Sophie Turner Calls 'Game of Thrones' Petition 'Disrespectful'

By Jennifer Drysdale‍ 3:01 PM PDT, May 20, 2019

Sophie Turner wasn't surprised by fans' mixed reactions to the final season of Game of Thrones-- but she's not exactly happy about it.

In a post-finale interview with The New York Times, Turner opened up about GoT's controversial ending, and explained that she thinks the petition demanding HBO remake season eight is "disrespectful."

"All of these petitions and things like that -- I think it’s disrespectful to the crew, and the writers, and the filmmakers who have worked tirelessly over 10 years, and for 11 months shooting the last season," said Turner, whose husband, Joe Jonas, also congratulated her on the series finale on social media. "Like 50-something night shoots. So many people worked so, so hard on it, and for people to just rubbish it because it’s not what they want to see is just disrespectful."

The epic HBO series came to a close on Sunday night with Jon Snow (Kit Harington) killing Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke), and the lords and ladies of Westeros choosing a new king, Bran Stark (Isaac Hempstead Wright). Sansa (Turner), meanwhile, convinced her brother to make the North its own kingdom, and she became its queen.

"I loved it. It's the only place that she really, truly feels safe," the actress said of her reaction to Sansa's storyline. "It's the place that she's the most capable of ruling. She would be a fair and loving ruler, and it’s what she’s been striving for this whole series: to go back home, to protect her home. And finally she has that."

Turner also thinks Sansa reached that point in spite of the horrendous things done to her throughout the series, defending the character's controversial line about survival earlier in the season, which fans thought gave credit to Sansa's abusers.

"I obviously think that’s not a message to spread. But I don't think that was the intention. It was that she was strong in spite of all of the horrific things that she’s gone through, not because of them," Turner explained. "She's had resilience since the very beginning, and despite all of these awful things that happened to her, she's kept that resilience. Sansa to the core is resilient and brave and strong, and that had nothing to do with her abusers."

Sansa is a survivor -- and so are her siblings, Arya and Bran, and cousin, Jon Snow, all of whom ended the series without meeting their end. The pack survived -- which fans noted Turner actually revealed last year with her new tattoo.

"When I was getting it done, people advised me not to because it looked like I was giving everything away," Turner told James Corden last year of her "The pack survives" tattoo. "But I wasn't! It's just a quote from last season, but everyone figures that the pack really does survive, but it's just a moral that I like to live by."

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