Game of Thrones: Emilia Clarke Blames Battle of Winterfell for Dany's Decline

Over the course of eight seasons, audiences witnessed Daenerys Targaryan become more and more ruthless in Game of Thrones, with actress Emilia Clarke pointing out that one of the defining moments of her actions in the final season was the Battle of Winterfell. While the character grew more powerful as seasons went by, she often resorted to utilizing her armies to carry out her many schemes, in addition to her dragons, but the actress claims that by finally entering the fray and hitting the frontlines of the battle against the Night King, a bloodlust ignited inside her character that needed to be satiated by any means necessary in the series' final episodes.

"In the actual battle itself, Dany's impatient to get in there. She's like, gunning for a fight," Clarke shares on the Game of Thrones' home video release, per The Sun. "She's ready to take this guy down. She's a fierce warrior, although you don't see a lot of hand-to-hand combat with her, she's ready to fight to the death."

She added, "Especially at this point, there's a lot of anger – she's got all of that in her to put into this fight. It's not just the matter at hand, but I think because of everything at an emotional level that's gone on, she's able to go into her cold-blooded side."

In the penultimate episode of the series, Daenerys razes King's Landing, killing innocent women and children in the process, leaving even her army stunned at the devastation she is causing. It was this brutal mentality that ultimately led to Jon Snow killing her, despite actor Kit Harington confirming his character didn't engage in what would be their final conversation with the mindset that he was going to murder her.

"He doesn't know he's going to betray her until right at the end," Harington revealed in the final season's home video release. "In Jon's head, it's a number of [reasons: Dany] doesn't factor in anyone else's decisions and it also means [Dany] is going to kill my sisters, so it becomes [my] family vs. her."

Despite Game of Thrones having concluded, the adventures of Westeros are far from over, as HBO is developing a number of spinoff series. The network has confirmed that it was moving forward with the series House of the Dragon, which explores the members of Daenerys' family and their experiences hundreds of years before the events of Game of Thrones.

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