The cast of Game of Thrones addressed the backlash to the final season during a panel at Comic-Con, calling it “a media-led hate campaign”.
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Maisie Williams and Liam Cunningham were among the cast members who attended the event in San Diego.
Conleth Hill, who played Lord Varys in the series, told the audience: “We’re very grateful for your fandom over the years and I think this is the reality rather than a media-led hate campaign.”
Days after defending the show from its critics, Coster-Waldau – who played Jaime Lannister – said: “It [was] gonna p*** you off no matter what because it’s the end. If you hated the ending, if you loved the ending, that’s great, just don’t call people names.”
Hill had previously admitted to being frustrated with the last few seasons of the show.
The cast were originally set to be joined by showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss, but they pulled out a few days beforehand citing “production and schedule conflicts” as reasons.
Just last week, George RR Martin – author of the A Song of Ice and Fire book series – revealed key details about the Westeros fans will see in the forthcoming prequel series, which stars Naomi Watts.
Game of Thrones received a historic 32 Emmy nominations on Tuesday, 10 of which went to its cast.
You can find a ranking of every Game of Thrones character – from worst to best – here.
