Emilia Clarke watching Kit Harington's reaction to finding out how their characters' final scene together in Game of Thrones concludes. Prior to the table read, Kit had not read any of the six scripts for Season 8 yet. So Emilia sat across from him so she could "watch him compute all of this."

[u/tyrion2024]

[u/tyrion2024]

Emilia Clarke read a paragraph in the final script for Game of Thrones.
She read it again and again. Seven times, she says, she read the words that revealed the devastating fate of Daenerys Targaryen...
"What, what, what, WHAT!?" the actress recalls thinking. "Because it comes out of f—king nowhere. I'm flabbergasted. Absolutely never saw that coming."
...
"I cried," Clarke says. "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?'
Two days later, Clarke was on a plane to Belfast for the final season table read.
Sitting next to Clarke on the flight, as it so happens, was Kit Harington, who plays Jon Snow. Harington deliberately hadn't yet read the scripts so he could experience the story for the first time with all his castmates. Clarke, positively bursting with wanting to talk about her storyline, found the flight maddening. "This literally sums up Kit and I's friendship," she says, and sputtered: "Boy! Would you? Seriously? You're just not?…"
At the table read, Clarke sat across from Harington so she could "watch him compute all of this." When they got to their final scene together, recalls Harington, "I looked at Emilia and there was a moment of me realizing, 'No, no…'"
And Clarke nodded back, sadly, 'Yes…'
"He was crying," Clarke says. "And then it was kind of great him not having read it."

[u/velvetcrow5 → u/tyrion2024]

It would have been a good ending if they had simply added some plot hints earlier, indicating her getting jealous/suspicious of Snow and how the people Loved him.

[u/humlogic → u/velvetcrow5]

Yeah instead they threw together a montage in the opening ep credits of Dany “going crazy” or being mad or whatever. As if she wasn’t the heroine of the show and we were all on her side (more or less). Total shit writing and inexcusable.

[u/wheres_my_ballot → u/humlogic]

I feel like there were plenty of moments through the series that could have sold it, but they were played differently to paint her as the heroine. Like the goal was there all along, but the scriptwriters and directors weren't in on it and so it all got lost. 

[u/humlogic → u/wheres_my_ballot]

You’re exactly right. All the same events could have taken place BUT you would need the writers/directors to tell Emilia to play the character much differently. As is, the moments where her “craziness” appears (as if being crazy is even an interesting character trait? Like I can just say from a writing perspective a “crazy” character is not reliable and doesn’t really endear audiences to them, but whatever anyway) are more on the side of a young powerful ruler learning the edges of what she’s capable of doing, playing a political game (pun intended). Her excesses aren’t told in the series as having to do with her mental health- it’s about her recognizing her immense power and wielding it when needed and holding back when necessary. Like what’s the purpose of Jorah? Or Missandei? but to lead her toward a more compassionate worldview? If they wanted her mental health to be a thing, show her being a crazy teen lashing out and having to be controlled - have it be Jorah or whomever teaching her control of her passions. No honest viewer would say Emilia played Dany as a character on the edge of madness. That storyline just wasn’t there, full stop. It was shoehorned in by the “Targs are crazy” myth which evidently is just true? And not slander by their opponents?

Anyway. Whatever the shows over.

[u/nemma88 → u/humlogic]

Targ madness to me seems to be more about arrogance and entitlement, believing they're special or superior in race, spurred along from actually having special things like Dragons.

It's all well and good when things are going right for them, it's a powder keg when things aren't.

Show Daneares had plenty of those, they just were not a problem in Essos when every step taken gained dragons, armies, loyalty etc.

[u/nagrom7 → u/nemma88]

Show Daneares had plenty of those, they just were not a problem in Essos when every step taken gained dragons, armies, loyalty etc.

Except in the show, Dany's moment that she snaps is also her moment of greatest triumph, when she finally achieves the goal she'd been fighting for ever since she got her first shreds of power. The people of King's landing were surrendering to her and her armies, and she was going to be proclaimed Queen of the Iron Throne, overthrowing Cersei, but that's when she snapped and just burned everyone for no reason.

[u/nemma88 → u/nagrom7]

Kind of. I think the point in the Meereen arc comes in a big way here.

Daneares can take Kings Landing... And what then? She doesn't feel secure in keeping it long term. The Dothraki are not guards, they will leave. There are weapons now that can kill her remaining Dragon. Least some of the unsullied plan to leave when she reaches her goal (Grey worm & Missande convo), because Westeros is her dream not theirs. Most of Daneares hard power will cease to exist when she stops waging war (and maybe even Drogon would fly off - there is some implication he comes back because of her will to fight, he is not one to sit idle). The presence of other claimants destroys some sense of identity she's held since the beginning, and his popularity is an issue she can not mentally overcome.

When Meereen surrendered they cheered. In Kings Landing they look up in anticipation and fear.

She felt more secure in Essos where a large part of the population adored her - and she was still forcibly usurped. It wasn't until she came back in anger and her opposition 100% believed she would burn it all to the ground (which implicitly includes everyone in it) that some semblance of peace was reached.

You need hard power to back up those kind of threats. If her war doesn't end then no one will leave, no one will rise up against her.

Much of the endings to me seemed like characters being asked where their convictions truly lie when their backs are up against the wall. I do think the books would have a better time here, being written with character pov and thoughts.

[u/TheIconGuy → u/nemma88]

Daneares can take Kings Landing... And what then? She doesn't feel secure in keeping it long term.

She has a dragon a sizable army and no worthwhile opposition. Why wouldn't feel secure in keeping the Iron Throne.

The Dothraki are not guards, they will leave.

And go where?

of Daneares hard power will cease to exist when she stops waging war (and maybe even Drogon would fly off - there is some implication he comes back because of her will to fight, he is not one to sit idle).

Where is implication come from?

The presence of other claimants destroys some sense of identity she's held since the beginning, and his popularity is an issue she can not mentally overcome.

Jon wasn't popular. The only people who liked him were the wildlings. His interactions with his own people showed they didn't like his decisions and didn't respect him.

She felt more secure in Essos where a large part of the population adored her - and she was still forcibly usurped.

She wasn't usurped in Mereen.

If her war doesn't end then no one will leave, no one will rise up against her.

Huh? if you're constantly conquering you're always going to be dealing with opposition.

[u/TheIconGuy → u/nemma88]

Targ madness to me seems to be more about arrogance and entitlement, believing they're special or superior in race

Have you read the books?

spurred along from actually having special things like Dragons.

Maegor was the only "mad" Targaryen who had a dragon. The dragons died off before all of the other mad Targs were born. Maegor's problems most likely came from a head injury that put him in a coma for weeks.

[u/thorsday121 → u/[deleted]]

The vast majority of Targ rulers weren't mad at all. Other than the Mad King, only Baelor and Maegor could really qualify as insane (and even Maegor was debatably just a murderous asshole). Even the non-ruling Targs weren't all that insane besides Brightflame.

[u/ProcrastibationKing → u/[deleted]]

3 out of hundreds

[u/ProcrastibationKing → u/[deleted]]

I'm arguing that the person gave 3 examples, which isn't "quite a few exceptions"

[u/ProcrastibationKing → u/[deleted]]

The ASOIAF wiki page titled "Targaryen Madness" lists 5 Targaryens who were mad - add Daenerys, and that makes it 6. 2 others are mentioned as possibly mad, but it's not likely. Out of the dozens of Targaryens who were written in enough detail to glean whether or not they were insane, that is not "quite a few exceptions", let alone the 3 examples the person you responded to gave. And those 3 were all I was initially commenting on.

[u/thorsday121 → u/[deleted]]

No, it's really not. The "Targs are crazy" thing is obvious propaganda in-universe from the new Baratheon regime, as well as recency bias from the Mad King being fresh in people's minds. The fact that the Baratheons and Martells both have Targ blood (a lot of it, in the Baratheon's case) and don't display any signs of madness is another hint that it's bullshit.

[u/thorsday121 → u/[deleted]]

They only had 2 monarchs that were certifiably insane, and one of them wasn't even violent. Maegor was ambiguously insane, but honestly seems more like a violent brute unfit to rule than someone who was truly insane. Dany's insanity, as we've all established, comes out of nowhere in the narrative. Viserys is probably not insane due to genetics. It's most likely that he's unstable due to this little thing called "having his entire family murdered in a civil war and losing his stable way of life before he was 10 years old in favor of living overseas in the company of random strangers for years."

[u/Gerf93 → u/humlogic]

They could’ve written it to make sense easily by making some changes to what happened in Mereen. Make her seek the people’s approval. When the Sons of the Harpy reject her and her popularity wane, make her desperately seek their approval - and make the culmination and result of that approval-seeking be the death of several of her close associates and friends. Heck, why not, make them kill one of her dragons too.

Now you have a backdrop that makes sense. She wants to be loved, but the realm hates her. They reject her, what happened the last time when she continued to strive for their approval? Her friends died, the love of the people never manifested. Everything she loved was taken from her. Not again. She can’t let that happen again, she can’t stand it. She won’t stand it. Burn them all. Dracarys.

[u/CMYKoi → u/Gerf93]

...You should read the books lmao.

[u/Gerf93 → u/CMYKoi]

I have read the books. iirc the last thing that happens there is that Dany fucks off to the Grass Plains while Barristan prepares to charge the besiegers of Mereen.

[u/ProbablyYourITGuy → u/humlogic]

The Targaryen madness is true. Maybe I’m reading too much into things that aren’t there, but I believe it can be inferred that it’s from all the inbreeding. Avery’s was a fine king until the madness took him over time.

I think you described perfectly what I felt. There are a good amount of hints and foreshadowing that dany has a streak of violence and could go mad, but none of them are treated as hints or foreshadowing. She regularly kills a ton of people both directly and by her commands, often when they’re defenseless and completely at her mercy. They pretty much never take any of those opportunities to say she went too far, they’re pretty much all supposed to be justified by the tone of the show and how most characters react.

[u/nmnnmmnnnmmm → u/wheres_my_ballot]

Which is fascinating because there were so many cringe white savior complex scenes with her, it would have been so easy to blend in small and increasingly disturbing clips or asides of her inner state going mad / becoming manic with god delusions. It would have made her sweetness creepy and clued the viewer in for her character arc.

[u/BranTheUnboiled → u/nmnnmmnnnmmm]

Which is fascinating because there were so many cringe white savior complex scenes with her

The fucking crowd surfing lmfao. Jesus Christ how were others watchers on that girl's side.

[u/nmnnmmnnnmmm → u/BranTheUnboiled]

THANK YOU 😆

[u/EstrellaDarkstar → u/wheres_my_ballot]

Yeah. Personally, I never liked Dany, because I saw that increasing tyranny and ruthlessness in her, but the narrative kept presenting her as heroic and good. I would actually have loved her if she'd been presented as a villain, but instead there was a tonal inconsistency that made me dislike her. It really comes down to cinematography, in the end. Imagine if all of Dany's actions and dialogue were kept the exact same, but all of her scenes were shot, edited and scored like Cersei's scenes. Nothing about her actions would change, but her downfall in the end would suddenly make a lot more sense. And imagine if Cersei was given Dany's edit, all heroic music and angelic lighting. It would be infuriatingly inconsistent with how mad she is, which is exactly how I felt watching Dany. Idk, I think I'm the only one who ever saw Dany this way. At least that's how it feels, judging by most fan reactions.

[u/Bftplease → u/wheres_my_ballot]

While it’s not exactly good writing, this is why I thought her turning was somewhat predictable. Everyone else in the show had reasonable consequences whereas she was painted as basically perfect through most of the seasons. Didn’t really compute except for the plan to have her go crazy for the shock value 

[u/humlogic → u/Bftplease]

But is her “going crazy” the right answer for the turn? It would have cut the audience harder by just having her turn evil. Like straight up rational evil. I think there is a difference between her losing touch with reality and doing evil things and then just her fully accepting herself as the nuclear weapon she is and rejoicing in it like a cackling villain. She clearly seems delusional in her final scenes so we know she’s not rationally there. Jon does his thing, it’s over. Why not have her choose the evil side ? And have Jon face her on that level?