While more definitive judgments on HBO’s Game of Thrones will likely be left to posterity, it has been long enough for Clarke—now free from the show’s publicity process—to offer her feelings about the finale in a recent interview for Sunday’s edition of U.K. paper The Times, brandishing the candor befitting of the Mother of Dragons… at least before she suddenly turned into a genocidal despot and sudden scourge of the Seven Kingdoms who had to be put down by Kit Harington’s Jon Snow. As she laments: As she further explains on initially keeping those opinions to herself: It’s a rather abrupt divergence from her contemporaneous comments, in which she defended the story direction, pointing to the idea that it was consistent with the more harsh forms of vengeance Daenerys delivered upon her enemies; acts that range from crucifixion, burning them alive to imprisoning them in a dark sealed room for eternity. Yet, despite the harshness of her actions, there was at least some sense of just deserts being delivered, at least when viewed through the show’s quasi-medieval lens. Another major point of contention held by detractors of Game of Thrones’ final frame was its rushed nature, which was directly attributed to its abbreviated six-episode format. With much of the episodic sextet devoted to necessary climactic battles, critical context—and in some instances, crucial dialogue—took a backseat to spectacle, resulting in some of the head-scratching character turns like Daenerys’s razing of the kingdom she once sought to rule with beneficence. As she points out: Of course, Clarke isn’t completely throwing shade on the series platform that elevated her from unknown to A-list status, maintaining that Game of Thrones was “a gift” for her as an actress, something for which she will always be grateful. Yet, the often-controversial endings to the more closely analyzed genre TV shows in history (paging Lost fans,) tend to undergo fluctuations when it comes to how they are viewed. Thus, it’s possible (emphasis on “possible,”) that Clarke’s own feelings on Daenerys’s dark side turn may evolve over the following years.
