‘Game of Thrones’ Star Emilia Clarke Reflects on Daenerys’ Fate and the Finale

Kate Hahn June 6, 2019, 2:00 pm

Bran Stark (Isaac Hempstead Wright) was crowned king in Game of Thrones‘ May 19 series finale, but we still had burning questions.

Some of those burning questions (or questions about burning) were for Emilia Clarke, whose Queen Daenerys Targaryen seemed to be a lock for the throne — until she sicced her fiery dragon on the innocent citizens of King’s Landing.

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Read on for what she had to say about all of that.

Dany’s brutality seemed so out of character. Why did she snap?

Emilia Clarke: She’s brutal with her enemies, so this is a logical step. It’s coming from pain, hurt and heartache. That can make people do crazy things. She was broken.

What was it like shooting the scene when Jon Snow (Kit Harington) stabbed her?

I wanted Daenerys’s last moment to be one of hope, for the audience to see a little flavor of who she was in the beginning. Dany didn’t see it coming. She thinks she’s got what she wanted her entire life — to be loved and do her family justice.

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Her dragon melts the throne because Dany’s desire for it is what killed her.

It’s like Drogon comes in and goes, “All of this [destruction] over that chair? Let me just get rid of it.”

Where do you think Drogon took Dany’s dead body when he flew off?

A paradise. I think Drogon stays with her. Like an old couple, they love each other so much that when one dies, the other dies of a broken heart.

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Did you keep anything from the set?

The absolute privilege of taking this girl from childhood naïveté to female empowerment to leader to unhinged and deluded. Her dying was way harder than I thought.

Game of Thrones, Seasons 1-8, Available for Streaming, HBO Go & HBO Now