#Bryan Cogman

[kellyvela]

He was always one of us . . . .

[westeroswisdom]

Joffrey as an interior decorator

Bryan Cogman, who scripted 11 Game of Thrones episodes, wrote a book called Inside HBO's Game of Thrones. I was reminded of the book a couple of days ago while searching for trivia.

In House of the Dragon we saw how Alicent Hightower redecorated much of the Red Keep. Joffrey Baratheon ordered his own makeover of the Throne Room after he became king. This is a short excerpt from Bryan Cogman's book.

Here are scenes from Seasons 1 and 4 which reflect the changes.

[movieminutes]

ZORRO SERIES COMING TO DISNEY PLUS FROM 'GAME OF THRONES' WRITER BRYAN COGMAN

Zorro is set to leave his mark on streaming. As Deadline is reporting, the House of Mouse has tapped Game of Thrones writer Bryan Cogman as writer, showrunner, and executive producer of their upcoming Zorro series for Disney Plus. Wilmer Valderrama, best known for playing Fez on That 70’s Show, will star as the titular swashbuckler in addition to serving as executive producer alongside…

[jonsastarks]

jonsa crumbs in 2024. life is so good rn

[alaynestcnes]

Blindestspot and fedon predicted so many things but fans never saw it as big evidence because it came from jonxsansa theorists it’s really ironic, the guy who made the meeren knot essay also theorized on jonxsansa but fans we’re looking away everywhere else

[atopvisenyashill]

i'm making a chart as i watch the show. "but rani" you ask "what does 'valid' mean in this scenario?" well that's very simple. it means "do i think it has juice?"

[thestory812]

Bryan Cogman wrote script notes to the effect “Oh shit she’s in love with him” in reference to Brienne for the knighting scene but did not feel the need to write the same for Jaime.

[ladyhawke]

i think a lot about how hbo took house of the dragon from this woman (left) and gave it to this man (right)

good job

[falllpoutboy]

wait LMAOO the bear and the maiden was also written by george?? oh him stepping in to write the pro jb episodes are so funny

[onhersleeve]

Just how much attention did Jonsa get from non shippers before? Cuz a producer for the Kit and Soph movie and Bryan Cogman knowing about the ship has me kinda shocked

to be honest, not tons, but it still was on people's spheres due to their chemistry on screen. the amount of people that i encountered that was not in the fandom or shipped them but noticed their chemistry and how 'weird' it was are many! like i remember a journalist who did GOT recaps mentioning it, as well even a tumblr recaper even joking about it even tho whe didn't ship them.

i am leaving the jonsa tag so my fellow jonsas may correct me or help answering you dear anon!

[kellyvela]

the way he is liking and replying all the j word tweets . . . .

[whentheynameyoujoy]

Genuinely amazing that the show can be this good despite having Bryan Cogman attached to it. There must be an entire team assigned to him just to make sure he doesn't try to Unbow, Unbend, Unbreak Galadriel.

[jackoshadows]

Don’t know if someone already asked that question so here it goes: what’s your opinion on Ned Stark? I think the fandom is too harsh on him

He's fine. I like him as the character who starts off and sets up the story for our actual protagonists. I like that he's flawed and has his own kind of morality and ideas of right and wrong, as fitting the fictional fantasy world he lives in.

I do think the fandom is too harsh in the sense of how he's reduced to this honorable fool. This interpretation of him (wrong, IMO) is so popular in fandom that it made it's way to the garbage show through D&D/Bryan Cogman adapting popular tumblr metas rather than actually reading the books and translating that to the screen. They wrote actual dialogue for Sansa 'Smart' where she warns Jon to not be stupid like Ned and Robb!!

This is one of the many reasons for why the show and the books are so canonically different. Benioff and Weiss think the likes of Littlefinger should rule the world and hence why they wrote dialogue for Littlefinger 2.0 aka Sansa stark where she disparages Ned Stark as stupid. In the books on the other hand, Ned inspires loyalty and brotherhood, with his bannerman rising up for Arya and Rickon Stark, while all the Lannisters can inspire is fear and hatred.

As GRRM himself explains:

It’s not enough to be a good man to be an effective ruler. It’s complicated and it’s hard and I wanted to show that with repeated examples in my books with my kings and hand of the kings - the prime minister if you would - trying to rule. And whether it be Ned Stark or Tyrion Lannister or Tywin Lannister or Daenerys Targaryen or Cersei Lannister trying to deal with the real challenges that affect anyone trying to rule the 7K or even a city like Meereen and it’s hard. You know, we can all read the books or read history and say oh, so and so was stupid and made a lot of mistakes and look at all these stupid mistakes they make. But these kind of mistakes are always much more apparent in hind sight than when you are actually faced with the decision about, oh my God, what would I do in this situation. How do I resolve this thing? Do I do the moral thing? But what about  the political consequences of the moral thing? Do I do the pragmatic, cynical thing and kind of screw the people who are screwed by it? I mean, it is HARD. And I want to get to all of that - GRRM

Ned had very few allies and people he could trust in KL. It was a viper's nest and as I mentioned in one of my earlier posts Jon Arryn leaves behind an absolute mess with the likes of the Lannisters, Littlefinger and Slynt holding too much power. There was not much maneuvering that Ned could do in the situation he found himself.

I like that he is flawed with his blindspots for Robert Baratheon that clashes with his morality. I like that children are his weakness - that he was ready to resign when Robert wanted to send assassins to murder Dany, that he tried to save Jaime's children while Jaime tried to kill his.

All in all, I think it's harder to be a 'good' man in Westeros than it is to be a bad one. I have read opinions on how the likes of Ned and Jon are boring because they are 'good' while everyone loves the hot bad boys like Jaime Lannister because he's just so 'complex'. I couldn't disagree more. Jaime attempts to murder the likes of Bran and Arya for Cersei and it's a simple enough decision for the likes of him in a Westeros that lets him get away doing this with no consequences. Ned Stark warns Cersei because he does not want to see her children suffer the same fate as Elia's children - and dooms his family and house.

When Westeros exemplifies the idea of 'No good deed goes unpunished', it's harder to do the morally right thing and I am doubly appreciative of characters who still do it. Daenerys trying to help the oppressed of Meereen simply because it's the right thing to do, Arya helping the prisoners in the cage or Weasel or sticking up for Mycah, Jon fighting against the centuries of hatred and xenophobia at the wall in his reform of the Wall.

So yeah, I like Ned Stark. He's an interesting, complex character and I can't wait to know more about him with Howland Reed's revelations of Robert's Rebellion and the Tower of Joy and what actually happened and how Jon Snow deals with the truth and reexamines his relationship with his 'father' and Arya holding on so strongly to her father's ideals, leadership and this image she has of him and how she is going to use his words, adapt and change that to lead the North.

[thelustybraavosimaid]

Bryan Cogman, second only to D&D in stupidity, says Jon finding out his parentage means he was never meant to be King and that he was meant to just go Beyond the Wall like Ygritte wanted. Those idiots didn’t understand Jon’s character in the slightest. I’m partially really really really hoping (only partially because most important is they all survive) that Jon and Dany become King and Queen in the books because it would prove once and for all that those idiots didn’t understand the story George was telling in the slightest. There’s still idiots who think the books will have the same ending as the show

Paul Haas, the fantasy author’s representative, had this to say when asked about the destination of the as-yet-incomplete book series:

George loves Dan and Dave, but after season 5 he did start to worry about the path they were [going down] because George knows where the story goes. He started saying, ‘You’re not following my template’. The first 5 seasons stuck to George’s roadmap. Then they went off George’s roadmap.

[Source]

In the early seasons, Martin wrote and read scripts, consulted on casting decisions and visited sets. Over time, however, as he stepped back to focus on his long-delayed next ‘Thrones’ novel, ‘The Winds of Winter,’ Martin grew estranged from the show.

“By Season 5 and 6, and certainly 7 and 8, I was pretty much out of the loop,” Martin said of his involvement with “Game of Thrones.” Asked why he grew estranged from the show, Martin did not cite his work on “The Winds of Winter” and instead said, “I don’t know — you have to ask Dan and David.”

[Literally nothing else to say here.]

[whateverthedragonswant]

Sorry lady thought. I love Sansas subtle investigation on this episode. She figured out the truth from Jon in that scene when he refuses to confirm he loves Dany but she then uses “he loves you, you know that” and her charm to clock Dany’s position on this “relationship” and Dany’s plans for the north. It all come together when Dany admits she isn’t manipulating Jon. Sansa disarms Dany by charming her and draws out Dany’s true motivations and character in that scene. Peak Political Sansa example

Hey again, Anon! Yes!!!!! You are right on point with that. And you can see her right go into that charming mode, too, almost like she's channeling what she's learned from Margaery a bit, and then boom, she gets the truth from Dany. I remember watching that scene going 'that's my girl' when Sansa did that but I also was like 'of course Dany fell for it, she's a smart cookie too, but she also tends to fall for flattery from women almost like Viserys did in the beginning of the series'. She wanted to conquer the North aka Sansa aka Jon and in this moment, she thought she had an opening to do just that and it was working, just like Jorah told her it would most likely. And then boom, Sansa turned the tables on her lol. And then we get the lioness vs lioness moment that Emilia talked about. An overall great scene! But it's Sophie, Emilia, and Bryan Cogman so I wasn't surprised. ;-)

But you're absolutely right, Anon! Fantastic, fantastic scene and your observations are *chef's kiss*!!!

Hope you have a wonderful rest of your day!!! <3

[navree]

So I read a fanfic the other day and now I'm terribly scared of what the showrunners will do in s2. Like, I don't know what reason they'll give us for Daeron to be away but in the fic he was sent away because he had brown eyes and Rhaenyra was like "guess who has bastard children now" eventhough Daeron wasn't a bastard because Alicole was strictly platonic. And like, I know this is irrational because even they can't fuck up so badly, right? But then again, I don't trust them

I think the showrunners have said "oh he was just off in Oldtown with his Hightower relatives" because what definitely happened is they forgot Daeron existed and then Twitter pointed it out and they needed to figure out what to do. I don't think they'll try anything with the Hightower-Targaryens and their parentage, just because that's a bit old and tired (and it seriously dilutes the story which is why I hate the theory that Helaena's kids are Aemond's I hate it so much). So I don't think they'll fuck up badly on that regard, because I've actually liked a lot of what the show's doing, as much as I complain about things I dislike, and the issues don't seem to be about Bad Writing.

I think the issue we've seen with some of the writing in HOTD is that there are a lot of people writing different episodes, so it can feel a bit disjointed. Game of Thrones had many, many flaws in its writing but for the most part, it was written almost exclusively by David and Dan, with one episode a season (for the first four season) being written by GRRM and one episode a season written by Bryan Cogman, so everything could be kept with two people who share a vision and have a clear understanding of what they want to do (no matter how bad what they wanted to do was). Meanwhile, one season along of House of the Dragon has more people listed as having written an episode than I saw listed as writers for the first four seasons of GOT, so what we have is an episode written by someone who loves Daemon, then an episode written by someone who hates Daemon but still is Team Black, then an episode written by someone who hates Daemon and loves Aegon, then an episode written by someone who's Team Green but loves Rhaenyra, and on and on it goes. If they're able to be concise, to storyboard and plan correctly enough so that everyone has an understanding of what needs to go into each episode, and keep things small scale in their writers' room while also having a singular vision, things might go better than we've seen.

And it does appear they're taking George more into consideration than D&D did, so we have that as a final failsafe against any asinine decisions.