Game of Thrones had a rough ending, and most of the fanbase is still kinda mad about it. Daenerys was a central character and had a somewhat left-turn death at the hands of Jon Snow. In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter featuring the Emmy nominees of the year, Kit Harington (Jon Snow), revealed the reason behind Daenerys’s death at Jon’s hands, among other things. Read on!
Speaking of his first reaction to Jon’s ending, Kit said:
“I hadn’t read the scripts for the final season until the table read. I wanted to hear them around the table, without having read anything first. I sat on a plane next to Emilia on the way to the read-through in Belfast, and she had read them already, and se was like, “Shit, Kit. You are in for some surprises.” That piqued my interest. (Laughs.) I didn’t realize what was going to happen the whole way through until maybe half a page before Jon kills Dany. I remember my mouth dropping open and looking across Emilia at the table, who was slowly nodding as I went, “No, no, no!” It was a “holy fuck” moment, pardon my language. Jaw dropping. I was completely surprised by it, even though you can kind of see the path through the season of how it was getting there — and even the previous couple of seasons before that, once you can look back. But it was still a big shock to me.”
Discussing the filming of the actual scene where Jon kills Daenerys, Kit said:
“We felt a sense of responsibility over it. We shot the hell out of it. It was essentially a page and a half of dialogue, and we spent three weeks filming it. They wanted to shoot every conceivable angle, every way, to make sure they got it the way they wanted it. When you’re shooting the same scene for two weeks and it’s a page and a half, it becomes a long exercise in concentration. You have to remember the energy you’re bringing in, every day, and making sure it’s consistent. With a highly emotionally charged scene like that, it’s quite a lot, for everyone — the crew, me and Emilia. It was tiring. It’s one of the hardest things we filmed.”
He then talked about his process, and that of Jon’s, and why he decided to kill Daenerys:
“It’s that horrible conflict in a relationship: “Do I stay or do I go?” We’ve all been through it at some point … except this one involves a knife. (Laughs.) So, the stakes are even higher. But that’s the way I looked at it: “Do I leave my lover?” It was the same kind of thing between Jon and Ygritte [Rose Leslie] earlier in the series, betraying someone he loves for the greater good. But what it really comes down to, the real crux of it, is the decision is made when she puts it between her and his family. Jon essentially sees it as Daenerys or Sansa and Arya, and that makes his mind up for him. He choose blood over, well, his other blood. But he chooses the people he has grown up with, the people his roots are with, the North. That’s where his loyalties lie in the end. That’s when he puts the knife in.”
Well, that does make sense given how Jon has been throughout the show. What do you guys think? Talk to us in the comments, down below!
