- Kit Harrington has said critics of Game of Thrones final season can ‘f**k themselves’
- Star later apologised, but said everyone worked too hard for him to sit back and allow the final season to be criticised online
- The final episodes of the series have been widely lambasted by online fans
- Most of the fury is pointed at showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss
Kit Harrington is not happy with critics who reacted negatively to the long-awaited final season.
The actor – who plays Jon Snow in Game of Thrones, admitted to feeling “quite defiant” over the incredible fan backlash over the final six episodes, including calls to re-write and re-shoot the last season.
“Whatever critic spends half an hour writing about this season and makes their judgment on it, in my head they can go f**k themselves,” he said.
“Because I know how much work was put into this.”
Harrington later apologised for what he said, saying he didn’t intend to “sound mean about critics”. But he later added that the show meant too much to him for him to quietly allow its bashing online.
“A lot of jobs, everyone goes back to their apartments at the end of the day. They have their lives, and they have their families, and they have their girlfriends or boyfriends back home,” Harington said. “I think part of what made (GoT) successful was the fact that we got on like a family. Everyone who came in was welcomed into the family.”
Harrington’s comments come after weeks of backslash over season 8, including more than 1.2 million disgruntled fans ‘signing’ a change.org petition demanding a remake of the show.
According to the petition creator, “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 states. “This series deserves a final season that makes sense. Subvert my expectations and make it happen, HBO!”
Showrunners Benioff and Weiss have been the main targets of fans fury, being accused of lazy writing in the final episodes. Criticism began just after Episode 3, as viewers complained the Battle of Winterfell was to dark to be seen. The ire grew to fever pitch after ‘coffee-gate’ when a modern coffee cup was accidentally left in a scene.
