‘Game of Thrones’ Showrunners Reveal One Thing They’d Change About the Show

There is one thing the Game of Thrones showrunners admit they wish they’d done differently.

David Benioff and Dan Weiss sat down with The Hollywood Reporter to discuss their upcoming Netflix sci-fi drama 3 Body Problem for a recent cover story. While that article included the duo’s reaction to the season eight backlash and a couple other bits of Thrones news, we also pressed the Emmy-winning writer producers on whether there was anything they would admit to wishing they could change about the show.

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As the cover story notes, in general, they staunchly avoid reflecting on the series — they feel it wouldn’t benefit themselves, HBO or the thousands of people who worked on Thrones to criticize anything about it.

But, they gave up something small that wasn’t included in the cover story — and it’s almost certainly nothing you’re expecting.

Remember Mord the Jailer? He was that thuggish guard (played by Ciaran Bermingham) in charge of the Sky Cells at the Eyrie who tormented Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage). Tyrion offers him a bribe to help him escape, and later tosses him a sack of gold coins because “a Lannister always pays his debts.”

Well …

“One thing I know I wish we could have done is there’s the character Mord the Jailer,” Benioff says.

“It was a mistake not bringing Mord the Jailer back into it,” Weiss says. “We always talked about doing it.”

“And we had the scene for it,” Benioff says. “There’s a scene set in a tavern …”

“Was it Brienne or The Hound?” Weiss says. “But we realized too late that Mord could have owned the tavern. We could have had that actor in the background acting exactly the way he did as a jailer, except now as a small-business owner. It was just such an obvious, no-brainer, day-after idea.”

So, it’s not Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) ending up on the Iron Throne, or making a ninth season or anything. But it’s a fun idea of what could have been.

For much more from Benioff and Weiss — about Thrones, about their shelved Star Wars movie, and plenty about the rather dramatic backstory and challenges involved in bringing Netflix’s upcoming sci-fi drama 3 Body Problem to life, here’s THR’s cover story.

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