Jon Snow actor Kit Harington says he was “genuinely angered” by a fan-made petition that called for the final season of Game of Thrones to be remade with “competent writers.”
In 2019, following the release of Game of Thrones Season 8 and its subsequent backlash, the fan petition went viral, securing nearly 2 million signatures. “David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have proven themselves to be woefully incompetent writers when they have no source material (i.e. the books) to fall back on,” the petition, still live on Change.org, reads. “This series deserves a final season that makes sense. Subvert my expectations and make it happen, HBO!”
Now, seven years later, Harington has revealed how he felt about the petition at the time, having ridden Game of Thrones’ enormous success for a decade and worked hard on Season 8. In a profile in the New York Times, Harington was said to have been “shocked” by the negative response to the final season.
Game of Thrones: Jon Snow Over the Seasons
Here’s the relevent part of the NYT piece:
“That genuinely angered me,” Harington said, because he knew how much effort the show’s writers, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, had put in. “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.”
According to the profile, Harington had become a “dry drunk” and spent time in rehab after wrapping up work on Game of Thrones. After he emerged, he “was also finding it hard to escape Jon Snow.” Harrington took a year out and prepared to act again, but the pandemic hit, tearing up his plans.
When work became possible again, Harington told his agent he wanted a “no swords” rule for vetting potential jobs, but he took on the role of Black Knight in high-profile Marvel flop The Eternals, which released in November 2021. After the movie’s disastrous box office, Harrington apparently “toyed” with the idea of reprising his role as Jon Snow for a spinoff, but eventually decided against it.
Last month, Harrington indicated he was done playing Jon Snow for good, despite the previous plans for a Jon Snow series. “No, god no,” Harington told Variety, when asked whether he’d reprise his old role again for an audiobook version. “I don’t wanna go anywhere near it. I spent 10 years doing that. Thanks, I’m alright.”
Harington recently recorded the role of Gilderoy Lockhart for Audible’s Harry Potter audio drama adaptation, prompting the question of whether he would ever reprise his role for a similar audio version of Game of Thrones.
Following Game of Thrones’ dramatic conclusion in 2019 — which saw Jon Snow survive but head back north following his devastating decision to stop Daenerys — George R.R. Martin confirmed HBO was working on a Jon Snow spin-off with the working title “Snow.” According to Martin, Harington was developing the series with his own team.
But despite lengthy conversations around the show’s direction, Harington ultimately revealed that the project was no longer moving forward. “Currently, it’s off the table, because we all couldn’t find the right story to tell that we were all excited about enough,” Harington said in 2024. “So, we decided to lay down tools with it for the time being. There may be a time in the future where we return to it, but at the moment, no. It’s firmly on the shelf.”
During a Game of Thrones fan convention in 2022, Harington hinted that his spinoff would focus on his character’s struggle to overcome past traumas following the Season 8 finale. “He’s gotta go back up to the place with all this history and live out his life thinking about how he killed Dany, and live out his life thinking about Ygritte dying in his arms, and live out his life thinking about how he hung Olly, and live out his life thinking about all of this trauma, and that, that’s interesting,” Harington said.
Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.