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Something that Game of Thrones fans should have learned by now is that endings are hard. The original show featured one of the most divisive finales in television history and now the second season of its prequel series, House of the Dragon, has delivered a similarly underwhelming final episode. Why did the showrunner choose to push one of the book’s biggest events to season three? A simple lack of time and resources. 

Ryan Condal, the showrunner for House of the Dragon, spoke to a group of journalists during a virtual press conference following the controversial season two finale, explaining “One of the challenges of making television at any scale [is] nobody has infinite time and resources. When you’re a showrunner, you’re always in the position of having to balance storytelling and the resources that you have to tell that story.”

With two more seasons to go after this one, the creative team behind House of the Dragon decided to push the climactic Battle of the Gullet, which is one of the most anticipated events from the Fire & Blood book the series is based on, to the start of season three.

“We wanted to rebalance the story in such a way that we had three great seasons of television [after season one] to round out and tell this story,” Condal explained. “When you’re trying to mount the show, which requires a tremendous amount of resources, construction, armor, costumes, visual effects… we are trying to give The Gullet – which is arguably the second most anticipated action event of Fire & Blood – trying to give it the time and the space that it deserves.”

Of course, many fans would argue that the Battle of the Gullet would make a suitably climatic ending to House of the Dragon season two, but we can see the logic pushing it back to season so it can be as big and epic as it needs to be. Condal mentioned that the next season, which is expected to run for eight episodes, goes into production early in 2025, so we will have to wait a while to see if the decision pays off.

House of the Dragon season 2 may be over, but Popverse is still in the Westeros spirit, and we've got more Game of Thrones articles than could fit on a spiky chair. We'll tell you how to watch through the Game of Thrones/House of the Dragon saga in order, or if you're so inclined, read through it. We've dug through and exhumed the biggest differences between the two HBO shows set in Westeros, and gotten an inside look at them from House of the Dragon's prop designers. We've covered the history of Westeros's greatest houses & families, talked you through every single dragon in House of the Dragon so far, and peered into the future regarding A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, HBO's upcoming GoT spinoff, and we've got much, much more on the way.