Kit Harington on Jon’s purpose and becoming a leader

Kit Harington is featured in two new interviews this week discussing the direction of Jon Snow in season 4. The actor chats about the Night’s Watchman’s ambitions and hopes now that he has rejoined his brothers at the Wall and abandoned his wildling lover Ygritte.

“For Jon, Season 4 is about becoming a leader,” Harington tells TV Guide. “You’ll see him on the battlefield rallying his men.”

As for the impending invasion and the woman he left behind, he says, “Jon knows the wildlings are going to attack the Wall and that Ygritte will be with them. So in that young-man-in-love way, he’s really hoping he sees her.”

Executive producer David Benioff remarks in TV Guide, “Jon now has a following among the younger brothers of the Watch, and his role as a leader is crucial in setting up the series’ endgame.”  He adds that it’s their “our biggest season for action and visual effects.”

Jon is indeed changing this season; according to Harington in his interview with Zap2it : “What’s going to be quite interesting this year is seeing how brutal Jon becomes. […] It’s a slow progress this season, but losing his love, losing his whole family in the Red Wedding, spending two years as a spy undercover, and then coming back to Castle Black hardens someone. To put it into a sort of modern context, when a young man goes off to war in our day and age, they’ve got that thousand-mile stare, and I think that’s what Jon comes back with a bit.”

The actor goes on to say that while his purpose might appear to be protecting the Wall as part of the Night’s Watch, “actually what’s going on inside him is a far deeper purpose about proving who he is to everybody. He’s got a very dangerous level of ambition that he doesn’t really know about, and also there’s vengeance there somewhere.”

Visit Zap2it and TV Guide to read the full interviews.

• Published on 04/01/2014 at 11:05 AM CDT
• Last updated on 10/21/2016 at 12:43 PM CDT