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If you’re an actor whose signature project ends in a spectacularly bad fashion, you’re probably put into a\u00a0very<\/em> tough spot. On the one hand, you shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds you and be like, “Wow, can you believe that ending? That\u00a0sucked!<\/em>” On the other hand, I’d be willing to bet that it’s really annoying to keep defending a finale that most people just absolutely hated. I’ll stop talking in circles and get to the point:\u00a0The “Game of Thrones” finale is widely reviled, and one of the show’s stars, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, weighed in on the issue in 2025.<\/p>\n Speaking to The Telegraph<\/a> to promote his project with the BBC, “King & Conqueror” (where he plays the real historical figure William of Normandy), Coster-Waldau discussed just how green he was as an actor when he started as Jaime Lannister on “Game of Thrones,”\u00a0and of course, profiler Ellie Harrison asked about the show’s eighth and final season. As far as the backlash against the entire season and its finale, “The Iron Throne,”\u00a0goes, Coster-Waldau took it in stride.<\/p>\n “It was expected,” he told Harrison. “How are you ever gonna make an end that’s gonna satisfy everyone? That’s a very difficult thing. I absolutely think people are entitled to whatever opinion they have, but it’s a television show. Someone told you a story and you didn’t like the ending. It’s really annoying, but…” (Here, Harrison notes that Coster-Waldau simply trailed off and shrugged.)<\/p>\n With all due respect to Coster-Waldau, that’s a bunch of baloney. “Someone told you a story and you didn’t like the ending” is a hell of a way to hand-wave away the extremely rushed pace of the final season of “Game of Thrones,” to say nothing of the rip in the time-space continuum that emerged around season 7 and allowed characters to apparently fast-travel throughout the massive continent of Westeros, or the absolutely absurd character assassinations and attempts to “subvert expectations” that just turned out stupid. I know that some of my colleagues right here at \/Film will go to bat for the ending of “Game of Thrones,”<\/a> and that’s their right, but they’re wrong, and so is Coster-Waldau. What’s especially frustrating about this non-committal answer is that, out of all of the major characters on “Game of Thrones,”\u00a0Jaime’s ending is one of the show’s most frustrating conclusions<\/a>.<\/p>\n