Gemma Whelan was one of the undersung secret weapons of Game of Thrones. Her character, Yara Greyjoy, never got the screentime or development of, say, Yara’s sister Theon, but Whelan fit her character to a tee, and brought her natural charisma to bear whenever Yara appeared in a scene, even if it wasn’t enough.
Whelan recently did a rapid-fire interview with The Guardian, where she revealed little tidbits about herself, both serious (she’s very proud of recovering from anorexia as a teenager) and gut-busting (once on a date at a museum she crawled inside a Japanese tea house trying to be goofy and fun, only to find out it was an ancient relic; “All the alarms went off and I still didn’t realize”).
But for Game of Thrones fans, the most interesting answer came when she was asked to reveal her biggest disappointment. “The fans’ reaction at the end of Game Of Thrones because I think it was brilliant.”
The end of Game of Thrones did indeed get a ton of blowback. Daenerys Targaryen ended up burning the people of King’s Landing to a crisp. After Jon Snow killed her to stop what was shaping up to be a reign of terror, the Great Lords of Westeros — including Yara — convened to choose a new leader, and landed on Bran Stark.
Personally, I thought a lot of the ending seemed to come out of nowhere, but if you think it was brilliant like Whelan, more power to you. I did at least like the way Yara’s story ended. I’m sure she’ll do a bang-up job of running the Iron Islands.
The fact that the fan blowback is still knocking around her head over a year after the finale speaks to how loud and strong it was. The Guardian also asked Whelan to share “the most important lesson life has taught you,” and I think her answer is instructive for a lot of us. “Let go.”
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