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Interviewing Bryan Cogman


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It’s always a pleasure to interview writer and story editor Bryan Cogman, who has so far written an episode of each season, including what are amounting to two of our personal favorites of the series: “What is Dead May Never Die” and his season three episode, “Kissed by Fire”.

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Below, I talk with Bryan about the episode, the introduction of new characters, his proudest moments, and much more. It’s a lengthy one but, we hope, a good one. Enjoy!

Interview

All right, thanks so much for taking the time, first off!

“Of course.”

Now, often episodes seem to have their titles decided at the last minute—George’s episode went through a couple of different names before it was settled. Was “Kissed by Fire” always the title you preferred for your episode?

“Yeah, this one found its title earlier than my previous two. I think I hit upon it as we were shooting the Beric/Hound duel. While it’s not always easy or possible to have one unifying theme in an episode, I realized this one most certainly had a unifying element or image, if you will. Of course there’s the line of dialogue it came from, but you have the fiery sword, the fire imagery in the Selyse scenes, the wildfire and “burn them all” of Jaime’s monologue, etc…”

“And it’s always fun to give the episode titles that excite or are familiar to the fan base—I’ve done with all my episodes so far. I think Season Three has a lot of those.”

To read the rest, go to the full interview.

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Great interview. Really thoughtful questions.

Wish you would have brought up the slightly grainy North/Frey arc though, as it's not (yet) entirely clear what they have quite done with that particular storyline.

Great read though!

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His comments on the Loras scene were interesting, because like you said in the interview it was the "sore spot" of the episode. I don't like his reasoning, quite frankly, and I also don't think there is anything in that scene to back up what he says about Loras still loving Renly and being confused and that's why he tells Olyvar about his family's plans. That may be how he wanted it to come across, but not actually how it is shown.

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Awesome interview. Cogman's answers as always shed a ton of light on the adaptation and writing process but the questions were great too. A lot of the great stuff that comes out of interviews is a result of the way questions are posited and this one is a great example of that.

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His comments on the Loras scene were interesting, because like you said in the interview it was the "sore spot" of the episode. I don't like his reasoning, quite frankly, and I also don't think there is anything in that scene to back up what he says about Loras still loving Renly and being confused and that's why he tells Olyvar about his family's plans. That may be how he wanted it to come across, but not actually how it is shown.

What I took from his answer was that he probably needed an additional scene there to convey what he wanted but they just didn't have time for it.

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What I took from his answer was that he probably needed an additional scene there to convey what he wanted but they just didn't have time for it.

Yeah, I got that. But I think because they didn't have time they managed to cut out all of his reasoning for the scene, but kept the scene. And it doesn't work without that reasoning.

And quite frankly the intent behind a scene and what could have been ultimately does not matter. What is presented is what matters, and what was presented was bad.

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Great interview. I thought the Loras scene exchange was informative, but won't change my mind on it be poorly written and executed.

Three questions I wish you would ask (and maybe if he is up for it would address) are:

  1. Shireen's hair color. Did they attempt to change it and it didn't work or is it a complete oversight?

  2. What is up with Jon's arch? There is nothing there that makes me excited, unless I know what should be coming, which as a bookwalker, I do. There was no real lead up, to the 'Jon Snow, jump me bones' Ygritte scene.

  3. When will Tormund become a friend and say Har!?

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Calidad,

It was brought up, but it'll be a topic for a later interview (yes, hoping to have another one at the end of the season, though likely briefer),

Dread Pirate,

People make too much of the black hair thing. The specific details we have are this:

1) All Baratheon-Lannister pairings lead to black-haired children.

2) All of Robert's natural children had black hair.

Together, this leaves room for Stannis to have non-blackhaired children with a non-Lannister, as there's no reason he needs the supernaturally-dominant black hair gene(s) that Robert appears to possess.

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Yeah, I got that. But I think because they didn't have time they managed to cut out all of his reasoning for the scene, but kept the scene. And it doesn't work without that reasoning.

And quite frankly the intent behind a scene and what could have been ultimately does not matter. What is presented is what matters, and what was presented was bad.

Well that's why you can infer it without it having to be spelled out for you. And now you now what the justification is and what's REALLY going on, even if it's not as plain as the nose on your face from just the footage.

Anyway, it worked fine for me as it was, and it certainly wasn't "bad." You just didn't like it. I personally didn't compare it to the books so I had no problem with the scene as it played out.

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Thanks for a great interview once again Ran. Always enjoyable to see a writer's perspective, especially one as knowledgeable and open as Brian, and when the questions are intelligent and lead on to discussion of interesting points.

And thanks for your clarification of the Shireen hair issue which seems to be bugging so many people. :)

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Well that's why you can infer it without it having to be spelled out for you. And now you now what the justification is and what's REALLY going on, even if it's not as plain as the nose on your face from just the footage.

Anyway, it worked fine for me as it was, and it certainly wasn't "bad." You just didn't like it. I personally didn't compare it to the books so I had no problem with the scene as it played out.

Additionally, the clear purpose of the scene was to move the Tyrell/Lannister plot along and get Loras to give up the information to LF's spy. It wasn't meant to serve as a character builder for Loras. The scene served it's purpose and Cogman apologized that they didn't have the time to address the secondary point that Loras would still be broken up over Renly. Sometimes you can't get everything.

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Well that's why you can infer it without it having to be spelled out for you. And now you now what the justification is and what's REALLY going on, even if it's not as plain as the nose on your face from just the footage.

No, you can't infer it. There is nothing to infer what Cogman said was the justification, he admits they cut it out. He admits he wished there was more time to "lay the tracks" but they couldn't. But they still had to keep this scene without justification or explanation because it was important to the larger plot of the episode. So, while Cogman wanted there to be justification in the episode what we were left with was just the scene hanging there...

And, this is an age-old argument, but the intent of the creator is not what is important in a work, be it TV or literature. What is important is what is physically produced and how it received by an audience. The vast majority of people watching this show will not read Brian's interview and not hear his justification, what they will see is a drastically changed Loras in a sloppy scene.

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What is important is what is physically produced and how it received by an audience. The vast majority of people watching this show will not read Brian's interview and not hear his justification, what they will see is a drastically changed Loras in a sloppy scene.

I agree, but your mistake is assuming that 'the vast majority' of people watching this show will have problems with the Loras scenes. 'Drastically changed' means changed from the books - so if you are a show-only viewer, how are you going to know that Loras has been changed? How has he been changed from the few scenes we have had of him so far? And there are also many book readers who are happy to take the show for what it is (and who perhaps think that Loras was not well-defined anyway) and who also don't have issues with the scenes because they accept them as being more about the overall plotting and politics in KL, than about Loras Tyrell as a character.

If the vast majority of viewers don't have any problems with the Loras scenes, then those scenes have succeeded as scenes in a TV show.

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I agree, but your mistake is assuming that 'the vast majority' of people watching this show will have problems with the Loras scenes. "Drastically changed' means changed from the books - so if you are a show-only viewer, how are you going to kknow that Loras has been changed? And there are also many book readers who are happy to take the show for what it is (and who perhaps thinks that Loras was not well-defined anyway) and who also don't have issues with the scenes.

The fact that he has been changed is not the problem for non-book readers, it is the type of character which he has been changed into and how his character is used. He's shown as little more than a power-hungry whore who, for no good reason, reveals his family's plan to some random squire. It is so obviously a device to move the plot along, but a bad one and a not very believable one.
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