**Warning: This article contains spoilers for Game of Thrones. Read at your own risk.**
Game of Thrones star Joe Dempsie has explained why it was inevitable the ending wouldn’t please all fans.
The actor starred in the fantasy series as Gendry who ended up being granted the title Lord of Storm’s End by Emilia Clarke’s Daenerys Targaryen.
But, after appearing in the show since its first ever season, the 33-year-old knew that the showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss couldn’t not have satisfied everyone with the ending.
When chatting to Digital Spy, he shared his theory: ‘In the years leading up to season eight, there was not a moment when I envied Dave and Dan’s task of bringing this thing to a conclusion that was broadly satisfying but also surprising.
‘One of the major components of Game of Thrones’ success was that it was a show that lends itself so well to almost endless theorising about how it’s going to end, so they had to find a way to do that that hadn’t already been widely suggested on the internet.’
He pressed: ‘Even if your prediction was exactly how the show ended up finishing, you would have had about 10 minutes of smugness before you felt really p**sed off that it hadn’t surprised you in the way you were hoping.
‘So I think it was inevitable there was going to be a backlash and the ending wasn’t going to please everyone.’
The final episode of the show, titled The Iron Throne, was the lowest rated instalment seeing it slated by fans and critics alike.
The episode saw Bran Stark (Isaac Hempstead Wright) crowned ruler of the now Six Kingdoms while Jon Snow (Kit Harington) killed the sudden mad queen Daenerys.
At the time, fans launched a petition calling for the entire eighth season to be rewritten, which gained more than one million followers.
Sophie Turner, who played Sansa Stark, told The New Yorker: ‘Honestly, I’m not surprised. People always have an idea in their heads of how they want a show to finish, and so when it doesn’t go to their liking, they start to speak up about it and rebel.
‘All of these petitions and things like that – I think it’s disrespectful to the crew, and the writers, and the filmmakers who have worked tirelessly over 10 years, and for 11 months shooting the last season. Like 50-something night shoots.
‘So many people worked so, so hard on it, and for people to just rubbish it because it’s not what they want to see is just disrespectful.’
Game of Thrones is available to stream on NOW TV.
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