Game of Thrones Star Kit Harington Admits Final Season Was “Rushed”and There Were “Mistakes”

Even Game of Thrones star Kit Harington can admit that there were major issues with the ending of the series. In a new interview, Harington opened up about the ending of GoT, and was quite candid about it, saying in no uncertain terms that “there were mistakes made” with a Final Season that was “rushed.” 

“Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I think there were mistakes made, story-wise, towards the end maybe,” Harington said to GQ. “I think there were some interesting choices that didn’t quite work.”

Kit Harington Explains Why Game of Thrones Final Season Failed

According to Kit Harington, the downfall of Game of Thrones‘ Final Season was deep fatigue amongst the cast and crew:

“I think if there was any fault with the end of Thrones, is that we were all so fucking tired, we couldn’t have gone on longer,” Harington explained. “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.” 

That fatigue was readily apparent all throughout the final press tours for Game of Thrones Season 8. Daenerys Targaryen actress Emilia Clarke went viral for red carpet awkwardness when trying to answer whether Season 8 landed the plane; in the years since Game of Thrones ended, many other stars of the show have opened up about their displeasure with the finale season – including Varys actor Conleth Hill, who echoed Harington’s take that Season 8 was “rushed”: 

“I thought I’d done something wrong. Right up until the last two series, I had no complaints at all,” Hill told The Times last year. “I just felt frustrated with the last couple of series because Varys wasn’t the all-knowing character he had been. I think the writers wanted to do one thing to end it and the studio HBO wanted to do another. I felt that last series was a bit rushed. I was inconsolable, but now I’m fine about it.”

To his credit, Kit Harington tried to jump back into the Game of Thrones Universe: Harington was attached to a Game of Thrones sequel series that would follow Jon Snow after the events of the original series. However, HBO recently canceled that series while still in development:

“We spent a couple of years back and forth developing it. And it just didn’t… nothing got us excited enough,” said Harington in the same interview. “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.”

Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon are streaming on Max. There are three additional spinoff shows in development.