Game of Thrones‘ highly-anticipated ending has officially been revealed — and it garnered mixed reactions from audiences around the world.
During the season 8 series finale on Sunday evening, a shocking twist was delivered as viewers watched Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) be killed at the hands of her love, Jon Snow (Kit Harington).
After he drew her close and whispered, “You are my queen, now and forever,” Jon stabbed her in the stomach.
While the moment was a major surprise to the finale plot line, it also came as a shock to Clarke, 32, and Harington, 32, when they read the script.
Speaking with Entertainment Weekly about the finale, Harington said he anticipated a split in fans’ responses.
“I think it’s going to divide,” Harington said about Daenerys’ death, for which his character was responsible.
Still, Harington believes there were indicators all along that hinted she wasn’t the hero of the show.
“But if you track her story all the way back, she does some terrible things. She crucifies people. She burns people alive. This has been building,” he said. “So, we have to say to the audience: ‘You’re in denial about this woman as well. You knew something was wrong. You’re culpable, you cheered her on.’”
After learning about her character’s fate in October 2017, Clarke was also shocked and said she “completely flipped out.”
“What, what, what, WHAT!?” Clarke recalled thinking, she told EW. “Because it comes out of f—king nowhere. I’m flabbergasted. Absolutely never saw that coming.”
Ahead of the season 8 premiere in April, Harington opened up about his struggle to embrace his newfound stardom since being cast on the series and discussed the then-upcoming finale.
“I think it will be strong,” he told emmy magazine. “But you don’t want to mess it up on the very last outing.”
At the time, he also anticipated that there would be some mixed reactions to the conclusion of the show.
“I haven’t watched a single series that has a following like Thrones does where everyone is satisfied with the ending,” he said. “I don’t think that it’ll be any different with this. I think it will divide opinion.”
And although the actor is officially moving on from his beloved character, Jon Snow will forever hold a special place in Harington’s heart.
“Thrones, it’s given me possibly my future family. It’s given me my wife, it’s given me friends for life. It’s got a character I love, I will love, more than any other character I’ll ever play,” Harington told Willie Geist on Sunday Today in April.
“There isn’t a way of saying thank you to it enough. There never will be and I think that comes back to the question of, ‘How do you feel now that it’s finishing?’ Well, there aren’t words to describe how I feel about it,” he said.
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