Posted in: HBO, TV | Tagged: Daenerys, Daenerys Targaryen, emilia clarke, game of thrones, HBO, house of the dragon

Game of Thrones Star Emilia Clarke Makes Peace with Daenerys' Fate

The downfall of Daenerys Targaryen is arguably the most controversial aspect of HBO's Game of Thrones' final season. Actress Emilia Clarke played the Dragon Queen, who spent the better part of the finale burning King's Landing and its residents to ashes. Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter while promoting her upcoming comic "M.O.M: Mother of Madness", she empathizes with fans about their cognitive dissonance creatively with the series' showrunners but revealed she made peace with it.

Moving on from Game of Thrones

"I think it'll take me to my 90s to be able to objectively see what Game of Thrones was because there's just too much me in it," Clarke said. "I have too many emotional reactions for what Emilia, herself, was experiencing at that moment in time when we were filming it. [Do] you know what I mean? I watch a scene and I go, 'Oh, that was when [such and such] happened,' which you didn't see on screen. And I think there's something timely about the prequels and the continuation of the 'Game of Thrones' story coming about now. I look at it and I'm like, 'Wow, yeah.' So I see it with only peace."

Clarke knows her time on Thrones will be a lifelong bond among her castmates. "I'm still friends with people from the show, and I know I will be friends with these people until the day I die," she said. "So it's had a lasting impact on my life, and it starts to become, like, 'Hey guys, remember when we were in college? Hey, remember the fourth grade?' Daenerys has a part of my heart. She is in there, and I'll never forget. I can't remember who I was talking to, but they were like, 'Oh my God, when you say 'she,' you're talking about Daenerys.' And I was like, 'Yeah! Because she's a whole person. She's got her own life that I explore.' So I think that there's the show, the impact of the show, the impact of the show on me, personally and professionally, and the zeitgeist-iness of it. And then there's Daenerys. So that's my own private little space that I don't need to make peace with because it's just a beautiful memory. It's just a beautiful memory."

Clarke's also excited about the upcoming House of the Dragons prequel from HBO, which premieres in 2022. "I've been prepped for this because Miguel [Sapochnik], who's the co-showrunner, is a really dear friend of mine," she said. "So I've been chatting to him about it for a while. So I was prepped. But yeah, it's crazy! Those pictures came out and I was like, "Whoa! Whoa!" I was on my own last time. I didn't know I had pals. (Laughs.) I could've had a bunch of friends to hang out with, but yes, it's mildly surreal to be seeing all of that again. But good luck to them is what I would say. I really mean that."

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