Emilia Clarke reflects on reading Game of Thrones finale for the first time

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

**SPOILERS for the finale of Game of Thrones**

That’s it. We’re done. Our watched have ended and so forth as GAME OF THRONES has officially come to and with the final episode airing not even a full day ago. This season has been a lot to take in (the good, the great and the ugly, but perhaps none more so than the cast and crew. Daenerys Targaryen, Mother of Dragons, Temporary Queen of the Seven Kingdoms herself, Emilia Clarke, had more reason than most had a lot of emotions running through her mind, and now at the series end she is looking back on reading the finale for the first time.

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Clarke was speaking with EW about the first time she got the script, which involved settling in for the long haul and devouring them when they were sent to her. The big “Woah” moment came when she read the finale, which hit her so hard she needed to take a walk to clear her mind.

“What, what, what, WHAT!?” Clarke said about reading her character’s death at the hands of Jon Snow (Kit Harington). “Because it comes out of fucking nowhere. I’m flabbergasted. Absolutely never saw that coming. I cried. And I went for a walk. I walked out of the house and took my keys and phone and walked back with blisters on my feet. I didn’t come back for five hours. I’m like, ‘How am I going to do this?’”

Clarke recalled having to sit next to Harington on the plane ride over to the final table read, and the actor had yet to read the script as a way of experiencing it fresh with the cast. Clarke said she wanted so bad to talk to him about it, and when, during the read, she looked at him as he went through a moment of disbelief, nodding back with a sad “Yes.”

“He was crying,” Clarke says. “And then it was kind of great him not having read it.”

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Her character takes a big villainous turn towards the end, setting King’s Landing ablaze and becoming a dictator figure at the start of the finale. There have been teases and hints towards this turn across the series, and looking back, she recalls notes she was given making much more sense now: “There’s a number of times I’ve been like: ‘Why are you giving me that note?’” Clarke said. “So yes, this has made me look back at all the notes I’ve ever had.”

Like many fans, there are some moments that she wished she got more of come this final season, and while talking to The New Yorker, talked about what she would’ve liked to do more of in these final episodes.

"Well, I can only speak to my own character, and the people that I interact with on the show. But I would’ve loved some more scenes with me and Missandei. I would’ve loved some more scenes with me and Cersei…I would’ve loved some more scenes between Grey Worm and Missandei."

She continued

“I just think more dissection and those beautifully written scenes that the boys have between characters—that we are more than happy to contently sit there and watch ten minutes of two people talking, because it’s beautiful," she continued. “I just wanted to see a bit more of that. But I’m in no position to critique the geniuses that have written eight seasons’ worth of wonderful stuff.”

Clarke's reaction to her character's demise is surely what a lot of people went through: disbelief, shock, confusion, sadness and everything in between. But this show has always had tragic elements, and the story of Dany is perhaps the most tragic of all (in more ways than one, for some). Like Clarke, I would've liked much of the same things added if it could be done differently, especially those interactions with characters like Missandei and Cersei. But, hey, it's done and what we got was good and all sorts of shocking, which is about as high as any show with this level of expectation can hope for.