There are massive spoilers ahead for last night’s fifth season finale of Game of Thrones! Stop reading now if you didn’t see the episode!
During the closing moments of Game of Thrones Season 5, Lord Commander Jon Snow (Kit Harrington) was confronted by his Night’s Watch detractors, condemned as a traitor and brutally murdered in Castle Black. It’s straight out of George R.R. Martin’s novels, or at least as far as the novels have taken Jon Snow’s story.
While Jon’s fate was ambiguous in the book, Harrington has already spoken out about the subject during a new interview with Entertainment Weekly.
“I’ve been told I’m dead,” said Harrington.”I’m dead. I’m not coming back next season. So that’s all I can tell you, really.”
Harrington added that “we have to go by what [Game of Thrones] does. And Thrones treats drama as real life. And people die and don’t accomplish what we think they’re meant to in real life. And I think that’s one of the powerful things about Thrones. The major loss with Jon’s through-line is he never finds out who his mother is and that’s the heartbreaking thing for me.”
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“There’s a huge amount of fault [for Jon],” continued Harrington. “He hasn’t paid attention to the people around him. He’s only looked at the big picture this season. His major fault is a bit like Ned’s in that when trying to do the right thing he wasn’t observing the people around him. He had blinders on. All he could really see is this impending doom by the White Walkers and doing things for the greater good, and what he was missing was Olly and [Ser Alliser] Thorne and some of the men around him. He wasn’t seeing their discontent and dealing with the smaller issues. And because of that, he’s served justice. Olly puts the last dagger in him. In that moment i think he realizes that he didn’t look after his kin, this young man, and let him down.”
To punctuate Harrington’s departure from Game of Thrones, the EW story notes that he finally cut his hair after the interview. For the past five seasons, Harrington has been contractually obligated to keep his hair at the same length as his character’s.
What do you think, Game of Thrones fans? Is Harrington really gone from the show or is this a massive swerve? Weigh in below!
