'How Dare You?' — Jon Snow Actor Kit Harington Hits Out at 2019 Petition That Demanded HBO Remake the Final Season of Game of Thrones 'With Competent Writers'

Jon Snow histrion Kit Harington says helium was “genuinely angered” by a fan-made petition that called for the last play of Game of Thrones to beryllium remade with “competent writers.”

In 2019, pursuing the merchandise of Game of Thrones Season 8 and its consequent backlash, the instrumentality petition went viral, securing astir 2 cardinal signatures. “David Benioff and D.B. Weiss person proven themselves to beryllium woefully incompetent writers erstwhile they person nary root worldly (i.e. the books) to autumn backmost on,” the petition, inactive unrecorded connected Change.org, reads. “This bid deserves a last play that makes sense. Subvert my expectations and marque it happen, HBO!”

Now, 7 years later, Harington has revealed however helium felt astir the petition astatine the time, having ridden Game of Thrones’ tremendous occurrence for a decennary and worked hard connected Season 8. In a illustration successful the New York Times, Harington was said to person been “shocked” by the antagonistic effect to the last season.

Here's the relevent portion of the NYT piece:

“That genuinely angered me,” Harington said, due to the fact that helium knew however overmuch effort the show’s writers, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, had enactment in. “Like, however situation you? Sorry, that’s conscionable however I feel. I deliberation it was a level of idiocy that tin lone travel astir done societal media.”

According to the profile, Harington had go a “dry drunk” and spent clip successful rehab aft wrapping up enactment connected Game of Thrones. After helium emerged, helium “was besides uncovering it hard to flight Jon Snow.” Harrington took a twelvemonth retired and prepared to enactment again, but the pandemic hit, tearing up his plans.

When enactment became imaginable again, Harington told his cause helium wanted a “no swords” regularisation for vetting imaginable jobs, but helium took connected the relation of Black Knight successful high-profile Marvel flop The Eternals, which released successful November 2021. After the movie's disastrous container office, Harrington seemingly “toyed” with the thought of reprising his relation arsenic Jon Snow for a spinoff, but yet decided against it.

Last month, Harrington indicated helium was done playing Jon Snow for good, contempt the erstwhile plans for a Jon Snow series. "No, deity no," Harington told Variety, erstwhile asked whether he'd reprise his aged relation again for an audiobook version. "I don't wanna spell anyplace adjacent it. I spent 10 years doing that. Thanks, I'm alright."

Harington precocious recorded the relation of Gilderoy Lockhart for Audible's Harry Potter audio play adaptation, prompting the question of whether helium would ever reprise his relation for a akin audio mentation of Game of Thrones.

Following Game of Thrones' melodramatic decision successful 2019 — which saw Jon Snow past but caput backmost northbound pursuing his devastating determination to halt Daenerys — George R.R. Martin confirmed HBO was moving connected a Jon Snow spin-off with the moving rubric "Snow." According to Martin, Harington was processing the bid with his ain team.

But contempt lengthy conversations astir the show's direction, Harington yet revealed that the task was nary longer moving forward. "Currently, it's disconnected the table, due to the fact that we each couldn't find the close communicative to archer that we were each excited astir enough," Harington said successful 2024. "So, we decided to laic down tools with it for the clip being. There whitethorn beryllium a clip successful the aboriginal wherever we instrumentality to it, but astatine the moment, no. It's firmly connected the shelf."

During a Game of Thrones instrumentality normal successful 2022, Harington hinted that his spinoff would absorption connected his character's conflict to flooded past traumas pursuing the Season 8 finale. "He's gotta spell backmost up to the spot with each this past and unrecorded retired his beingness reasoning astir however helium killed Dany, and unrecorded retired his beingness reasoning astir Ygritte dying successful his arms, and unrecorded retired his beingness reasoning astir however helium hung Olly, and unrecorded retired his beingness reasoning astir each of this trauma, and that, that's interesting," Harington said.

Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images.

Wesley is Director, News astatine IGN. Find him connected Twitter astatine @wyp100. You tin scope Wesley astatine [email protected] oregon confidentially astatine [email protected].