Kit Harington agrees that "mistakes were made" in the final season of Game of Thrones

For the bulk of the 2010s, Game of Thrones was the most celebrated show on TV, a fantasy epic that combined dragon-riding escapism with complex character drama befitting a flagship HBO series. Then, in 2019, things turned, with many fans voicing their unhappiness with the final season and the series finale, where Jon Snow (Kit Harington) killed the genocidal Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) before heading back to the Night's Watch.

To this day, opinions differ on why the final season received so much blowback. Was it the pacing? Was it the storytelling choices? Was it toxic fandom run amok? For Harington, it was a surreal experience. “I went in and everyone loved Thrones; I came out and everyone hated it,” he told GQ. “I thought, What the fuck is going on?!”

Harington admitted that there were some problems with the final stretch of the show, and provides an insider's perspective on why that might have been. "I think if there was any fault with the end of Thrones, is that we were all so fucking tired, we couldn't have gone on longer. And so I understand some people thought it was rushed and I might agree with them," he said. "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.”

"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."

Kit Harington explains why the Jon Snow sequel show didn't work out

Nevertheless, Harington entertained the notion of returning as Jon Snow in a sequel series that never ended up getting made. If he had his way, the general public never would have heard about it, but because the information leaked, he finds himself in the position of having to explain what happened.

“What I can tell you is it was HBO that came to me and said, ‘Would you consider this?’" Harington said. "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.’”

I think that sounds reasonable: Harington and HBO tried to come up with a workable idea for a Jon Snow sequel show, they couldn't do it, so the project didn't go forward. Harington is currently trying to make a name for himself apart from Game of Thrones by starring in shows like Industry, where he plays a morally flexible tech billionaire, so if he was going to return to Westeros, the idea needed to be excellent. 'Just okay' wouldn't cut it.

“There's a lot of baggage that goes with it, and I think that was part of the problem,” Harington explained. “In some ways, you need to divorce completely from this previous thing, and we're only a few years after it. The role will always be just such a significant factor of my life. It might very well be the biggest, most important piece of work I do. I met my wife on it. I have kids from it. Have some lifelong friends from it. I'm recognized in the street because of it."

"[But] it was also working against what I'm trying to do, which is separate myself from [the show]. By still being with it, it [would be] very hard to ask people to see you as something else. And it's kind of essential to do my job, for people to come and see me and not see Jon Snow."

If you don't know, Harington's wife is Rose Leslie, who played the wildling Ygritte on Game of Thrones.

Kit Harington joins the cast of HBO's Industry

The third season of Industry, an HBO show about the world of high finance, premiered last night. Harigton has joined the cast as high-powered CEO Henry Muck, a part he got without an audition. He wanted to be on the show and writers writers Mickey Down and Konrad Kay were happy to have a household name in the cast, so he was invited on sight unseen. “That’s always slightly alarming,” Harington said, “because you walk onto set and you can feel them going, What if he's not right? And you feel the pressure of, What if what I do is not right for them?”

"I've met a million guys like Henry. And I really prefix this with saying I think a lot of private and public school boys get a very bad rap. There's many, many very nice guys who are privately educated. But I've met some who are entitled in a specific way, which is not obvious. Not your creep, or loudmouth. It's more like, as much as they might purport to see the world and all its breadth, they really have a very tunnel-vision view of things."

New episodes of Industry drop every Sunday. This is a make-or-break year for the show, but if it is renewed, Harington would "love to [go back]." Either way, he's done a fine job of separating himself from his time on Game of Thrones, so much so that if he ever does decide to return to Westeros, it can be on his terms, resting assured in the knowledge that fans will be happy to see him.

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