George Martin Almost Deprived Game of Thrones of Its Most Exciting Part
A Song of Ice and Fire’s first draft had a pure horror-ish vibe.
George Martin ’s A Song of Ice and Fire, which later on spawned 8 seasons of HBO’s phenomenal hit Game of Thrones, has been an innovative fiction read in so many ways that now it’s genuinely hard to imagine modern TV without fire-spitting dragons and Westeros-y intrigues.
The book series was in fact so successful that eventually brought more of the Targaryens’ story to the light with Fire & Blood and the prequel show House of the Dragon, now expanding the fictional world’s story on the screens. With the latter being HBO’s new pride and joy, it might seem unfathomable to see the characters trying to conquer Westeros without their fire-spitting pets — yet back in the day it remained Martin’s option for a while.
George Martin Didn’t Plan to Make the Targaryens Dragonriders — or Include Dragons At All
Throughout the years since A Song of Ice and Fire’s first ever book, A Game of Thrones, was published, the author confessed in having made a whole list of major changes in the plot, but the most shocking one is that the story almost lost its dragons.
Talking about the whole matter on Smodcastle Podcast a couple of years ago, Martin revealed that he was planning to give the Targaryens a weird and pretty much Stephen King-ish superpower instead of giving them control over fantastical beasts.
According to the writer, “maybe the Targaryens had some kind of psionic power. They were like pyromancers and they could manifest blasts of flame mentally like in Firestarter or something like that, and that’s why they were identified with dragons but there would be no literal dragons.”
Dragons Are at the Heart of Game of Thrones’ Story
George Martin’s last-minute decision to introduce the dragons after all probably saved A Song of Ice and Fire in more than just one way. In Game of Thrones, dragons are the ones that incarnate the pure magic which is quite a rare find across the whole Westeros, the detail that only highlights their unique role in the whole storyline.
Additionally, the Targaryens having abilities for telekinesis would cause some unnecessary trouble and eventually repeat many other fantasy shows’ plot. The characters' fire-spitting pets are the ones that have given Game of Thrones its runaway success and unique status.