Kit Harington Defends GAME OF THRONES Season 8 Finale and Stands by HBO’s Creative Team
It’s been years since Game of Thrones wrapped up its massively talked-about run on HBO, but fans are still debating that Season 8 finale. While audiences remain split on how the fantasy epic came to an end, Kit Harington is making it clear that he still backs the people who brought the series to life.
During a recent appearance at Motor City Comic Con in Michigan, the actor who played Jon Snow opened up about the backlash surrounding the final season and explained why he continues to defend it.
“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.”
That perspective is something fans rarely get to hear. While viewers experienced the final episodes through the lens of expectation and years of theorizing, the cast and crew were living through the exhausting production process that came with finishing one of the biggest TV shows ever made.
Harington also defended the creative team responsible for adapting George R.R. Martin’s world for television in the first place.
“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.”
Even the fans who disliked the ending still acknowledge how incredible the earlier seasons were and how huge an achievement the series became overall.
Harington finished his thoughts by doubling down on his support for the final season and the people behind it.
“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.”
The comments arrive at an interesting time as genre TV fandoms continue to passionately react to divisive finales and controversial creative decisions. Game of Thrones remains one of the biggest examples of that conversation, and even now, people still can’t stop talking about how the saga of Westeros ended.
Love it or hate it, the final season clearly still means a lot to the people who made it. And for Harington, defending it seems less about winning over critics and more about standing beside the cast and crew who poured years of their lives into the series.