George R.R. Martin’s earliest iteration of Targaryens was that of pyromancers with no literal dragons

Game of Thrones writer George R. R. Martin is one of the most accomplished novelists today, with several best-selling books under his belt. The veteran author is already associated with a bunch of new shows, including Game of Thrones prequel House of The Dragon. Martin has also made his mark in the gaming industry with the critically acclaimed video game Elden Ring which was quite recently one of the most-played gaming titles on various platforms. Whether it’s novels or video games, a lot goes into the world-building of the said genre, and it sometimes gets rather confusing as to what elements should be kept and which ones need to be put aside.

In a recent interview with Kevin Smith, on being asked why did he decide to include dragons in the world of Westeros, the author said, “Why not? Yes! Dragons are cool. I like dragons. When you go back to the early beginnings and you wonder about that, there was a very early stage of me writing Game of Thrones where I thought I would not have literal dragons. I would have you know we had the heraldry, you know lions and direwolves and all that. And I would have one house with the dragons, the Targaryens.”

“I was playing with the idea that maybe this is my science fiction idea coming, you know? Maybe the Targaryens had some kind of psionic power like pyromancers. And they could manifest blasts of flame mentally. Like in Firestarter or something, and that’s why they were identified with dragons, but there would be no literal dragons.”

Martin continued, “I remember I showed it to a friend of mine, Phyllis Eisenstein. She read the chapters and said, “You have to have the dragons. You can’t just do it without the dragons.” And she made a good case, so I did it.” 

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