February 13, 2015
Jon Snow pleads “Leave George R.R. Martin alone!”
by Julia Fleischaker
Jon Snow has had enough of your trolling. Image copyright HBO, via Westeros.org
On an internet filled with vicious trolls, hurtful bullies, and, uh, defenders of ethical journalism, it seems that nobody is safe from hate. Not even Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin. According to a story in The Telegraph, “fans” of the author continue to be overheated in their eagerness for a new book, and Kit Harington has had enough.
Game of Thrones actor Kit Harington, who stars as Night’s Watchman Jon Snow on the popular HBO show, has spoken out against the internet abuse of author George RR Martin. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire book series is the inspiration behind the fantasy TV programme.
When asked about whether or not he feels “under pressure” from the avid (and occasionally slightly obsessive) Game of Thrones fanbase, Harington said: “The only thing I get p–sed off about is that, as far as George RR Martin goes, there’s a lot of fan pressure on him – a lot of nasty, manipulative, quite vicious fan pressure that’s aimed towards him, about his health, and about when he is producing the next book. I get quite angry about that.”
Harington, who doesn’t have a Twitter account, went on to (quite rightly) say, “It’s unhealthy, and symptomatic of many problems we have at the moment, in terms of people sitting behind a screen and firing arrows, which I think is an ugly side of our society.”
Martin’s complicated relationship with his fans, and their dissatisfaction with his writing pace, is nothing new. The New Yorker wrote about it in 2011, a development which, according to Martin, had its own unintended consequences.
And as Martin told Mashable that article made the problem “a little worse, because some of the trolls said ‘oh, we got written about in the New Yorker! We’re famous! Now, let’s redouble our efforts!’
“But I try not to pay attention to any of that; 99% of my fans are fabulous. No book pleases everybody and no timetable pleases everybody. The fact that there are people looking forward to the book is a nice problem to have. It’s all good.”
Back to Harington, he claims, just like Jon Snow, to have no idea what’s next in the series. “As far as what the future brings for us, I believe none of us [the Game of Thrones cast] know anything at all,” he said. “The three people who know what is coming – and I believe it really is only three – are George RR Martin, David Benioff and Dan Weiss“.
Julia Fleischaker is the director of marketing and publicity at Melville House.