Warning: Major spoilers ahead for "House of the Dragon" season three.
As season three of "House of the Dragon" comes to a close with characteristic fire and blood, showrunner Ryan Condal is already anticipating scrutiny of the next one.
In an interview ahead of Sunday's season three finale, Condal confirmed that HBO's tentpole "Game of Thrones" spinoff will end with its fourth season. As Condal and his team map out a final eight-episode arc for the Targaryen dragonlords embroiled in a civil war, the franchise's history and its fiercely devoted fans loom large.
"It's hard enough to make a season finale," Condal told Business Insider. "Try making a series finale that tries to be all things to all people, and also have a distinct point of view and thing to say and place to leave off all the characters."
Based on George R. R. Martin's fantasy book "Fire & Blood," "House of the Dragon" follows the dynastic struggle between Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D'Arcy) and her younger half-brother, Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney), which ultimately devastates the royal family and decimates the dragon population.
In the season three finale, Queen Rhaenyra descends further into tyranny and messianic delusions, while Aegon II rises from the literal ashes with a resurrected dragon and a plot to retake the Iron Throne. Elsewhere, Rhaenyra's Hightower enemies and loyal allies alike are massacred in the big-budget, game-changing Battle of Tumbleton; a dangerous dragonrider deserts her cause; and a beloved former queen plummets to her death.
With plenty to unpack (and even more death and destruction to expect in season four), Business Insider caught up with Condal to discuss season three's biggest scenes, central themes, and the one character he found especially hard to kill.
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Aside from the Battle of the Gullet, were there any scenes from the book that were extra challenging or labor-intensive to bring to life?
Ryan Condal: The two this season definitely were the premiere and the finale — the two mega-battles. Each was its own challenge in its own right. But those were definitely the two that got the most attention in terms of planning, consternation, resources, anguish, despair, all that, and then hopefully victory at the end.
What were the particular challenges of filming the Tumbleton battle?
Unlike the Gullet, which was an engineering challenge of, "How the hell are we actually going to do this?" this was more of, "What can the schedule and the budget absorb in terms of the ambitions of the script?" So that was more of a classic negotiation between creative ambition and what is actually practical and can happen, while holding onto the subjective element of the storytelling — meaning all of the POVs of the characters that we're with down there on the ground in Tumbleton.
Source: Read the original article on www.businessinsider.com