Daenerys' Game Of Thrones Ending 'Came Out Of F***ing Nowhere', Says Emilia Clarke
WARNING: Don't read this if you don't know yet what happens at the end of Game of Thrones. You've got a maximum of about 12 hours before spoilers become your own fault entirely. Just watch the final episode. It's the most popular TV series ever made. People want to talk about it without being shouted at by slowcoaches.
If you thought you were shocked by the slightly abrupt turn toward genocidal mania which Daenerys Targaryen took in the final couple of episodes of Game of Thrones, spare a thought for poor Emilia Clarke. When she first read the scripts, the neck-snapping pace of the change took her by surprise too.
Clarke told Entertainment Weekly her first thoughts were: "'What, what, what, WHAT!?' Because it comes out of f***ing nowhere. I’m flabbergasted. Absolutely never saw that coming."
Daenerys' furious rampage and eventual death upset Clarke so much she had to leave the house and went on an aimless five-hour stomp in the rain around London, returning with blistered feet. But, eventually, Clarke came around to seeing Daenerys' arc as the logical conclusion of a life spent losing loved ones and eventually being rejected herself.
"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," Clarke explained. "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***ing doesn’t."
That would be understandably gutting, even if you're ruling over the entirety of the known world. In the end, Clarke says, this was the only way it could go for a character who had a lot of traumatic events happen to her and who, at the end of the day, has a bit of a family history for ruthlessness and bloody retribution.
"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.
This story originally appeared on Esquire.co.uk.
* Minor edits have been made by the Esquiremag.ph editors.
