaena and the twins Jaehaerys and Jaehaera. (Maelor is cut from the show entirely.) They make a snap judgment that one Targaryen son is as good as another and make Helaena tell them which of her children is Jaehaerys. She points him out, but there’s a brief moment in which Blood thinks she’s trying to double-cross them. After all, why would she give up the heir to the throne so easily? Surely she’s actually pointing to Jaehaera. Cheese calls her bluff though and correctly surmises that she’s actually singled out her son. With that, Jaehaerys becomes another victim in the Dance of the Dragons.

This version of the Blood and Cheese scene nods a bit to the book version, with Helaena still having to make an impossible choice and there being trickery involved. However, there’s an extra layer of tragedy here. Based on a rat-centric statement towards the beginning of the episode, Helaena likely foresaw the arrival of Blood and Cheese in a prophetic dream. That means she’s had quite a bit of time to think about this moment, and maybe even prepare for it. Her attempt to throw Blood and Cheese off of Jaehaerys’s scent was her last-ditch effort to stop the inevitable. In failing, her action turns a horrifying scene into something even sadder.

Episode two: The aftermath of Jaehaerys’s death

Olivia Cooke and Phia Saban in “House of the Dragon.”
Credit: Theo Whitman / HBO

Understandably, much of House of the Dragon Season 2’s second episode deals with the fallout from Jaehaerys’s murder at the hands of Blood and Cheese. Some elements from Fire & Blood remain the same, such as Aegon’s decision to murder all the ratcatchers. Other details are omitted. For example, the show’s version of Alicent doesn’t try to learn Blood’s true name in order to “bathe in the blood of his wife and children.” (Probably for the best.) Instead, her reaction is one of grief for Jaehaerys and especially Helaena.

Elsewhere, Hand of the King Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans) views Jaehaerys’s death as an opportunity to spread some good old-fashioned propaganda. He throws a funeral procession for Jaehaerys, with Helaena and Alicent riding with the young prince’s corpse. Accompanying them is a crier telling onlookers to “behold the work of Rhaenyra the Cruel,” weaponizing Jaehaerys’s death against Rhaenyra. The scene is a show-only invention, yet one that’s entirely in keeping with Otto’s scheming persona. Plus, even though Alicent decries the procession as ghoulish, it seems like Otto’s scheme actually works and wins sympathy points from the smallfolk. (At least, until Aegon hangs every ratcatcher in the vicinity.)

Episode two: Rhaenyra and Daemon duke it out

Matt Smith and Emma D’Arcy in “House of the Dragon.”
Credit: Theo Whitman / HBO

When Rhaenyra learns of Daemon’s involvement in Jaehaerys’s death, House of the Dragon treats us to a massive argument between the married couple (and uncle-niece pair). Rhaenyra worries that she can’t trust Daemon, while Daemon claims Rhaenyra is as weak as her father. It’s a brutal but deeply necessary fight, dredging up both characters’ insecurities about their relationship, proximity to power, and different approaches to the brewing conflict with Aegon. And none of it is in Fire & Blood.

By this point in Fire & Blood, Daemon has already taken control of Harrenhal. He orchestrates the Blood and Cheese plot from afar, and we don’t get enough of Rhaenyra’s reaction to the murder to suggest that the two fall out over Daemon’s actions. Instead, House of the Dragon fills in one of the emotional gaps of Martin’s fictional history. The resulting scene gets at the heart of Rhaenyra and Daemon’s fraught relationship, and puts the two in very different headspaces as we move into the next section of the season.

Episode two: Arryk versus Erryk

Fabien Frankel and Luke Tittensor in “House of the Dragon.”
Credit: Ollie Upton / HBO

Like much of Fire & Blood, the duel between the Cargyll twins Arryk and Erryk (Luke and Elliott Tittensor) is the subject of differing historical accounts. Munkun says their battle was epic, lasting for almost an hour and ending with the brothers dying in each other’s arms. Mushroom, on the other hand, claims the fight was short-lived. Erryk (who fights for Rhaenyra) dealt Arryk (who fights for Aegon) a mortal blow fairly early on. He sustained a gut wound in the process, and succumbed to it after four painful days. Frankly, the latter seems more plausible, so we’ve got to give this round to Mushroom.

Also left ambiguous is the true goal of Arryk’s mission to Dragonstone. Was he sent to kill Rhaenyra, or to murder her sons Jacaerys and Joffrey (Oscar Eskinazi)? House of the Dragon decides on the latter. It also moves the battle from “deep in the heart of Dragonstone” to Rhaenyra’s chambers, putting her in more danger than in Fire & Blood. Here, she witnesses firsthand the kinslaying that will continue to take place should she and Aegon go to war outright. Will this prompt her to take swifter action, or will she stay her cautious course?

Perhaps the most interesting development in the Cargyll fight is the involvement of Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno), who alerts Dragonstone to Arryk’s presence. By this point in Fire & Blood, Mysaria and Rhaenyra haven’t interacted much, although Mysaria does become Rhaenyra’s unofficial mistress of whispers later on. However, Rhaenyra now owes Mysaria her life. Could this signal a greater (and earlier) partnership between the two, especially now that Daemon is gone?

We’ll be updating this article as House of the Dragon Season 2 continues airing, so check back weekly for more differences between the show and Fire & Blood.

New episodes of House of the Dragon air Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and Max.