Love Game of Thrones for killing Jon Snow, says Lost showrunner Damon Lindelof

Jon Snow looking very much dead (HBO)

Damon Lindelof has defended Game of Thrones season 5 over what some fans saw as an unwelcome change of pace and a narrative-ruining death of a beloved character.

In spite of George R. R Martin’s criticism of Lost, Lindelof is a big fan of the HBO show and thinks people only pick it apart for the sake of it.

He told Entertainment Weekly:

“I don’t watch television to find things to gripe about, and I think we live in a clickbait-y media culture that exists to pick things apart. I love-watching Game of Thrones, so I’m immensely forgiving of things that perhaps are not the strongest attributes of the show. And despite the fact that George R. R. Martin has flamed the Lost finale, there is a schadenfreude aspect of me saying, “Well, I kind of hope Game of Thrones sucks at the end, too, so they’ll know it feels to have somebody say that to you.” But I don’t think the Lost finale sucks. And I want Game of Thrones to end awesome, because I’m a huge fan, and I have every reason to believe that it is going to end awesomely."

As for Jon Snow's death, he thinks it is hypocritical to praise the show for bumping off the "un-killable" Ned Stark then complaining when they do the same to Jon.

“But when you are in the zeitgeist, and when you are loved, there’s this part of it—people threaten to stop watching, people say “it’s not as good as it used to be,” people say, “If you kill this character, I will stop watching the show.” One of the things that people fell in love with about Thrones was its willingness to kill anyone—but you can’t kill Jon Snow, you know? And it’s like: “But I thought you loved the show because we killed Ned Stark! He was the un-killable character!” So we have to be willing to do that.”

Lindelof refuted the idea that some episodes were filler, saying they were necessary in setting up the spectacle of ‘Hardhome’.

“As a storyteller, if you can make one, let alone two, excellent hours of television a season if you’re doing eight or 10 episodes—an excellent episode by all accounts—I think what people don’t realize is that in order to produce those excellent episodes, there have to be episodes that set that up. There also have to be episodes that begin to—although this is never a storyteller’s intent—make [the viewer] go, “I don’t know, I don’t know about this…” That makes those excellent episodes all the more special. And when I was watching [episode 8] “Hardhome” this season, I was just like, “That’s one of the most excellent hours of television I’ve ever seen.” You only need to demonstrate excellence once a season for me to view the entire season as excellent, or the entire show as excellent. And Game of Thrones is able to do it at any one time.”

He also admired the show’s technical prowess, saying that “as someone who makes television, I watch that show and I do not know how they do it”.

Earlier in the week, new set photos from Game of Thrones season 6 filming showed what is in store for Arya Stark.