Kit Harington admits ‘mistakes were made’ with ‘Game of Thrones’ infamous ending

Game of Thrones is considered by many to have one of the worst television endings of all time. Character arcs stopped in their tracks, or reverted entirely. Various bits of foreshadowing built up to nothing. Bran of all people became King.

Fans and non-fans alike hated Game of Thrones’ ending, hated it so much in fact that they’re still talking about it today. And now, five years after it aired, one of the show’s biggest stars has come forward to offer his own thoughts.

Kit Harington, who played Jon Snow, spoke to GQ magazine about the ending. “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. 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,” he said.

The “rushed” complaint is one of the most heard about the disastrous final Thrones season, but it’s far from the only one. It wasn’t just that the ending was packed into one short season; it was the bad writing that really got to people. Take for example the much-mocked “Dany kinda forgot about the Iron Fleet” line from David Benioff in the behind-the-scenes commentary for “The Last of the Starks”, the episode where the Iron Fleet takes down one of Daenerys’ dragons. What a way to write a powerful queen, having her “just forget” about an enemy!

Harington went on, “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.” And despite everyone’s anger with the ending, that’s totally fair. The health of the cast and crew should always come first, and Harington has said before that he didn’t do too well mentally during the grueling Game of Thrones shoots and was suffering from substance abuse issues. He’s sober now, but it was a long and difficult process.

The much-maligned series finale

Asked what he thought about the final episode in particular, where Jon Snow kills Daenerys, Harington diplomatically said, “Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I think there were mistakes made, story-wise, towards the end maybe. I think there were some interesting choices that didn’t quite work.” Again, a very fair criticism, and Harington isn’t even the only member of the Game of Thrones cast who’s expressed dissatisfaction with the finale. Charles Dance for example said in an interview once the show was done, “I know that the finale satisfied a lot of people. It also disappointed a lot of people, and I’m afraid I am in the latter camp.” Ouch.

After Game of Thrones was over there was talk of there being a Jon Snow spin-off titled Snow, but the project is dead in the water now. Harington also spoke about that in his GQ interview.

What I can tell you is it was HBO that came to me and said, ‘Would you consider this?’ My first reaction was no. 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. We spent a couple of years back and forth developing it. And it just didn’t… nothing got us excited enough. 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.’”

Harington explained that he simply didn’t want people to see him as Jon Snow for the rest of his life, and he would be far from the first actor to want to leave his most famous role in the past where it belongs. So we’re definitely not getting Snow, but there’s bound to be lots of other interesting Kit Harington shows to look forward to in the future.