“George [R.R. Martin] sees this particular story as the most important event in the Targaryen history, outside of the conquest,” Condal explained why it was essential to zero in on this period. “The conquest wins them the power that then this story precipitates them beginning to lose. Before even Fire & Blood [George] had written quite a bit about this period. The Princess and the Queen was about Rhaenyra and Alicent (Emily Carey and Olivia Cooke, at different points in time) as adults. The Rogue Prince is about Daemon when Rhaenyra was more of a child that adapted into this book’s chapters. But this has always been on his mind as having the most thematic and spiritual resonance with the original series. So when I sat down with him, the very first meeting we ever had, this was the chapter that he slid across the table to me and said, ‘This is the one I want to tell.'”

Interestingly enough, King Viserys’ reign starts in the middle of Fire & Blood, and fans will soon discover that the series is not really about his reign at all. “Here’s the story you’ve always heard about,” Condal explained. “The Targaryens, at the height of their power with 17 dragons and great wealth and power and influence. They’re unchallengeable. This is that time. So I think it’s a fascinating place to drop in because they’ve just started to turn and decline, but they don’t realize that until it’s too late.”

“You’re dealing with expectation and a level of quality that you have to hit, all the challenges that it’s presented,” Condal explained. “This was season one of a brand new show that didn’t have a stitch of timber. Nothing was built; nothing existed. There’s a Red Keep; there’s a throne room. It didn’t matter; we still had to build a new one. I think all those boxes ticked in your mind of, ‘Oh, we don’t have to do that thing because it already exists,’ lull you into a sense of security that simply was not founded. Everything you see on that screen was built brand new for this show. Certainly, we had plans and designs, but all that stuff was up in Belfast, or it didn’t exist anymore because it had been taken down, or it would’ve been folded away, put into storage, or put in the Game of Thrones museum.”

The director/executive producer/showrunner knew that they needed to stick to Martin’s words and ignore Thrones to achieve a successful series.

“I think that something about adhering to the books very closely this season has been part of what seems to have been successful,” he shared. “For this first season, we need to establish this as its own thing, separate from Game of Thrones. We need to pay our respects to it. We need to have a similar language, but not absolutely the same. We need to sew the seeds we’ll pick up and run with as we move forward. And we need the audience to, in the loveliest way possible, forget about the original show’s characters for the time being without discarding them. Ryan and I have a healthy, antagonistic relationship in that we discuss and challenge each other about what we want to do because we come from very different places and usually find a healthy, happy medium.”

Aramide A. Tinubu is a film critic, consultant and entertainment editor. As a journalist, her work has been published in Netflix’s Tudum, EBONY, JET, ESSENCE, Bustle, The Daily Mail, IndieWire and Blavity. She wrote her master’s thesis on Black Girlhood and Parental Loss in Contemporary Black American Cinema. She’s a cinephile, bookworm, blogger and NYU + Columbia University alum. You can find her reviews on Rotten Tomatoes or A Word With Aramide or tweet her @wordwitharamide.