Primeiro de tudo, David Benioff e Daniel Weiss não são apenas os escritores do programa - eles são seus criadores e showrunners, o que significa que eles têm muito mais influência do que mers escritoras.
Além disso, o material de origem vem do autor independente George RR Martin (também co-produtor executivo do programa), que depositou total confiança neles e parecia aceitar o resultado de seu reinado livre:
George’s willingness to pull back his level of involvement is
commendable for an author. The level of trust he puts in David and Dan
is incredible, given his lack of a final say over the product. Many
authors will want total and complete control over their work, but
George, having worked in TV in the past, understands the limitations
of adaptation.
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Como ele ainda não escreveu seu próprio fim enredo*, isso afetou a trama e a duração da série de TV:
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As quatro primeiras temporadas de Game of Thrones foram escritas em conjunto com Martin, após o que ele "desceu de escrever episódios da série"(mais sobre isso aqui), por duas razões:
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A narrativa de Martin levaria mais tempo do que o planejado, pois ele decidiu que não queria a lacuna de cinco anos em seus livros em que inicialmente havia planejado:
After the first major plot arc resolved in the third book, A Storm of
Swords (seasons 3 and 4), Martin planned to skip the story ahead five
years. But he couldn't make the gap in action feel true to the
characters or the world, so he eventually decided to write his way
through those five years instead.
Soon, [Martin's] garden was overgrown, the projected length of the series kept expanding, and the books stopped coming.
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O tempo todo, a série televisionada começou a recuperar o atraso do material fonte:
So it wasn’t until 2014, ahead of that fourth season (covering the
back half of book three), that concerns about Martin’s books being
left in the dust began to really take root. “I’m hopeful that I can
not let them catch up with me,” Martin said in an interview with
Vanity Fair at the time, hoping the show would spend a fifth, sixth,
and seventh season adapting books four and five, by which time he
would have finished book six, for another season or two of breathing
room. The idea was that he might get A Dream of Spring done before the
show got its say.
Martin’s mindset here is
revealing: in his mind, the show was going to run far longer than it
actually did, telling a story at the same level of detail as the
previous seasons, and as his novels. After all, that’s how the first
seasons worked, and he’d always had the time to progress at his own
rate.
Obviously, that wasn’t the case, and following season 4, Game of
Thrones started to blitz through Martin’s remaining source material.
Season 5 ate up most of the plot of A Feast for Crows and A Dance With
Dragons, largely by sticking to the action and avoiding some of
Martin’s more meandering plots. And while Martin tried to get The
Winds of Winter out before the sixth season of the show surpassed the
novels, he simply couldn’t hit the deadline.
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A temporada final teve seus próprios problemas específicosBenioff, Weiss e Martin tentaram manter o final da série distinto do dos livros e esboçaram a última temporada anos antes:
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A temporada final havia sido discutida com Martin com antecedência, para evitar semelhanças entre a série de TV e os livros ainda não escritos, para não estragar os livros para futuros leitores:
How much of this season is from discussing the ending with George R.R.
Martin?
BENIOFF: [The concern] used to be that the books would spoil
the show for people — and luckily it did not, for the most part. Now
that the show is ahead of the books, it seems the show could ruin the
books for people. So one thing we’ve talked to George about is that
we’re not going to tell people what the differences are, so when those
books come out people can experience them fresh.
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Essas discussões sobre a temporada final já haviam ocorrido anos antes, determinando uma estrutura geral:
How long have you known the broad strokes of the final season
storyline?
BENIOFF: I remember the two of us talking in season 3.
WEISS: We’ve known the major beats for at least five years. [..] The motivations behind each scene are something you’ve been thinking about for five years.
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Tudo isso levou Benioff e Weiss a preencher as lacunas do restante da série. - manobra entre o material de origem e as conversas com a GRR Martin, arcos plausíveis da história entre os dois (semi-) pontos fixos no início e no final, e as demandas de um programa de TV e de seus fãs.
Isso tudo
left Benioff and Weiss in their own, uncharted waters. The show
had to go on, and while they could work with Martin as much as they
could, they were going to be the ones to pen the ending, especially
after Martin stepped down from writing episodes of the series after
season 4.
Part of the problem was simply in what George R.R. Martin has given
the showrunners. Per Martin’s own admission, Benioff and Weiss “know
certain things. I’ve told them certain things. So they have some
knowledge, but the devil is in the details. I can give them the broad
strokes of what I intend to write, but the details aren’t there yet.”
Simply put: Martin couldn’t help Game of Thrones stick the landing,
because he himself wasn’t positive how he’d put the pieces together.
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For the next couple seasons, showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss
tried to take over management of Martin's sprawling garden,
simplifying and combining character arcs with mixed results. Then,
with the start of season 7, they shifted their focus from telling the
unfolding story of an entire world to concluding a particular tale set
within it. They gave themselves a fixed endpoint — 13 episodes to the
finale, and no more.
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Looked at through that lens, the inconsistency of the last few seasons
— and season 8 in particular — makes a lot of sense. It’s practically
a miracle that Benioff, Weiss, and the rest of the writers were able
to give viewers anything resembling an ending at all, given their
self-imposed time frame. Martin has been telling fans for years that
good, rich drama takes time. And the show didn’t have enough of that
time, given how it compressed the series’ conclusion.
Game of Thrones still likely wouldn’t have run for a dozen seasons.
Martin’s story is too complex and internal to fully fit on a screen.
His dream of taking three seasons for books four and five was
unrealistic. Compression was always coming for the story on Game of
Thrones. The only question was whose story would be crammed into the
time the show had left — Martin’s, or someone else’s.
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Ao contrário de Martin, Benioff e Weiss
weren't trying to resolve every character arc or pay off every last
bit of world-building. They knew the destination Martin had in mind,
they understood the dots they had to connect to get there, and they
wanted to maximize fan entertainment along the way. Then, presumably,
they asked themselves questions. What big set pieces did they want to
deliver? What surprises could rival the greatest twists of the show?
Which of the remaining conflicts would yield the best drama, and which
onscreen pairings would bring the most emotion? What did they think
we, the audience, wanted to finally see before it was all over? It was
a Game of Thrones bucket list. And once they had that list, they
needed to maneuver the characters into place.
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Portanto, além de serem os showrunners e criadores, David Benioff e Daniel Weiss tiveram o maior insight possível sobre o material de origem, tiveram uma idéia do final com base nesse conhecimento anos à frente e discutiram longamente as ramificações e consequências de seu show com George Martin.
Como observação lateral, não consigo encontrar nada sobre obrigações contratuais ou outras em relação a Martin.
* Apesar de "O ator Ian McElhinney, que interpretou Barristan Selmy em Game of Thrones, afirmou (falsamente, parece) em uma convenção chamada Epic Con, em abril, que Martin já havia concluído os dois livros finais e concordou em esperar e publicá-los após o término do programa.". Martin reagiu negativamente.