'Game of Thrones' Ending: Emilia Clarke Says Daenerys Is in for a Surprise

If you’re worried about how Game of Thrones Season 8 is going to end for Daenerys Targaryen, then Emilia Clarke’s latest comments probably won’t ease your mind. However, fans of the HBO series also likely know not to expect a happy ending for most of the main characters, but will Daenerys survive — or even thrive! — in the final six episodes? Newly published comments have Clarke offering a sense of what’s ahead for the Mother of Dragons.

The beginning of the season will see Daenerys and Sansa Stark meet for the first time, and, at least at first, Daenerys is the one in the position of power.

“She starts feeling pretty cocksure and confident, and then stuff happens,” Clarke tells Harper’s Bazaar in a new interview.

Fans have already seen the first part of that in a clip from the final season. In one of HBO’s sizzle reels for its programming, Sansa addresses Daenerys with a loaded greeting: “Winterfell is yours, Your Grace.” She is clearly not pleased about Jon bending the knee to Daenerys.

However, that doesn’t mean circumstances can’t change, and they likely will. The “stuff” to which Clarke may be referring to could include the fact that Jon Snow, as the son of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen and not a bastard as everyone had thought, is the rightful heir to the Iron Throne.

Jon’s true identity will likely come out at some point in the final six episodes, and when it does, it won’t be easy for Daenerys.

Not only will she have to accept that she had sex with her nephew, but she’ll also be finding out she’s losing her claim to the Throne. That would be enough to shake anyone’s confidence. 

Those tracking Daenerys’ journey over the course of the final season will want to keep an eye on her clothing, which costume designer Michele Clapton made sure “reflects” what’s happening, Clarke told Harper’s Bazaar.

“Every single piece that I put on made sense for the scene that I was in, and made sense with the place that the character’s in at that time,” she said. “There’s a real through-line for this particular season, there’s a real arc and I feel like fans, like hardcore fans, will clock what’s happening within the reflection of the clothing.”

In the Season 8 trailer, we see Daenerys four times, and in three of those instances, she’s wearing white: arriving at Winterfell, joining Jon in the crypts, and approaching her dragons with Jon.

The last image we have of her in the preview shows her in red and closing her eyes. Perhaps in reflection or maybe because she’s received upsetting news? Could this be part of a turn in her confidence level in Season 8?

Whatever happens, Daenerys’ journey leads to an ending Clarke calls “the mother of all releases” in the Harper’s Bazaar interview.

“It was just the metaphorical undoing of the bra, except it’s like a 10-year experience,” she says.

Now, that may just refer to filming the series and may have nothing to do with how it ends for her character. However, what sounds like a figurative sigh of relief makes sense if you consider Clarke’s previous words about her character’s end in an interview with Vanity Fair from May 2018.

“It fucked me up,” she said then. “Knowing that is going to be a lasting flavor in someone’s mouth of what Daenerys is.”

It sounds like Daenerys may be in the best place she is all season at the very beginning, in that meeting with Sansa, and then the “stuff” that comes next means she only has one place to go: down.

Game of Thrones Season 8 premieres on Sunday, April 14 at 9 p.m. on HBO.

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