'House of the Dragon' scene defended by George RR Martin

George RR Martin has defended a graphic scene from the first episode of Game of Thrones spin-off House of the Dragon.

The scene in questions features Queen Aemma going into labour with her baby in breach with the show displaying the entirerty of the childbirth.

Following criticism on social media regarding the level of blood being "gratuitous", Martin has hit back, saying: "That [scene] is so powerful. Paddy performs that heartbreak and the difficulty is on his face. The terror on his wife’s face, they’re both so powerful. Yeah, I think that was certainly the right way to go."

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Martin also said that the word "gratuitous" "annoys the hell" out of him.

House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal has also explained the scene, saying: "In Fire and Blood, there’s a lot of very difficult births. It was something we wanted to carry over the season. There’s this whole idea in Game of Thrones, or in the Middle Ages, or in historical age like this, that the men marched off to the battlefield and the women’s battlefield happened in the child bed."

He added: "That was a very dangerous place to be. All of the complications that people go through in modern birth that are now fixed by science and medicine and surgery were not really possible back then. Any slight complication, anything could lead to very tragic consequences for the child and the mother."

House of the Dragon premiered last night (21 August) in the US on HBO and airs its first episode tonight (22 August) in the UK on Sky Atlantic.

The show, which is set thousands of years before the events of Game of Thrones, stars an ensemble cast including Matt Smith, Paddy Considine and Rhys Ifans.

Watch below: Matt Smith & Paddy Considne on the Targaryen brothers.