You made one of the posts I clipped off of tumblr
Something that always bugged me about the entire Dany plot: Dany is a foreigner with a foreign army, meaning the people of Westeros are going to intrinsically be against her. The Targaryens ruled for a very long time, true, but Robert's Rebellion and the subsequent power struggles have made both the lords and commoners very weary of even more conflict. So, what comes over the horizon? A progeny of the Mad King, with an army of nomadic raiders and neutered slaves. Oh yeah, three aggressive animals that eat livestock and light shit on fire too. Fantastic!
That's why the ending I posted makes the best sense. After everything, you see Dany, triumphant that she's won the Game of Thrones. The remaining Starks are rebuilding the North. Sansa is Queen in the North, but is too occupied with her Realm to even really care all that much. In fact, everybody who could oppose her is fucking dead and the last true heir went beyond the wall forever. Bran goes with Jon as well, to communicate the ways of men to the Others, so this never happens again. Dany is the only one with a claim anymore. But then you just see her journeying past the country side and that big fucking smile slowly starts to disappear. The further South she goes, the worse it gets. The South gets hit hardest, because the Others went for large population centers first, because they didn't really believe the Others existed and they wouldn't know the first thing about defeating them, while the Northmen would. That's why the North, while it suffered, isn't completely destroyed. They fortified, waiting for an attack that basically never came. In the South, villages are completely empty, with dead unburied. You see implied cannibalism in villages that did survive. Cities are completely empty, full of rotting corpses as everyone fled further and further south as grain ran out.
Most things have long since been looted. The walk to King's Landing is harsh, most of the city destroyed. There's barely anyone there. Tyrion himself knew what went on further south, and he wants no part of it. Pretty sure at this point he's the last surviving Lannister and would rather not go back, so he stays in Winterfell. Most everything south is devastated, and she sees how pointless it all was. Her entire Kingdom is the North and the Wildlings who bolster the numbers of the North, the only two factions to believe The Prince Who Was Promised. Its implied that there's really not enough of her formidable army left to oppose the North even if they defied her. Its also heavily implied that if Dany tries to force the North to bend, Arya will come and stab her in her sleep, thanks to Mel's prophecy. Everything else has been decimated, a near-apocalyptic wasteland. The only ones left are the peasants, who are too worried about survival to rule. Basically all the noble houses are dead, maybe except for House Stark and House Beratheon (I'll give it to Gendry). The wheel is broken forever and now she rules over a land of ash and snow. The throne is just this cold iron fucking thing that's now completely meaningless. That's how you subvert expectations. The Game of Thrones, in the end, never fucking mattered.
Ok, now I'm just writing fanfiction (and a better show).
I mostly agree. I'm a little bit different in that I started watching when Season 6 was happening, and after it was done I was still invested in the show and excited for what was coming next. In hindsight though, it is pretty obvious that Season 5 (aka when the writers started making up their own plot ideas to a significant degree) is when it started to go downhill. I like your 3 part breakdown because the concept it really close to how I've come to view it. I would separate them this way:
Phase 1 - consists of Seasons 1-4. Is mostly a well-made and accurate adaptation of the books, with a few hiccups.
Phase 2- Seasons 5&6. Diverges from the source material more and has some really bad plotlines, but is still mostly enjoyable to watch with some really epic moments. Definitely very rushed, but if you're still freshly glowing from the set up as I was it will still get you really excited for the pay off.
Phase 3- Seasons 7&8. Complete travesty.
Not sure how you break up the seasons based on what you wrote, but that's how I see it.
The only issue I see with your plan for the ending is that the wildlings existed north of the wall for at least a thousand or so years before the White Walkers started attacking again.
Well, imagine the Others are really, really deep up North. Or even underground or live in the mountains. The Wildlings would live close to the wall at first, eventually expanding out. For immortals, it might be that long before they even noticed the Wildlings. Maybe, like Bran, they perceive time differently. To men, it was a thousand years. To the Others, it was maybe several months. They're completely alien creatures. Eventually, after a thousand years of knowing how to survive in the North, the Wildlings pushed way too far up. And that's when the Others notice them.
Well, Phase 1 would be seasons 1 to 4. You basically don't really need to change all that much.
Phase 2 is 5-7, which would be completely different. Sansa wouldn't have married Bolton, Little Finger would have used a dupe. She learns from Little Finger, but eventually Little Finger sees the Starks as more of an obstacle and secretly sides with the Bolton's. You basically change a lot here. It would really be different. I don't think I'd include Dorn. It'd be more set-up for the coming menace, political machinations and things like that. Remove Ramsay's plot armor and introduce Euron as the big Eldritch Bad. Season 6 ends with Jon's death. They put him on the pyre and light it. You get a side shot of Jon in the flames, you think he's burning, but only the black cloak does. Just as the last of his clothes burn off, you see a close-in side shot of his hand, gripping the flaming wood and pushing himself up. Cut to black. Season 7 is Jon becoming 'The Prince who is Promised'. The Battle of the Bastards is done early in the season. The rest of the season is him fruitlessly trying to convince others that the literal end of the world is coming. But I'd really make it sparse, like he's coming off as a nutbar. Then the reality hits. I'd end season 7 with Hardhome, Dany's arrival and shit like that.
Phase 3 is 8-10. Season 8 would be the North gearing up for conflict. It'd actually sort of be like the opening to this season 8. You get this foreboding sense of dread. You see them do not ret.arded medieval shit like preparing moats of pitch and shit like that. The first episode is this overwhelming sense of dread. Everyone in the North and the remaining Wildlings are armed to the fucking teeth with dragon glass. Winter has come, and a blizzard has moved in, preventing any crows or communication flying to and from anywhere. You might have two episodes of this, to signify that at least a couple of months have gone by, with everyone getting frustrated that. They start to doubt Jon, maybe even consider killing his stupid ass again. Then you have a messenger come, maybe one of the characters from the South come up and tell them that the army of the dead just fucked them in the ass. The rest of Season 8 would be a jump back to the past and show the South getting fucked, jumping back to the messenger at the end. The Pope isn't blown up, Cersei never gets her revenge. They all just get fucking murked by Ice Liches, legendary creatures and undead legions. This is basically where you get the sense of hopelessness. Season 9 would be the Northmen fighting down south, because if they stay turtled, they'll all just freeze to death, or so many people will be dead that they'll be overrun anyway. They try to destroy the army of the dead. If you want some fan service, have Cleganebowl here. The end of the season would be the realization of the 'others' and that they'd have to go back North and over the wall as a suicide mission while everybody else holds the front. Season 10 would cut between the frantic North holding back the army, while Jon and his party go deeper into the North to find the others before humanity dies. You get this real tension that they could actually fail and humanity be extinguished. The battles are pitched and not fucking stupid. Maybe you have Euron himself be the 'final boss', some Eldritch horror who stole some of The Other's power. A clash between him and Jon happens and Jon wins. Characters die. But then everything I said happens. Also all the dragons die. Ghost lives though. And fucking Jon takes him with him when he marries Ice Ygritte.
That's how I'd do the show anyway without any material to work with. Yes, its all fan-fiction and blah blah. But I mean, I spent 8 years watching this shit and the past several laughing at it. I think I'm entitled to a little bit of indulgence.
