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Like So Many of Us, Varys Actor Conleth Hill Isn't Too Pumped About How 'Game of Thrones' is Ending, Either

By Roxana Hadadi | TV | May 15, 2019 |

By Roxana Hadadi | TV | May 15, 2019 |


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So, is anyone involved with Game of Thrones actually pleased with how Game of Thrones is ending, aside from D.B. Benioff and Dan Weiss, who are getting a goddamned Star War out of this?

SPOILERS FOR THIS SEASON, UP TO SUNDAY’S EPISODE “THE BELLS,” FOLLOW, FYI

We’ve all seen this clip of Emilia Clarke, Nathalie Emmanuel, and Jacob Anderson making pained faces while discussing how the show ends for Dany, Missandei, and Grey Worm …

And there’s also this compilation video that Lainey linked to in Pajiba Love a few nights ago, which edits together various interviews of cast members laughing about the abandonment of “character development” and “story,” and Kit Harington calling the series finale “disappointing” …

And now we have actor Conleth Hill (who is also featured in that above video, making a pained face alongside Isaac Hempstead Wright and Liam Cunningham) discussing how he feels Varys was increasingly sidelined in final seasons of the show.

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If you watched “The Bells,” you know that Varys is burned by Drogon at Dany’s behest for his treachery — trying to poison Dany and sending off letters informing others, although we don’t know who, of Jon Snow’s true parentage — and he gave an exit interview to Entertainment Weekly in which he said the following:

“I think they tried to make that work and couldn’t. It just felt like after season 6, I kind of dropped off the edge. … I can’t complain because it’s six great seasons and I had some great scenes these last two seasons. But that’s when it changed for me a little.”

“I was very bummed to not have a final scene with [Littlefinger]. 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.”

“I think the stuff that was said in [Varys and Tyrion’s traveling scenes] understood the nature of freaks and outsiders so precisely. In a way, that was lost when we got past [the narrative in George R.R. Martin’s] books. That special niche interest in weirdos wasn’t as effective as it had been.”

Of course, any actor is going to regret being written out of a phenomenally popular show, and yet, I totally understand what Varys is saying here. Like Tyrion in the last few seasons, it felt like Game of Thrones didn’t know what to do with characters who were allegedly some of the smarkest and sneakiest around. Every decision Tyrion has made lately has been awful. Varys suddenly abandoned his decades-long support of Dany just because Jon happened to be a dude. We’ll see what ramifications Varys’s actions have in the series finale this Sunday, but another Game of Thrones actor disappointed with how the final season has shaped up — well, that makes them one of us, doesn’t it?



Image sources (in order of posting): HBO Media Relations, HBO Media Relations