Game of Thrones fans were shocked when Daenerys turned into the Mad Queen and killed thousands of innocent citizens for no apparent reason.
In the HBO show’s penultimate episode, Daenerys looked completely different than ever before and appeared to have a recklessness never before seen.
Ultimately, her actions were too much and she was killed by lover Jon Snow (played by Kit Harington) who finally saw her for what she really was.
Some fans found it hard to believe she would transform into this monster in such a short space of time, but her mental state has now been explained.
Director of episode five Miguel Sapochnik has explained why she descends into this state and what she has become in an interview with IndieWire.
He indicates how she’s not even human at this point: “She’s not questioning herself anymore, which is the difference between somebody who, I think, has kind of lost their mind.
“That’s part of what makes us human, is we question whether we’ve made the right decisions or not.”
He added that after Missandei (Nathalie Emmanuel) is killed by Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey): “We said, ‘You’ve never been like this.’ It was this idea of us trying to piece her back together, but something’s broken.”
Miguel also revealed he deliberately did not show Daenerys when she began to kill the thousands of citizens from her dragon.
She had agreed to cease attacking if the bells of the city began ringing representing surrender by Cersei, but when it came she decided to go against the plan and burn the city to the ground.
He explains why he chose to not show fans Daenerys at this point: “At that point, you don’t need to see her. We decided not to cut back to her. When she makes that decision, she and the dragon become one.
“The destruction of King’s Landing, for me, has always been an audience participation event. You wanted this, you wanted this, you wanted this. Here. Is that really what you wanted?
“I felt like there was this thing of this bloodthirstiness that exists in the fans, for revenge, for this payback that is personified by Dany. I just wanted to get to the core of what that actually means.”
The director has also previously revealed the Battle of Winterfell could’ve looked very different.
If the decision was solely his, the battle would have been a bloodbath and been so much more shocking he revealed in an interview with IndieWire.
He said: “I wanted to kill everyone. I wanted to kill Jorah in the horse charge at the beginning. I was up for killing absolutely everyone.
“I wanted it to be ruthless, so that in the first 10 minutes you say, ‘All bets are off; anyone could die.’ And David [Benioff] and Dan [Weiss] didn’t want to. There was a lot of back-and-forth on that.”
Meanwhile, it appears Jon’s fate was sealed right from the start.
In a book one clue, Jon foreshadows what is to come in season eight when he discovers he’s the rightful heir to the throne.
He tells Daenerys he doesn’t want it and he ends up not getting it and instead being sent back to the Night’s Watch.
Game of Thrones is available on digital download now.