Kit Harington says that 'Game of Thrones' critics can 'go f**k themselves'

If you’ve nothing nice to say about Game of Thrones, then it’s best to avoid any frank conversations with Kit Harington.

Because Jon Snow reckons you know nothing.

Speaking in an interview with Esquire, the British actor, who as of last night’s episode of the HBO fantasy saga plays Aegon Targaryen, explained that he takes criticism of the show very personally.

Not, perhaps, because he thinks everything’s perfect, but because he thinks that everyone who works on the show has done their very best.

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“I think no matter what anyone thinks about this season – and I don’t mean to sound mean about critics here – but whatever critic spends half an hour writing about this season and makes their negative judgement on it, in my head they can go f**k themselves,” he said.

“Because I know how much work was put into this. I know how much people cared about this. I know how much pressure people put on themselves and I know how many sleepless nights working or otherwise people had on this show.

“Because they cared about it so much. Because they cared about the characters. Because they cared about the story. Because they cared about not letting people down.

“Now if people feel let down by it, I don’t give a f**k. That’s how I feel — because everyone tried their hardest.

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“That’s how I feel. In the end, no one’s bigger fans of the show than we are, and we’re kind of doing it for ourselves. That’s all we could do, really. And I was just happy we got to the end.”

Obviously that’s something of a bold statement, notably as season seven bucked the trend among even the most on-board reviewers, with many voicing their disappointment in the direction the action took.

However, many reviews of the first episode of season eight – with its almost complete absence of action sequences – hailed it as being a tentative return to form.

Many compared it to the pace and tone of season one, back when it had a tiny budget, and they had to throw real rocks at Sean Bean.

But with a truncated final season of six episodes – albeit some being feature length – the slow, character-focussed pacing may be out of the window as the army of the dead approaches.

Game of Thrones continues on Monday night at 9pm on Sky Atlantic.