An ending for a show that built its popularity on the back of continually upping the ante in terms of shock value was always going to be polarizing. There was just no way to please everyone or even most people. The problem was that Benioff and Weiss seemed to just get bored after catching up with the books. HBO wanted more episodes and more seasons. Benioff and Weiss said they only had 13 episodes worth of story left. They needed at least 20 episodes (probably more or at least some extended episodes) if they plotted the last two seasons out correctly. When you think about how many plot threads abruptly came to an end (e.g. Cersei/Jamie, the Sand Snakes etc.) and how many were rushed (e.g. the Mad Queen, the White Walkers etc.), there was probably enough story for 30 episodes. If they wanted to do The Mad Queen, Daenerys’ sanity should have been a slow descent for at least half of that. As is, it was basically...
Daenerys: Well, I’m just extra cruel now. Ignore every conviction I had in the past seven seasons. Time to murder some innocent people, I guess. LOL.
Tyrion: Even the children?
Daenerys: Especially the children. Later, nerds.
And seriously? “Who has a better story than Bran?” Objectively, almost every living main character does. More importantly, Jon should have “won” the game of thrones because he didn’t want to. It cost him Daenerys and you know, most of the Stark family, and he was clearly the best person for the job. That would have brought the show full circle because someone raised by Ned Stark who has a similar sense of honor but not to a fault should be king. Daenerys ultimately saw it as a prize while Jon understood that ruling isn’t about a chair or a title; it should be about making people’s lives better. Every point the show made about how shitty royals are/can be made it fitting for Jon to be king because he wasn’t like that. Furthermore, it appropriately wouldn’t have been a happy ending. Jon would lose everything including the North (Winterfell) and True North (beyond the Wall) for the betterment of an entire continent. That sounds like the bittersweet ending that George R. R. Martin told us about. I don’t know how these fucking clownshoes got that far into the story with everything laid out on a silver platter for them and couldn’t figure any of that out.
****, I hated that ending.
On topic, probably for the best. Without anyone holding their hand, I’m not sure how well this would have turned out.