Game of Thrones Star Defends Writers From Vicious Fan Backlash

Game of Thrones‘ controversial final season has been in the books for months now, but its impact on the pop-culture space is still being talked about. According to Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who starred in the series as Jaime Lannister, there have been some unfortunate side effects of the backlash. During an appearance at Con of Thrones in Nashville (via Huffington Post), Coster-Waldau defended series creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, who have received even more negativity in the wake of the final season.

“For anyone to imagine or to think that the two creators of the show are not the most passionate, the greatest, the most invested of all, and to for a second think that they didn’t spend the last 10 years thinking about how they were going to end it is kind of silly,” Coster-Waldau argued. “And also know that they too read the comments. And it is, even though you sit on your own and go, ‘Fucking stupid writers. Assholes.’ They really ― like everyone on Game of Thrones, every single person and there are thousands ― we worked our asses off to make the best show we could for the ending.”

Coster-Waldau also addressed how he and some of the cast reacted to the negative response to the season, particularly in their WhatsApp chat group.

“Every season has been intense in terms of the attention and discussion, but it was extraordinarily intense for a final season,” Coster-Waldau explained. “And we have this WhatsApp group, the actors, and I saw some people getting a little upset because some of the stuff is vicious, and if you make the mistake of start reading all that shit, because if you guys get really angry about something ― I’m sure you did, some of you ― so you write to each other and go, ‘Fucking assholes. This is so not what would happen! They ruined, they butchered George’s world!’ It’s just fun for you, but of course some got a little upset.”

“There was that kind of weird feeling of, ‘What the hell? We worked so hard,’” he continued. “I’m not asking anyone to feel sorry, by the way. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m just saying how it was to get through that whole thing.”

This notion of just how ambitious the season was – and how no ending would have been perfect for the show’s massive fandom – has been a recurring theme of sorts in the time since Thrones concluded.

“There’s no way for [co-creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss] to have landed this plane in a way that would have made everybody happy and they’re not out to make everybody happy,” HBO programming president Casey Bloys shared shortly after the finale. “I think they did a beautiful job. You just have to accept that not everybody is going to agree with the choices. I’m paraphrasing Tim but basically for show this big, and this epic and this sprawling, they [Benioff and Weiss] have to make choices.”

“Not everyone will be happy,” Isaac Hempstead-Wright, who played Bran Stark, said after the finale. “It’s so difficult to finish a series as popular as this without pissing some people off. I don’t think anybody will think it’s predictable and that’s as much as you can hope for. People are going to be angry. There’s going to be a lot of broken hearts. It’s ‘bittersweet,’ exactly as [saga author] George R.R. Martin intended. It’s a fitting conclusion to this epic saga.”

What do you think of Coster-Waldau’s take on the Game of Thrones backlash? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!