The hit HBO series "House of the Dragon" has already set the streaming platform Max aflame with its ratings, and the announcement of Season 3 has only whetted fans' appetites. Showrunner Ryan Condal teased what he's been toying with for the third installment, revealing the challenges and excitement of crafting fresh storylines while maintaining the franchise's signature narrative explosions.
"There's a rhythm to all this, these kinds of stories as you tell them," Condal shared with Games Radar. "We're striving to craft satisfying arcs within the season's structure. Ideally, you start with a bang and build to another throughout the series, all while deepening the characters' arcs. Each season should be a unique experience for them, leaving them in a place where we can pick up their stories the next year and take them in a fresh direction. We don't want to end up repeating the same patterns."
He continued, "That's the toughest hurdle to overcome, and the narrative flare-ups or explosions that accompany these stories are integral to their telling."
In a separate interview with IndieWire, Condal emphasized the complexity of creating "House of the Dragon," particularly when it comes to narrative world-building. "With the first season of any show, especially one set in such a intricate world, you constantly have to disguise exposition cleverly and hide the 'vegetables' in the 'applesauce,' so to speak," he explained.
"But now, since everyone has experienced this rich history as we laid it out in Season 1, we can present events more realistically and in real-time, with less need for backstory explanations. This creates a narrative momentum where the ground is constantly shifting beneath your feet, propelling the story forward in a way that perhaps wasn't possible in Season 1."
He added, "The pressure in making Season 2 is always less than in Season 1. Season 1 is fraught with uncertainty because it's all new, like raw clay that you're shaping into something. But in Season 2, you have more material to work with. You know your cast, you have sets built… The season expanded significantly, making it no easier to produce, but we had the confidence of having won over an audience. Now, we needed to outdo ourselves and rise to the challenge once again."
