Kit Harington just went off on the infamous Game of Thrones fan petition in a wild way.
In a new piece in The New York Times, Harington minced no words on his feelings about the petition to re-do the final season of Game of Thrones, which he saw as an insult to the show’s writers D.B. Weiss and David Benioff, as well as against the cast who had given their lives to the series.
“That genuinely angered me. Like, how dare you?… Sorry, that’s just how I feel. I think it was a level of idiocy that can only come about through social media.”
It’s been seven years, but the controversy over the Game of Thrones finale refuses to die. Many great TV shows had a finale that is remembered for its polarizing reactions or just flat-out hated. But only Game of Thrones can boast a finale so huge and a backlash so massive that fans by the millions openly pushed for it to be redone to match their vision.
To this day, you can go on Change.org and see a petition demanding that HBO remake the final season of Game of Thrones “with competent writers.” It’s still live with comments slamming the final episodes, turns from the White Walkers disposed of too quickly to Daenerys Targaryen
(Emilia Clarke) turning into an evil monster to Jon Snow (Kit Harington) killing her.
Obviously, this was never going to happen. HBO would never spend a year and $150 million to re-do a season of a series. Yet, the fervor of the fans proved how much they hated the way their beloved show ended. As it turns out, Harington himself is decidedly not on their side.
Harington was briefly attached to a possible Jon Snow sequel series in 2024, but that’s fallen into development hell, and he seems ready to move on from the role at last.
Harington’s feelings are understandable. While other GOT actors have expressed dissatisfaction with the finale and their character arcs, they still enjoyed the show itself. Weiss and Benioff were under the challenge of wrapping it up before George R.R. Martin could, and their story made sense to them.
Ultimately, the ending was never going to fully satisfy the fandom, even though some fans come off a bit entitled in their criticism. It's one thing for a fandom like Game of Thrones to dislike the finale, but it was clearly insulting to Harington and others who worked on the show when fans demanded the final season be completely remade.
At the end of the day, it adds another layer to the never-ending debate about the finale, which proves just how much this show still matters to fans almost a decade later.
Game of Thrones streaming on HBO Max.