Emilia Clarke gives her reaction to Daenerys’ final scene
Warning: This is it, everyone. Perhaps the biggest Game of Thrones spoiler of them all is going to be discussed here.
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The queen is dead. Jon Snow killed her before she had a chance to sit in the Iron Throne.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Emilia Clarke talked about how she felt after learning of Daenerys’ ultimate fate. “It was a [expletive] struggle reading the scripts,” she said. After reading them seven times, and going on a five-hour long walk, and crying, she began to come to grips with them. “What I was taught at drama school — and if you print this there will be drama school teachers going ‘that’s bulls—t,’ but here we go: I was told that your character is right. Your character makes a choice and you need to be right with that. An actor should never be afraid to look ugly. We have uglier sides to ourselves.”
Finally, she laid the entire thing out there, trying to wrap her head around the ending:
"Where else can she go? I tried to think what the ending will be. It’s not like she’s suddenly going to go, ‘Okay, I’m gonna put a kettle on and put cookies in the oven and we’ll just sit down and have a lovely time and pop a few kids out.’ That was never going to happen. She’s a Targaryen."
As we saw in the episode, Daenerys was indeed planning to pull an Alexander the Great, but with a dragon, and become the kind of conqueror (though she’d use the word liberator) that would make even Aegon I blush.
As for Jon Snow’s side of things, Clarke can’t quite bring herself to forgive him:
"If I were to put myself in his shoes I’m not sure what else he could have done aside from … oh, I dunno, maybe having a discussion with me about it? Ask my opinion? Warn me? It’s like being in the middle of a phone call with your boyfriend and they just hang up and never call you again."
Okay, let’s just get the terrible pun out of the way: basically, Jon ghosted her before going back to the actual Ghost in his life.
Puns aside, Daenerys probably wouldn’t have listened to the pleas and discussion anyway; she seemed to be pretty sure of herself before Jon stabbed her. Also, warning her probably would have ended up with him actually getting roasted.
Daenerys’ arc has come under fire this year, as we’ve seen the Mother of Dragons turn from a benevolent ruler to someone willing to kill innocent citizens by the thousands. Clarke broke it down:
"She genuinely starts with the best intentions and truly hopes there isn’t going to be something scuttling her greatest plans,” she says. “The problem is [the Starks] don’t like her and she sees it. She goes, ‘Okay, one chance.’ She gives them that chance and it doesn’t work and she’s too far to turn around. She’s made her bed, she’s laying in it. It’s done. And that’s the thing. I don’t think she realizes until it happens — the real effect of their reactions on her is: ‘I don’t give a s—t.’ This is my whole existence. Since birth! She literally was brought into this world going, ‘Run!’ These f—kers have f—ked everything up, and now it’s, ‘You’re our only hope.’ There’s so much she’s taken on in her duty in life to rectify, so much she’s seen and witnessed and been through and lost and suffered and hurt. Suddenly these people are turning around and saying, ‘We don’t accept you.’ But she’s too far down the line. She’s killed so many people already. I can’t turn this ship around. It’s too much. One by one, you see all these strings being cut. And there’s just this last thread she’s holding onto: There’s this boy. And she thinks, ‘He loves me, and I think that’s enough.’ But is it enough? Is it? And it’s just that hope and wishing that finally there is someone who accepts her for everything she is and … he f—king doesn’t.”"
In this same interview, Game of Thrones writer Bryan Cogman gave his take on Dany’s death. “This is a tragedy,” he said. “She’s a tragic figure in a very Shakespearean and Greek sense.”
And here’s Macbeth, after killing Duncan and Banquo:
"I am in bloodStepped in so far that, should I wade no more,Returning were as tedious as go o’er."
We still don’t know for sure is this is how George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire books will end, but Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss have had this ending in mind for Daenerys for years, and would even have her adjust her performance here and there to lay the groundwork. “There’s a number of times I’ve been like: ‘Why are you giving me that note?’” Clarke said. “So yes, this has made me look back at all the notes I’ve ever had.”
What we’re hearing is that it may be time for a re-watch … just as soon as we get over this ending. Anyone up for a five-hour walk?
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