The Game of Thrones show has gone and left the world, and maybe the monoculture, behind. But there’s still some secrets left to tell about how the show’s rocky final season played out. The latest tidbit is that Kit Harrington had apparently been told that his character, Jon Snow, would be the one to kill the Night King, years before the scene was ever scripted and filmed.
According to Maisie Williams, Harrington once told her that he was let in on a big show secret while they were filming Season 3. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Williams reflected on the show and her big scene involving a knife and the most dangerous being on the fictional planet. Asked about the fact that most people thought it would be Snow to take care of business, Williams noted it would be “too obvious” and that even Harrington thought he would be the one to do it.
He expected it to go that way, too, and he even said, “It was going to go that way. Someone told me in season three that I was going to kill The Night King.” And then, he read the script, and it was Arya the whole time. (Laughs.) Yeah, I think it would’ve been too obvious. I’m glad that it was Arya, honestly. I think I had the best storyline of the final season. (Laughs.)
Assuming is one thing, but being told it would happen by someone is another thing altogether. And it must have been a surprise to find out that he wouldn’t be the one to do it. That certainly explains his reaction to the plot points when asked in the press. Though he hadn’t revealed that secret to anyone, he did admit in 2019 that he wishes he had been the one to kill the Night King.
“I was secretly like, ‘I wanted to do that!’” Harrington told The Hollywood Reporter last year, imagining an epic sword fight with Vlad Furdik, who played the Night King. “But it was a really great twist, and it tied up Maisie’s journey in a really beautiful way.”