Ned Stark just found out how HBO's Game of Thrones ended, and he's happy to hear that Winterfell gained independence. In a recent interview, famed English actor Sean Bean admitted that he didn't know how the series ended since he hadn't watched past season one. Bean portrayed Stark family patriarch Eddard "Ned" Stark, who was tragically executed for treason by King Joffrey near the end of the first season.
Bean is perhaps best known for his fantasy roles in both Game of Thrones and The Lord of the Rings. In the first of Jackson's three film adaptations of the beloved J.R.R. Tolkien book series, Bean played Boromir, the steward prince of Gondor and one of the nine members of the fellowship of the ring. Boromir was savagely killed near the end of the film by the Uruk-hai leader Lurtz while protecting Hobbits Mary and Pippin. Bean has developed a bit of reputation for dying on screen, as many of the characters he's portrayed in movies and TV seem to have fatal ends. Other movies that depict Bean dying include GoldenEye, Equilibrium, Patriot Games, Black Death, and many more.
When asked by The Times if he'd seen the final episode of the show, Bean replied, "No. What happened?" After Journalist Ed Potton detailed the events of the finale, Bean said "So did Winterfell stay separate? Oh, good for them." So it looks likes pappa Stark is proud of his children, at least the ones that survived the series. Game of Thrones ended back in May 2019 after eight seasons of blood, dragons, and, of course, incest. By the end of the series, Ned's oldest son Robb and his beloved wife Catelyn were also brutally killed off during Game of Thrones' infamous Red Wedding. However, things worked out pretty well for Ned's surviving children. In the series finale, the leaders of Westeros chose Ned's youngest son, Bran, as their King, while also making Ned's oldest daughter, Sansa, Queen in the North, allowing her to have independence over the Stark's ancestral region.
The series finale, and the entire final season for that matter, was notoriously divisive amongst Game of Thrones fans. Some felt the final season, which only ran six episodes as opposed to the usual ten, was rushed by showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff as they tried too hard to wrap everything up in a short amount of time. That being said, it was still one of the most-watched series in television history, with a record 13.6 million viewers tuning in for the finale.
Despite the divisive reactions, it was sad to see the series that everyone was watching together end. In the age of streaming television, when it feels like there are simply too many shows to keep up with, Game of the Thrones felt like the last communal television show, a show where it felt like EVERYONE was watching. It seems rarer these days that any show can generate such a large and passionate audience. If you listen closely you can still hear the screams of joy and excitement when Arya Stark killed the Night King in the Battle of Winterfell.
More recently Bean has starred in the Snowpiercer television series, the Netflix adaptation of Bong Joon-ho's 2013 movie of the same name. He also starred in the Academy Award-nominated animated movie Wolfwalkers, where he plays another fantasy patriarch who actually survives the film for once.
You can watch all eight seasons of Game of Thrones streaming on HBO max.
Source: The Times