Kit Harington on Jon Snow after Game of Thrones : 'He's not okay'
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Kit Harington did everything fans wanted him to do during his panel at the official Game of Thrones Convention Sunday night, just not the thing they really wished he would do, which was comment on the Jon Snow sequel series in development.
Harington remained mum on the subject. Moderators Jason Concepcion and Greta Johnsen didn't broach the topic. Neither did the fans who lined up to ask questions during a Q&A. But the one thing Harington did talk about was where the ending of Game of Thrones left his character.
He began speaking about how the drama ended in 2019, with Jon killing Daenerys and being banished to live out his days on the Wall in the North. "I think if you asked him, he would've felt he got off lightly," the actor said. "At the end of the show when we find him in that cell, he's preparing to be beheaded and he wants to be. He's done. The fact he goes to the Wall is the greatest gift and also the greatest curse.
"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 [played by Rose Leslie] dying in his arms, and live out his life thinking about how he hung Olly [Brenock O'Connor], and live out his life thinking about all of this trauma, and that…" Harington paused for a brief moment. "That's interesting," he coyly emphasized.
"So I think where we leave him at the end of the show, there's always this feeling of like… I think we wanted some kind of little smile that things are okay. He's not okay," he said.
So, yes, it's not the official announcement fans might've been expecting, but it offers a glimpse into Harington's headspace on the topic of Jon Snow's life after the main story line.
Helen Sloan/HBO Kit Harington in 'Game of Thrones'
The Hollywood Reporter first confirmed in June that a sequel series to Game of Thrones centered around Harington's Jon Snow (who we now know goes by another name) was in the early stages of development. Thrones creator George R.R. Martin then confirmed the validity of the report in a blog post days later and revealed the working title for the project to be Snow.
"Yes, it was Kit Harington who brought the idea to us," Martin wrote at the time. "I cannot tell you the names of the writers/showrunners, since that has not been cleared for release yet… but Kit brought them in too, his own team, and they are terrific."
Harington, however, has been reluctant to talk about it in the past. On the Happy Sad Confused podcast in September, he commented, "The only thing I'll say is that I know nothing about it... George is allowed to talk. I would be talking in riddles if I went any further."
Harington was once firm in his resolve to not return to Game of Thrones after the original series, which ended in 2019. "Would I want to go back and do more? Not on your life," he said in December 2018. "…If, like me, you go all the way back to the pilot of Game of Thrones, that's almost 10 years of your life. That's really unusual in an actor's career. It was a huge, emotional upheaval leaving that family." Apparently, he had a change of heart.
During Sunday's panel, Harington seemed like he was also getting close to commenting on the planned sequel series while on the subject of Jon's dire wolf Ghost. A fan had asked for the reasoning behind Jon deciding to part ways with his animal companion.
HBO Ghost snarls in 'Game of Thrones'
Harington essentially said Ghost was "really difficult to film" and the dire wolves in general "were costing more than they could give in Game of Thrones, the show."
"I do think Ghost has a place in... I mean, he's brilliant in the books," Harington went on to say. "And he's such an interesting dynamic, those wolves are with the kids. I think he, you know... I think there's... I don't know where I'm going with that. I'm just saying they are very difficult to film."
House of the Dragon, which premiered Aug. 21, marks the first Game of Thrones successor series. The prequel goes back hundreds of years before the original fantasy drama to chronicle the Dance of the Dragons, a civil war that erupted within the once-thriving Targaryen empire between Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D'Arcy) and her half-brother Aegon II Targaryen (Tom Glynn-Carney) over the Iron Throne of Westeros.
Other treatments for spin-offs that could possibly expand the television franchise, if they ever get a green light, include Ten Thousand Ships, about Princess Nymeria of the Rhoynar; The Sea Snake, about the voyages of a young Corlys Velaryon (played on House of the Dragon as an older man by Steve Toussaint); The Hedge Knight, based on Martin's The Tales of Dunk and Egg; and animated projects.
Subscribe to EW's West of Westeros podcast, which goes behind the making of House of the Dragon and the growing Game of Thrones universe.
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