The parting shots of Game of Thrones season 6 saw Daenerys and her assembled armies sailing towards Westeros. At last. Surrounded by her counsel, Missandei, Tyrion, Varys, she was also joined by the newest recruit to her cause: Yara Greyjoy. We'd already been tipped off to their budding partnership, when their shared desire to take the fight to King's Landing revealed an interesting development. They flirted a bit.
Watching the pair make goo-goo eyes wasn't unexpected; Yara came out in a previous episode. But Gemma Whelan, the actress who plays the Iron Islands royal, says there wasn't much of that romantic flicker on the page. Well, how much then? "None that I can remember," she tells Vulture. "It just turned out that Emilia [Clarke] and I had some chemistry going on! It was probably intended in the script, but it didn't need writing down because it was so well-written."
"I suppose we're matching each other," she adds, "we're testing each other's mettle with our very sparse dialogue there, and we get the idea, we get the cut of each other's jib quite quickly, and we like the size of each other — what we have to say, what we both stand for, is appealing. Not necessarily in a sexual way, but in the way that power is attractive, and it's something we both want to achieve, and we can do it together."
Asked if she'd like there to be more between the two characters, Whelan replies: "Emilia and I both enjoy the idea. [Laughs.] We get along very well, so we enjoy working with each other quite a lot. So maybe! I don't know! It's up to the writers and the machinations of their minds. We like each other, we reflect each other, and whether it's more than friendship is irrelevant, really."
She's right, it is irrelevant. If the writers do choose to make the pair more than just comrades in battle, then it should really serve the plot. Especially as we've only got something like 13 hours of the show left. But hey, when has Game of Thrones ever turned down an excuse for a sex scene or a spot of nudity?
