For one, Benioff says Daenerys has had a troubling reaction to death since the first season.
“There is something chilling about the way Dany has responded to the death of her enemies,” Benioff said. “Even when you look back to season one when Khal Drogo (Jason Momoa) gives the golden crown to Viserys (Harry Lloyd), and her reaction of watching her brother’s head melted off. He was a terrible brother, so I don’t think anyone was crying when Viserys died, but…”
Still, Weiss argues that Daenerys’s siege on King’s Landing was caused by a sort of perfect storm of emotions.
“I don’t think she decided ahead of time that she was going to do what she did,” Weiss said of her burning the entire city down. “Then she sees the Red Keep, which is to her the home that her family built when they first came over to this country 300 years ago. It’s in this moment on the walls of King’s Landing where she’s looking at that symbol of everything that was taken from her, when she makes the decision to make this personal.”
Makes sense, right? But seeing the Red Keep wasn’t the only thing that set Daenerys off.
Weiss went on to explain, “If circumstances had been different, I don’t think this side of Dany ever would have come out. If Cersei (Lena Headey) hadn’t betrayed her [in regards to the White Walkers], if Cersei hadn’t executed Missandei (Nathalie Emmanuel), if Jon (Kit Harington) hadn’t told her the truth…if any of these things happened in a different way, then I don’t think we’d be seeing this side of Daenerys Targaryen.”
We wish we hadn’t seen it at all. Now we’re almost scared to see what happens when the Game of Thrones series finale airs Sunday, May 19, at 9 p.m. PT/ET on HBO…
