In Game of Thrones, Cersei Lannister and Daenerys Targaryen hated each other to death, without ever having been in the same room – full of people – for just a few minutes. But on screen, in another franchise and another time, the two gave the face to another complex heroine: Sarah Connor, from The Terminator. That’s right, actresses Lena Headey and Emilia Clarke, in different ways and times, lived the iconic character that made Linda Hamilton a star.

The Terminator franchise suffers from the evil of Star Wars: the story adapts over time, without staying true to what it said in the original. That’s because Sarah Connor is vital to the Terminator franchise, after all, she was the target of a Terminator who comes from the future to eliminate her before she is the mother of the human who will win the war of humans against machines, John Connor. But, while we know her as an unprepared girl who becomes a leader and warrior, this makes sense in the sequels but not so much when the prequels come with other content.

Starting with age. Although we are not sure at first how old she was in the original film, some speculate that she would be 19, in the film Terminator 3 we confirm that she would have been 25 and that she would have died at the age of 38 in 1997, but in Terminator 2: Judgment Day she tells the psychologist she is 29 years old (Linda Hamilton was 35 at the time). To make matters worse, in Terminator Genisys we see that Sarah was nine years old in 1973, that is, she was born in 1964, so she would return to the 20s imagined in the 1984 film. says that the events take place 25 years after Terminator 2, with Sarah in her 55s and with the statement that, in 1998, she would be 33 years old, determining her birth in 1965. Therefore, considering the last source, in Genisys Sarah would have so 8 years old, in the first Terminator, 19 years old, in the second one she would be 29 years old, and well, there wouldn’t be a third one because she didn’t die in it like she would have died in 2005, in the series.

In theory, Sarah (Linda Hamilton) was at university and working as a waitress when she starts being chased by the Model 101 android, from Cyberdyne Systems (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and is rescued by Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn). He explains that she will be the mother of John Connor and that in the future, an artificial intelligence called Skynet will be created by military software developers to make strategic decisions and will destroy human life. Kyle also explains that John was trained by her, developing skills and tactics in fighting Skynet. Kyle dies, but he is John’s father. Pregnant and on the run, she decides to become the hero Kyle describes her by starting to keep a diary for her son.

In the third part, she would have died of leukemia, happy that the Judgment Day date in 1997 passed without incident, but without 100% belief in the men’s victory. John (Nick Stahl) is still young and, with the help of T-101 (Schwarzenegger), he resumes the cause against Skynet. In The Terminator: Salvation, we only hear his voice in the recordings for John (Christian Bale).

When we meet her again eight years later in Movie 10, Sarah and John (Edward Furlong) have been separated after she is imprisoned in a psychiatric facility. John resents her obsession with technology and keeping John safe, and even more, her fear and hatred of Model 101. When he encounters two models the T-1000 (Robert Patrick), a liquid metal android, and the Model 101 (Schwarzenegger), gets confused. This time, John (Michael Edwards) sent an exterminator to protect them from the new attack. Now a little more reconciled with the machines, she dreams of a new future for humanity.

At the same time came the TV series that only lasted a year and which had Lena Headey as Sarah, in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. An alternate future version of the film would have taken place shortly after the second film and shows Sarah training John and dealing with a future where she still doesn’t trust technology. We’ll come back to it in a moment.

After a hiatus, already on the heels of the success of Game of Thrones, it brings Alan Taylor directing and Emilia Clarke appears as Sarah Connor in Terminator Genisys. Here, it’s more of an alternate reality to the four movies and ignoring the series, with an alternate timeline variant of her counterpart portrayed by Linda Hamilton. Here, Skynet sends a T-1000 (Lee Byung-hun) to a young Sarah to kill her, but she escapes and is raised by a reprogrammed T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) to be her guardian. When Sarah discovers that her destiny is to be the mother of John Connor (Jason Clarke) and train him for the Resistance’s war against Skynet, she is revolted and wants to be able to choose her future. In this version, when she meets Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney), is already a born and prepared leader, without depending so much on him. Still, she falls in love with him and plans to travel back in time to avoid Judgment Day, which has now moved from 1997 to 2017. On this trip, Sarah discovers that John Connor has turned into a cyborg known as T. -3000. After defeating de John-cyborg and Skynet, she once again dreams of a different future.

We have another Sarah Connor in Terminator: Dark Fate, with Linda Hamilton back in an alternate sequel to the 2nd movie (ignoring the others). Skynet did not cause the end of human life, but John was killed by a T-800 in 1998. Sad and bitter, Sarah is an alcoholic and Terminator hunter, fleeing justice. She rescues a girl, Daniella “Dani” Ramos, who is now the leader of the resistance in the future, with Sarah’s help.

All of that timeline was needed to link the two Queens of Westeros. Lena Headey went from Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles to Game of Thrones where she not only silenced her critics, she became a star. Her casting to star in the series was one of the most criticized points at the time of release, for not looking like Linda or being very athletic, but she won the actress after being tested and outperforming the other 300 candidates. It is ironic that Emilia Clarke was equally criticized in the role so many years later. At this point, the two suffered from the lack of coherence of the franchise, which lost vital points to bring surprises.

Sarah, on the other hand, is the perfect meeting point between Cersei and Daenerys, a strong woman in a patriarchal society, who protects her son as best she can and who fights for a better world. Cersei didn’t have a concern for anyone other than her children, but in that, she was on par with the heroine. With so much discussion about the problems of Artificial Intelligence, it would not be surprising to have one more version of the story. With Emma D’Arcy, perhaps? Or Olivia Cooke?

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