The top 15 best performances on Game of Thrones
Image: Game of Thrones/HBO
11. Kit Harrington as Jon Snow
I almost left everyone’s favorite sad boy off this list, too, but I realized I was just doing it to be edgy. Sure, Jon spends most of the show pursing his lips, creasing his brow, and looking off in the distance, but Kit Harington still conveys Jon’s growth brilliantly over the course of the series.
Jon’s journey is my favorite to watch. While Jon changes a lot throughout eight seasons, he never loses the moral center that Ned gave him. And as we learn, Ned isn’t even Jon’s real father; Jon is just a genuinely noble man, the king that Westeros needs, the joining of ice and fire. Although I feel like the ending did my boy Jon a little dirty, there’s something so right about him getting to live a simple life in the woods among people he cares about.
Harington does a wonderful job of taking into account everything that happens in Jon’s life, every decision, every event, and allowing it to weigh on the character and change him. He takes Jon Snow from a brooding boy who wants a family to accept him to the greatest leader of men in the seven kingdoms. Along the way he falls in love, betrays his vows, betrays his love, watches his beloved die, is murdered by his own brothers in arms, gets brought back to life, has to hang a child, play politics, fight
the literal devil
Ramsay Bolton, and convince all of Westeros to stop bickering and defeat the true enemy. It’s a long journey, but Harington makes us believe it.
Watching the show again, you see how invested Harington was in this journey and this character, to the point where he actually married his onscreen love interest Rose Leslie (Ygritte). He has tremendous chemistry with every actor he performs with. The challenges he faces never seem trivial, and when he overcomes them it feels earned. It’s a joy to watch a character achieve greatness yet not be able to revel in that, because there is more work that has to be done. That’s a hero we can all understand and admire.