Game of Thrones is imminent, and the spoilers are starting to pour in.
Today’s tidbit of info comes from Emilia Clarke, who plays the fiery (get it) Daenerys Targaryen. Dany is close to the throne now, and there are only a few obstacles left to tackle.
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As Emilia puts it, those obstacles don’t give her the best welcome Winterfell has ever seen.
When last we met:
Dany and Jon Snow were headed for Winterfell.
Well, winter hath come, and it’s time for Daenerys to meet some new faces — that of Jon’s sisters, Sansa and Arya.
But they’re not just arriving as allies.
Because they’re, uh, hooking up.
In season 7, Daenerys and Jon changed the nature of their relationship.
There’s a classic storytelling trope called “enemies to friends to lovers.” I’d say Dany and Jon fit that, don’t you?
But wait! There’s more.
Or would “family to friends to lovers” fit them more appropriately?
Because wouldn’t you know it, but Daenerys and Jon are actually Aunt and Nephew. They don’t know it, but it’s still a thing!
Yikes.
So her meeting his sisters is going to be a little more awkward than we thought.
Imagine your step-brother coming home and introducing you to his new girlfriend: his aunt!
While Dany and Jon don’t know they’re related, Samwell and Bran do, and they’re about to spill the tea.
Sansa and Arya are in for a ride.
Who knows how long everyone will be in the dark, but the sheer hilarity of the two sisters one day discovering that Jon is dating his aunt is irresistible.
Knowing this show, though, it’ll probably be a revelation that will cost someone their life. Oof.
While we don’t know how Westeros will react…
We do know that Dany’s arrival in Winterfell has Dany on the back foot.
Emilia Clarke told Entertainment Weekly that meeting Sansa and Arya is something akin to a rom-com. Or as close as Game of Thrones gets, anyway.
Meet the Starks.
“I like to think that it’s like Meet the Parents, ” she said.
It’s Sansa and Arya, so the odds of them liking her were always going to be a little slim.
She needs the Starks for her plan.
Emilia laid out Dany’s way of thinking about needing the sisters to like her:
“It’s like: ‘I hope they like me. This dude’s wicked. It’s a real good thing we got going on. He’s the final piece.
We’re destined for greatness and world domination is a breath away.’”
But she may have miscalculated how she’d go about that.
“And so I need to be like: ‘Can I braid your hair, Sansa? Little Arya, come over here, let’s play some cricket.’”
In fairness to Dany, she’s probably going off of assumptions Jon made about his sisters from years before they were battle-hardened.
Dany definitely didn’t see these two coming.
Emilia said that their reaction to that instinct was appropriately frosty.
“So there’s that. And then, very, very quickly, it’s like: ‘Wait, is it just me, or do they hate me?'”
Looks like Dany is going to have to work harder to make that alliance strong
Luckily, she has some experience under her belt.
Emilia also spoke about how she plays this more evolved Daenerys.
“The thing I now realize is she’s not a scared little girl anymore.”
I’m gonna say that’s an understatement.
The gentler parts of Daenerys are less prominent.
She continued: “So there’s less room for vulnerability or sentimentality or soft edges.”
This will probably be to her advantage with Sansa and Arya. They both respect a strong leader more than they do someone who can braid their hair.
Fans have some theories about Dany (and Jon)
Some fans seem convinced that Dany will become a Mad Queen, since her father was known as the Mad King.
If that does happen, it will put Jon in an incredibly difficult spot.
And some have got j o k e s
After all, sometimes half the fun of watching a show is seeing the memes people come up with on the internet.
And if you haven’t watched a show like that before…you gotta get on it.
One more for the road
They should just air this tweet in the place of the scene, because it lowkey/highkey sums the whole thing right up.
I don’t know who’s going to end up on the throne, but I do know the internet will provide great material about it for years to come.
