We’re about one year past the final season of Game of Thrones. We were so excited, do you remember? We all had such expectations for it, for how they would end this cultural phenomenon. I legitimately believe the expectations were impossibly high and that there was no way the show could meet those expectations. But they didn’t even really try. The scripts of the final season were half-assed, misogynistic and poorly done. The ending hinged on a handful of dudes talking amongst themselves and basically saying “this bitch is crazy, right? Right.” And because those bros convinced themselves that the bitch was crazy, they got a man who loved Daenerys to kill her. I get why so many of the GoT actors have issues with just saying it outright, that the last season was terrible and the exact opposite of fan-service, but damn, it would help me if just *one* of the major actors was like “it was so bad.” Instead, Emilia Clarke is basically just saying words:
Nearly ten months after the series finale of Game of Thrones aired, star Emilia Clarke still isn’t too happy about the ending. Her beloved character, Daenerys Targaryen, was murdered by her aunt (and once lover) Jon Snow (Kit Harington), which ‘annoyed’ her, as she told The Times in a wide-ranging interview as she gets ready for her West End play The Seagull.
‘Yeah, I felt for her. I really felt for her. And yeah, was I annoyed that Jon Snow didn’t have to deal with something? He got away with murder — literally,’ Clarke said.
Clarke had known the ending for years, revealing that when the show finally did come to a close, ‘it felt like coming out of a bunker. Everything felt really strange.’
‘I knew how I felt when I first read it, and I tried, at every turn, not to consider too much what other people might say, but I did always consider what the fans might think — because we did it for them, and they were the ones who made us successful, so … it’s just polite, isn’t it?’ Clarke added.
The actress added that the ‘global temperature,’ referring to the glut of ‘horrific news’ we’re bombarded with daily helps, ‘explain the enormity of the fans’ outrage.’
‘Because people are going, finally, here’s something I can actually see and understand and get some control back over … and then when that turns, and you don’t like what they’ve done,’ she added.
When asked if she was mad that Daenerys didn’t get a ‘happy ending,’ she admitted that she was, but added that the show was a ‘gift’ for her as an actor.
Aside from the ending, many fans criticized the final season since it was just six episodes, while the first five seasons came in at 10 episodes apiece. ‘We could have spun it out for a little longer,’ Clarke admitted, while adding the show could have used more dialogue. It was all about the set pieces. I think the sensational nature of the show was, possibly, given a huge amount of airtime because that’s what makes sense,’ she said.
Again, I don’t blame the actors. By the final season, the last actors standing were doing a great job… except for maybe Peter Dinklage, whose face belied the fact that he had mentally checked out months beforehand. Emilia did a good job with what she was given. The problem was always with what she was given. And yes, Jon Snow got away with murder! The dudes of the show got away with all kinds of horrific sh-t and they survived but somehow Jon Snow’s punishment is a vague exile and Dany gets murdered for doing what all of the dude rulers had done before her. SMH, this totally was about dude bros punishing a lady with power.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
Same here. Will never go after the cast for any of it.
I don’t know, Sophie Turner was pretty annoying in her reaction to fan response to the last season. I appreciate that they actors had to sell it, but many of them could have done better and acknowledged that fans were mad for legitimate reasons. I appreciate Emilia Clarke being more honest and understanding of fan response. She gets that the show owed it’s popularity to fans, which I don’t think some of the actors, in particular Sophie Turner, did.
Sophie Turner is annoying, period. But nobody deserves hate for being a paid, contracted actor doing a job. Sophie Turner just happens to have been raised on the set and partially by those two producers, who are bratty and entitled, so I guess she got some of this attitude because she saw her bosses doing it and getting away with it.
I don’t think stories necessarily need to pander to fans, since being a fan doesn’t necessarily mean you know how to tell a good story, but I am baffled by people who defend the writing choices. Even if you take away the monstrous amounts of misogyny and racism (Sansa crediting her abusers for her growth, Cersei being reduced to a whimpering failure, power driving Daenerys mad, killing the other major WOC), it’s just….bad writing. It ignores all of the foreshadowing set up by the previous season for shock value. The plot and character actions make no sense and don’t match up to previous set up. The Night King is turned into an absolute joke, making all of that tension and buildup meaningless.
People who are avid readers and writers can typically predict where a story is going. It’s not a bad thing. It means that you’re writing something cohesive and thematically sensible. If your story choices become utterly unpredictable, that’s not a sign of innovative writing or subversive intent. It means you don’t know what you’re doing. I’ve been writing and publishing for years. One of the big things I always have to do with bigger stories is ask, “How did my characters get here?” If you can’t trace that path easily through the story, you have a problem.
@Veronica – that’s my real problem with the last season. It renders so much of the earlier seasons useless. I don’t even want to rewatch it because of that. Its not even the actual ending with Dany destroying KL and then Jon killing her. There was all this *other stuff* that just didn’t matter. the white walkers didn’t even really matter! All the foreshadowing and prophecies. Even Jon being the true heir to the throne didn’t matter beyond being the final match to Dany’s insanity.
Hmmm… they were likely contractually obliged at the time to be supportive. I thought I even recalled Emilia saying good things about the season at the time (? maybe that’s wrong).
But now it’s a year out, they can actually say what they think…?
I am still SO ANGRY at the writers. I loved those books. Loved them. I am put off the story now. I usually reread favourite series but I can’t.
Did you guys hear the George Martin says he is using his social isolation time to finish the last book??? I am praying he fixes the nonsense of the last season. #keeptyrionsmart!!!!! XO
That would be great, if he can wind it up while answering all the unresolved questions and being true to the characters. I keep wishing he would go on ahead and reread some of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s books, because …well… read them yourself and see.
All it took was a literal global pandemic for it to finish, smh. I hope fans of the books aren’t so completely checked out and disgusted by what D & D did to his books they no longer care how the books come out. I am really hoping he finishes, as there are so many things left dangling the show never touched on or adequately addressed fron the novels.
Love the books and the series , even though the last season kind of screwed the pooch. Li,e i stasted in my post below. The series was never to catchup with the books(that is in GRRM). He stopped wirting for the show after season 4, to focus on writing. DWD, came out in 2011 that was the 5th book, and also the start of GOT on hbo. It is now 9 years between books. D&D, had to make up alot of stuff, they knew the plot points, but they were missing the details. They needed the details.
I was so rooting for Dani but, as the seasons came and went, i couldn’t stand her. For me she became worse than Cersi. An army wasn’t good enough for dani, no she threatened alway to use her NUKES on people. It would be only a matter of time before she turned her nukes on Jon. Varys truly only cared about the people, regardless of who ruled.
Iwas pissed off, that the did not show the reactions of everyone who found out who Jon really was. They really needed to show that. Then we could see why and how varys no longer wanted to follow her. He did try talking her out of using her dragons on KL.
I actually think she’s been pretty open about her displeasure, to be honest. Short of flat out calling it bad, she’s criticized a lot of the choices made.
By far the most satisfying thing about GoT’s ending – beyond validating everyone who had written those two trust fund kids off as hacks years ago – is how it’s completely wrecked its place in history as a cultural phenomenon. Nobody is going to be recommending this series in the future knowing the ending. Nobody is spending social isolation binge watching it. The hype over it is completely destroyed. It’ll be remembered less for its influence and instead be relegated to the infamous category of shows that screwed the pooch on the final step. It’s right up there with HIMYM, Dexter, and Lost for worst endings.
And Battlestar Galactica.
Daenerys mercilessly slaughtered one million innocents. So no, she did not do what a bunch of dudes before her did. What bullshit. And Jon was exiled to a frozen wasteland to never see his family again. Even though he likely saved millions more people from a power mad psychopath. Just because you liked Dany before she did that, doesn’t mean she DID NOT DO IT. SHE LITERALLY MELTED THE FLESH OFF OF BABIES and if she were a male character, everyone would root Jon on.
Emilia Clarke is a shitty feminist anyway. She was celebrating and cheering on the show when it was literally using rape as scenery and calling people who disliked it ridiculous. She mocked people who called the show out on its racism. As soon as it was her character that went down, all of a sudden the show is sexist. Newsflash, hypocrite: your character was not the only female character to exist. Also, Daenerys is a slave-profiteering, child-torturing sexual predator in the books. So they were white washing her for years. Her and the child-molesting, murderous rapist Tyrion.
I didnt read that book but I get it point that I cant believe writers made emilia to fall in love with her rapist husband. It’s so disgusting, these people dont understand when a wife said no to sex then it’s no. Husband forcing on his wife is also rape. The ending is so horrible with little arya character unnecessary sex scenes.
Actual quotes about rape scenes in GoT about rape scenes: “The sex became consensual” and “This is a strong woman making a choice.” (To be raped).
But yeah, Emilia, GoT didn’t have a problem with sexism until your character got killed.
I mean, I found that plausible in a tragic way. I imagine thousands, if not millions, of women living today have to do the same just to cope.
I could deal with Drago because it’s how she SURVIVED. Dany took a horrific situation in which she had little power or control and then found a foothold by which she could rise up and be more than his slave. She used what she had – sex, emotional appeal – to find a line where she could become something human to him, something valuable. It’s not what I’d call romantic in any traditional sense of the word, but I get it. That development makes sense, and her attachment to him makes sense because it’s a common trauma reaction.
The problem is that I don’t think D&D or even GRRM were really the ones to tell that story, not do I think they, as men in significant positions of social power, really understand those nuances.
Moreover: the idea that “dudes” got away with this is silly. Aerys was killed for merely trying what Dany SUCCEEDED in doing.
Murdered by her nephew. Your excerpt says murdered by her aunt. That’s all I can comment, I never watched a single episode \_o_/
I’m still as mad as Emilia. Also why did they resurrect Jon at all, he was useless. It’s funny because we’ll never forgive writers, usually people get less angry as times goes on but not in this case.
Jon was exiled and very nearly executed before that. Sure, he may have been okay with the exile, but it wasn’t like he said “I’m going to kill Dany so I have an excuse to go live with the wildlings for the rest of my life.”
We can argue about how the show got there (which we did, at great length last year lol) but once Dany wiped out Kings Landing, she had to go. And honestly, she was probably always going to die.
I’m more annoyed at Bran getting the throne than any other part of the last season.
The last season was bad. I dont mind Dany going mad queen (I always expected it to happen, it’s GOT, of course she wouldn’t get a happy ending) it’s just that it was so poorly written. They wrote Jon awfully and Cercei, Jaime and Bran were such let downs.
I like Emilia but don’t really agree with her being upset Dany didn’t get a happy ending. Of course she didn’t! It just should have been written so much better
He murdered a genocidal queen who had just announced publically that the kingdom he came from was next.
I’m so very sorry the colonizer queen didn’t get to sit on the throne….
THANK YOU. But I guess because it was poor people she slaughter via fire and crushing rocks, ot doesn’t matter…
Did she forget her character murdered thousands of innocent people?
Sorry but I’m going to be a little salty towards Emilia right now as she just did a pap stroll in London after she was exposed to a person who tested positive for corona (her west end costar, Indira Varma) so shouldn’t she be in a 14 day self quarantine right now?
Yes Jon got away with murder. What a crappy ending to a great show.
The biggest villain was Bran. He could have stopped the massacre before it happened, but he didn’t — and admitted that he came to King’s Landing so HE could be king. Dany still had PTSD from watching her “chidlren” being murdered along with her best and only friend. And she faced betrayal by all those “close” to her (like Tyrion’s intentionally bad advice). At least her rage at the moment had a motivation. Bran was dispassionate and, quite frankly, evil. So was Sansa. Sansa didn’t care about anyone’s lives (willing to sacrifice the lives of Northerners during the Battle of the Bastards just to make herself look good). Really, the Starks are horrible people.
What do you know, another insane Targ Supremacist. “It wasn’t the fault of the mass murderer because she felt bad. It was the crippled boy’s fault not to stop the woman who refused to so much as give her troops a break.” Also, that Sansa thing is hilarious. You’re really grasping at straws. No one has justifiable motivation except Daenerys, apparently. Even when she melts the flesh off babies.
Also she wanted to burn cities. She held off on wanting to fight the others because Jon wouldn’t bend the knee. You know, the people she claimed as subjects. So don’t even try. She never gaf about anyone who wouldn’t kiss her ass.
Is it really getting away with murder if you kill someone who just mass murdered innocent people and admits to plan on doing it again to rule over the entire world ? what do you mean ? jon was such a pure soul what is he supposed to get life at the bottom of a freaking pit for saving million of innocent people ?
Sorry for the DP first time commenting. Jon Snow is devastated for life for what he’s done to the woman he loved for the greater good that’s something he’s not getting away from because it’s in his head. Emilia WTF, I love her but that just sounded bitter for her own character and blind to Dany’s lover feelings. Such a weird statement to make IMO
I don’t know anyone who liked or was satisfied by the GOT ending. I feel like it’s one of the rare series that went from totally beloved to universally despised. I think it should have either ended with Dany on the throne and Jon dead, or Jon on the throne and Dany dead, but not what happened. I didn’t like that Dany went mad and killed thousands of innocents in the last 2 episodes, that wasn’t the Dany I got to know over many years. I didn’t think I cared about her all that much but days after the finale I woke up in the middle of the night from a dead sleep thinking, “I am outraged on behalf of Danerys Targeryen.”
Meh. She did everything she set out to do. People were starting to call her mad for quite some time, how her dad burned fathers in front of sons, etc. She fullfilled everything said about her father AND became a mad queen. The wheel is broken. The throne is gone. She had to die. 😀
He got away with murder? Pardon my french but how many people did the mother of dragons kill? And was she watching any of the show before? Killing is not exactly an exceptional occurrence on that show
All of this proves that J.R.R. Tolkien was a far better writer than any of the showrunners or possibly Martin as well. He understood what the epic requires from the author and for its audience.
Okay, Tolkien created a style and a formula that virtually every fantasy writer has copied ever since. The entire point of Martin’s series was to turn that formula on its head and make something messier, more realistic to how things actually go, and not to give a big happy ending. Martin has always been transparent about that and anyone who expected a big happy fantasy ending from this series wasn’t paying attention. I think this ending could have been executed in an incredible way; if they’d taken the time to do it and been able to get the dialogue and characterisation right. Instead they rushed the whole thing in the last two seasons and that was what ruined the story.
And yet he was neither subversive nor realistic with his story writing, only high off fumes.
I’m upset at how they ruined the writing just to give us shock value every episode. And how they lead up to the end was terrible. But Jon didnt get away with murder. Dany straight up killed tons of innocent people because she has a God complex. Something that will hopefully be better written in the books. (In the books even her character questions her own sanity at moments). She was never going to have a happy ending.
I find Emilia charming, but also think shes not a great actress. Her and Kit were always the weaker links among the adult cast. Her other films have not gone well and I feel like shes hanging on the approval of GOT fans to maintain a fan base.
I am actually looking forward to the remake of GOT…but this time I hope that they wait until all of the books are written so they can STICK TO THE STORY! Sorry, I get emotional when I think of how the seasons started off all naked and fantastic, and progressively became the trainwreck that was the final season. I think they’ll need to get Dinklage again (he’s irreplaceable), and I don’t think they’ll be able to get a better Joffrey, but everyone else can easily be re-cast. HBO…you can take my money now.
OMG PLEASE LET IT GO ALREAY, she may not like the ending, but that is how it woll turn out. I saw her turing to the dark side during saason 2. Just because people wouldn’t invite her into their house(kingdom, i foreget the name. Ut it was were the wizards were) she vowed to come back when here dragons grew bigger and burn theie entire city to the ground and, that was just her start. Dani, started smelling herself once she had the dragons. Ince she got rid of her brother( that was a good move, he needed to go). She became power hungary. And like araya said, it would have been a matter of time befofe she killed jon, or had him killed. The throne was not her’s but jon’s.
I do agree that the show needed an extened season 8 with maybe 12 to 1r episodes, to flush all the storylines out the way they should be. But, Dani was never going to have that happy ending. GRRM, told D & D the ending. They just took too many shortcuts to get their. I think that they wanted to come back home to the states and get started on their now debunked star wars tv movie.
Xhe really need to move on already, it has almost been a year. And if it wasnn’t for GOT, she wouldn’t be getting the work she has now. That goes for almost all of the cast, ouside of the few known actors. They wouldn’t household names.
Yes men did alot of crap in this series BUT, this series(the books) is based on actual historical event, minus the dragons. Men did alot of crappy thing, and women were used, maybe she should have gone for the part in Cindrella. But, like GRRM Said time and time again and Ramsay quoted him in saying,” If You Think Taht This Going ToHave A Happy Ending, then You Haven’t Been Paying Attention”.
OMG PLEASE LET IT GO ALREAY, she may not like the ending, but that is how it woll turn out. I saw her turing to the dark side during saason 2. Just because people wouldn’t invite her into their house(kingdom, i foreget the name. Ut it was were the wizards were) she vowed to come back when here dragons grew bigger and burn theie entire city to the ground and, that was just her start. Dani, started smelling herself once she had the dragons. Ince she got rid of her brother( that was a good move, he needed to go). She became power hungary. And like araya said, it would have been a matter of time befofe she killed jon, or had him killed. The throne was not her’s but jon’s. She was Rheagar’s sister, the heir’s would be Rheagar’s children not siblings. The only good thing dani really did was free the slaves, but then she became way too full of herself.
I do agree that the show needed an extened season 8 with maybe 12 to 16 episodes, to flush all the storylines out the way they should be. But, Dani was never going to have that happy ending. GRRM, told D & D the ending. They just took too many shortcuts to get their. I think that they wanted to come back home to the states and get started on their now debunked star wars tv movie.
They really need to move on already, it has almost been a year. And if it wasnn’t for GOT, she wouldn’t be getting the work she has now. That goes for almost all of the cast, ouside of the few known actors. They wouldn’t household names.
Yes men did alot of crap in this series BUT, this series(the books) is based on actual historical event, minus the dragons. Men did alot of crappy thing, and women were used, maybe she should have gone for the part in Cindrella. But, like GRRM Said time and time again and Ramsay quoted him in saying,” If You Think Taht This Going ToHave A Happy Ending, then You Haven’t Been Paying Attention”. As a book reader, i am glad ghat GRRM, stated with the lockdown he can focus on the books. Which i am glad, he neex to finish the story before doing another westeros series. Waiting 9 years for a book is crazy, and that was part of the problem. The series was never to catchup or surpass the books.
She didn’t go to the ‘dark side’. She was never peaceful and it’s not how it works in that world. The ending was still shit. Even George hated it and told them they should stretch it out more.
It’s a nice and politically correct way to say she also hated the ending.