Nobody expected that: just a few weeks before the start of House of the Dragon, it was announced that HBO was working on another Game of Thrones series. Center of the project, its history begin after season 8 of the main series to be: Jon Snow, to be played again by Kit Harington.
More Game of Thrones sounds like good news. A sequel could ease the pain of the controversial eighth season and… shall we say, not-so-well-received series finale. There’s just one problem: Jon Snow is by far the most overrated character in all of Westeros.
Nobody in Game of Thrones is as boring and one-dimensional as Jon SnowCersei Lannister (Lena Headey) may be one of the most morally depraved characters in Game of Thrones, but he also is one fascinating female figure caught between privilege and oppression. At least half of all good one-liners from the series come from her – and would even make Mad Men’s Roger Sterling jealous.
Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) is much more one-dimensional and boring than Cersei, but has dragons. And goes through a kind of character development at least in the last three episodes.
Kit Harington broke through as Jon Snow:
Game of Thrones – S08 Featurette The Cast Remembers (English) HD
Littlefinger (Aidan Gillen) is unlikable and sleazy, but you never know what he’s planning next. Ramsay Bolton (Iwan Rheon) is a despicable sadist, while showing a good sense of comedic timing and making for one of the best sausage memes of all time. Game of Thrones is not (only) such a good series because of its fantasy world or the special effects, but above all because of its complex characters.
And Jon Snow, who is built up as a lovable underdog from the start of the series and increasingly as actual hero of Game of Thrones is positioned? Concerned, he looks past the camera for large parts of his screen time and repeats the same catchphrases over and over again. In Winterfell’s “Bastard” there are no complex motifs, no double bottom. It’s neither funny nor dark nor does much happen in its storyline over most of the series.
Even the revelation of his true parents, a core theme for the character from the very first episode, made for…well, nothing really. No crisis of meaning, no deep questions, no major implications for the Game of Thrones endgame. Jon Snow remains the Teflon pan among Game of Thrones characters: nothing sticks to him.
Jon Snow is the wrong character to continue narrating Game of Thrones after Season 8
The thing is: Even in Game of Thrones, there can and should be characters who are not master manipulators or have other unusual abilities. Of course it’s kind of absurd how much the secret heir to the throne is stylized by those around him as the great savior, although others (Sansa, Arya, Daenerys) are responsible for his greatest successes (Battle of the Bastards, victory against the White Walker and Cersei). But: If Jon not the smartest or the most exciting or the most capable person in Westeros is – who cares?
© HBO
Jon Snow up north without the White Walkers? Semi-exciting.
Well, it should at least interest those who have any interest in expanding the Game of Thrones series universe. Because if the planned sequel is really primarily about Jon Snow, we have a problem. Not only is it impressively boring, but at the end of the eighth season it also finds itself in a less than exciting situation. Jon is sent back north after his murder of Daenerys. To secure the area beyond the former wall and continue working on the relationship with the wildlings, presumably. So what he did in the main series – only without creepy ice zombies, which at least gave the topic a hint of tension.
So we can say: the continuation of one of the greatest series of all time will revolve around the most boring main character by far, who – according to everything we know – is used to morosely and taciturnly rides through snow-covered landscapeswithout having to fear for his life. Sorry, but: This premise couldn’t even save Tormund.
The original version of this text first appeared in April 2021. The text has since been adapted to current events.
More fictional worlds like Westeros in the podcast: 10 streaming films for fantasy fans
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Sometimes even a fantasy fan doesn’t want to watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Harry Potter series or all seasons of Game of Thrones for the twentieth time, but wants something different. So we give 10 recommendations for strong fantasy films that you can currently stream on Amazon, Netflix and Disney+.
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