Game Of Thrones' Jon Snow Sequel Is Dead - Thank God

The Jon Snow-centered spin-off of "Game of Thrones" is apparently dead, and unlike Jon in that original series, it should stay dead.

Kit Harington himself recently told ScreenRant while promoting his new project "Blood for Dust" that the Jon Snow show is on hold ... probably forever. "Currently, it's off the table, because we all couldn't find the right story to tell that we were all excited about enough," Harington told the outlet. "So, we decided to lay down tools with it for the time being. There may be a time in the future where we return to it, but at the moment, no. It's firmly on the shelf."

This might seem like disappointing news for "Game of Thrones" fans, but the truth is that the Jon Snow spin-off probably shouldn't ever see the light of day. At the end of the original series, Jon rides off into the icy North after killing his queen, lover, and aunt Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) over the tiny little issue of her becoming a genocidal maniac rather abruptly. Once again a member of The Night's Watch — an organization that no longer serves any purpose due to the fact that the Night King and his army of White Walkers and wights were defeated already — Jon embarks on a nebulous new journey alongside his faithful direwolf Ghost and close friend Tormund Giantsbane (Kristofer Hivju). There's nothing more that needs to be said about Jon's future, and any explanations given as to why he's banished to the now-defunct Night's Watch will likely just be frustrating and stupid, so the Jon Snow spin-off can remain on the shelf indefinitely as far as we're concerned.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the ending of "Game of Thrones" absolutely sucks. Showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss eventually found themselves at a point where they narratively surpassed their existing source material — the still-unfinished series "A Song of Ice and Fire" by George R.R. Martin, who consulted frequently on "Game of Thrones" — and by the time they got to the seventh and eighth season, they were apparently, also, bored and tired. Enticed by the idea of moving on to make their "Star Wars" project (which was ultimately scrapped after Lucasfilm got wind of the ending of "Game of Thrones"), Benioff and Weiss rushed to finish "Game of Thrones" with two abbreviated final seasons. The result? Basically disastrous.

So what does this all have to do with the now-shelved Jon Snow spin-off? "Game of Thrones" fans are acutely aware that Jon's storyline really, really stunk during Seasons 7 & 8 of "Game of Thrones." Like so many other characters on the show, he came down with a serious case of the stupids as the show lurched towards the finish line, coming up with boneheaded ideas like capturing a wight to prove a point (an act that endangered not just Jon, but several other main characters, and killed a dragon). The show reveals, at the end of Season 6, that Jon isn't a bastard from the North at all, but a legitimate Targaryen and the true heir to the Iron Throne. The show does literally nothing with this information. A Jon Snow spin-off would just keep spinning its proverbial wheels where Jon is concerned. He's back in the Night's Watch and his heritage doesn't matter at all; what more is there left to say here?

The only move for the "Game of Thrones" cinematic universe, at this point, is to keep going forward. Backpedaling to Jon Snow's story and forcing Kit Harington back into his enormous furs might sound tempting, but narratively, it's a road to nowhere. The first major spin-off, "House of the Dragon," rewinds the story by centuries and tells the story of the civil war amongst the Targaryens (pre-Daenerys) known as the Dance of the Dragons ... and it's been an enormous success so far. Part of that is because the series is familiar enough to viewers to draw them in but different enough to not just serve as a reminder that the ending of "Game of Thrones" stinks, and part of that is because George R.R. Martin's universe is large enough to tell other stories without breaking a sweat.

Next up on the Westerosi docket is the spin-off "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight," which just cast its two leads. Irritatingly wordy title aside, this spin-off follows the template set by "House of the Dragon" in that it's a story that casual viewers don't know yet. The story of Jon Snow is as tired as they come at this point, and there really isn't any more left to say about the character that won't simply make people remember, "hey, remember how bad that final season was?" Leave Jon Snow in the past and keep things moving; his watch has ended.