George R.R. Martin is mostly full of praise for HBO's Game of Thrones, but there was a season 1 scene that he deemed his "least favorite" in the whole show – Robert Baratheon (Mark Addy)'s ill-fated hunting trip. Now, though, House of the Dragon has given the moment a do-over of sorts.
"Where we really fell down in terms of budget was my least favorite scene in the entire show, in all eight seasons: King Robert goes hunting," Martin said in the book Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon (via The Hollywood Reporter).
"Four guys walking on foot through the woods carrying spears and Robert is giving Renly shit. In the book, Robert goes off hunting, we get word he was gored by a boar, and they bring him back and he dies. So I never [wrote a hunting scene]. But I knew what a royal hunting party was like. There would have been a hundred guys. There would have been pavilions. There would have been huntsmen. There would have been dogs. There would have been horns blowing – that’s how a king goes hunting! He wouldn’t have just been walking through the woods with three of his friends holding spears hoping to meet a boar."
In House of the Dragon episode 3, King Viserys (Paddy Considine) and the rest of the court embark on a hunting party in honor of his son Aegon's second birthday. And this hunting party is much more than just "four guys walking on foot through the woods". There are pavilions, dogs, horns blowing, and something close to "a hundred guys", like Martin's vision for Game of Thrones season 1. The trip culminates with Viserys killing a deer with a Lannister-crafted spear.
House of the Dragon airs on Sundays on HBO and HBO Max, before following on Mondays in the UK on Sky Atlantic and NOW TV. Make sure you never miss an episode with our handy House of the Dragon release schedule.
