George R.R. Martin's Tough 'Game of Thrones' Test David Benioff and Dan Weiss Had to Pass for Permission to Adapt His Books (2025)

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SUMMARY

• When David Benioff and Dan Weiss met George R.R. Martin for television rights, they were put to the test.
• Before handing out the adaptation rights to A Song of Ice and Fire, Martin quizzed the creators about Jon Snow.
• While the answer determined if they could adapt A Song of Ice and Fire, fans had already cracked that test.

Thanks to David Benioff and Dan Weiss, modern audiences got a glimpse of George R.R. Martin’s epic fantasy world of Westeros. But people might not know that for Game of Thrones to become one of the biggest TV shows in history, the showrunners had to prove they truly understood the story. When they met with the author to seek the television rights to A Song of Ice and Fire, the duo was put to the test.

Rather than simply handing over the adaptation rights to his books, George R.R. Martin gave David Benioff and Dan Weiss a test. According to reports, Martin asked one critical question about Jon Snow. And it was the showrunners’ answer that decided whether they were worthy of bringing Westeros to life on screen.

George R.R. Martin put David Benioff and Dan Weiss’ knowledge to the test

Back in 2006, screenwriters David Benioff and Dan Weiss set up a meeting with George R.R. Martin, hoping to adapt his books into the HBO show Game of Thrones. But little did they know that their lunch meeting would go on for hours until dinner time and turn into a quiz test. Yes, before handing over the adaptation rights, Martin analyzed through the test if the creators were worthy.

According to an interview shared on YouTube under the channel Aegon Targaryen, David Benioff and Dan Weiss sat down with George R.R. Martin for a meeting that spanned five long hours. And in that duration, Martin really dug into the creators’ knowledge and passion for his books. Particularly through one question, the author determined if the duo was worthy of bringing his story to life.

Martin said,

I said I want a faithful adaptation of the books, and they said that’s what we wanna do, and we had just a great lunch. We talked for hours; lunch turned into dinner.

Benioff said,

He got this shrewd look on his face, and he said, ‘so who is Jon Snow’s mother?’ and oddly, luckily, Dan and I had been talking about this the night before, and we didn’t know, but we had a theory about it… and then one of us said the answer that we thought. And [Martin] didn’t say yes or no, but he got this little smile, and then you know, the next we heard was George has approved your bid.

Although during the interview, David Benioff and Dan Weiss didn’t reveal the answer, it seems they had gotten it right. Well, had they gotten the answer wrong, it’s hard to know what the outcome of the meeting would have been or whether there would have been such a popular show like Game of Thrones. But it seems, much like fans, even the creators understood from the glaring fact that Lyanna Stark was Jon Snow’s mother.

Fans had already cracked the code to Jon Snow’s lineage in 1997

To be honest, it wasn’t difficult to discover who Jon Snow’s mother was. Instead, it was rather complicated to figure out who his father was. Considering how he was depicted as Eddard Stark’s bastard, and given that Westeros was filled with incest relationships, it wouldn’t have been unlikely to think that Ned Stark was indeed Jon Snow’s father and Lyanna Stark was his mother.

However, since Rheagar Targaryen was brought into the storyline and depicted as a villain who had apparently kidnapped Lyanna Stark, as per Robert Baratheon’s explanation, people were forced to consider the Targaryen into Jon Snow’s lineage. And rightfully so, A Song of Ice and Fire fandom began outlining detailed theories as far back as the 90s, and eventually, a netizen with the username Rodrick Su cracked the code in 1997.

It is wholly consistent that Jon Snow is the offspring of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark. Ned probably keep this a secret because Robert Baratheon is obsessed with killing off all Targaryen, especially any offspring of Rhaegar.

Making a list of moments from the book that felt incomplete, the netizen posted them online, among which R + L = J became the most accurate and popular fan theory. So it seems that David Benioff and Dan Weiss weren’t the first people to crack the code. But their answer played a significant part in the creation of Game of Thrones.

Game of Thrones is currently available to watch on Max.