“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 told Esquire. “Because I know how much work was put into this.”
Harington later apologised, saying he didn’t intend to “sound mean about critics”, but added that the show meant too much to him for him to allow it to be bashed 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.”
Harington’s comments follow weeks of backlash over season eight, which has culminated in more than 1.2 million disgruntled fans “signing” a Change.org petition demanding a remake of the last season.
“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!”
Benioff and Weiss have been the main targets of fans’ ire, with many complaining that their writing has been lazy in the final run of episodes.
Earlier, Sophie Turner broke her silence over the petition and also reveals her reaction to her character being crowned the Queen in the North.
“All of these petitions and things like that — I think it’s disrespectful to the crew, and the writers, and the film-makers who have worked tirelessly over 10 years, and for 11 months shooting the last season. Like 50-something night shoots," she said in an interview with the New York Times. "So many people worked so, so hard on it, and for people to just rubbish it because it’s not what they want to see is just disrespectful."
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