Maisie Williams breaks silence on the controversial final season of Game of Thrones

Millions of viewers signed a petition to reshoot season eight of the HBO hit fantasy series

Game of Thrones actor Maisie Williams has broken her silence on the controversial ending of the hit HBO series.

Williams appeared on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon on Wednesday (19 August) when she said she was relieved the show was over, and defended the series finale which left many viewers unhappy.

The actor, who began playing Arya Stark when she was only 12 years old, told Fallon via a video call, “I was so happy with my ending, and it was just a beautiful end to a decade of my life, and I just couldn’t be happier with it.”

The hugely popular fantasy series came to an abrupt end in 2018, and many fans complained about its hasty final season. Millions of viewers signed a petition demanding that season eight be reshot.

Recently, Charles Dance, who famously portrayed Tywin Lannister, joined the chorus, stating that he too was “disappointed” by the closing chapter. He said, “If there was a petition, I would sign it.”

Maisie Williams as Arya Stark in HBO’s Game of Thrones (AP)

Williams, however, continued to defend the series’s contentious conclusion by saying, “We had such a blast – we loved it.”

The 23-year-old also admitted to feeling relieved that her time on the show is over because she no longer has to worry about revealing spoilers

She explained, “It is so nice. I used to walk down the street, and every single person that would recognise me, the only thing they’d ever want to know is, ‘tell me what happens to the next season’, ‘did Jon Snow really die?’, ‘are you going to be blind forever?!’ – All of these things that I just couldn’t talk about.

“Now, I guess people actually just ask me like, ‘What did you think of the final season?’”

House of the Dragon is currently the most imminent of the four Game of Thrones spin-offs in the works at HBO.

The straight-to-series prequel will be based on George RR Martin’s book Fire & Blood. The novel is set 300 years before the events of Game of Thrones began and tells the story of House Targaryen.

It was announced in January that House of the Dragon is on track for a 2022 debut.