Kit Harington has shared his thoughts about the backlash to the final season of Game of Thrones, revealing what it was like for him to enter rehab in 2019 while Season 8 was coming out.
Game of Thrones Season 8 was one of, if not the most highly anticipated final seasons of TV in recent memory. The fantasy series still holds the record for most Emmy wins in history, and most of the seasons were celebrated by critics and fans alike. For its final episodes to come crashing down was a shock to all. The overall reaction was that the series failed to match the attention to detail and character development of past seasons.
Harington began treatment for alcoholism at an American rehab facility in 2019 while Season 8 was airing on HBO. “I went in and everyone loved Thrones; I came out and everyone hated it,” Harington told GQ. “I thought, What the f*** is going on?!” Five years later, Harington shares his take on the backlash, saying he “might agree” with those who feel the last season was “rushed.”
“I think if there was any fault with the end of Thrones, is that we were all so f***ing tired, we couldn’t have gone on longer,” Harington said. “And so I understand some people thought it was rushed and I might agree with them. 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.”
Harington also reveals that he thinks some narrative “mistakes” made in the Game of Thrones series finale, which saw his Jon Snow kill Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) after she took King’s Landing by deadly force (one of the main storylines fans didn’t think befitted the character’s series arc).
“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,” Harington shared.
Harington’s road to recovery began as Game of Thrones came to an end. Now, he says he’s “proud” of the progress he’s made, saying that getting sober previously seemed impossible.
“Before getting sober, I would stare in the mirror and call myself a c**t. I’d hate myself. I would literally despise myself and not be proud of anything I’d done,” he told GQ. “I couldn’t be proud. So the fact that I am proud of getting sober is in and of itself a mark of being an entirely different person.”
Harington also addressed the now shelved Jon Snow Game of Thrones spinoff and why they’re not currently pursuing it.
“I don’t really want to say, because it starts a whole thing,” he said of what the show would have been about. “What I can tell you is it was HBO that came to me and said, ‘Would you consider this?’ 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.’”
The Game of Thrones franchise is still continuing with House of the Dragon, which begins production on Season 3 in 2025, and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which premieres next year as well.