Now we Know Where Jon Snow Was Going in Final Game of Thrones Shot
The final shot in Game of Thrones took us all the way back to the beginning, only with a decidedly very different tone. Game of Thrones opened north of the wall, where the resurgent White Walkers were leaving gruesome clues (dead bodies and body parts) for the living. The final shot in the series was of Jon Snow (Kit Harington), north of the wall, heading into a future in which the White Walkers and their undead minions were dead.
Still, the question was, ‘Where exactly is Jon heading?’ He’d been demoted from King of the North for, you know, killing Daenerys Targaryen, and sent back to the Night’s Watch for a lifetime of service. (What they’re watching now that the Night King is dead is anybody’s guess). In the final shot, Jon’s on horseback with the Free Folk, beyond the wall and heading north into the woods. He looked, well, kind of happy. Was he off to live with the Wildings? Was he on some kind of mission? Now we know what he was up to. Harington, who is nominated for an Emmy for Best Actor in a Drama Series, was part of The Hollywood Reporter‘s Emmy-nominated actor package. Here’s what he had this to say about Jon’s fate in that final shot:
“Seeing him go beyond the Wall back to something true, something honest, something pure with these people he was always told he belongs with — the Free Folk — it felt to me like he was finally free. Instead of being chained and sent to the Wall, it felt like he was set free. It was a really sweet ending. As much as he had done a horrible thing [in killing Daenerys], as much as he had felt that pain, the actual ending for him was finally being released.”
This is more or less what the majority of Free Folk on the Internet felt. Although technically Jon is supposed to be serving a life sentence at the Wall, we’re guessing no one, not even Grey Worm, is going to go checking to make sure he’s glumly watching the White Walker-less woods. Instead, Jon Snow is with Tormund and his Wilding pals, heading into an unknown but less fraught future. He did his part, as gruesome as it all was. A lifetime in freezing climes with some good friends is about as happy an ending as he could have expected.
Featured image: Season 8, episode 4 (debut 5/5/19): Kit Harington. Photo: Helen Sloan/HBO
