Cogman on the companion book, S3, and favourite episodes

In the wake of  the recent publication of the Inside HBO’s Game of Thrones companion book, the author Bryan Cogman is dishing out interviews, not only for our site, but others as well. A particularly in-depth piece has been published by MTV Geek, which touches many topics beyond the new book itself, ranging from the relationship between the novels and the show, adaptation strategies, and the advantage of having the narrative scaffolding of your story laid out by a novelist, to what he was able to say is coming in season three. Two choice quotes:

“… certainly the relationship to the past is very important seam in the saga, and it’s definitely one that we’re mindful of. We have been very judicious as to when we allude to the past… We have done it, Lyanna and Rhaegar have come up several times, but we’re playing the long game here. The relationship to the past, and the circumstances around the rebellion will all be visited somehow on the show. How we’re going to do that, and the devices we’re going to use, I don’t even know yet.”

Asked about his episode for season three, Cogman hemmed and hawed a bit, before admitting that, “My episode involves some great stuff with the kids. The kids are always my favorite characters to write… Maybe it’s because I’m so fond of the actors who play them, and I’ve watched them grow up for the past four years. But I had some wonderful stuff with Arya that I was really excited to get to adapt. I think Season Three – maybe because Book Three is this way – it’s an emotionally rich season. Not that the first two weren’t, but I think we really dig deeper into the characters this year, and learn more about that, and learn some surprising things about some of them. I think it’s resulted in an emotionally riskier season. Where the last season built up to the big battle episode, this explores the family dynamic in a really rich way.

Bryan also wrote a piece for the Chronicle Books Blog, listing the top five of his favourite GoT episodes to date. Here is my favourite passage:

Fun Fact: We didn’t name the episodes until principal photography was completed. I pitched a number of titles, some of which ended up being selected. The first title I pitched for 102 was “A Direwolf Is No Pet”. My boss David Benioff responded by making me promise that if he were to suddenly croak, no episode of this show would ever be called “A Direwolf Is No Pet.” I made up for it by coming up with “The Kingsroad”.

• Published on 10/04/2012 at 10:36 AM CDT
• Last updated on 10/04/2012 at 10:36 AM CDT