Game of Thrones may have ended its eight-season run on HBO in May but that doesn't mean we're finished talking about it. At a Game of Thrones fan event over the weekend in Nashville, series alum Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who played anti-hero Jaime Lannister for the entirety of the series, responded to criticisms about the choices made for the season 8 story.

The eighth and final season received negativity from longtime fans of the series over the course of its eight-episode run. Whether it was critiques over the poorly-lit but pivotal third episode focused on the nighttime battle at Winterfell or disappointment with who ended up on the Iron Throne, fans had lots of feelings about how this show wound down. As reported by Variety, a portion of the fandom reacted so negatively to the direction of the final season that a petition was created to demand a do-over. Game of Thrones actor Sophie Turner reacted to the petition, calling it "disrespectful" to everyone who had worked on the final season.

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Coster-Waldau had a sharp response about those criticisms when a fan asked him about it at the event. As reported by Huffington Post, Coster-Waldau remarked that "for anyone to imagine or to think that the two creators of the show are not the most passionate, the greatest, the most invested of all, and to for a second think that they didn’t spend the last 10 years thinking about how they were going to end it is kind of silly."

He continued, adding, "Also know that they too read the comments. And it is, even though you sit on your own and go, 'Fucking stupid writers. Assholes.' They really ― like everyone on Game of Thrones, every single person and there are thousands ― we worked our asses off to make the best show we could for the ending."

Coster-Waldau also let on he wasn't the only Game of Thrones cast member stung by the criticisms from fans, sharing with the audience at the event, "We worked so hard. I’m not asking anyone to feel sorry, by the way. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m just saying how it was to get through that whole thing."

This will likely not be the last earful we get from a Game of Thrones cast or crew members about the negative reactions to the final season. On Friday, July 19, Benioff and Weiss will head up a Game of Thrones panel at San Diego Comic-Con, where this topic will likely be addressed.

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