It feels a bit ungrateful: Carice Van Houten on 'GoT' series finale criticism

Actor Carice Van Houten says she loved the ending of "Game of Thrones" and believes it was "ungrateful" of fans to criticise the series finale that was different from what they were expecting.

The Dutch star played the role of the Red Woman Melisandre across seven seasons of the epic HBO fantasy show, which ended in May 2019.

Houten believes the criticism of the series finale was a "sign of how good the show was".

"The fact that some people were so disappointed is because everything before that was so good. So it feels a bit ungrateful. You've had such great times and then yeah, you're going to be disappointed because it's not going to go exactly how you anticipated," the 43-year-old actor told Insider.

Houten further said she liked the finale where Isaac Hempstead Wright's Bran Stark was announced as the chosen leader to rule the Westeros.

"I loved the ending. I loved the randomness of just picking a king. That's why I loved the first season, the guy who actually was king (Robert Baratheon played by Mark Addy), didn't want to be king, so we already got a lesson in the beginning: 'Why are you striving for that sort of power when, obviously, it doesn't make you happy?'" she said.

The actor also talked about the fan petition that urged HBO to make a new final season of the show with new writers replacing showrunners David Benioff and Dan B Weiss.

"People sometimes take it too far and get too personal, but I can't take that seriously. I just thought it's people being really emotional about this show. It just always amazes me how people can go behind their computer and just type 'die b***h die,' I'm fascinated by that human psyche," Houten said.

"That's beyond fandom. That's extremism. That's scary. Knowing the writers and knowing how f***ing great they are, they don't deserve that. I think they are probably cool enough to deal with that but still, they are human beings, they are trying to make a good product," she added.