Game Of Thrones: 10 Shocking Revelations From Benioff & Weiss's Q&A

8. They Wanted To Remove The Fantasy Elements

Yep. Game of Thrones, a song which at its very heart is about the millennia-long battle between medieval man and a rampaging army of zombie snowmen, all while dragons fly across the sea and everyone worships a fire god who can bring people back to life...

They wanted to bin off the "fantasy elements".

"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”..."

Quite why two men who, by their own admission, know very little about producing a TV think they know what mothers and NFL players actually want to watch is open to debate. Either way, their failure in this regard (neither man delved into why they were unable to fully remove them) was a huge blessing in disguise.