Game of Thrones clearly had no idea what to do with Cersei (Lena Headey) in its final season. It seemed to believe that they had taken her character as far as they could, and then she just kind of dies without any kind of escape plan or final petty move. Even more surprising is that there was no final confrontation between Cersei and Arya (Maisie Williams) even though Arya had been planning to kill Cersei since the end of Season 1. Fans expected some kind of confrontation, but instead The Hound talked Arya out of revenge and Cersei was crushed by rubble. The end.

Speaking to EW, both Williams and Headey voiced some frustration with the lack of resolution between the two characters. Said Williams:

“I just wanted to be on set with Lena again, she’s good fun,” Williams explained. “And I wanted Arya to kill Cersei even if it means [Arya] dies too. Even up to the point when Cersei’s with Jaime I thought [while reading the script], ‘He’s going to whip off his face [and reveal its Arya]’ and they’re both going to die. I thought that’s what Arya’s drive has been.”

She’s not wrong! Yes, you can argue that her interactions with her family have brought back her humanity, but has she really just been one pep talk away from giving up on her goal? And for a show that used to be all about consequences, it turned out there weren’t really any consequences for either character.

Headey also wishes there had been a final scene between Cersei and Arya:

“I lived that fantasy until I read the script,” Headey said. “There were chunky scenes and it was nothing that I had dreamt about. It was a bit of come down and you have to accept that it wasn’t to be. There is something poetic about the way it all happens in the end with her and Jaime.”

It’s kind of shocking that both Cersei and Arya were these two major characters throughout the entire run of Game of Thrones, and their stories kind of end with a whimper. Yes, it’s cool that Arya gets to kill the Night King, but that’s not a resolution. I suppose it’s fitting that Cersei dies with Jaime, but again, it’s not much of a resolution to the character’s arc. But anticlimax was pretty much the name of the game in Game of Thrones’ final season.

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