House of the Dragon won’t have Mushroom, but his story’s still important

Fire & BloodIt is the Game of Thrones prequel that HBO’s new series House of the DragonIt is considered an in-universe historical book. Multiple sources, much like our personal histories are crucial. Fire & BloodSeveral different versions of the Dance of the Dragons events are available. But House of the DragonThese accounts are merged into one timeline to show the true history of events. It’s a smart decision for an already complicated show, but it also eliminates Fire & Blood’s funniest character in the process.

You can divide the book into two parts. The first tells the story of the Targaryens and their journey to Westeros. The second focuses on the civil war they fought, known as the Dance of the Dragons. Although the first section is very clear, the second splits the narrative into three parts: Septon Eustace (Grand Maester Munkun), and Mushroom to fool.

Photo: Ollie Upton/HBO

Mushrooms are described in Fire & Blood as “a three-foot-tall dwarf possessed of an enormous head.” He was the court fool of the Targaryens during the Dance of the Dragons and, according to himself and others, was well liked by both sides and thought too “simple” to repeat the sensitive information he heard — a clear mistake by all involved. This gave him a fascinating perspective of events in the war. He recalled conversations at the most crucial moments from the war and recorded them. Mushroom’s Testimony.

While Eustace and Munkun’s histories are frequently more accurate, they often err on the side of decency and present a clean and chaste version of history, two things that history often isn’t. Mushroom on the other side prefers the saliest version of events even if it means he is responsible for inventing the more sinister details. Archmaester Gyldayn is the true in-universe author, however. Fire & Blood), Mushroom’s debaucherous tales are occasionally a more accurate look at the events of the time, even if they have to be dealt with skeptically.

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This interaction between these accounts, and sometimes absurd stories from Mushroom is what gives the comedy in Fire & Blood’s history and is one of the best parts of the book. But it isn’t present in House of the Dragon. This shouldn’t come as much of a shock; after all, the series is already pretty complicated, and introducing three different (unreliable) narrators would only make that problem worse.

Ryan Condal (showrunner) and Miguel Sapochnik (series author), have chosen to take over the show. Martin have created a single timeline that shows the Dance of the Dragons events as they happened. This helps keep it simple. Which means that Mushroom’s account still has an important role to play.

“As fun as that Rashomon style of storytelling is, we kind of left that to the book, and decided to, instead, try to define what we thought the objective truth of this actual history was, as we saw it,” Condal said in an interview with Polygon. “Certain historians are right, and certain historians are wrong. Sometimes, they get it right. Sometimes they all get it wrong — sometimes Mushroom’s even right, by chance. And I think that was the fun of the adaptation is getting to really interplay with the book as a companion piece.”

Photo: Ollie Upton/HBO

Condal states that he believes the series and the book will compliment each other by adding more depth and interesting nuance to each. In the show’s first episode alone, we witness a critical conversation between Rhaenyra and King Viserys that we couldn’t see in the book because the two were alone in the Red Keep. Condal says the true story is represented on the show, which gives both the book as well as the show a deeper theme about how history changes depending on the person recording it.

Even if he won’t be a character in the show, or at least won’t be narrator, Fire & BloodYou can be sure that readers will feel secure knowing this. House of the Dragon will bring bits and pieces of Mushroom’s testimony into its timeline. You never know, the fool may be more correct than Grand Maester Gyldayn thought.