Inside Game of Thrones offers behind-the-scenes appetizers
I’ve been checking out Inside HBO’s Game of Thrones Seasons 3 & 4 for the past week, and liking it surprisingly more than I’d expected. There are two big reasons for this: the photos, and the anecdotes.
The photographs are, as you might expect, largely great. About half of the full-page pictures are utterly fantastic, done in a slightly washed-out, darkened style that makes the character and costume stand out from the background. I tried to capture this one of Jon and Ygritte from “The Climb” but it really should be seen directly if possible. Not every one is like this, and some of the ones taken directly from the show can be blurry. But there are enough to make it a big selling point for the book.
Inside also stands out by having almost every page include an anecdote or behind-the-scenes description that reveals something fascinating about the process….
Sometimes these are about the writing, like a brief interview with Bryan Cogman where he describes how he summarizes chapters, meets with the producers, and then those chapters are assigned to episode’s writers. The thing is, I could read an entire book on this process, both in its generalities and its specifics, so having only a few paragraphs just isn’t enough.
That continues through much of the book. Sansa’s dress from her wedding is given an entire spread, with zoomed-in photos showing the wolf, fish, and lion embroidery, and connecting that form of visual storytelling with a similar form in the intro. That’s great! But it makes me wonder how many dresses and costumes are given this level of detail, and how many aren’t included in the book.
This level of teasing may sound like a complaint, but it’s not entirely. Inside HBO’s Game of Thrones instead does a superb job of presenting the show as a magnificent human achievement. By taking only the most dramatic sets, stories, costumes, and so on, it presents only the most impressive part of the show celebrating its very existence. Regardless of if you agree with that idea or not, the book makes a convincing argument for it.
Its epilogue is also quite fun. The author asked cast members who they’d want added to/killed off from Arya’s list of targets, and while most said the usual villains–the Boltons, Walder Frey, Littlefinger, Cersei– a few were more creative.
- Sophie Turner decided to answer thinking of Sansa’s long-term prospects: “As a character, I think that Daenerys is such a strong player in the game, she has to die for someone else to come forward. As much as I love watching her, I think she’s the biggest threat.”
- Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, like me, prefers the human side of the storytelling: “I would like to see the dragons killed. They are weapons of mass destruction. We can’t have that. Horrible, horrible, evil machines of death. I have a feeling they’ll probably make it, though.”
- And Peter Dinklage, well, Peter Dinklage is the best: “We’ve lost some winners in that category this season. I’m going to have to go with Hot Pie, never trusted that kid. Roose Bolton will get his somehow, but you’ve got to watch out for Hot Pie.”
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