Game of Thrones' Lena Headey and Maisie Williams Dreamed About an Arya/Cersei Showdown

Summary:

• In Season 8 of Game of Thrones, many characters had incoherent endings.
• Arya Stark never got to kill Queen Cersei which was her goal for years.
• Lena Headey and Maisie Williams wanted to have a proper showdown between their characters.

One of the best features of Game of Thrones was its abundance of compelling and lifelike characters. Almost all of them were morally ambiguous or gray, making this story more complex and devoid of obvious “good guys” and “bad guys.” Most Game of Thrones characters had fantastic depth to them that appealed to viewers.

Unfortunately, after several outstanding seasons, Game of Thrones wrapped up with an incredibly incoherent and unsatisfying finale. To this day, fans can’t forgive the showrunners for treating their show this way, and many actors, too, were extremely frustrated with the way their characters’ stories ended. Season 8 was…something.

Why Does Everyone Hate Game of Thrones’ Season 8?

For viewers, the finale of Game of Thrones was a massive disappointment. The show that used to have unmatched complexity and depth reduced its storylines by cutting most of them off and giving random and questionable conclusions to others; characters who used to be smart made awfully stupid decisions by the end; etc.

Even the biggest plotlines of the entire show, including the Long Night, were destroyed. The Night King, the terrifying otherworldly leader of the undead army, was killed off in a mere second by a girl with a knife. The war between Queen Cersei and Queen Daenerys ended in a genocidal massacre instead of a proper battle.

Most Game of Thrones actors, too, were pretty vocal about their dissatisfaction with the show’s finale. While they all chose to be pretty diplomatic about it, they shared that they saw completely different endings for their characters and couldn’t believe the trajectory Game of Thrones went in Season 8 that mistreated many characters.

What Did Lena Headey and Maisie Williams Have in Mind?

Like the majority of their co-stars, Lena Headey (Cersei Lannister) and Maisie Williams (Arya Stark) wanted a completely different finale for their characters. Arya famously wanted to kill Queen Cersei and even learned the art of an assassin to fulfill her dream of murdering the tyrant; however, she never got to do that.

In Season 8, Cersei Lannister died under the debris of the Red Keep while embracing her brother and lover Jaime. While a tragic and even poetic finale for the notorious siblings (save for the fact that it butchered Jaime’s character growth), this scene deprived Arya of her primary motivation of the past years: vengeance.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Lena Headey revealed that both she and Maisie Williams dreamed of a proper showdown between Arya and Cersei.

“I think all of us [had different ideas], to be honest, because you start trying to write the story yourself. And [Maisie] and I would fantasize about a Cersei and Arya showdown; that she would come back as Jaime. That was our dream. But [the showrunners] made different choices,” the actress shared.

Would This Have Been the Better Ending?

While not an “objective truth,” most people considered the finale where Arya kills Cersei a better idea. Fans were convinced that Arya would confront the tyrant Queen at some point seeing how she was a trained assassin with revenge in mind for many years, and even the actresses themselves considered this ending to be perfect.

However, there’s one issue with Headey and Williams’s version of the finale: if Arya were to visit Cersei as Jaime, she would’ve had to kill the real Jaime first. At that point, Jaime had redeemed himself and proved a valuable and honorable ally, so we don’t see Arya gutting him for no reason other than wanting to take his face.

But it’s not like many characters behaved logically in the last season, right?

Source: The Hollywood Reporter