George R.R. Martin stayed 'out of the loop' for four seasons of 'Game of Thrones' and doesn't know why: 'Ask' the showrunners

George R.R. Martin says he's been kept "out of the loop" for the past four seasons of HBO's "Game of Thrones," a mistake that "House of the Dragon" co-showrunner Ryan Condal did not want to do during the development of the next prequel series. "House of the Dragon" is based on Martin's 2018 novel "Fire & Blood." Martin maintained that he doesn't know why "Thrones" showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff let him walk away from the series.

According to: "As Condal got to work on 'House of the Dragon,' he relied heavily on Martin's expertise - the opposite of what happened with Martin in the final seasons of "Game of Thrones". In the early seasons, Martin wrote and read scripts, consulted on casting decisions, and toured sets. Over time, however, as he took a step back to focus On his long-delayed upcoming "Thrones" novel, "The Winds of Winter," Martin walked away from the show."

"During seasons 5 and 6, and certainly seasons 7 and 8, I was pretty much out of the loop," Martin said of his involvement in 'Game of Thrones'.

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When asked why he walked away from the show, Martin didn't cite his work on "The Winds of Winter" and instead replied, "I don't know, you have to ask Dan and David."

Martin disagreed with Benioff and Weiss's decision to cut the show short. The author had long envisioned that "Game of Thrones" would run for 10 seasons. Martin's agent, Paul Haas, revealed last year that the author would fly to New York to meet with HBO CEO Richard Plepler to convince him to extend the series' television run. p>

"George would fly to New York to have lunch with Plepler, to beg him to do 10 10-episode seasons because there was enough material for it, and to tell him that it would be a more satisfying and more satisfying experience. entertaining," Haas said. “[Weiss and Benioff] were tired, for good reason. They were done and wanted to move on, so they cut short and then the negotiations became, how many seasons can we extend this? Because of course HBO wanted more."

Martin posted a blog post before the final season of 'Game of Thrones' aired, in which he wrote about how "complex and a bit sad" it was to end the series in its eighth year. The author added: "I would have liked to have had a few more seasons. But I understand…I'm sure that some of the actors were engaged for seven or eight years, and they would like to continue and play other roles. All that is right. I'm not angry or anything like that, but there's a bit of melancholy in me."

The world of "Game of Thrones" returns to HBO with the release of "House of the Dragon" on August 21.

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