British actress Emilia Clarke has revealed she was furious when she first learned how her iconic character Daenerys Targaryen met her end in the final season of Game of Thrones. Speaking candidly in a recent interview, the 39-year-old actress described feeling “absolutely livid” upon discovering the Mother of Dragons’ fate in the beloved HBO fantasy series.

The Moment She Found Out

Clarke recalled the exact circumstances under which she read the final season’s scripts. “I just landed from a holiday and turned my phone on, and it went ‘Bing’,” she told Variety. She read through the scripts in one sitting, only to find herself walking out of her house in a daze — forgetting her keys, her phone, and everything else — wandering for hours trying to process what she had just read.

Her Raw Reaction to Jon Snow’s Betrayal

What stung Clarke most was not the controversy surrounding Daenerys’ descent into tyranny, but the personal betrayal at the hands of her character’s love interest, Jon Snow, played by Kit Harington. In the series finale, Jon kills Daenerys to protect the realm from her increasingly destructive rule. Clarke recalled that the last words her character spoke to Jon were, “We break the wheel together.”

She told Variety, “That is the last thing I say before the cheeky little s* stabs me. F outrageous. I was so p*. I was absolutely livid. Outside of the controversy around her actions, him killing me really bummed me out. Kinda rude. I gave that man everything, burned cities to the ground for him, for us. I’m over it, clearly. I’m so over it, it’s unreal. Livid.”

The Existential Crisis That Followed

Clarke, who played Daenerys from 2011 to 2019 across all eight seasons, described the show’s conclusion as a deeply disorienting personal experience. The end of filming coincided with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, compounding her sense of loss. “This was like, ‘I don’t know what’s happening to me’, kind of crying. It was such a significant part of my life that was the entryway to my career,” she said.

She added that it took her “years” to fully comprehend the show’s impact on her life and identity. “I meet as many people who haven’t watched it as who have. So, I’m just grateful that it happened. But I still can’t quite wrap my head around it, if that makes sense,” Clarke said.

Gratitude Despite the Grief

Despite her lingering frustration over the finale, Clarke says she remains deeply grateful to the character who launched her career. “I’m grateful to her. She taught me a lot,” she said. Game of Thrones remains one of the most-watched and discussed television series in history, and Clarke’s portrayal of Daenerys is widely regarded as one of its defining performances. Whether the wounds of that final season have truly healed — Clarke’s own words suggest the jury is still out.