Kit Harington Defends Daenerys’ Arc in Final Game of Thrones Episodes (SPOILERS)

Warning: Spoilers follow for the final two episodes of Game of Thrones.

Jon Snow himself has spoken out to defend Daenerys’ storyline in the final episodes of Game of Thrones. Kit Harington spoke with EW and said that fans who are angry that Dany became a tyrant at the end probably should have seen it coming.

“I think it’s going to divide,” said Harington of Dany’s arc. “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. 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.’”

Harington did note that he was concerned the final episodes would be accused of being sexist, noting, “One of my worries with this is we have Cersei and Dany, two leading women, who fall. The justification is: Just because they’re women, why should they be the goodies? They’re the most interesting characters in the show. And that’s what Thrones has always done. You can’t just say the strong women are going to end up the good people. Dany is not a good person. It’s going to open up discussion but there’s nothing done in this show that isn’t truthful to the characters. And when have you ever seen a woman play a dictator?”

Of course, Daenerys’ “fall” — at least in the mortality sense — comes at the hands of Jon Snow himself, who stabs Dany when he realizes she’s too far gone. Harington said that death is tragic for Jon. “This is the second woman he’s fallen in love with who dies in his arms and he cradles her in the same way,” he points out. “That’s an awful thing. In some ways, Jon did the same thing to Ygritte by training the boy who kills her. This destroys Jon to do this.”

You can see 411’s review of the series finale here.