When Game of Thrones fans saw a major arc to Brienne of Tarth’s character during the last couple of episodes of Season 8, which aired on HBO earlier this year, fans expected that actress Gwendolyne Christie would see an award nomination out of it. The sci-fi fantasy series ended this year after a decade on-air. Since finishing, the show has been nominated for a record-breaking 32 Primetime Emmy Awards, but one of those nominations came because Christie herself sent in the paperwork to be nominated for her role in the series.
Game of Thrones Breaks Records with Emmy Nominations
The show, despite having an ending that divided fans everywhere, has been nominated for a record breaking 32 Primetime Emmy Awards for a single season. Among some of the awards that the show has been nominated for are Outstanding Drama Series, as well as a handful of awards for its acting, visual effects, stunt coordination, costumes, makeup, writing, sound, cinematography, and even best opening title.
During its nearly ten-year tenure on HBO, the show has earned dozens of awards ranging from the Primetime Emmy Awards to the Screen Actors Guild Awards and even the Scream Awards. Game of Thrones has earned a total of 260 awards out of 747 nominations since it first aired in April of 2011. The show, which is an adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s “Song of Ice and Fire” book series, is one of the most popular and successful series franchises of all time.
The show itself submitted Lena Headey, Sophie Turner, and Maisie Williams for the award for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. The actresses played Cersei Lannister, Sansa Stark, and Arya Stark, respectively, and each played major roles in the outcome of the series as it came to an end. Gwendolyne Christie, who played Brienne of Tarth, had arguably one of the bigger roles in Season 8 as her character’s story came to a close in a major way.
Brienne of Tarth’s Season 8 Arc Showed Major Character Development
Though Brienne of Tarth was largely a secondary character throughout the show, playing an ambitious woman that wants so badly to be a knight instead of a high born lady that she pledges to protect the women of the Stark family for the entirety of her life. In Season 8, however, Brienne sees an entirely new arc when she gets knighted by Jamie Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), who she’d been in love with since the beginning of the show when he saved her life while the two of them were on their way to King’s Landing together.
After sleeping with Jamie, he realizes that his love for his sister, Queen Cersei (Headey), is stronger than his fondness for Brienne, and he leaves Brienne in tears as he heads for King’s Landing to save Cersei from Queen Daenerys (Emilia Clarke). The internet expressed divided opinions over the fact that Brienne was left to cry over a man by the end of the show, but that doesn’t take away from the complexity of Christie’s performance during that scene.
