People are generally disgruntled about the way Game of Thrones wrapped up the ending of all the characters, which seems suspiciously like complaining for the sake of complaining. If all character arcs ended the way we expected them to end, we would complain the show’s ending was boring and predictable.
But instead we resent the moments – and the confrontations – that we wanted but never saw. Specifically, Arya Stark crossing her #1 name of her hit list and finally killing Queen Cersei Lannister.
Arya’s desire to seek revenge on Cersei Lannister seemed to drive her forward through the entire Game of Thrones series, so understandably, Maisie Williams was surprised that it never came to that.
When asked by Entertainment Weekly about her biggest regret for her character, Williams pointed to the missed opportunity of that final confrontation with Cersei, and a final scene with co-star Lena Headey.
“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.”
It’s true that it would have been more satisfying to see Arya use her faces again, as that skill went criminally unused in the final season. Though Game of Thrones has always made a point of surprising its audience, and giving Cersei a sympathetic final scene and Arya a change of heart is much more in the tradition of the show that won our hearts.
Breaking out from what is predictable to give us something fresh is something that Maisie Williams eventually appreciated, as could we if we approach the final season with an open mind.
“The Hound says, ‘You want to be like me? You want to live your life like me?’” Williams said. “In my head, the answer was: ‘Yeah.’ But I guess sleeping with Gendry, seeing Jon again, realizing she’s not just fighting for herself anymore but also her family — it’s bringing up all these human emotions that Arya hasn’t felt for a long time.
‘When The Hound asks her if she has another option, all of a sudden there are so many more things in [Arya’s] life that she can live for, that she can do. It was a shock for me because that wasn’t how I envisioned her arc going this year. Then I realized there were other things I could play, bringing Arya back to being a 16-year-old again.”
“It’s not a Game of Thrones ending for Arya, it’s a happy ending,” she concludes. “It gave me a place to take Arya that I never thought I’d go with her again.”
Although the twist from the expected was a great ending for both Cersei and Arya, both actors did grapple with that reality when first learning of their endings.
Lena Headey told EW that she also hoped to have a scene with Maisie Williams in the final season.
“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.”
So, ‘regret’ might be the wrong word to use, because the reality is that neither actor regrets the way their Game of Thrones stories ended. And though we were looking forward to Arya Stark killing the queen, her realisation of her own humanity and will to live is a lot more interesting as far as endings go.