A Game Of Thrones Supporting Actor Absolutely Hated The HBO Show's Ending

Did you hate the ending of "Game of Thrones?" You're not alone! Most fans, including myself, think that final season — and its series finale, "The Iron Throne" — was dreadful, rushed garbage, even if there are some defenders amongst my lovely colleagues here at /Film. Apparently, "the show's finale-haters can include Natalia Tena in our club.

Tena, who played the wildling Osha on the series until her character was violently killed off in the show's sixth season, told Kate Thornton on her podcast, "White Wine Question Time," in 2019 that she lost her patience with "Game of Thrones" partway through its final season and basically just flew into a rage after that. (Incidentally, Tena was joined by her friend and fellow "Game of Thrones" actor Faye Marsay, who played the mysterious Waif who resides at the House of the Undying in Braavos.) As Tena told Thornton, she was pretty much on board with the whole thing up until the episode where Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) saves humankind by slaying the Night King (Vladimir Furdyk), the event that marks the halfway point of that final season. At that point, she just ... couldn't take it anymore.

"After that... I just didn't understand it," Tena said just a few months after the show called it quits in May 2019. "The [caliber] of writing towards the end and the plots and how they wrapped up compared to any other season [felt] like [it was] written by different people. It doesn't make sense for me." Tena might have been ... a little worked up, as she freely admitted. "I was a few glasses of wine in when I watched [the finale]," she said. "I'd binge-watched the whole thing, but I ended up ... my boyfriend had to leave ... because I was ranting for an hour at him about how much I didn't like it. Then I rang my friend to rant to him."

This is all ... pretty understandable, but let's back up. Who was Osha, what did she do on "Game of Thrones," and why did she die that violent death?

We first meet Natalia Tena's Osha back in Season 1 of "Game of Thrones," when she and a few other wildlings — the free folk who live beyond the reaches of the Seven Kingdoms — try and approach Winterfell, the Northern home of House Stark. Unfortunately, they're apprehended by Robb Stark (Richard Madden), the family's eldest son who's watching the homestead while his father, Eddard "Ned" Stark (Sean Bean), is out in King's Landing; after Osha and her companions attack the young and recently injured Bran Stark (Isaac Hempstead Wright), Robb and Theon Greyjoy (Alfie Allen) kill everyone but her. Eventually, Osha comes to love Bran, and when Robb leaves Winterfell after his father is beheaded for the crime of high treason, she defends him as best she can — especially against the power-hungry former Stark ward, Theon.

Thanks to Osha, Bran, his younger brother, Rickon (Art Parkinson), and the Stark family's giant helper of sorts, Hodor (Kristian Nairn), and Bran and Rickon's direwolves, Summer and Shaggydog, escape Winterfell. Osha finds herself an instrumental figure in Bran's journey to become the Three-Eyed Raven despite her utter resistance to the idea. When Osha, Bran, and their crew meet Jojen Reed (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) and his sister, Meera (Ellie Kendrick), who want to take him to the mysterious figure, Osha lets him go and takes Rickon and Shaggydog with her.

Unfortunately, Osha, Rickon, and poor Shaggydog end up in the hands of the evil, sadistic Ramsay Bolton (Iwan Rheon), who holds them captive as hostages. Despite Osha's attempt to seduce Ramsay and gain her freedom by killing him — a gambit that once worked on Theon — Ramsay is far quicker on the uptake than Theon and kills her before she can succeed, ending Osha's — and Tena's — journey on "Game of Thrones."

Natalia Tena is great as Osha on "Game of Thrones," but just in case you forgot, she's also been part of other major franchises. From 2007 to 2011, Tena played the pivotal supporting role of Nymphadora Tonks, who goes by her last name, in the original "Harry Potter" film franchise. An Auror (a wizard who professionally battles the Dark Arts) who was born with the power of an Animagus, which allows her to change her appearance at will, Tonks is a friendly, clumsy, and extremely powerful witch who meets Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) just before he starts his fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Tonks ultimately marries the love of her life, a fellow member of the resistance group known as the Order of the Phoenix who also happens to be Harry's friend and former teacher, Remus Lupin (David Thewlis), and the two have a baby boy named Teddy. Sadly, they both perish in the Battle of Hogwarts, which takes place at the conclusion of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2."

Other than "Harry Potter" and "Game of Thrones," Tena has appeared in projects like 2023's "John Wick: Chapter 4," a 2019 episode of "The Mandalorian," and a supersized "Black Mirror" Christmas special that actually went on to influence the acclaimed Apple TV+ series "Severance." Ultimately, it seems like it's lucky for Tena that she got out of "Game of Thrones" in its sixth season — which, in my opinion, was the last good outing before the entire show took a steep tumble downhill in terms of quality. In any case, you can watch her performance and the final season on HBO Max.