Kit Harington Says He’s Done Playing the Hero

Can we really call Jon Snow the hero? It’s an odd question, I get it, and it’s likely that people might want to argue over it for hours on end. But with Kit Harington stating that he’s done playing the silent hero that’s tortured by having to do the right thing, it’s time to examine just what Jon Snow did in Game of Thrones that makes him heroic, and those times that make it feel as though he was simply a tortured man that had no idea which way to turn until there was no other choice open to him. As a bastard son of Ned Stark that was tolerated by Catelyn Stark, he was something of a tragic figure since he had siblings that cared about him, but his ‘father’ couldn’t show him any serious favor without Catelyn Stark giving him holy hell for it. To her, Jon was a reminder that Ned had been unfaithful, even if later on we learned that while Jon was indeed part of the Stark legacy, he was also part of House Targaryen by blood, which makes his time with Daenerys a bit disturbing, to say the least, as many would quickly point out. But his heroics were often born of little more than necessity and some inborn sense of justice and duty that he carried about like a ton of bricks throughout the length of the show.

There have been definite moments when he was the hero, but acting like he’s a saint that’s troubled by every wrong thing that he needs to do isn’t just worthy of an eye roll, it’s utterly boring since the whole idea of being the hero that feels that they must sacrifice but can’t bear it is something that’s been done to death throughout the history of cinema and TV. The noble, upright, and apparently infallible heroes that were held up as an example for so long have become a thing of the past really, and the whole silent, tortured hero thing isn’t that big of a deal, but when it’s your entire schtick then it might be time to back up a step and examine just what else there might be. Thus far in his career, Harington hasn’t done a whole lot when it comes to playing different characters. In fact, one of his upcoming roles isn’t too different from Jon Snow since the part of the Black Knight in The Eternals will force him to be chivalrous and his character will be walking a road of redemption that’s not entirely his once again. His time as Jon Snow appears to have aided Kit in being typecast just a bit, and perhaps it’s this that he’s railing against more than anything, since the silent, noble hero isn’t really the only thing he’s been known for on GoT. If you want brutal honesty, many people have felt that Jon Snow was a bit of a whiner since with each new adventure and challenge he almost always made certain to question the morality of the world around him, and his own actions. That’s great and all, he has a stronger moral code than many around him, but it also makes him far weaker at times since he has to second-guess and question himself almost every step of the way. If not for his unknown safety net that George. R.R. Martin wrote into the story, it’s likely that Jon would have perished far quicker than many characters since Westeros proved many times that indecision and mercy are not wise traits to possess.

Granted, Snow did manage to hang those that killed him, he did make hard decisions, and he did manage to try his hardest to be a decent human being, even after doing some very questionable things. But at best, he’s an anti-hero, a compromised hero, someone that made hard decisions and stuck with them but would make them again and again if he had to since at some point he did come to understand the way of life in Westeros, and that it was exceedingly cruel. Some might say that he experienced this growing up under Catelyn Stark since she almost never had a kind word for him, but he found out even more once he left Winterfell and experienced the wider world. Jon was held up as a hero of GoT, but in truth, he was one of the unique individuals of the story that refused to accept the same world that so many embraced in one way or another. He knew in his heart what was right, and yet he went against it more than once in order to do what he felt he had to. If Kit Harington wants to stop playing the hero, that’s all well and good, but it feels like it’s going to be an uphill battle.