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The Game of Thrones stars have broken their silence.
As always, if you haven’t seen the most recent Game of Thrones episode, consider this to be your spoiler alert warning.
Before Season 8 started, the entire cast and crew of Game of Thrones told us all that the ending would be bittersweet.
Well, we now know exactly what they meant because Daenerys Targareyn’s descent into Mad Queen status was too much for Jon Snow to take.
As Dany looked upon the Iron Throne and contemplated the world that she was hoping to build with her nephew/lover, Jon stuck a dagger into her heart.
Moments later, Drogon came along and burned down the throne.
The wheel has now been broken but as is the norm with Jon, his sacrifice came at a great price.
The true heir to the Iron Throne has lost the woman he loved and to compound matters, Jon has been forced to live out the rest of his days in exile.
Well, at least he has Ghost and Tormund for company.
With fans currently getting to grips with that colossal ending, Kit Harington and Emilia Clarke have been speaking with EW about that the show’s ending and that tragic scene between Jon and Daenerys.
“I think it’s going to divide,” Harington says of the finale’s fan reaction.
“But if you track her story all the way back, she does some terrible things. She crucifies people. She burns people alive. This has been building. So, we have to say to the audience: ‘You’re in denial about this woman as well. You knew something was wrong. You’re culpable, you cheered her on.’”
As stated previously, the signs have always been there that Dany might take the throne with fire and blood, however, the pacing in Season 8 did seem a bit rushed.
This being said, the uncomfortable truth is that Daenerys is a war criminal and that’s something that will never change. She murdered thousands and thousands of innocent people.
Emilia Clarke has been very vocal about the reasons why her character decided to burn King’s Landing to the ground and the star of Solo: A Star Wars Story has said that it was a”f**king struggle reading the scripts.”
“You’re about to ask if me — as Emilia — disagreed with her at any point,” Clarke asked during the interview.
“It was a f**kking struggle reading the scripts. 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,” she said.
Despite the dramatic shift in the character of Daenerys, Clarke says that she’s very happy with how the Mother of Dragons died.
In fact, as she continued to read more and more of the scripts for Season 8, she predicted it.
“I thought she was going to die. I feel very taken care of as a character in that sense. It’s a very beautiful and touching ending. Hopefully, what you’ll see in that last moment as she’s dying is: There’s the vulnerability — there’s the little girl you met in season 1. See? She’s right there. And now, she’s not there anymore…”
There’s no doubt that the final episode of Game of Thrones is going to divide opinion – The Wire and The Sopranos did the same – but Bryan Cogman, writer on the show, has said that this was always the intention.
“I still don’t know how I feel about a lot of what happens this season and I helped write it. It’s emotionally very challenging. It’s designed to not feel good. That said, I don’t think that’s a bad thing,” said Cogman.
After killing thousands of people in King’s Landing and countless others before that, certain fans could argue that Daenerys Targareyn is a bonafide villain.
However, other people will want to remember her as the Breaker of Chains, liberator of cities, and a ferocious character that was driven and kind-hearted.
Cogman views her more as a tragic figure that can’t easily be defined as a cliched villain.
“I don’t know if she’s a villain. This is a tragedy. She’s a tragic figure in a very Shakespearean and Greek sense. When Jon asks Tyrion [in the finale] if they were wrong and Tyrion says, ‘Ask me again in 10 years,’ I think that’s valid.”
You can read the full interview here.
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