Spoiler warning: major spoilers for the Game of Thrones finale ahead.

Daenerys actress Emilia Clarke and Jon Snow actor Kit Harington have reacted to Daenerys’ descent into madness, and her death at the hands of Jon.

In an interview with EW, Clarke revealed that, upon reading the final season’s script, she cried and went for a walk. "I walked out of the house and took my keys and phone and walked back with blisters on my feet. I didn’t come back for five hours. I’m like, ‘How am I going to do this?’” Of Daenerys’ decision to torch King’s Landing, she said she "Absolutely never saw that coming.”

"She genuinely starts with the best intentions and truly hopes there isn’t going to be something scuttling her greatest plans,” said Clarke. "The problem is [the Starks] don’t like her and she sees it... Suddenly these people are turning around and saying, ‘We don’t accept you.’

"But she’s too far down the line. She’s killed so many people already. I can’t turn this ship around. It’s too much. One by one, you see all these strings being cut. And there’s just this last thread she’s holding onto: There’s this boy. And she thinks, ‘He loves me, and I think that’s enough.’ But is it enough? Is it? And it’s just that hope and wishing that finally there is someone who accepts her for everything she is and... he f**king doesn’t.

“It was a f**king struggle reading the scripts... [but] An actor should never be afraid to look ugly. We have uglier sides to ourselves. And after 10 years of working on this show, it’s logical. Where else can she go? I tried to think what the ending will be. It’s not like she’s suddenly going to go, ‘Okay, I’m gonna put a kettle on and put cookies in the oven and we’ll just sit down and have a lovely time and pop a few kids out.’ That was never going to happen. She’s a Targaryen.”

Ultimately, Clarke looked back at Daenerys’ journey throughout the show, saying "It’s a very beautiful and touching ending. Hopefully, what you’ll see in that last moment as she’s dying is: There’s the vulnerability — there’s the little girl you met in Season 1. See? She’s right there. And now, she’s not there anymore... But having said all of the things I’ve just said... I stand by Daenerys. I stand by her! I can’t not.”

Harington also gave his thoughts on Jon killing Daenerys following her downward spiral, saying "I think it’s going to divide [fans]. But if you track her story all the way back, she does some terrible things. She crucifies people. She burns people alive. This has been building. So, we have to say to the audience: ‘You’re in denial about this woman as well. You knew something was wrong. You’re culpable, you cheered her on.’”

As for Jon, Harington said “This is the second woman he’s fallen in love with who dies in his arms and he cradles her in the same way. That’s an awful thing. In some ways, Jon did the same thing to Ygritte by training the boy who kills her. This destroys Jon to do this.”

For more on the series finale of Game of Thrones, read about its most meta moment, check out where Drogon may have flown off to, and who the surviving heads of the great houses are. You can also participate in our polls, telling us what you thought of the series finale.

In our 'The Iron Throne' review, we called the episode “Good” saying "A bittersweet if underwhelming climax to a show that's been a true cultural obsession."

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Colin Stevens is a news writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.