Soon after its debut, Game of Thrones became a HBO show that got the world talking, and was quintessential water cooler talk for years. While a number of spinoffs have arrived on the network (and streaming with a HBO Max subscription) there are many fans who are still hung up on Game of Thrones' series finale. And Jon Snow actor Kit Harington recently shared why he's still "protective" about the show's controversial 8th and final season on the air.
The Westerosi spinoffs have provided new questions like which dragon belongs to who in HOTD, there's still plenty of discourse about GOT Season 8. In a recent appearance at Motor City Comic Con (via Twitter) Harington spoke about why he still doesn't love the hate the show's final season got. In the actor's words:
The season eight thing, guys, I feel very protective of it still. And the reason is, cause I mean, I guess you all saw it from the outside, whereas I saw it from the inside. So I knew, I know how much care and how much love and how much work and how much life went into making it, and the conversations that would have happened and the arguments around the table about what way to go, and what thing to do.
Honestly, this makes a ton of sense. Game of Thrones aired for eight years, so Harington got to know the cast, crew, department heads, and others extremely well during that time. He saw firsthand how much care when into the show, even if fans weren't necessarily happy with finale or the changes that came during its final 6 episodes on the air. So hearing folks talk smack about those individuals who worked so hard seemingly doesn't sit right with the 39 year-old actor.
While GOT was an Emmy-winning global success, the eighth season was the subject of a number of criticisms. Fans took umbrage with the shorter episode count, the way travel across Westeros seemed much quicker, as well as the ending of Daenerys Targaryen's story. Later in the same appearance, Harington went on to share more about his POV as someone who worked on the book to screen adaptation. He said:
I feel that the best people to be able to do that were the people who gave us the first seven seasons, that brought it to TV, that brought George’s thing and brought it to TV. And so my feeling about it is, there may have been mistakes, as we can all decide whether we liked it or not, and what we liked about it, what we didn’t.
That's another fair point. Despite petitions to have GOT Season 8 reshot, Kit Harington maintains that the duo of David Benioff and D.B. Weiss were still the right people to wrap up the story they had dedicated years of their life to. While it might not have been a perfect season, it sounds like Harington doesn't want his co-workers to be maligned by fans who loved the show they brought to life.
Game of Thrones is streaming in its entirety over on HBO Max. The spinoff House of the Dragon will return for its third season on June 21st, as part of the 2026 TV schedule.
