Actor Kit Harington (Jon Snow) attended the first Game of Thrones Official Fan Convention a couple weekends back, where he spoke openly about the HBO fantasy series a few years after its conclusion. Somewhat surprisingly, he revealed that he was never really on board with one of the show’s most famous lines: “You know nothing, Jon Snow.”
That’s something Jon’s love interest Ygritte would say to him when she wanted to underline how naive he was about the world, or just because. But Harington, who played Jon Snow for all eight seasons of the show, never understood it. “I always got really annoyed by the ‘You know nothing Jon Snow.’ I still get annoyed by it, because I don’t know what it means!” he said, per Metro. “It’s like, what do you mean I know nothing? What does that mean? What are you talking about? It’s such a terrible insult.”
I get “I drink and I know things”, but I don’t get “You know nothing.” For some reason I’ve never got it, I don’t want it. I don’t know…I always liked Bronn’s lines. Bronn’s lines were awesome. Bronn always had a good exit line.
Bronn did indeed have some good lines. “You do not fight with honor.” “No. He did.” And Tyrion Lannister famously said, “I drink and I know things.” Fine lines all.
That said, I wonder if Harington is having a bit of fun here. Like…it’s not that hard to understand the meaning of, “You know nothing, Jon Snow,” is it? Ygritte isn’t saying that Jon literally knows nothing; she’s just negging him a bit to highlight that the wasn’t as wise and worldly as he thought he was.
Kit Harington: Reading Game of Thrones reviews “really damaged my confidence”
Anyway, while speaking on his panel, Harington also shared that he has trouble going back and watching his early work on the show, back when he was in his early 20s. “I think any actor would find this – going back and looking back at your early work is very painful. If I watch those early seasons of Thrones, especially the first season, I’m wincing.”
Since then, Harington has grown a lot and says that he “feels very centered as an actor…I feel very aware of what I’m good at and that’s a good thing to know.”
I definitely think you can see Harington get better at acting as Game of Thrones went on, not that he was ever bad. But no matter how good he became, he’d never be good enough for some of the fans on social media, which is known to be a hotbed of strident criticism, earned or unearned. In the past, Harington would read reviews of his performance, something he said really “screwed” with his head.
“I’d go on the internet, and I’d look at stuff and I’d look at reviews and I’d look at the comments section, that box of doom,” Harington said, per Geo News. “It really damaged my confidence for a long time. And I had to learn not to look at that stuff…I was like, I don’t know what that gives me. I know what it takes, but I don’t know what it gives.”
I think each to your own and some people probably find a lot of brilliant stuff in social media, but I think for an actor in a show like this, it’s the most dangerous thing. So I had to not do that. I’m not on social media, I had to step away from that stuff.
Harington has picked up good habits since then, so he’ll be ready when and if he ever returns to the role of Jon Snow. That’s something he’s trying to do at the moment; he came to HBO with a pitch for a Jon Snow sequel series, although we don’t know if HBO has given it the green light yet.
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