How exactly does Emilia Clarke relate to the character she played on Game of Thrones? As a reminder, Emilia played Daenerys Targaryen, also known as Khaleesi, also known as the mother of dragons.

Emilia‘s career has never been the same since then because people will always have an endless amount of respect for her, based on the believability she brought to such an critical role.

If you curious to know how connected she feels to the character, we’ve got your answer.

Emilia Clarke feels extremely connected to Daenerys Targaryen.

Emilia feels so close to Daenerys, in fact, that she still defends the flaws and potential tyrannical outcomes that could have happened if Daenerys had stayed alive.

According to Game Rant, Emilia said, “I still think Daenerys did nothing wrong. I’m on her side. It’s not fair that he [Jon] gets to live.”

On an even deeper level, it turns out that playing this role was also life-saving for Emilia.

She was struggling with brain aneurysms in 2019 while filming the show, but she says she was able to overcome the life-threatening issues by practicing Dothraki, which was a language she needed to learn for the role.

On an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, she said, “The easy way of describing it is that it’s the worst headache that a human could possibly manage to experience. It was pretty intense. I genuinely knew I was being brain damaged. I don’t know how. [I] moved my fingers, toes, my hands, asked myself questions, Dothraki lines. [I was] really trying to force my memory to stay conscious.”

We now know that Emilia was hoping for a much different ending for her character. She definitely didn’t want to see Daenerys turn evil or get slaughtered by Jon Snow in the final season.

Emilia‘s thoughts on Daenerys’ death are not rare or uncommon.

Plenty of Game of Thrones fans can agree that they were hoping to see her character break the wheel and come out on top in the end.

Since her character was built up to be the ultimate success story, seeing the dark turn the showrunners took with her on Game of Thrones was shocking and heartbreaking to plenty of people, including Emilia herself!

Her connection to the character makes all the sense in the world since she played Daenerys Targaryen for eight seasons between 2011 and 2019.

73 episodes of the show aired between that time with fans tuning in to find out what was about to happen next.

Emilia gave every episode her heart and soul!

Emilia was just as devastated as of viewers when she learned what Daenerys fate would be. How do you feel about her connection to the role? How do you feel about the way she relates to Daenerys? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.