Emilia Clarke ‘walked out with blisters on her feet’ after reading Game of Thrones 8 finale: ‘It messed me up'

Some finales are unforgettable for the right reasons. Game of Thrones Season 8? Not so much. For Emilia Clarke, the ending of her decade-long journey as Daenerys Targaryen left her reeling. While promoting her new Cold War drama Ponies, Clarke spoke to The New York Times about the finale that still haunts both her and the fandom.

When she first learned that Daenerys would turn into the Mad Queen and be killed by her lover, Jon Snow, Clarke’s reaction was nothing short of apoplectic.

“What, what, what, WHAT!?” she said. “It comes out of nowhere. I’m flabbergasted. Absolutely never saw that coming. I cried. And I went for a walk. I walked out of the house and took my keys and phone and walked back with blisters on my feet. I didn’t come back for five hours. I’m like, ‘How am I going to do this?’”

She recalled 'crying to her mother'. "It really messed me up," she said, and more so, when her mother and brother asked her questions on whether 'Daenrys was a good person'.

These days, Clarke says she’s steering clear of fantasy—dragons on screen are officially off her radar… at least for now.

On the other hand, Kit Harington, who played Jon Snow in the series, revealed earlier that he was 'angered' by the viral petitions demanding a remake of Season 8. He mentioned that he was in rehab when the show’s final season premiered. Emerging from treatment, he was stunned by the wave of criticism, especially given the massive effort he and the production team had poured into it. He recalled one battle scene alone took 55 straight days to film.

Game of Thrones, based on the books by George R.R. Martin, was a fantasy series that aired from 2011 to 2019. It earned a reputation for killing off major characters, often in ways that shocked the fandom—but always as a consequence of the choices those characters made.

The show drew viewers in with its riveting storytelling and deeply layered characters, from Lena Headey’s Cersei, whose words could cut as sharply as any sword, to Peter Dinklage’s Tyrion Lannister, whose every line felt worthy of quotation. Game of Thrones thrived on moral complexity; few characters fit neatly into “good” or “evil” categories—perhaps with the exception of Ramsay Bolton, who still gives audiences chills.

So it’s little wonder the final season sparked widespread frustration. Jaime Lannister’s character arc was abruptly reversed when he returned to Cersei, only for them to die under the collapsing Red Keep, and Daenerys Targaryen suddenly turned into a full-scale conqueror. Fans argue her turn was foreshadowed from the very beginning of the series, but the pacing and execution left many feeling blindsided.