"We don't want to cause big ripple effects"

Additional reporting by Zosha Millman

Game of Thrones had a profound effect on the television industry — especially for those who work at HBO. In the years since the show's 2019 finale, the cable channel has become a hub of Warner Bros. Discovery's plans for streaming service Max with instructions to expand not only the Thrones IP but everything in the Warner vault, from DC to Dune. The Thrones well seems particularly profound thanks to the direct involvement of author George RR Martin; on top of House of the Dragon, which returns for Season 2 this Sunday, June 16, a number of spinoff series, live action and animated, continue to be in active development. It is clear that there is a lot of West Asian history to cover.

House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal is well aware, but doesn't sweat continuity too much. During a recent press day for season 2, the writer said that from the beginning the team "had pretty good narrative freedom to tell the story that [they] wanted to tell." It doesn't hurt that Martin was involved early in development, after a time when HBO incubated a number of ideas for an offshoot of the franchise and even shot a pilot starring Naomi Watts that didn't move forward. Condal is grateful that unlike most prequels, Martin's source material, Fire & Blood, gives him plenty of removal from the flagship series. "The great thing about the Targaryen dynasty is that they rule for almost 300 years, so there's a lot of leeway there. It's not all packed into a tight time period," he said.