NIKOLAJ COSTER-WALDAU: George R. R. Martin, back in the day, said that this would be impossible. And there we were, shooting it.
CHAPTER THIRTY
The Things We Love Destroy Us
Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen, after years of struggle and hard-earned lessons in leadership and love, returned to Westeros with her Unsullied and Dothraki armies. She forged critical alliances with the Starks, Greyjoys, and Tyrells. At the Battle of Winterfell, Daenerys helped lead the victorious effort to destroy the Night King and his Army of the Dead.
Daenerys then took her forces south to King’s Landing. Riding the fearsome Drogon, the Mother of Dragons blasted the city’s battlements and terrified the City Watch and Golden Company mercenaries. The city’s defensive forces surrendered, and Daenerys’s soldiers seized control of the capital. Daenerys took her rightful place on the Iron Throne with Tyrion Lannister as her loyal and trusted Hand.
In the ensuing days, Daenerys I Targaryen, First of Her Name, ordered Cersei Lannister executed for treason at the ruins of the Sept of Baelor. Cersei’s punishment took place at the same spot where Ned Stark had been unjustly killed many years before. The surviving Starks bore witness to her fate. Jaime Lannister, given his thorny history of heroism and brutality, was sentenced to serve the remainder of his days in the Night’s Watch. Sansa Stark was granted permission to rule the North as an independent kingdom.
As for Jon Snow, his Targaryen ancestry was kept a closely guarded secret for the good of the realm. Daenerys formally legitimized him as Jon Stark, and they were married in a beautiful ceremony by the sea.
While she never did produce children (of the human kind, anyway), Daenerys peacefully ruled Westeros for decades with her loyal and courageous husband by her side.
If only.
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For seven seasons, Daenerys seemed destined for that sort of hero’s-journey ending. It’s the linear road a typical fantasy story would take. But since Game of Thrones was anything but typical, Daenerys on the Iron Throne was not meant to be. Martin often let readers see hopeful glimpses of a safe and comforting path ahead for his characters, then he’d veer in an unexpected direction—somewhere darker, more perilous, and more aligned with the complexities of human nature. As Ramsay Bolton put it: “If you think this has a happy ending, you haven’t been paying attention.”
When Emilia Clarke received the final-season scripts detailing Daenerys’s descent into madness and mass murder, the revelation went off like a nuclear detonation in her mind. Clarke had formed a particularly strong bond with her Thrones avatar. When she went through her health struggles, she drew strength from her character. Then, when on the set, she channeled the resilience she gained from overcoming her personal obstacles back into Daenerys.
EMILIA CLARKE (Daenerys Targaryen): I cried when I read the scripts. It was a fucking struggle. My first thought was a gut reaction, and my second thought, which was milliseconds after, was, “What are people going to think of this?” I had my own feelings about it that were peppered with my feelings about Emilia. You have the growth of the character and the growth of me running along with it. It had gotten to that point where people were like, “They’re not talking about you, Emilia, they’re talking about the character.” I went for a walk and didn’t come back for hours because I’m like: “How am I going to do this?”
Clarke reevaluated every previous Daenerys scene and realized that she had helped set up her character’s twist without even knowing it—such as Daenerys’s chilling reaction to watching her brother die back in season one.
DAN WEISS (showrunner): We didn’t know the details until after the third season, but Dany’s trajectory was implicit in the first season. You’re so rooting for her because she’s in this horrible position. But there are a million different ways Emilia could have played watching her brother die, and she played it with a stone-cold-killer-like lack of affect. She has dark currents running through her. Which makes sense when Viserys, the only person she knew growing up, was a sociopath.
In the first-season finale, Daenerys pledged to the Dothraki, “I am the dragon’s daughter, and I swear to you that those who would harm you will die screaming.”
In season two, Daenerys warned the leaders of Qarth: “When my dragons are grown, we will take back what was stolen from me and destroy those who have wronged me. We will lay waste to armies and burn cities to the ground.”
A couple of seasons later, Daenerys crucified 163 slave masters in retaliation for their doing the same to children. One of the masters later claimed his father was a good man who fought against slavery and didn’t deserve his fate. Similarly, after Ser Barristan was killed by the terror group Sons of the Harpy, Daenerys burned a master alive to send a message. She didn’t know if the man was guilty or innocent, and she didn’t much care.
In season six, Daenerys promised her Dothraki followers, echoing Khal Drogo, that they would “kill [her] enemies in their iron suits and tear down their stone houses.”
And in the penultimate season, she ignored Tyrion’s pleas and had Drogon torch Samwell Tarly’s father, Randyll, and brother, Dickon, after they fought for the Lannister armies and refused to bend the knee. That scene, in particular, was supposed to be a fairly clear hint to viewers that Daenerys was not okay. But fans had spent so many years on Team Dragon Queen that they had grown accustomed to Daenerys executing her perceived enemies.
BRYAN COGMAN (co–executive producer): In our minds, we thought the Randyll Tarly scene was disturbing. Then I watched it with a crowd of people at a friend’s house and they were cheering. Weirdly, the audience just didn’t care. They loved Dany.
PETER DINKLAGE (Tyrion Lannister): Tyrion is like, “Wait a minute, okay, kill the father, but do we need to kill the son? Do we have to kill both? It’s senseless to kill the son. . . .”
GWENDOLINE CHRISTIE (Brienne of Tarth): The signs have always been there. And they’ve been there in ways we felt were mistakes or controversial. This show has always been about power, and it was an interesting illustration that [power-hungry] people can come in many different ways and we need to question everything.
KIT HARINGTON (Jon Snow): She did some terrible things. She crucified people. She burned people alive. This had been building. So we had to say to the audience, “You’re in denial about this woman as well. You’re culpable, you cheered her on. You knew there was something wrong.”
BRYAN COGMAN: There’s a dangerous tendency right now to make art and popular culture feel safe for everybody. I don’t believe in that. This is the kind of story that’s meant to unsettle you and challenge you and make you think and question. I think that’s what George’s intent was with A Song of Ice and Fire, and David and Dan wanted to do that with the series—make the audience never rest easy.
Over the years, producers sometimes gave Clarke notes about how to play a moment, nudging the character toward her tyrannical destiny.
EMILIA CLARKE: There was a number of times I was like, “Why are you giving me that note?” While I am quite consistently a “How can I help?” kind of person, there were a few moments where I was like, “Don’t tell me what to do with my girl. I know what to do!” It’s like Daenerys’s calling card became cold expressionlessness. I always wanted to infuse that with some humanity because no one’s consistently that. I would sometimes fight back a little: “I get that she has to be steely and unforgiving and a powerful force. But in this moment she’s also a goddamn human being. So I’m going to give you that and I really pray that you take that in the edit.”
Many others on the creative team likewise didn’t have any idea that Daenerys was headed for such a dark fate
ALEX GRAVES (director): I actually did not know we were telling the story of Daenerys going the way of her ancestors. I thought we were telling the story of her not doing that.
Because, of course, there was good in Daenerys too. There were acts of ben
evolence and restraint. Her hatred of slavery was genuine and unselfish. Daenerys was a character who always preferred to do the right thing—so long as doing the right thing didn’t entirely thwart her own ambition or undermine her perceived authority to rule. When Daenerys bumped up against such conflicts, it was her advisors who typically pushed her toward the moral choice, and they had to make pragmatic arguments to explain why doing the right thing was also better for Daenerys. Whereas Jon Snow always did the right thing, often foolishly and regardless of consequence.
EMILIA CLARKE: I genuinely did this, and it’s fucking embarrassing and I’m going to admit it to you: I called my mom and said, “I read the scripts and I don’t want to tell you what happens but can you just talk me off this ledge? I just went walking and I’m having a little cry. It really messed me up.” And then I was asking my mom and brother really weird questions, and they were like, “What are you asking us this for? What do you mean, ‘Do you think Daenerys is a good person?’ Why are you asking us that question? Why do you care what people think of Daenerys? Are you okay?” And I said: “I’m fine! But is there anything she could do that would make you hate her?”
The final season began at Winterfell, where Daenerys clashed with Sansa Stark, despite the queen’s best efforts.
EMILIA CLARKE: I think of that as like Meet the Parents: “I hope they like me, this dude’s wicked, it’s a real good thing we got going on, he’s the final piece, we’re destined for greatness, and world domination is a breath away.”
SOPHIE TURNER (Sansa Stark): Yeah, not that impressed. Sansa had found her safe place and wouldn’t let anyone get near it. She really didn’t appreciate someone coming into her home again, her happy place, the one place she really cares about, and basically taking over and taking Jon away from the North. Despite Sansa feeling capable of ruling the North, she knew that she and Jon would do it much better together than on her own. So it’s very much a protective thing of Jon and the North, especially considering the Targaryen track record—they’re not particularly sane people. And there was a complete frustration that Jon initially wouldn’t trust Sansa with the North at all, but he’d trust this stranger whose ancestor happened to be the Mad King.
EMILIA CLARKE: “Can I braid your hair, Sansa? Little Arya, come over here, let’s play some cricket!” So there was that, and it very quickly became, “Wait, is it just me, or do they all hate me?” She genuinely started with the best intentions and truly hoped there wasn’t going to be something scuttling her greatest plans. The problem is they didn’t like her and she saw it and she went, “Okay, one chance.” She gave that chance and it didn’t work.
Samwell revealed to Jon that the Stark bastard was Aegon Targaryen, the true heir to the Iron Throne. The reveal caused Jon Snow (the character) to do what Emilia Clarke (the actress) did after reading the final-season scripts—reevaluate everything he’d done in the show.
JOHN BRADLEY (Samwell Tarly): He knew Jon would rather hear that from Sam than anybody else, because he trusted Sam and he’d deliver it in a compassionate way. But Jon felt Sam was muddying the name of one of the most noble people he’s ever known. He felt Sam was basically saying his father figure and the man who’d set the tone of his entire life was built on a lie. Jon could review his entire life backward and see everything completely different and more sinister, even if done for the right reasons. Everything he’d done had been compromised.
KIT HARINGTON: That’s the thing I love about Jon, his purity. He didn’t fucking want to know. If he could go back in time and say to Sam, “Whatever you’re about to say, don’t tell me,” he would. He’d happily be in ignorance. He didn’t want that fucking information. He had no ambition for the throne.
Jon felt compelled to confide in Daenerys what he’d learned and naively hoped she’d be comforted by his lack of ambition.
EMILIA CLARKE: You don’t even want it! So support me, it’s my turn.
And then, of course, there was the whole incest thing.
EMILIA CLARKE: The related thing to her is so normal. She could have easily married her brother. It’s a thing for Jon, but let’s just forget about that. The main thing was we were up for the same promotion and I’d been working for it for my entire existence.
KIT HARINGTON: It’s the most upsetting thing in the world. The end of the world might be coming soon, but at least he was in love with somebody and knows who he was, and then came a sledgehammer.
In perhaps Clarke’s best scene in the series, Daenerys begged Jon to keep the knowledge of his birthright to himself. It didn’t matter that Jon didn’t want to be king; his legitimacy would undermine and perhaps overthrow her claim. A queen is only legitimate if her subjects believe that she is. Daenerys cycled between showing love, authority, desperation, and fury.
DAVID NUTTER (director): I’ve never worked with a better actress than Emilia. She looks different in different moods and tones she has for the character. She morphs into a different emotional state. In that scene I wanted to have them move around the set so that there would be moments of isolation and also moments of coming together. They kiss each other, and he steps away from her. Then she sits down and faces the other direction. So they’re so separate at that point. Then he swoops down and says, “I’ll always take a knee for you.” It was powerful stuff.
EMILIA CLARKE: This was my whole existence. Since birth! She literally was brought into this world going, “Run!” These fuckers have fucked everything up. There was so much she’s taken on as 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 were turning around and saying, “We don’t accept you.” She’s too far down the line; she’s killed so many people already.
KIT HARINGTON: It was a complex scenario between Jon and Dany where she’s turning into someone he doesn’t like. He was in denial of her power issues and brutality and the fact that when he’s kissing her, he can’t stop thinking that they’re related. [Director Miguel Sapochnik] talked to me and Emilia at length about this, and he had an interesting take on it: Jon is religious, and she’s practical. She’s the kind of, “Why can’t we just lie?” Jon cannot lie to himself. He cannot bury it. He cannot not tell his sister. It frustrates him massively at times. So when he’s kissing her he can’t forget she’s his aunt. Every time they kissed after that, he was the one who stopped it.
What followed was a succession of, as Clarke put it, “strings being cut” for Daenerys. After their victorious battle against the Army of the Dead, Daenerys lost her beloved Ser Jorah. And when Varys heard of Jon’s rightful claim, the Spider took steps against his queen, attempting to manipulate a scenario where Jon could sit on the Iron Throne instead. Daenerys, already feeling isolated and paranoid, ordered Varys executed by dragon fire. And that, in turn, further caused Tyrion and Jon to question their loyalty to her.
DAN WEISS (showrunner): Tyrion’s biggest mistake was finally daring to believe in somebody. His mistake is something we all hope for. To find somebody we trust to lead us.
CONLETH HILL (Varys): Varys was absolutely true to his word the whole way through. All he wanted was the right person on the throne and a fair person on the throne. He said it so many times in the scripts. “I don’t have the distraction of love or desire or any of those things.” And the people he needed to see clearly were both in love. So that made perfect sense. He knew that he had to try anyway to stop her and that it was very possible he would be killed.
EMILIA CLARKE: We love Varys. I love Conleth. But he changed his colors as many times as he wanted. She fucking warned him. That was my only option, essentially.
CONLETH HILL: He was effective, as always. He might not be around to see the results of his effectiveness, but what he did was important. It was a cool death and very dignified, and I swear the dragon thought twice about it.
Jaime Lannister was imprisoned after trying to sneak back to King’s Landing to save Cersei from Daenerys’s pending attack.
Tyrion, feeling he had no choice but to help his brother, betrayed Daenerys by releasing him.
PETER DINKLAGE: Daenerys and her dragons are nitroglycerin. He knew she’s going to make the world a better place and understands her passion. He’s put his passion in front of himself sometimes and it got the better of him. So he was trying to figure out who he really is. It’s okay for him to feel like a traitor to Cersei and Tywin, but then he almost felt like a traitor to his own brother. And with Varys, that’s as personal as it gets. Varys was his closest friend outside of Jaime. That’s a tough one to get past.
Meanwhile, at sea, Euron managed to shoot down Rhaegal, leaving Daenerys with just one dragon, Drogon. The pirate also captured the queen’s dear friend and advisor Missandei and brought her to Cersei. That led to a standoff at the gates of King’s Landing, with Missandei’s life hanging in the balance and Cersei refusing to surrender.
DAVID NUTTER: That high wall was a real set, but you couldn’t get the actors to go that high for an extended period of time. You only saw their faces when we had the actors up there tied in; otherwise we had stunt doubles. As for Missandei, I’m a big believer that when an actor is doing their final scene they get to shine in their last moment. I let them do it until they feel they got it right.
Missandei, knowing her end was inevitable, could see Daenerys in the distance. She defiantly cried one last word in Valyrian for all to hear: “Dracarys!”
NATHALIE EMMANUEL (Missandei): It comes full circle to my first scene I shot, when Daenerys and I discuss how I might die. Missandei always said she was willing to lay down her life, but we hoped she wouldn’t have to. I’ve said in so many interviews that I don’t mind if I die, I’m just happy to be here and be a part of the show. I just wanted it to be really cool and a moment that people remember. I feel like they gave me that moment. She was settled with her fate.
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