George R.R. Martin Supports 'House Of The Dragon's Time Jumps For THIS Reason

George R.R. Martin, the author of "Fire and Blood" where "House of the Dragon" was adapted from, recently showed his support for the creative decision surrounding the show's time jumps. The author was the brains behind the entire "Game of Thrones" series, which spanned eight seasons.

HBO's decision to utilize time jumps in "House of the Dragon" led to some public opposition, but Martin recently revealed that he approved of how it was handled.

The author did, however, reveal that, like other fans, he would have liked to see more emphasis on a number of relationships, but the studio did not want the series to be called "slow."

Read on to learn more.

In a recent blog post, Martin spoke on a number of things, one of which is the widely contested time jumps in the "House of the Dragon." Since its premiere this year, the series has released eight of the scheduled ten episodes. The released episodes have gone through two decades worth of events and seen a switch from younger actors to older replacements.

The author revealed that he thought the time jumps were integral to the series' progression and commended Ryan Condal, the showrunner of "House of the Dragon," for how he handled it.

"I wanted to address the 'time jumps' in the HOUSE OF THE DRAGON too. Not with any kind of official' statement,' but with some musings on the subject," Martin wrote. "Very briefly, however, I think Ryan has handled the "jumps" very well, and I love love love both the younger Alicent and Rhaenyra and the adult versions, and the actresses who play them."

Martin went on to say in his blog post that despite his applause for how well the time jumps were handled, he wished that some relationships between the characters were given more attention. The author also explained that Queen Alicent Hightower had four children with King Viserys instead of the assumed three and that the fourth one couldn't be worked into the season.

Martin shared, "Do I wish we'd had more time to explore the relationship between Rhaenyra and Ser Harwin, the marriage of Daemon and Laena and their time in Pentos, the birth of various and sundry children (and YES, Alicent gave Viserys four children, three sons and a daughter, their youngest son Daeron is down in Oldtown, we just did not have the time to work him in this season), and everything else we had to skip? Sure."

Martin, however, revealed that despite the desire for more detailed scenes, "there are only so many minutes in an episode" and "only so many episodes in a season." He recalled decades ago when shows had up to 39 episodes and how it decreased over time to 22 episodes, then 13 episodes, and now 10.

Martin said, "When I was a boy, shows had 39 episodes a season. By the time I was writing for BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, it was down to 22. Cable shrunk that even further. THE SOPRANOS had 13 episodes per season, but just a few years later, GAME OF THRONES had only 10 (and not even that, those last two seasons)."

The "Fire and Blood" author further revealed that if "House of the Dragon" had up to 13 episodes for each season, it would have likely shown most of the neglected scenes.

According to the author, in adding even up to three extra episodes to the first season, the studio ran the risk of viewers labeling the show as "too slow" and complaining that "nothing happened." Martin added that he was happy that the prequel was at least given 10 hours per season because things could be worse.

"As it is, I am thrilled that we still have 10 hours every season to tell our tale," he wrote. "(RINGS OF POWER has only 8, as you may have noticed, and my AMC show DARK WINDS is doing 6 episode seasons). I hope that will continue to be true."

The author added that he thought "House of the Dragon" would need at least four seasons, each of which consisted of 10 episodes for a proper retelling of "The Dance of the Dragons." This will give the series a runtime of around 40 hours in total.

"It is going to take four full seasons of 10 episodes each to do justice to the Dance of the Dragons, from start to finish," Martin added.