Kit Harington sounds off on backlash over ‘Game of Thrones’ finale

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Five years after it ended, Kit Harington is sharing his thoughts on the divisive finale to HBO’s fantasy series Game of Thrones, saying that the conclusion felt “rushed” and he and his castmates were “f—ing tired” by the time filming wrapped.

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“I think if there was any fault with the end of Thrones, is that we were all so f—ing tired, we couldn’t have gone on longer,” Harington says in a new interview with GQ Hype.

“And so I understand some people thought it was rushed, and I might agree with them. But I’m not sure there was any alternative. I look at pictures of me in that final season and I look exhausted. I look spent. I didn’t have another season in me.”

A petition to remake the entirety of Game of Thrones’ eighth season “with competent writers” landed more than 1.8 million signatures after the finale aired in May 2019.

“David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have proven themselves to be woefully incompetent writers when they have no source material (i.e. the books) to fall back on,” the petition read. “This series deserves a final season that makes sense. Subvert my expectations and make it happen, HBO!”

The final season was beset with complaints, with actress Jessica Chastain criticizing the show for using sexual abuse as a plot point in the development of Sophie Turner’s character, Sansa Stark.

“Rape is not a tool to make a character stronger. A woman doesn’t need to be victimized in order to become a butterfly. The little bird was always a Phoenix. Her prevailing strength is solely because of her. And her alone,” the Oscar-winning actress wrote in a social media post.

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“Everyone is entitled to their opinion,” Harington says, reflecting on the harsh reaction. “I think there were mistakes made, story-wise, towards the end maybe. I think there were some interesting choices that didn’t quite work.”

In a previous interview with Postmedia in 2021, Harington defended the series’ last episode saying it ended exactly as it should have.

“I know that the two men that wrote it (David Benioff and D. B. Weiss), they knew Game of Thrones the TV show better than anyone, and if they wrote it and they created it then it was right,” Harington said.

The books written by George R. R. Martin — on which the show was based — have yet to be concluded, so there is a chance hardcore fans will be able to get a satisfying finish.

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Elsewhere in his chat with GQ Hype, Harington opened up on the now-shelved spinoff that would have followed his Thrones character Jon Snow.

“What I can tell you is it was HBO that came to me and said, ‘Would you consider this?’ My first reaction was no,” Harington recalled. “And then I thought there could be an interesting and important story about the soldier after the war. I felt that there might be something left to say and a story left to tell in a pretty limited way.”

But ultimately he and the creative team behind the show couldn’t come up with a good enough idea to sustain an entire series.

“In the end, I kind of backed out and said, ‘I think if we push this any further and keep developing it we could end up with something that’s not good. And that’s the last thing we all want,’” he said.

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“There are no plans for it at the moment. It’s off the table for the foreseeable,” Harington told The Associated Press in a separate interview in April. “We sort of threw around a few ideas. Nothing really stuck, and we’re going to leave it there for the moment.” 

Harington admitted the show wouldn’t be moving forward because the team “couldn’t find the right story to tell”

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