The final season of the popular Game of Thrones series received a lot of backlash when it was released in 2019.
Now, after five years, Kit Harington, who played Jon Snow in the series, has said the ending was rushed, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
In a new GQ interview, Harington said, “I think if there was any fault with the end of Thrones, is that we were all so 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. 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.”
Regarding the backlash to the series finale episode, Harington replied, “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.”
Harington also discussed HBO’s shelved Thrones spinoff, titled Snow, that was in development for a period of time. While the actor declined to say what the storyline was about (“because it starts a whole thing [online]”), he did explain his thinking behind working on it and why it ultimately didn’t work out.
“What I can tell you is it was HBO that came to me and said, ‘Would you consider this?'” he recalled.
“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.'”