#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 will defend to the death the right of george to rag on those people for whatever he wants bc the way these gag orders & contracts & shit are set up are evil and also like, anti art, but at the same time it’s like george how did these people even end up with the ip Howmst the fuck did they trick u into giving them this series they are so clearly idiots what happened here!!!

[feydrautha]

maybe itd be worth anything talking to HOTD-critical people if they wouldn't always end up slipping into this shit. Yes, the show is pulling some extremely annoying benevolent misogyny with "woman ruler = good, man ruler = bad", that the relationship between Rhaenyra and Alicent would have never deteriorated like this were it not for Daemon, Otto, Criston and Larys, and as a whole there's just tons of handwringing to not make your female characters be too awful, lest they are hated by the audience

but maybe saying that Ryan and Sara - who btw is not the only writer on the show but miraculously is always singled out! i wonder why! - are worse than the entitled fuckhead nepobabies called Benioff and Weiss who didn't give a shit to provide safe environments for actresses doing sex scenes, constantly demanded that Emilia Clarke do nude scenes, had Esme Bianco's character violently murdered when she said she didn't want to do sex scenes anymore, and as a whole behaved like bulls in a china shop given diplomatic immunity in addition to being embarrassingly shitty writers...

yeah, your dumb ass is showing big time

[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

[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.]

[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?"

[atopvisenyashill]

@chena-h everyone say thank you bryan cogman for clearly being a book theonsa truther lmao he gives me hope every day that theonsa will have some sort of arc in the books together

I feel like Theonsa was the closest a sansa ship that ever got to be canon and I would like to take another moment to be pettily happy about that. I know he dead in the show anyways BUT we got snow cuddling and him coming back for her and them spending the night before they thought they were gonna die together