An actor from House of the Dragon revealed why the death of Prince Jaehaerys was censored and not as brutal as it could have been.
The premiere episode of Season 2 ended with Blood and Cheese beheading Prince Jaehaerys, but the entire act is done off-camera.
In the original book, Fire & Blood, Blood and Cheese’s big scene plays out a little differently. There’s actually a third Targaryen child involved, named Maelor, who Haelena chooses to die instead of Jaehaerys.
In that version, Blood being the dark evil person he is, the mercenary wakes up Maelor to tell him that his mother chose him to die. Blood proceeds to kill Jaehaerys anyhow.
[ House of the Dragon Season 2 Spoilers from the Book Revealed ]
While Blood and Cheese’s Murder Was Censored
While speaking exclusively with The Direct’s Russ Milheim, House of the Dragon actor Sam C. Wilson, who brought to life the terrifying child killer Blood, revealed why his big scene at the end of Episode 1 was censored.
The actor first admitted that he had initially thought about how some audiences might not be expecting the scene to change like it did for the show:
"I remember thinking that maybe this would be different from what some people expect just because I've read books that get adapted. And I'm just aware that you do have people that are attached to text and are quite purist in that way. And that's totally fair enough. I totally understand that. And I understand that some people feel a little disappointed when things like that change."
But why change it at all and also keep most of the action off-screen?
Wilson explained how he hopes everyone understands "the great necessity to keep the kids not traumatized from acting in it:"
"What I hope people, I suppose, can understand is, in some senses, the greater necessity to keep the kids not traumatized from acting in it. And to essentially make our kind of, in good faith, our best efforts to convey the horror of that scene without having to take it to the lengths that it is in the book. I hope that people basically feel like, at the very least, I honored how they imagined Blood and how horrible he is."
The actor then revealed how there "was originally a real air of humor around the characters:"
"I think there was originally a real air of humor around the characters. They were a little bit like Harry and Marv, in a way, in a very dark way. But there was a kind of edge of them being two bumbling idiots."
The actor could then only speculate as to why the edit might have changed that part of Blood and Cheese by the time the final product hit. Wilson assumed that the creatives realized they "[couldn’t] really make light of these guys in any way:"
"And I think that what happened was, and this is all speculative, by the way, because once it goes to edit, I said, I've got no say. All hypothetical. But I think that when it went to edit, probably what happened is they thought we can't really make light of these guys in any way. Because I would imagine if you're making the justification of such a grim plot point, I think maybe having us to, in any way a comedy duo, would just take away from the horror of it, I would imagine…”
At the end of the day, Sam C. Wilson admitted that they "really wrote into making [Blood] just absolutely terrifying:"
"I think they really wrote into making me just absolutely terrifying, which worked, except for my mother said, 'I just couldn't take you seriously at all because I know what a soft bastard you are.’"
Was Censoring the Brutality the Right Call?
As violent as the Game of Thrones franchise has been, and House of the Dragon, it’s hard to imagine many audiences truly feeling slighted that they weren’t able to see a child get brutally murdered. The choice to instead focus on Helaena's trauma in the moment was undoubtedly the better and likely more impactful choice.
As for how it differs between the books and show, there’s a solid case to be made for the original being better. If anything, it’s far more intense and emotionally devastating for everyone involved.
One thing the source material’s take on the events does showcase better is Helaena's mind space during the event. While her thought process and rationalizing are super straightforward in the books, it’s far more muddy for the show—it’s not really obvious why she made the choices she made.
Either way, for those wanting more violence and devastation in Westeros, there’s undoubtedly plenty more to come as Season 2 unfolds.
House of the Dragon is now streaming on Max.
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