I've been watching as Daenerys has slowly transformed into a villain for quite some time now. Daenerys broke bad in the worst possible way. I mean, if you think back to past seasons we've had entire ten episode arcs leading to the blowing up of the Sept or the Red Wedding, but in Season 8 we get the final showdown with the Night King and Cersei in just five episodes. The point being, if we'd had two seasons, or even just a few more (long) episodes, so much more of this story could have been fleshed out, and fewer shortcuts taken. Maybe start to show her enjoy the burning, give her a bit of her father's pyromania. Oh, and we could have had more instances of Daenerys burning people, for increasingly ruthless and petty reasons. More on this in a bit, and read Paul Tassi's own take on the 'betrayal' of both these character's in last night's episode. Likewise, Jaime's arc has been so fully fleshed out that it makes literally no sense to have him change the way he did, but with less rush and more careful storytelling, it might have been brilliant. Daenerys has been changing for a long time now, but the show needed to make that process more organic, more developed and natural.

The point of all of this is to say that so much more could have happened along the way before we reached this huge climax. And Cersei's belly grows as her womb quickens. Euron gets fleshed out a bit more, maybe even finds a certain Horn he can use to control dragons. Maybe we get to know the Golden Company a little bit. Meanwhile, in King's Landing we would watch as Cersei shored up her power, constructing her ballistae and gathering her armies. The finale of Season 8 would have been the Battle of Winterfell (other smaller excursions and melees would have occurred, each more desperate than the last, as the season unfolded) with Arya killing the Night King and Jon Snow killing the undead Viserion. And through all of this, Daenerys stood by the Starks and fought valiantly against the White Walkers. Bit by bit, the Night King would have taken over the lands in the North as winter deepened and the long night actually fell, blanketing not just the night in darkness, but the days also. Imagine if Season 8 had been all about the Night King and the battle in the North.

This would have been a near-perfect episode if we'd arrived here more organically.

Game of thrones season 2 episode 5