TYRION LANNISTER: There's
something you need to know.
DAENERYS TARGARYEN:
Someone has betrayed me.
Varys.
He knows the truth about Jon?
He does.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
DAVID BENIOFF: Dany
is an incredibly strong person.
She's also someone who has had
really close friendships
 and close advisors for her
 entire run of the show.
 You look at those people
 who have been closest to her
for such a long time,
and almost all of them
have either turned on her
or died,
and she's very much alone.
 And that's a dangerous thing
 for someone
 who's got so much power,
 to feel that isolated.
 So at the very time
 when she needs guidance
and those kind of close
friendships and advice the most,
everyone's gone.
(DISTANT FOOTSTEPS
APPROACHING)
I think that Varys knew
that it was unlikely
that he would survive
the attempt
 to overthrow Dany
 in favor of Jon.
 And he also knew that he
 ethically, in his mind,
had no choice but to...
try to do that anyway.
It was me.
(SIGHS)
Goodbye, old friend.
D.B. WEISS: I think that Tyrion
 is saying goodbye
to his best friend in the world
outside of his brother.
 Dracarys.
(DROGON ROARS)
WEISS: And the amount of guilt
 that he feels over being
the cause for his best friend's
imminent death,
it's hard to really
get your head around.
I don't have love here.
I only have fear.
You will always be my queen.
BENIOFF: Jon Snow is someone
that she's fallen in love with.
And as far as she's concerned,
by this point,
Jon has betrayed her by telling
people about his true identity,
 and also the fact he's unable
 to return her affections
 at this point.
All right then.
Let it be fear.
I think that when she says,
"Let it be fear,"
she's resigning herself
to the fact that
she may have to
 get things done in a way
 that isn't pleasant.
 And she may have to get things
 done in a way that is horrible
 for lots of people.
Mercy is our strength.
Our mercy towards
future generations,
he will never again be held
hostage by a tyrant.
BENIOFF:
 She chose violence.
A Targaryen choosing violence
is a pretty terrifying thing.
(CROWD PANICKING)
(DROGON ROARS)
BENIOFF: Even when you look back
 to season one,
 when Khal Drogo gives
 the golden crown to Viserys,
 and her reaction of watching
her brother's head melted off...
He was no dragon.
BENIOFF: ...and he was
 a terrible brother, you know,
so I don't think anyone
out there was--
was crying when Viserys died,
but...
there is something kind of
chilling about the way
that Dany has responded
to the death of her enemies.
 And if circumstances
 had been different,
I don't think this side of Dany
 ever would've come out.
 If Cersei hadn't betrayed her,
 if Cersei hadn't executed
 Missandei,
 if Jon hadn't told her
 the truth.
Like, if all of these things had
happened in any different way,
then I don't think
we'd be seeing this side of
Daenerys Targaryen.
I don't think she decided
ahead of time
that she was...
going to do what she did.
And then she sees the Red Keep,
 which is, to her,
 the home that her family built
 when they first came over
 to this country 300 years ago.
It's in that moment,
on the walls of King's Landing,
where she's looking
at that symbol
of everything that was taken
from her,
when she makes the decision to--
to make this personal.
(DROGON ROARS)
(PANICKED SCREAMS)
(PEOPLE SCREAMING)
WEISS: We wanted her to be
 just death from above,
 as seen from the perspective
 of the people
 who are on the business end
 of that dragon.
In most large stories like this,
it seems like there's a tendency
to focus on the heroic figures
and not pay much attention
to the people who may be
 suffering the repercussions
 of the decisions made
by those heroic people,
and we--
we really wanted to keep
our perspective and our--
our sympathies on the ground
at this moment
'cause those are the people
who are really paying the price
for the decisions
that she's making.
-(CROWD CLAMORING)
-(GREY WORM GRUNTS)
-(JON SNOW PANTING)
-(SOLDIERS YELLING)
WEISS:  I think that Jon is also
 in a kind of denial.
 At first, the siege is a war,
 soldiers killing soldiers.
That's what war is.
I think Jon is someone who's
always been a very good soldier,
 who has never enjoyed
 being a soldier.
 He's been trained as a fighter
 from the time
 he was a little boy,
 and he's quite good at it,
 he's quite good at leading men
 into battle,
 and he also hates it.
I think, for him,
it all starts out
seeming like
it's gonna work out,
and then it turns into
a nightmare.
WEISS: When she takes off
 and starts burning the city,
the Unsullied on the ground
and the Northmen on the ground,
 take that as their cue
-that it's a moral free-for-all.
-(WOMAN SCREAMS)
The good guys are behaving
like the bad guys,
 and the bad guys in this shot
 are the ones who are doing
 all of these horrific things
around him, who are his own men.
The moral lines that he's drawn,
for himself, in his own life,
can't be maintained for everyone
in all situations.
Go home, girl.
BENIOFF:  It's a small scene,
 but it's also, for us,
one of the most important scenes
in the whole episode because
it's the culmination
of their story together.
And you'll be dead too
if you don't get out of here.
I'm going to kill her.
BENIOFF: The road to vengeance
 always ends in one place.
Which is what the Hound
is saying to her here.
"I've made my choice
a long time ago,
and this can only end
in one possible way for me.
 But for you,
you have so many other options."
Look at me!
You want to be like me?
BENIOFF:
 The Hound has genuinely come
 to have affection for Arya.
 I think he loves her
as much as he's capable
of loving someone.
And he knows that if she comes
with him at this point,
she's not gonna make it
out of there.
Sandor...
Thank you.
SANDER "THE HOUND: CLEGANE:
 Hello, big brother.
(DEBRIS FALLING)
BENIOFF: We've always wanted
to see these two face off again,
 and they finally did.
It struck us that it would be
kind of
apocalyptically beautiful
to see them fighting
on this stairway to nowhere,
 with the sky in the background
 and the dragon flying by
 and the flames everywhere.
We knew that these two
were going to die together,
 at each other's hands,
 and we knew the Hound's death
 had to be a death by fire.
 So the one thing stronger
 in the Hound
 than his fear of fire
 is his hatred of the person
 who put that fear there
 in the first place.
(YELLS AND SCREAMS ECHOING)
(ARYA GASPS)
WEISS: Feels like you needed
 a perspective
to carry you through
this horror.
Like you need a Virgil
to take you through the hell
that Dany's building.
BENIOFF: The reason we decided
 to follow Arya
 out of King's Landing
 and to see
the fall of King's Landing
through her eyes is...
something that we talked about
with an earlier episode.
You just care a lot more
when you're with a character
that you care about.
 So if we saw a lot of extras
 running around on fire
 and buildings falling apart,
it might've been
visually interesting,
but it wouldn't have had
much of an emotional impact.
But when you're there
on the ground with Arya,
who's one of the people
we care the most about,
then everything takes on
that much more of an edge.
WEISS: We knew
 that the Hound would be
 convincing her to part ways
 with him
 and to not go to her death.
 And once she decides she needs
 to get out of the city,
 well, she's in--
 she's in the worst possible
 place you can be.
So she's gotta get from that
central point
all the way outside
the walls of the city.
It's the longest,
hardest journey
anybody has to make
in the entire episode.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
(CERSEI GASPS)
BENIOFF: You know,
 there's a scene,
 several years ago,
 where...
Jaime and Bronn are talking
about how they wanna go,
and Jaime's talking about
 dying in the arms
 of the woman he loves.
 And this is it.
I think he knows
that they belong together,
that they came into this world
together,
that they need to go
out of this world together.
(PANTING)
Once he goes through
the various exits,
and they're all clogged up
with rubble,
and there's no way out,
and he knows there's no way out,
he's just trying to calm down
the woman he loves
 because he knows this is it.
Look at me!
Just look at me.
-Nothing else matters.
-(WEEPING SOFTLY)
Nothing else matters.
Only us.
WEISS:  I think Jaime,
 by the end of episode five,
has come to terms
with who he really is.
And he may not be happy
with who he really is,
 but he knows he's not,
 he knows what matters to him,
 and Cersei's what matters
 to him.
-(WALLS CRUMBLING)
-(DEBRIS FALLING)
