As Deadline reported in March, House of the Dragon was given a shorter season this year — two fewer than Season 1 — as part of a long-term plan for the drama. That meant a major battle would be delayed until Season 3, and for fans of George R. R. Martin’s novels, that obviously meant the bloody Battle of the Gullet between the Blacks and the Greens.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, showrunner Ryan Condal didn’t directly address how the episode cut led to a relatively lackluster finale on Sunday, or why the decision wasn’t made to end with a bang. But Condal did remind fans that the drama isn’t exactly blessed with endless time and resources to stage a fight around every corner.

"As a showrunner, you're always in a position where you have to balance storytelling with the resources that you have at your disposal to tell that story," Condal said. "We're also starting to think about, what is the end goal of this series and where are we going to go? A combination of factors led to that rebalancing. There's a tremendous amount of resources, construction, armor, costumes, visual effects that are needed to give the Gullet, which is perhaps the second most anticipated action, even behind Fire and Blood, the time and space that it deserves. We're building towards that event. It's going to happen very soon in terms of storytelling. It's going to be the biggest thing we've done to date. We want to have the time and space to do that at a level that's going to excite the fans."

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