Curtain Call: Nell Tiger Free

When we first met Myrcella Baratheon, she was a bright, bubbly young girl played by Aimee Richardson. She didn’t have a big presence on the show—even the scene where she was shipped off to Dorne in Season 2 was more about Cersei’s reaction than it was about what Myrcella was going through—but what we saw, we liked. With her blonde hair, Myrcella resembled her mother physically, but she didn’t seem to have inherited any of her bitterness and cruelty. Plus, she liked Tyrion, always a sign of someone you can trust.

After sitting the show out for a couple of seasons, Myrcella showed up again in Season 5, after the producers decided to dive into the plots going down in Dorne. For her return, the part was recast with Nell Tiger Free, a young actress whose most prominent role prior to Game of Thrones was as Chloe Crumb, the lead role in the BBC TV movie Mr. Stink. It’s unclear why the producers decided not use Richardson again, but at least the actress took the snub in stride.

Starting with Free’s first appearance in “The House of Black and White,” we could tell that this Myrcella would be a different kind of character than usually appeared on Game of Thrones. Decked out in a puffy pink dress straight out of an animated Disney movie, she sauntered through Dorne’s bucolic Water Gardens and whispered sweet nothings to Prince Trystane Martell, her betrothed. By this point in its run, Game of Thrones had developed a reputation for upending romantic notions about the Middle Ages, revealing the noble knights to be opportunistic killers and the kindly monarchs to be conniving survivors. And yet, here was a pretty young princess in love with a correspondingly handsome young prince. It was almost as if the producers were poking fun at their own indulgence in blood and brutality by including this chaste ideal of royal courtship.

That narrative continued through the middle of the season, as Ellaria Sand and the Sand Snakes tried to kidnap Myrcella in an effort to start a war with the Crown. Yes, she was put in danger, but she came out unscathed, and what Disney princess hasn’t had to experience a little hardship during the course of her journey? Through all of this, Nell Tiger Free provided the perfect picture of demure princesshood, an innocent caught in the crossfire of a conflict that probably didn’t seem entirely real to her.

Certainly, she didn’t expect her life to end in the violent way that it did. As much as Myrcella seemed plucked from another, kinder series, she still lived in Westeros, a brutal place if there ever was one. In the end, Ellaria dosed Myrcella with a slow-acting poison, hoping to kill the princess and get her war. Myrcella died on her way back to King’s Landing during the Season 5 finale, an especially cruel twist of the knife in an episode full of bleak moments. It was yet another reminder that her kind of innocence has no place on this show, at least not while these wars continue.

While Myrcella may be gone, Nell Tiger Free will hopefully continue to ply her trade on the big and small screen. We wish her the best.

• Published on 06/20/2015 at 4:55 PM CDT
• Last updated on 06/22/2015 at 5:39 PM CDT