Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss told reporters before the series' finale that they intended to spend the final moments of the show that had occupied a decade of their lives “very drunk and far away from the internet." And they’ve pretty much kept their heads down since, pulling out of a Thrones panel at San Diego Comic-Con and generally keeping a pretty low profile in the wake of final season that was so controversial that it’s found more than 1.75 million fans signing a petition to remake the season with “competent writers.”

But the duo faced fans at an Austin Film Festival panel Saturday. And judging by reports from attendees, it did not go well. Twitter user @ForArya live-tweeted the showrunners' remarks (which were confirmed by a SyFy writer and local Austin publications). There was some fun info—like the fact that Benioff apparently said that he discovered Esquire cover star Jason Momoa through fan dream casting websites. But they also revealed just how many times they fumbled along the way.

Weiss reportedly said that he and Benioff, who were pretty much unknowns before Thrones, had such little experience that showrunning the multi-million dollar series was their film school.

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They talking about the pilot and their friends who they let watch their first attempt at a pilot. One of the people was Craig Mazin (wrote Chernobyl) Scott Frank and Ted Griffin. He acknowledged that the first pilot was basic writing mistakes. — Needle & Pen (@ForArya) October 26, 2019

Benioff and Weiss also apparently admitted that they didn’t understand the characters as little as two months before the pilot aired. “In every scene, we were three lines away from ’Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” Weiss joked, according to the Austin American Statesman. With episodes averaging under 40 minutes, HBO demanded that they add another 100 minutes to the season. Apparently, the Season One scene between Robert and Cersei was a result of this push—and it made Benioff and Weiss realize that they had neglected to write a single scene for the couple.

In perhaps their most tone-deaf remarks of all, the writers reportedly said they stripped the source material of some of its most overtly fantastical elements (Lady Stoneheart, anyone?) because they "didn’t just want to appeal to that type of fan.” They wanted to attract an audience broader than the fantasy fans, in order to include “mothers” and “NFL players”—as if members of those demographics can’t like pure fantasy.

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Dan wanted to remove as many fantasy elements as possible bc “we didn’t just want to appeal to that type of fan.” They wanted to expand the fan base to people beyond the fantasy fan base to “mothers, NFL players”... — Needle & Pen (@ForArya) October 26, 2019

But Benioff and Weiss have moved on from the Thrones world. They’re apparently working on at least one Star Wars film, and have signed a $250 million dollar deal with Netflix. So this panel must have been super reassuring for Disney and the streaming site.

Gabrielle Bruney Gabrielle Bruney is a writer and editor for Esquire, where she focuses on politics and culture.

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