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WARNING: Spoilers aplenty are featured below, so stop reading if you haven't watched the most recent episodes of Game of Thrones
Midway through reading the script for Game of Thrones season 8, episode 3, Brienne actress Gwendoline Christie thought her character had died off screen. It was such an intense personal moment that she had to take a break and process what it meant for her character.
Luckily it was just a misunderstanding.
"When you read the final season of Game of Thrones you are so intensely sensitized to the fact that you might die at any second and during the episode 3 battle I thought I’d died," she said. "I thought, “Well, just breathe. if that’s the case, then that’s what it is, and you’ve been lucky enough to come this far, and everything that happened in the first two episodes has been marvelous.” And then I carried on and saw actually I hadn’t died. I thought, “Oh, thank God.”"
In an interview with HBO's Making Game of Thrones blog, Christie talked about how happy she was to see Brienne knighted, what it was like shooting the biggest battle scene ever on TV, and how she felt about Brienne's rocky relationship with Jaime Lannister.
In season 8 episode 2, during an intimate scene by the fireplace with a handful of main characters, Jaime realizes he has the power to knight Brienne—something she's always wanted. It's a touching scene that Christie related to on a deeper level with her experiences as a woman.
"What’s so vital is she has lived life on her own terms and without that title she has behaved entirely without vanity, and purely in the service of others. She’s been accepted by her peers," Christie said. "That’s what many of us want. For me, it was representative of the struggle women have in our world, where they’re still not given equal opportunities to men...it was a small triumph."
The relationship between Jaime and Brienne has been one of the most compelling threads in the entire series. We've seen the two warriors evolve from being bitter enemies to caring for each other on a deep and meaningful level. Even then, Christie looked at the step they took in Season 8 episode 4 as a powerful choice that Brienne didn't make easily.
"I don’t feel it was inevitable, because they’ve had a very mercurial relationship; it never seemed set on any particular terms. What I liked about it was that it is ultimately Brienne’s choice," she said. "Although Jaime [played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau] comes to her and is the one leading things, she chooses it."
We only have two episodes left of HBO's adaptation of George R.R. Martin's incredibly popular series of books, A Song of Ice and Fire. After 8 seasons of ups and downs, all nighter film shoots, and dozens of character deaths Christie couldn't be happier with Brienne's evolution.
"I was very touched and very moved by the journey they decided to take the character on," Christie said. "I felt privileged to be playing that part and to have that storyline because it felt as though they’d taken care with the character and that’s all I ever really wanted because I feel she’s such a unique character in mainstream television."
How did you respond to the many goodbyes features in the latest episode of Game of Thrones season 8? Devastatingly, right? Maybe you'll find solstice that you weren't alone with how the entire internet reacted or watch our recap below:
