Kit Harington slams fans calling for 'Game of Thrones' Season 8 remake

More than six years later, Kit Harington is speaking out about that "Game of Thrones" finale backlash, and he's not mincing words.

The Jon Snow actor, 39, spoke with The New York Times in an interview published Jan. 11 about the negative reactions the HBO series received when its final season aired in 2019. At the time, some fans disliked "Thrones" Season 8 so much that they launched a petition calling for it to be remade.

Harington said in the interview he was shocked by the negative response to the final season and that fans demanding a redo "genuinely angered me," explaining he was upset because of the amount of effort that creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss put into the show.

"Like, how dare you?" he said. "Sorry, that's just how I feel. I think it was a level of idiocy that can only come about through social media."

A petition on Change.org calling for "Game of Thrones" Season 8 to be remade "with competent writers" amassed more than 1.8 million signatures.

The final episode of "Game of Thrones" aired on HBO in May 2019 and immediately received significant backlash online. The entire final season earned mixed responses as it aired, but the last episode was especially controversial. earning a score of just 4.0 out of 10 on IMDb.

Fans complained that Season 8 plot points, including Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) taking a villainous turn before being killed by Harington's Jon Snow, were rushed and unsatisfying.

"Thrones" was largely based on the "A Song of Ice and Fire" novels written by George R.R. Martin, although the last few seasons did not have any more book material to work with because Martin has yet to complete his series. The planned next book, "The Winds of Winter," is over a decade late.

While Harington may disagree with fans calling for a new ending, he previously said he sympathizes with complaints that the last season was rushed.

"I understand some people thought it was rushed, and I might agree with them," the actor told GQ in 2024. "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."

For her part, Clarke previously told The Sunday Times she was "annoyed that Jon Snow didn't have to deal with" the consequences of murdering Daenerys and agreed the show could have continued beyond Season 8 to flesh out the ending further. "We could have spun it out for a little longer," she said.

Speaking recently to The Direct, Sophie Turner, who played Sansa Stark, said virtually the entire "Thrones" cast was unhappy with the way their stories wrapped up, except for her.

"I feel that I was very happy with the way Sansa ended her story in 'Game of Thrones,' and no one else was really happy with their ending," she said. "I feel like I got a good one, and so I don't know if I could revisit it."