I recently wrote about five Game of Thrones prequels that were confirmed by George RR Martin in his live journal back in May. HBO earlier had only confirmed four but now they have confirmed a fifth Game of Thrones prequel one to be written by Bryan Cogman. The fifth prequel may be the most exciting one as Bryan Cogman understands the soul of Game of Thrones and A Song of Ice and Fire.











The Fifth Game of Thrones Prequel May The Most Exciting One

Bryan Cogman contributes one episode per season, which makes Bryan Cogman the only writer to have contributed to all eight seasons of Game of Thrones. A Cogman episode is always marked by callbacks both to previous seasons and to deeper lore from Martin’s novels. In George RR Martin’s own words about Cogman, “He’s a really terrific addition. A great guy and a fine writer, and aside from me and maybe Elio and Linda, I don’t know anyone who knows and loves Westeros as well as he does.”

At that time Martin didn’t reveal the identity of Cogman as the writer of the fifth prequel (or successor series as George Martin likes to call them) as HBO hadn’t officially confirmed the news. But everything hasn’t always been rosy for Cogman. He wrote a very controversial episode of Game of Thrones Season 5, “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken,” which featured Sansa’s wedding night with Ramsay. But Cogman was very open to addressing questions and criticism about why he wrote a scene like that.







Cogman engaged in a dialogue over what many considered to be a misstep. The decision to put Sansa in such a position—one she doesn’t endure in the books—surely wasn’t his alone. But Cogman shouldered a lot of the blame in both one-on-one discussions with fans on social media and in an emotional commentary track, which is available on the Season 5 DVD/Blu-ray.

In fact, Weiss and Benioff have been reluctant at times to engage directly with the fandom and Cogman has often served as a direct line of communication. This year, he apologized to fans on Twitter for not including a scene between the direwolf Ghost and Jon. “I tried!” he said, acknowledging the desires of the fans to see more of Ghost and Jon together.

Bryan Cogman may be the best hope HBO has at ensuring a new series that will be both faithful to the spirit of Martin’s original text and consistent with the work that D.B. Weiss and David Benioff have done for the past seven or so years. He may indeed write the most exciting Game of Thrones prequel.

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