'Game of Thrones' Star Conleth Hill Says His Character 'Dropped Off the Edge' After Season 6

WARNING: The following story contains spoilers from season 8 of Game of Thrones.

Conleth Hill is getting candid about his time on Game of Thrones.

As fans of the HBO medieval fantasy series now know, Lord Varys, portrayed by Hill, 54, was one of the many characters who were killed off the show during Sunday night’s penultimate episode called “The Bells.”

Because his character’s death was so surprising — the actor has been one of the series’ more important characters since its start in 2011 — fans and Hill, alike, weren’t shy to vocalize their disappointment about his onscreen fate.

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly in a recent interview, which was published after Sunday’s controversial episode, Hill admitted to feeling like a “failure” after he was written off.

“I took it very personally. I took it as a person, not as an actor or an artist,” he told the publication about learning his character’s fate. “You can’t help feeling that you failed in some way, that you haven’t lived up to some expectation that you didn’t know about.”

“The only thing that consoles you is people who worked a lot harder than you are in the same boat. So that helps,” he continued. “I don’t think anybody who hasn’t been through it can identify with it… But you take it personally, you can’t help it.”

Hill added, “At the time, nothing could console me. I kept thinking: ‘What did I do wrong?’ There wasn’t any pre-warning.”

Though Hill told EW his time on the show was “overwhelmingly positive and brilliant,” he argued that his character’s development went downhill after the sixth season.

“It just felt like after season 6, I kind of dropped off the edge,” he said, acknowledging that his thoughts were “all personal and selfish.”

“I can’t complain because it’s six great seasons and I had some great scenes these last two seasons,” he continued. “But that’s when it changed for me a little.”

The actor also expressed his wish to have had a final scene with nemesis Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish, played by actor Aidan Gillen.

“I was very bummed to not have a final scene with him,” he explained. “It would have been great to have had one more meeting with Littlefinger. I think they tried to make that work and couldn’t.”

“That’s been my feeling the last couple seasons, that my character became more peripheral, that they concentrated on others more. That’s fine,” he added. “It’s the nature of a multi-character show. It was kind of frustrating … the last couple seasons weren’t my favorite.”

During Sunday’s episode, Lord Varys a.k.a. Master of Whisperers was killed by Daenerys Targaryen’s (Emilia Clarke) last dragon Drogon for essentially trying to convince Jon Snow (Kit Harington) to take his rightful place on the Iron Throne.

But he wasn’t the only character killed off. Fans also said goodbye to Euron Greyjoy (Pilou Asbæk), The Hound aka Sandor Clegane (Rory McCann), The Mountain aka Gregor Clegane (Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson), Qyburn (Anton Lesser), Jaime Lannister (Nikokaj Coster-Waldau) and Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey).

Death count aside, Dany went full “Mad Queen,” Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage) committed treason, and Jon Snow finally began to question his loyalty to Dany.

Despite the major plot developments, viewers were left wanting more from a series that has spent the last eight seasons meticulously building up complex characters.

“I swear the whole point of this season of Game of Thrones is to undo all of the character development that has been done up until this point,” noted another.

Others, meanwhile, defended the episode, arguing that while the action was definitely “rushed,” the main elements still made sense.

“Don’t know why people are disappointed with this episode of #GameofThrones. I loved it. It predicted our future. We deserve it. And we were always told about this kind of ending,” another viewer tweeted.

Harington has already warned fans that the show’s conclusion would be divisive.

“I haven’t watched a single series that has a following like Thrones does where everyone is satisfied with the ending,” he told emmy magazine earlier this year. “I don’t think that it’ll be any different with this. I think it will divide opinion.”

The series finale of Game of Thrones airs this Sunday, May 19 at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.