Game of Thrones star Kit Harington has no intention of watching House of the Dragon, but his decision has nothing to do with the quality of the show.
The Eternals actor, who played Jon Snow across eight seasons of HBO's fantasy drama series, explained that he simply finds it too difficult to revisit the world of Westeros after spending so much time on the original show.
“I just can’t watch it,” Harington tells Variety. “I think, for me, it’s just I’ve spent too long there. And I wish them all the best. I hear it’s wonderful and going really well. But I don’t think I’ll ever watch that show, and I don’t think I’ll watch Game of Thrones again for a few years.”
Despite these misgivings, Harington was all set to return as the honourable "bastard" of Winterfell turned rightful heir to the Iron Throne for a sequel series, but recently conformed that the project has been shelved indefinitely.
“Currently, it’s off the table because we all couldn’t find the right story to tell that we were all excited about enough," Harington explained. "So, we decided to lay down tools with it for the time being. There may be a time in the future where we return to it, but at the moment, no. It’s firmly on the shelf.”
Harington had previously been somewhat tight-lipped about the potential spin-off during interviews, and he notes that this was because "I didn’t want the thing to happen where people kind of start theorizing, getting either excited about it or hating the idea of it, when it may never happen."
Though a creative team was never made public, A Song of Ice and Fire saga writer George R.R. Martin revealed that the project did have writers and a showrunner attached on his personal blog last year.
“Yes, it was Kit Harington who brought the idea to us. 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.”
Though the final season of Game of Thrones does have its share of defenders, it was widely considered to be a disappointing swansong for the mega-popular fantasy drama series. The final two episodes, in particular, came in for a lot of backlash thanks to some highly controversial creative decisions, one of which saw fan-favorite Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) "break bad" by laying waste to King's Landing and the thousands of innocent people who lived there just so she could take her revenge on Cersi Lannister (Lena Headey).
Then, in the series finale, Jon Snow killed his lover/aunt when he realized that she'd succumbed to madness. He admitted his crime, but escaped execution and was sent back to The Wall. The last time we saw Jon, he was leading the remaining members of the Night's Watch beyond the Wall into Wildling territory.
It's a shame that Snow (working title) won't be moving forward, but perhaps Harington and HBO will come up with a story worth telling down the line.