Game of Thrones star Kit Harington stands by the hit fantasy show's extremely divisive final season.
"The season eight thing, guys, I feel very protective of it still," Harington said during a panel at Motor City Comic Con (via NME). "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."
"It's not a small process. It's an incredibly complex and lengthy and intricate process. And 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."
Game of Thrones season 8 has a 55% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes and an even lower 30% audience score. It's a pretty dramatic drop-off, especially given that season 7 sits at a 93%. The general consensus seems to be that the season attempted to pack too much into just six episodes, abandoned character arcs, completely diverted from the source material, and was largely boring. Fans seemed especially upset with Daenerys' total descent into madness (I personally think the writers were trying to emulate the novels and encapsulate the various 'Mad' rulers throughout Targaryen history, even though Dany herself didn't necessarily go 'mad' in the books).
Added Harington: "There's no doubt in my head that what they did was the right thing because they're the people who brought it to us. And I kind of stand by that. Like, I feel very defensive of it as a show and as a season. And I think I always will, actually."
Jon Snow (spoiler alert) becomes King. A spin-off show centering on Snow was announced back in 2022, but Harington also recently confirmed that the series was on the back burner for now.
Next up for Game of Thrones is House of the Dragon season 3, which arrives on HBO this June 21 in the US and June 22 in the UK. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms season 2 is currently filming.
For more, check out our roundup of all the upcoming Game of Thrones movies and shows for everything else the world of Westeros has in store.
