I saw an ad for the upcoming House of the Dragon and I was thinking how there was a time when I would've been pumped for GOT related content but that was before one of the best shows ever crashed and burned. I also decided not to give them another dime till GRRM finishes the books (if he ever does). Luckily I read them all between seasons 5 and 6 so I feel really bad for people who read the first one back in the 90s. It is funny but to this day I won't start a fantasy series if it isn't complete. I remember when I read Wheel of Time it felt so good to read a completed series.
Do you blame GRRM or D&D more for how the show ended? I know the Night King isn't in the books like the show (but I bet the books will have a better resolution to the dead). I also have to wonder if wokeness had anything to do with the decline of the show. Arya is one of my favorite characters and I know they claim they had planned for her to kill the night king all along but I can't help but think if the show had been made 5 to 10 years prior that Jon Snow would have had a more substantial role. I get GRRM likes to subvert tropes (in a good way unlike hollywood) but I think at the very least he should've fought the Night King, or him and Arya together, although they seem to not like the idea of men and women working together.
I also wonder if the reaction to Sansa getting raped had anything to do with the direction of the show. To this day I don't understand all these screeching feminists who get so worked up over a fictional rape but can't seem to find any sympathy for victims of ACTUAL sex trafficking. The Song of Ice and Fire is a brutal world. Plenty of men get tortured and attacked but I will never understand why men can be killed left and right but if someone says a cross word to a woman then the screeching harpies show up on social media.
I read all the books but at this point I'm done. Read the first 4 in 2008 and Dance in 2011.
After Storm of Swords the books started dragging badly, I barely got through Dance. Too many characters and places that I either actively hated (and not in a good way) or don't give a shit about, on top of prose that is like sucking cement through a straw.
The spinoff show? Not interested.
As for the ending, I blame Martin. He probably had a general plan but once the popularity took off it got ruined, and there was only so much you could do in the show. For example, I don't think Bran is coming back in the book after he gets fully integrated into the tree.
So like Star Wars, GoT is dead to me. The books and show had some good moments but it's turned into suck.
That's me, bailing out after book #2, and ignoring everything subsequent to that.