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Game of Thrones star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau has criticised Emilia Clarke’s season one storyline.
The actor, who played Jamie Lannister in the HBO series, reflected on the way Clarke’s character Daenerys Targaryen was raped by Khal Drogo (Jason Momoa) on their wedding night, despite the scene being consensual in the books written by George R.R. Martin.
In an interview with The Times, Coster-Waldau said: “For Emilia to play that in Series One was really tough and degrading, because what that character goes through is horrific.”
Martin had also commented on the way the showrunners changed the scene, in new book Fire Cannot Kill A Dragon.
“Why did the wedding scene change from the consensual seduction scene that excited even a horse to the brutal rape of Emilia Clarke?” he says (via Winter is Coming). “We never discussed it. It made it worse, not better.”
Showrunner DB Weiss responded to Martin’s concerns saying: “[W]e just didn’t have that amount of time and access to the character’s mind. It turns too quickly.
“It was something the actors themselves felt wasn’t gelling. They weren’t able to find an emotional handhold.”
Weiss and David Benioff since have admitted that they would do some things differently on the show, speaking specifically in reference to the divisive finale.
“There definitely are things [over the course of the show] we would do differently,” Benioff said. “I don’t know if there’s anything I would want to discuss publicly.”
Weiss added: “Prince once said something about how any record you listen to that you think is terrible, somebody worked themselves to the bone to make it.
“So many people work so hard on any aspect of a thing. So when you say something critical it can sound like you’re blaming somebody else. And really the only people who are to blame are us – and I sure as hell don’t want to blame us.”
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