Actor Kit Harington has said that mistakes were made in the final season of Game of Thrones, in terms of storytelling and execution. In an interview with GQ, Harington said that the entire final season was negatively impacted by the fact that the entire cast was exhausted. And for the series finale in particular, Harington said that some of the story choices “didn't really work.”
“I think if there’s a problem with the end of Game of Thrones, it’s that we were all so tired that we couldn’t have gone on any longer,” he said. “So I understand why some people thought it was rushed, and I might agree with them. But I’m not sure there was any other alternative. I look at pictures of myself in that last season and I look exhausted. I look exhausted. I didn’t have another season in me.”
He added: “Everyone's entitled to their opinion. I think there were some mistakes in the story, maybe towards the end. I think there were some interesting choices that didn't quite work.”
The early seasons of Game of Thrones were memorable, but the show suffered a decline in quality and execution toward the end, many fans said. Despite this, Game of Thrones ended in 2019 with the show's highest ratings ever.
George R.R. Martin has said he hoped HBO would produce more seasons of Game of Thrones. Creators D.B. Weiss and David Benioff wanted to end the series as a feature-length trilogy. Neither succeeded, and the series ended as it did.
The Game of Thrones series continued with the prequel spin-off series House of the Dragon, which just finished its second season. The next spin-off is A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which is set to premiere in 2025. Harington planned a Jon Snow TV series, but it never came to fruition.
Harington said in the GQ interview that HBO contacted him to ask if he would be interested in a Jon Snow series, and Harington said his first reaction was to decline. However, Harington thought there was an interesting story to tell about Jon Snow's life after the war. However, the series never came to fruition because the team never found a good enough story.
“I felt like there was still something to say and a story to tell in a pretty limited way. We spent a few years developing it. And nothing really excited us. Eventually, I backed off and said, ‘I think if we push this further and keep developing it, we might end up with something that’s not going to be good. And that’s the last thing we want,’” he said.