Television

You're reaching harder than Shireen looking for anyone who cares if she lives or dies.

The point is that they had the outline of what Martin wanted the story to be. At the time of completion, it had been 8 years since Martin had released a book and 4 years since they had been dependent on filling in the gaps of the outline themselves (some of Season 6 overlapped with Dance but it was mostly the Arya stuff that was clearly meandering in both versions).

The reality is that there was either a LOT more book/show than 2 doorstoppers and 4 seasons... or a lot less (that is where I tend to fall).

But yeah. The problem is the showrunners should have just done what has taken Martin at least 15 years to do at this point... over the course of a few months? And then probably tried to get the blessing of the guy who had already, allegedly, crashed out over not liking adaptation changes (and would, a decade or so later, very publicly crash out over the exact same stuff).

The Mereneese Knot is a hard problem to solve. Moreso in a way that makes both book and show fans satisfied. And there is a lot of blame to go around.

Just to elaborate to the void a bit.

From the first page to basically Nedd's death and MAYBE Tyrion's release, ASOIAF is essentially a courtly intrigue book. It then becomes a war book until... more or less where the books end. The Lannisters have already won in every way that matters and the Tyrells, who tried to bring courtly intrigue back, mostly have been superseded by The Church (and all signs are that Cersei will also demonstrate that wildfire can melt stone arches in the books too...). The Battle of the Bastards is the last REAL fight until Dany (who won her war a book or so prior?) shows up.

And... that drastically changes the pacing and structure of a series. Courtly intrigue and resulting war can more or less be told in real time. But they are past that. They are waiting for the next war to kick off. That means kingdom management with minimal intrigue (much easier to be arch when folk aren't still scrubbing the blood off their floors).

And management by necessity involves time skips. Yes, it is fun to realize that a good chunk of Romance of the Three Kingdoms is about how Guan Yu et al sucks at actual governorship. But unless you are the kind of sicko who loves to read about irrigation projects.... yeah. Which is why basically anyone who knows their Chinese History from Dynasty Warriors can give almost blow by blow details of the Yellow Turbans up to maybe Guandu. Then they get REAL quiet when you ask them why there are (generally) FOUR kingdoms to choose from or where Zhao Yun and Zhuge Liang came from or even who actually won. Because it went from "and then, in the spring, we fought at..." and became "so like five years later..." by the simple necessity of... humanity.

But Martin, and by association HBO, don't want that time skip. He wants to keep giving the play by play so that we can hear all about that irrigation project.

... If you are adapting a turd that is going to piss off everyone, wouldn't you maybe secure some future work ahead of time?

Like... anyone who thinks "because he had the best story" and the chubby author insert with the hot wife winning isn't pure Martin... I got a bridge to sell you and I'll give you a discount if you pay in crypto.

As for HBO fixing it themselves? Look at how Martin lost his god damned mind over some minor adaptations for the prequel series. That is far from the first time he has thrown a hissy over anyone touching His Work. Even if they had found someone who could truly untangle the mereneese knot in a perfect manner, it would have just led to an angry old white guy losing his shit and disparaging everyone involved.

Book Dorne was a giant shaggy dog story that results in a kid getting sliced up (not great for reviews and very costly for makeup for her remaining appearances) and, last we know of, Jaime on his way to maybe tell her she is an incest baby but it's cool because all these people on reddit/lemmy see no issue with that. So she is all but guaranteed to die horribly upon returing to Westeros but in the arms of Jaime.

Show Dorne led to Myrcella getting dead and had the god awful "everyone wants bad pussy" line or whatever it was. Which was obnoxious but very much lines up with the sexposition of the good years that people seemed to love.

I think a better argument would be Lady Stoneheart. As a character, she mostly treads the same ground that Thoros of Myr and later Jon would (all of which almost assuredly ends with "but who cares about magic because the real evil is humanity"). But all signs are that it drastically changes both Jaime and Brienne's arc. That said, I assume show Jaime ends up being much more sympathetic (and, thus, tragic) and Show Brienne likely merged with another character to become the new head of the kingsguard as a way to give her story a better ending than "brainwashed by birgands and dead in a ditch".