22 best moments from Game of Thrones season 8

9. Jon kills Daenerys

Ugh. This one is hard even to write about. Nothing encapsulates the tragic, Shakespearean ending to Game of Thrones like this scene. Right out of the gate, it has the feel of a momentous event, from Drogon recognizing Jon and allowing him to pass into the darkness to Dany emerging from that same darkness into the throne room and laying her hand upon the Iron Throne. The scene is pervaded by a feeling that this is the moment that the fate of the Seven Kingdoms will be decided.

It is a credit to Emilia Clarke that even after watching Daenerys’ descent into madness throughout the last two episodes, she manages to call back the Dany of old. In her final moments, Daenerys is less like the power-mad person she has become, and more like the dreamer that we’ve been rooting for for so long. Yet there is something just slightly off in the way she portrays her excitement, the way her voice suddenly drops as she says “a good world” that is so reminiscent of Viserys.

Jon’s anguish as he tries to convince himself that he shouldn’t kill her is crushing to watch, due in no small part to Kit Harrington’s brilliant acting. “Make them see that they made a mistake. Make them understand,” he pleads…but what he’s really asking is for Dany to help him see. To help him understand how she could slaughter an entire city.

But even more painfully, Dany unknowingly convinces him that he should kill her, by reassuring him that he’s always known the right thing to do.

The writing in this scene is incredible, but it’s almost hard to pick it out as the thing that truly sells it, because everything about this scene is incredible. In many ways, this sequence is the climax of Game of Thrones. Everything that follows it is but an epilogue.