Kit Harington hits out at Game of Thrones finale critics and petition

Kit Harington was angered by a fan petition to remake the final season of Game of Thrones. Photo / Getty Images

Kit Harington was “genuinely angered” by a fan petition calling for the final season of Game of Thrones to be remade.

The 39-year-old actor was shocked almost two million people had signed the unofficial Change.org petition, as he knew how hard its writers, David Benioff, 55, and D.B. Weiss, 54, worked to create it.

Kit told the New York Times: “That genuinely angered me. Like, how dare you? Sorry, that’s just how I feel. I think it was a level of idiocy that can only come about through social media.”

The eighth and last series of the HBO fantasy drama aired in 2019 while Harington, who played Jon Snow, was in rehab for alcohol addiction and stress. The star said when he left rehab he was confused by the disapproval from fans and critics.

In August 2024, Harington told GQ Hype: “I went in, and everyone loved Thrones; I came out, and everyone hated it. I thought, ‘What the f*** is going on?!’”

Reflecting on the final season of Game of Thrones, which ran from 2011 until 2019, he thinks one “fault” was that its cast and crew “were all so f****** tired, we couldn’t have gone on longer”.

Harington, who starred in the drama alongside the likes of Emilia Clarke (Daenerys Targaryen), Maisie Williams (Arya Stark) and Peter Dinklage (Tyrion Lannister), told the magazine: “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.”

Despite criticising the millions of fans for not liking the final season of Game of Thrones – in which Harington said one battle scene took 55 consecutive nights to film – he recognised that “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.”