Four years on and one spin-off later, fans of HBO‘s “Game Of Thrones” still haven’t forgiven David Benioff and D.B. Weiss for botching the show’s final episodes. And neither has some of the series cast, apparently. EW reports that Conleth Hill, who played Varys in each of the show’s eight seasons, still thinks the show’s ending was “rushed” but feels a little better about it now than he did in 2019.
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In a new interview with The Times, Hill said he thinks disagreements between Benioff and Weiss and HBO led to the final season’s glaring issues. “Right up until the last two series, I had no complaints at all,” Hill told the publication. “I just felt frustrated with the last couple of [seasons] because Varys wasn’t the all-knowing character he had been. I think the writers wanted to do one thing to end it and the studio HBO wanted to do another. I felt that last [season] was a bit rushed. I was inconsolable, but now I’m fine about it.”
And Hill was indeed inconsolable in 2019 as the show’s final episodes aired. In an interview with EW that year, the actor expressed his disappointment in how “Game Of Thrones” ended. “You can’t help feeling that you failed in some way, that you haven’t lived up to some expectation that you didn’t know about,” Hill said during that interview. “The only thing that consoles you is people who worked a lot harder than you are in the same boat. So that helps. I don’t think anybody who hasn’t been through it can identify with it. They think, ‘What’s all the fuss about? You’re all finishing anyway.’ But you take it personally, you can’t help it.”
Varys’ death is one of many disappointing plot twists in “Game Of Thrones” Season 8. After years of protecting the realm while in the political shadows, Hill’s character gets executed by Emilia Clarke‘s Daenerys Targaryen after discovering Varys’ plot to put Kit Harington‘s Jon Snow on the Iron Throne instead of her. While Hill finds Varys’ end “noble,” his sudden shift in allegiance is a questionable choice for a character who had always been the smartest person in the room for the seven seasons beforehand. But then, so many other “Game Of Thrones” characters made sudden head-scratching choices in the show’s final episodes.
But Hill’s greatest regret for Varys at the end of “Game Of Thrones”? Not having a final scene with Aidan Gillen‘s Littlefinger, Varys’ longtime political rival in King’s Landing. “I was very bummed to not have a final scene with him,” Hill told EW in 2019. “I was bummed not to have any reaction to him dying, if he was my nemesis. That’s been my feeling the last couple seasons, that my character became more peripheral, that they concentrated on others more. That’s fine. It’s the nature of a multi-character show. It was kind of frustrating. As a whole it’s been overwhelmingly positive and brilliant, but I suppose the last couple seasons weren’t my favorite.” For those who don’t remember, Maisie Williams‘ Arya Stark kills Littlefinger at Winterfell at the end of Season 7. And, yes, Varys never acknowledges Littlefinger’s death in Season 8.
But all’s well that ends well, right? Not in the case of “Game Of Thrones.” While it’s clear that Hill’s feelings about the show’s ending have mellowed out over the past four years, he’s still deeply disappointed with how far the hit series fell before its final bow. Let’s hope “House Of The Dragon” and other upcoming “Game Of Throne” spin-offs don’t meet the same fate.