{"id":248109,"date":"2026-06-24T09:49:29","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T09:49:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/24\/house-of-the-dragons-showrunner-ryan-condal-on-axing-nettles-and-replacing-her-with-rhaena\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T09:49:29","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T09:49:29","slug":"house-of-the-dragons-showrunner-ryan-condal-on-axing-nettles-and-replacing-her-with-rhaena","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/24\/house-of-the-dragons-showrunner-ryan-condal-on-axing-nettles-and-replacing-her-with-rhaena\/","title":{"rendered":"House of the Dragons showrunner Ryan Condal on axing Nettles and replacing her with Rhaena"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">\u2018House of the Dragon\u2019 showrunner Ryan Condal on why Rhaena replaced the book character Nettles&#8217; storyline on the show<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt just felt to us that because again, this story is told in point of view, that it felt more apt as this is a family story to where we had the opportunity to\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/YQx4KQ9WAy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/YQx4KQ9WAy<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Thrones Updates (@ThronesUpdates) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ThronesUpdates\/status\/2069460025618178184?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">June 23, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>House of the Dragons showrunner Ryan Condal explained why he cut out Nettles from \u2018Fire and Blood\u2019 and merged her storyline with Rhaena\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt felt more apt as this is a family story to where we had the opportunity to involve one of the family members in the storyline.\u201d Condal said. \u201cIt felt like that was a character that we had already set this long runway for that it could be very satisfying for the TV audience that didn\u2019t have an experience with the book at all to see that character claim a dragon.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a name=\"cutid1\"\/>In the original book \u2018Fire and Blood\u2019 Nettles was a bastard girl with no Targaryen ancestry who was able tame a wild dragon by bringing it sheep. She goes on to become an important figure during the Dance of the Dragons <span class=\"lj-spoiler\"><span class=\"lj-spoiler-head\"><span class=\"lj-spoiler-leftbracket\">[<\/span><b><a href=\"https:\/\/ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com\/javascript:void(0)\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><svg xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"18\" height=\"12\" class=\"flaticon flaticon--eye lj-spoiler-icon\" style=\"display: none; fill: currentColor\"><use xlink:href=\"#flaticon--eye\"\/><\/svg>Book spoiler<\/a><\/b><span class=\"lj-spoiler-rightbracket\">]<\/span><\/span><span class=\"lj-spoiler-body\">and later grows close with Daemon Targaryen which brings her into conflict with Rhaenyra.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Nettles was a fan favorite character in the book and the optics over removing the only Black character in the original story by merging her with another has caused some controversy.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Giving Nettles\u2019 storyline to Rhaena so they wouldn\u2019t have to cast one more Black girl was crazy work and also what are they going to do about Morning<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Pink Stanley Cup (@ASamantha) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ASamantha\/status\/2068863814448160855?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">June 22, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">it\u2019s frustrating bc part of nettles importance is her lack of obvious valyrian ancestry\u2014 her ability to claim a dragon could undermine targ claims of blood superiority. it truly feels like they just saw two black characters and decided they were interchangeable entirely. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/YGDnoKky4C\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">https:\/\/t.co\/YGDnoKky4C<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 v(alarr&#8217;s second wife) (@unsteadydragon) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/unsteadydragon\/status\/2069487581910155504?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">June 23, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">but Nettles&#8217; storyline fundamentally does not WORK if she is part of the family because it is the story of a poor outsider teenager who finds herself (through merit, most likely) amongst the Targaryens<\/p>\n<p>the storyline cannot work for Rhaena because she is a princess&#8230; sigh <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ZVelgr3lFo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">https:\/\/t.co\/ZVelgr3lFo<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 soph \ud83c\uddf5\ud83c\uddf8 (@sunfyred) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/sunfyred\/status\/2069469908912730570?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">June 23, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a name=\"cutid1-end\"\/><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ThronesUpdates\/status\/2069460025618178184?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Twitter<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ASamantha\/status\/2068863814448160855?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">2<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/unsteadydragon\/status\/2069487581910155504?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">3<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/sunfyred\/status\/2069469908912730570?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">4<\/a> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com\/132509177.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u2018House of the Dragon\u2019 showrunner Ryan Condal on why Rhaena replaced the book character Nettles&#8217; storyline on the show \u201cIt just felt to us that because again, this story is told in point of view, that it felt more apt as this is a family story to where we had the opportunity to\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/YQx4KQ9WAy \u2014 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":248110,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-248109","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hollywood"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}