LIFE & CULTURE

Emilia Clarke Reveals What Daenerys Really Thinks Of Her Incestuous Relationship With Jon Snow

It's not the answer you'd expect

During episode two of Game of Thrones season eight, Jon Snow made a nervous confession to Daenerys Targaryen that he isn’t, in fact, Ned Stark’s bastard, but the trueborn son of her brother Rhaegar Targaryen, the Prince of Dragonstone and Lyanna Stark. This makes the couple aunt and nephew. 

While viewers waited to see how Dany would react, the revelation was passed over as if nothing had happened. Instead, Dany gave a political reaction to the news; “If it were true, it would make you the last male heir of House Targaryen. You’d have a claim to the Iron Throne.”

Emilia Clarke has now revealed what Daenerys really thought of the incestuous relationship. 

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“The related thing, to her, is so normal,” Clarke explained to Entertainment Weekly. “She could have easily married her brother. It’s not a thing. It’s a thing for Jon, but let’s just forget about that. The main thing is we’re up for the same promotion and I’ve been working for it for my entire existence.”

In the original George R.R. Martin books, Daenerys always expected she’d marry her older brother Viserys to keep the Targaryen bloodline pure. 

“This is my whole existence,” Clarke continued. “Since birth! Dany literally was brought into this world going: RUN! These f-ckers [in Westeros] have f-cked everything up. Now it’s, ‘You’re our only hope.’ There’s so much she’s taken on in her duty in life to rectify. There’s so much she’s seen and witnessed and been through and lost and suffered and hurt to get here…and Jon doesn’t even want it!”

While Daenerys might not care about the incestuous nature of their relationship, Jon Snow does. 

Episode writer Bryan Cogman explained, “What really upsets Jon is that he’s a blood relative to the woman he’s in love with. Jon is taken aback when essentially the first thing she says is acknowledging that he has a claim to the Iron Throne.”

Cogman adds, “Kit and Emilia play it beautifully. It’s a very difficult scene to pull off; so much has to go on behind the eyes.”

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