History Creator / DavidBenioff

** Benioff himself has admitted that his stories often feature a pair of characters who are "me as I see myself" and an idealized version of "me as I want to be". The protagonist is usually the weak nerdy one, though sometimes they're both separate from the protagonist (i.e. the protagonist's two best friends in ''25th Hour''). Frank in ''25th Hour'', Kolya in ''City of Thieves'', Tabachnik in ''When the Nines Roll Over'', Butchko in ''Zoanthropy'', etc. are just this same character repeated over and over.

* ''Literature/TheThreeBodyProblem'' (TBA): Executive producer, writer.

* ''The Chair'' (2021): Executive producer.

* HasAType: AmbiguouslyBrown women. The love interest in ''25th Hour'' and multiple short stories are "exotic" Latinas, but the woman the lead character hooks up with in ''When the Nines Roll Over'' is actually a Southeast Asian woman, with the text going out of its way to say that she's exotic and alluring because he can't tell if she's Thai or Burmese.

* ''Metal Lords'' (TBA, co-producer)

[[quoteright:315:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/imagesjpeg_8.jpg]]

* ''The Chair'' (TBA): executive producer
* ''Literature/TheThreeBodyProblem'' (TBA): Executive producer, writer

* AuthorUsurpation: ''Game of Thrones'' has overshadowed all the other works made by him.

Along with his collaborator Creator/DBWeiss, he is best known as co-creator,showrunner and writer of ''Series/GameOfThrones'' (2011–2019), the HBO adaptation of Creator/GeorgeRRMartin's series of books ''Franchise/ASongOfIceAndFire''.

* ''Metal Lords'' (TBA, co-producer)

* ''Series/{{Westworld}}'' (2020): cameo in episode "The Winter Line"

** Benioff himself has admitted that his stories often feature a pair of characters who are "me as I see myself" (flawed and nerdy) and an idealized version of "me as I want to be". The protagonist is usually the weak nerdy one, though sometimes they're both separate from the protagonist (i.e. the protagonist's two best friends in ''25th Hour''). Frank in ''25th Hour'', Kolya in ''City of Thieves'', Tabachnik in ''When the Nines Roll Over'', Butchko in ''Zoanthropy'', etc. are just this same character repeated over and over.

* CharacterTics: When Benioff gets nervous in interviews, he avoids eye contact for extended periods of time and looks off to his left while playing with his fingers. He does it so often that it became something of a fandom meme, a clear signal that whatever he's talking about at that moment isn't something he's actually very proud about.

* TheCharmer: A consistent theme from both people who have worked with Benioff and in his major public panel appearances is that Benioff radiates confident, easygoing charm. Often, he isn't even saying much of anything, in terms of information, it's all in his delivery.

* TheCharmer: A consistent theme from both people who have worked with Benioff and in his major public panel appearances is that Benioff radiates confident, easygoing charm. Often, isn't even saying much of anything, in terms of information, it's all in his delivery.

* HasAType: AmbiguouslyBrown women. The love interest in ''25th Hour'' and multiple short stories are "exotic" Latinas, but the woman the lead character hooks up with in ''When the Nines Roll over'' is actually a Southeast Asian woman, with the text going out of its way to say that she's exotic and alluring because he can't tell if she's Thai or Burmese.

* TheCharmer: A consistent theme from both people who have worked with Benioff and in his major public panel appearances is that Benioff radiates confident, easygoing charm. When he isn't even saying much of anything, in terms of information, it's all in his delivery.

* CharacterTics: When Benioff gets nervous in interviews, he avoids eye contact for extended periods of time and looks off to his left while playing with his fingers.

* CharacterTics: When Benioff gets nervous in interviews, he avoids eye contact for extended periods of time and looks off to his left (always to his left) while uncomfortably playing with his fingers.

* AuthorAppeal: If you actually sit down and read all three of Benioff's books (two novels and one collection of short stories), they frequently repeat the same set of tropes over and over again - particularly what seems to be [[AuthorAvatar author-insert versions of himself]]:

** Coupled with distant and powerful fathers, the male character who is "me as I want to be" is usually the protagonist's older brother, or rather, a best friend who acts like an older brother, essentially a surrogate father. The thing is that Benioff's concept of "guidance" from this "cool older brother"/"father" figure is that they're overconfident, swaggering to the point of being crass, and skilled at sex.
** He spends a lot of time writing about women's body parts, without actually developing them as characters.
* CharacterTics: When Benioff gets nervous in interviews, he avoids eye contact for extended periods of time and looks off to his left (always to his left) while uncomfortably playing with his fingers. It got so bad in the ''Game of Thrones'' Season 8 behind the scenes videos that the filming crew set up a ''second'' camera off to his left, and would switch over to it every time he started looking away from the primary camera, in an attempt to cover up how distracting this was getting.
* TheCharmer: A consistent theme from both people who have worked with Benioff since 2000 and in his major public panel appearances is that Benioff radiates confident, easygoing charm. Usually he isn't even saying much of anything, in terms of information, it's all in his delivery: MeaninglessMeaningfulWords delivered in a warm and pleasant voice. Even the reporter from the now-infamous debacle at Austin Film Fest 2019 noted this: [[https://twitter.com/ForArya/status/1189556019392909314 "His nonchalant tone is rational, his confident attitude is convincing - but the ideas and statements are an abomination."]]
* HasAType: AmbiguouslyBrown women. The love interest in ''25th Hour'' and multiple short stories are "exotic" Latinas, but the woman the lead character hooks up with in ''When the Nines Roll over'' is actually a Southeast Asian woman, with the text going out of its way to say that she's exotic and alluring because he can't tell if she's Thai or Burmese. Apparently it's that mysterious ambiguity that appeals to Benioff more than any specific trope about Latinas. This may have played a part in the drastic changes made to TV-Dorne in ''Game of Thrones'' (the simple explanation Benioff & Weiss gave in their Season 5 Blu-ray commentary is that they're huge fans of actress Indira Varma, though to ''why'' they're such fans...)
* OscarBait: In the first five minutes of his DVD commentary for ''25th Hour'', Benioff bluntly admits that he actually wrote the book for the express purpose of getting it adapted into an awards-baiting film. He spent years in the late 1990s with his prior novel getting rejected by every publisher, so on his next attempt he intentionally wrote a book which he could pitch to publishers as a good candidate for adapting into an Oscar Bait film. Specifically, ''25th Hour'' was intended to be Oscar Bait for Tobey Maguire, but during initial production he backed out to make ''Spider-man'', so they switched to Edward Norton.

* SlummingIt: ''25th Hour'' was pitched as a "love letter" to the different neighborhoods of New York City. In the DVD commentary, Benioff explains that he was actually a rich prep school kid (son of a top Goldman Sachs executive), but he and his classmates had fun pretending to be dangerous by going slumming at local clubs in poor neighborhoods of the city. Most of his descriptions in it of the everyday working-class parts of the city are actually based on his bar-hopping adventures.

* CharacterTics: When Benioff gets nervous in interviews, he avoids eye contact for extended periods of time and looks off to his left (always to his left) while uncomfortably playing with his fingers. It got so bad in the ''Game of Thrones'' Season 8 behind the scenes videos thatthe filming crew set up a ''second'' camera off to his left, and would switch over to it every time he started looking away from the primary camera, in an attempt to cover up how distracting this was getting.

** The protagonists tend to be tall, but with crooked teeth, Russian-sounding names, worried about living in their distant rich father's shadow, but their own aspirations [[MostWritersAreWriters are in Literature]].

* CharacterTics: When Benioff gets nervous in interviews, he avoids eye contact for extended periods of time and looks off to his left (always to his left) while uncomfortably playing with his fingers. This extended to the point that during the ''Game of Thrones'' Season 8 Inside the Episode videos, the filming crew set up a ''second'' camera off to his left, and would switch over to it every time he started looking away from the primary camera, in an attempt to cover up how distracting this was getting.
* TheCharmer: Despite his various nervous tics or crass sense of humor, a consistent theme from both people who have worked with Benioff since 2000 and in his major public panel appearances is that Benioff radiates confident, easygoing charm. Usually he isn't even saying much of anything, in terms of information, it's all in his delivery: MeaninglessMeaningfulWords delivered in a warm and pleasant voice. Even the reporter from the now-infamous debacle at Austin Film Fest 2019 noted this: [[https://twitter.com/ForArya/status/1189556019392909314 "His nonchalant tone is rational, his confident attitude is convincing - but the ideas and statements are an abomination."]]

* CharacterTics: When Benioff gets nervous in interviews, he avoids eye contact for extended periods of time and looks off to his left (always to his left) while uncomfortably playing with his fingers. He's also painfully self-conscious about his badly crooked teeth, so he's developed the instinctive habit of hiding his mouth with his hand when he feels vulnerable. Not everyone picks up on all of this unless they know to be looking for it, but once you see it you can't unsee it (he does it ''constantly'').
** This extended to the point that during the ''Game of Thrones'' Season 8 Inside the Episode videos, the filming crew set up a ''second'' camera off to his left, and would switch over to it every time he started looking away from the primary camera, in an attempt to cover up how distracting this was getting.

* CompulsiveLiar: In some of his early one on one interviews from before ''Game of Thrones'' became a mega-hit, Benioff has described himself as being a "Pathological Liar" since he was a child. In several interviews he's recounted the story of how when he was six years old in the second grade, the class assignment was to explain what their father's job was. He adamantly insisted his father was a submarine captain - when he was in fact a high-ranking partner at Goldman Sachs. His lies about this were so pervasive and unrelenting that the school got concerned and ordered a parent-teacher conference, to see if he was lying so much out of a need for attention due to neglect at home. When his teacher explained the problem in a face to face meeting with his parents, they actually thought it was triflingly funny, and [[TemptingFate didn't even bother to punish him for it]].

* HilariouslyAbusiveChildhood: Not so much "abuse" as "neglect" - and not so much "hilarious" as "red flags". Benioff has remarked on how lonely and ignored he felt as the "runt" of the family, while his father was busy being a top executive at Goldman Sachs. For example, almost all of the protagonists in Benioff's published stories are described as having crooked teeth - the main character in the first and titular short story in "When the Nines Roll Over" even gives a half-page long rant complaining that he has horribly crooked teeth because his [[TheCobblersChildrenHaveNoShoes wealthy father didn't care about him enough to buy him braces as a child]]. Benioff himself has [[https://www.google.com/search?q=david+benioff+teeth&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwi-17-JlovsAhUUWt8KHVwbBf0Q2-cCegQIABAA&oq=david+benioff+teeth&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzIECAAQHjoCCAA6BAgAEBhQ4JkCWMegAmD5ogJoAHAAeACAAUCIAawCkgEBNZgBAKABAaoBC2d3cy13aXotaW1nwAEB&sclient=img&ei=7HtxX76xKJS0_QbctpToDw&bih=754&biw=1536#imgrc=NQmEy6fKDacarM badly crooked teeth,]] with his top two incisors bent inwards at a drastic, 45 degree angle. Make of that what you will.
** Incidentally, this is why Benioff rarely makes an open-mouthed smile on-camera. He's usually self-conscious enough to smile with his lips pursed closed. Some have accused that he often looks like he's smirking - but whether he's actually smirking or just stifling an open-mouthed flash of his bad teeth is anyone's guess.

----
!!David Benioff and his works frequently contain examples of:
* AuthorAppeal: If you actually sit down and read all three of Benioff's books (two novels and one collection of short stories), they frequently repeat the same set of tropes over and over again - particularly what seems to be [[AuthorAvatar author-insert versions of himself]]:
** The protagonists tend to be tall, but with crooked teeth, Russian-sounding names, worried about living in their distant rich father's shadow, but their own aspirations [[MostWritersAreWriters are in Literature]].
** Benioff himself has admitted that his stories often feature a pair of characters who are "me as I see myself" (flawed and nerdy) and an idealized version of "me as I want to be". The protagonist is usually the weak nerdy one, though sometimes they're both separate from the protagonist (i.e. the protagonist's two best friends in ''25th Hour''). Frank in ''25th Hour'', Kolya in ''City of Thieves'', Tabachnik in ''When the Nines Roll Over'', Butchko in ''Zoanthropy'', etc. are just this same character repeated over and over.
** Coupled with distant and powerful fathers, the male character who is "me as I want to be" is usually the protagonist's older brother, or rather, a best friend who acts like an older brother, essentially a surrogate father. The thing is that Benioff's concept of "guidance" from this "cool older brother"/"father" figure is that they're overconfident, swaggering to the point of being crass, and skilled at sex.
** He spends a lot of time writing about women's body parts, without actually developing them as characters.
* CharacterTics: When Benioff gets nervous in interviews, he avoids eye contact for extended periods of time and looks off to his left (always to his left) while uncomfortably playing with his fingers. He's also painfully self-conscious about his badly crooked teeth, so he's developed the instinctive habit of hiding his mouth with his hand when he feels vulnerable. Not everyone picks up on all of this unless they know to be looking for it, but once you see it you can't unsee it (he does it ''constantly'').
** This extended to the point that during the ''Game of Thrones'' Season 8 Inside the Episode videos, the filming crew set up a ''second'' camera off to his left, and would switch over to it every time he started looking away from the primary camera, in an attempt to cover up how distracting this was getting.
* TheCharmer: Despite his various nervous tics or crass sense of humor, a consistent theme from both people who have worked with Benioff since 2000 and in his major public panel appearances is that Benioff radiates confident, easygoing charm. Usually he isn't even saying much of anything, in terms of information, it's all in his delivery: MeaninglessMeaningfulWords delivered in a warm and pleasant voice. Even the reporter from the now-infamous debacle at Austin Film Fest 2019 noted this: [[https://twitter.com/ForArya/status/1189556019392909314 "His nonchalant tone is rational, his confident attitude is convincing - but the ideas and statements are an abomination."]]
* CompulsiveLiar: In some of his early one on one interviews from before ''Game of Thrones'' became a mega-hit, Benioff has described himself as being a "Pathological Liar" since he was a child. In several interviews he's recounted the story of how when he was six years old in the second grade, the class assignment was to explain what their father's job was. He adamantly insisted his father was a submarine captain - when he was in fact a high-ranking partner at Goldman Sachs. His lies about this were so pervasive and unrelenting that the school got concerned and ordered a parent-teacher conference, to see if he was lying so much out of a need for attention due to neglect at home. When his teacher explained the problem in a face to face meeting with his parents, they actually thought it was triflingly funny, and [[TemptingFate didn't even bother to punish him for it]].
* HasAType: AmbiguouslyBrown women. The love interest in ''25th Hour'' and multiple short stories are "exotic" Latinas, but the woman the lead character hooks up with in ''When the Nines Roll over'' is actually a Southeast Asian woman, with the text going out of its way to say that she's exotic and alluring because he can't tell if she's Thai or Burmese. Apparently it's that mysterious ambiguity that appeals to Benioff more than any specific trope about Latinas. This may have played a part in the drastic changes made to TV-Dorne in ''Game of Thrones'' (the simple explanation Benioff & Weiss gave in their Season 5 Blu-ray commentary is that they're huge fans of actress Indira Varma, though to ''why'' they're such fans...)
* HilariouslyAbusiveChildhood: Not so much "abuse" as "neglect" - and not so much "hilarious" as "red flags". Benioff has remarked on how lonely and ignored he felt as the "runt" of the family, while his father was busy being a top executive at Goldman Sachs. For example, almost all of the protagonists in Benioff's published stories are described as having crooked teeth - the main character in the first and titular short story in "When the Nines Roll Over" even gives a half-page long rant complaining that he has horribly crooked teeth because his [[TheCobblersChildrenHaveNoShoes wealthy father didn't care about him enough to buy him braces as a child]]. Benioff himself has [[https://www.google.com/search?q=david+benioff+teeth&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwi-17-JlovsAhUUWt8KHVwbBf0Q2-cCegQIABAA&oq=david+benioff+teeth&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzIECAAQHjoCCAA6BAgAEBhQ4JkCWMegAmD5ogJoAHAAeACAAUCIAawCkgEBNZgBAKABAaoBC2d3cy13aXotaW1nwAEB&sclient=img&ei=7HtxX76xKJS0_QbctpToDw&bih=754&biw=1536#imgrc=NQmEy6fKDacarM badly crooked teeth,]] with his top two incisors bent inwards at a drastic, 45 degree angle. Make of that what you will.
** Incidentally, this is why Benioff rarely makes an open-mouthed smile on-camera. He's usually self-conscious enough to smile with his lips pursed closed. Some have accused that he often looks like he's smirking - but whether he's actually smirking or just stifling an open-mouthed flash of his bad teeth is anyone's guess.
* OscarBait: In the first five minutes of his DVD commentary for ''25th Hour'', Benioff bluntly admits that he actually wrote the book for the express purpose of getting it adapted into an awards-baiting film. He spent years in the late 1990s with his prior novel getting rejected by every publisher, so on his next attempt he intentionally wrote a book which he could pitch to publishers as a good candidate for adapting into an Oscar Bait film. Specifically, ''25th Hour'' was intended to be Oscar Bait for Tobey Maguire, but during initial production he backed out to make ''Spider-man'', so they switched to Edward Norton.
* PenName: His legal name is actually still "David Benioff Friedman", according to copyright filings as late as 2020. He says that he changed it to "Benioff" (which is also his mother's surname) when he published his first book because "Friedman" is a relatively common name.
* SlummingIt: ''25th Hour'' was pitched as a "love letter" to the different neighborhoods of New York City. In the DVD commentary, Benioff explains that he was actually a rich prep school kid (son of a top Goldman Sachs executive), but he and his classmates had fun pretending to be dangerous by going slumming at local clubs in poor neighborhoods of the city. Most of his descriptions in it of the everyday working-class parts of the city are actually based on his bar-hopping adventures.

* TheCharmer: Despite his various nervous tics or crass sense of humor, a consistent theme from both people who have worked with Benioff since 2000 and in his major public panel appearances is that Benioff radiates confident, easygoing charm. Usually he isn't even saying much of anything, in terms of information, it's all in his delivery: MeaninglessMeaningfulWords delivered in a warm and pleasant voice. Even the reporter from the now-infamous debacle at Austin Film Fest 2019 noted this: "His nonchalant tone is rational, his confident attitude is convincing - but the ideas and statements are an abomination." [[https://twitter.com/ForArya/status/1189556019392909314 ]]

* CompulsiveLiar: In some of his early one on one interviews from before ''Game of Thrones'' became a mega-hit, Benioff has described himself as being a "Pathological Liar" since he was a child. In several interviews he's recounted the story of how when he was six years old in the second grade, the class assignment was to explain what their father's job was. He adamantly insisted his father was a submarine captain - when he was in fact a high-ranking partner at Goldman Sachs. His lies about this were so pervasive and unrelenting that the school got concerned and ordered a parent-teacher conference, to see if he was lying so much out of a need for attention due to neglect at him. When his teacher explained the problem in a face to face meeting with his parents, they actually thought it was triflingly funny, and [[TemptingFate didn't even bother to punish him for it]].

* AuthorAppeal: If you actually sit down and read all three of Benioff's books (two novels and one collection of short stories), they frequently repeat the same set of tropes over and over again - particularly what seems to be author-insert versions of himself: