History TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot / GameOfThrones

* After Dany's story in Season 5 had so much focus on finding the leader of the Harpies, the end of the storyline in Season 6 indicates that they never had an actual leader and were just a general bunch of malcontents.

* Sansa's story in Season 4 ends with her playing the lords of the Vale like a fiddle, and showing that she's figured out how to appeal to Littlefinger's interests, suggesting she's going to start being a much more active player in politics. But it seems that since Sansa's Vale plot hasn't played out more yet in the books, they decided to end it prematurely. Come Season 5, [[spoiler:Sansa spends most of Season 5 locked in a room being abused by Ramsay in Winterfell. Meanwhile, Littlefinger seems to lack any sort of bigger scheme for organising the marriage; he just leaves Sansa in the North and never contacts her or maneuvers her for his own advantage, leaving it a bit vague as to why he did it in the first place.]].

* Sansa's story in Season 4 ends with her playing the lords of the Vale like a fiddle, and showing that she's figured out how to appeal to Littlefinger's interests, suggesting she's going to start being a much more active player in politics. It seems that since Sansa's Vale plot hasn't played out more yet in the books, they decided to end it prematurely and toss her up North to combine with the books' Impostor Arya, condensing the plots by merging the Impostor Arya plot with a major character and giving them [[TrueArtIsAngsty more dramatic material to work with]]... Only this comes at the expense of the characters and internal logic. Come Season 5, Sansa's showcased skills as a cunning manipulator and the indication she'll now be coming into her own as a player of the game suddenly amounts to nothing as she spends most of Season 5 [[spoiler:locked in a room and abused by Ramsay, once again having little power or say in what happens to her. Her 'plot' of being made Ramsay's bride-victim in her own ancestral home of Winterfell is a rehash of what happened to her as the Lannisters' prisoner and Joffrey's betrothed in King's Landing for the first four seasons, only up North, different jailers, and all the more aggravating after it seemed last season she was finally going to get more agency and power. Littlefinger persuades Sansa to go through with the marriage by saying she can take revenge on her family, but drops her off in the enemy House utterly powerless, without any plan or means of enacting said revenge, and the Lord Protector of the Vale doesn't even give her a guard of Valemen to guarantee her some protection from her highly suspect new groom. Sansa can't even attempt to make a move towards revenge until she's been saved from her enemies, which she wouldn't have ''needed'' if she hadn't been handed over to the Boltons on a silver platter in the first place. Littlefinger doesn't even seem to have a very good scheme for organising the marriage; the show tries to make his plan characteristically underhanded by ratting to Cersei about the Boltons marrying Sansa and claiming they've "allied" with Sansa against the Lannisters, turning her against the Boltons and getting an official sign-off on sending Vale knights up north to retake Winterfell and stamp out the Boltons. Well it ''is'' underhanded... but now Cersei ''knows'' Sansa is in the North and demands she be killed too, putting Sansa ''back'' in Cersei's crosshairs when before she had been safely hidden in the Vale. Undermining this ploy even more (if that's even possible), Littlefinger ends up getting the Vale to go against the crown and support Sansa in reclaiming Winterfell anyway because of Robin Arryn's loyalty to his cousin and is seen by multiple people serving as Sansa's advisor after, [[ShaggyDogStory meaning he could have gone straight to Robin to have him help Sansa take back her home and title from an enemy House,]] ''[[ShaggyDogStory without]]'' [[ShaggyDogStory all the rigamarole of marrying her off to Ramsay or trying to trick Cersei.]]]] While adapting a variation of the Impostor Arya plot for Sansa could have worked better if they had taken more care to tailor it to fit Sansa and Littlefinger and make the duo more cunning in how they approached it, allowing for Sansa more agency in plotting like [[spoiler:the Manderlys and the Northern Conspiracy against the Boltons]] in the books or Arya's revenge [[spoiler:on the Freys]] in the show, the Impostor Arya plot is copy-pasted into Season 5 almost unchanged, making it feel like the two "players" got thwacked with the IdiotBall to let the show squeeze in a [[spoiler:RapeAndRevenge]] plot despite the '''vastly''' different circumstances for Sansa and Impostor Arya making it hard for Sansa to slot believably into the same role[[note]]Book Littlefinger sells Impostor Arya to Ramsay as a bride well aware of how bad the bastard is and not caring at all because she's nothing to him unlike Sansa, Show Littlefinger takes [[ReplacementGoldfish Sansa]] out of his protection in the Vale and hands her off to Ramsay as a bride despite his infatuation with her because... uh... he somehow "didn't know" if he was bad and didn't think to find out before he pulled the trigger on the plan? because the plot said so?[[/note]], and until then have to wait patiently all season for [[spoiler:other people get around to saving Sansa]] so they can get back to actually ''doing'' things next season. In the meantime Book Sansa actually ''is'' part of a political conspiracy: set to [[spoiler:become the Lady of the Vale through hers and Littlefinger's manipulations, and reveal her true identity as Sansa Stark to gain an army of Valemen to help her take back her home. Since in the show Jon and Sansa later gather an army to help them take back Winterfell from the Boltons by force and the Valemen join to help them do it anyway, it's disappointing they didn't go with a variation of this idea from the jump: Sansa amassing support in the Vale to work towards reclaiming Winterfell this way from the house that betrayed and slew her family, which would have made Sansa a more dynamic character growing in new directions (instead of getting smacked over the head again and again with the Suffering Stick), managing political alliances with Vale factions and trying to recruit back Northern Houses to her campaign, and made her being crowned Queen in the North in the end, after fighting so hard to get Winterfell back, more fitting]].
* The Dorne subplot in season 5 deviates heavily from that of the books, and few fans see any of the changes made as an improvement over what George RR Martin wrote. Arianne Martell is cut out of the show entirely, and her plot to put Myrcella on the Iron Throne is replaced with Ellaria Sand's [[InsaneTrollLogic frankly nonsensical plot]] to kill Myrcella [[RevengeByProxy in retaliation for Oberyn's death]], which the young princess had no involvement in. Doran Martell goes from [[spoiler: a [[TheChessmaster chessmaster]] who plays the part of a weak old man out of necessity to...[[AdaptationalWimp actually being a weak old man.]]]] The Sand Snakes go from unique characters with their own personalities and skill sets to generic [[ActionGirl action girls]] who all [[AdaptationalPersonalityChange basically have the same personality,]] turning them from [[EnsembleDarkHorse fan favorites]] to some of the most notorious [[TheScrappy scrappies]] in the whole series. On the whole, while the Dorne plot in the books [[BrokenBase divided readers,]] viewers were pretty unanimous in their hatred of the show's version, which missed an opportunity to improve on the book's shortcomings by instead gutting everything that made the book's version worthwhile.

* This can also be considered for the Sparrows plotline as well,as the High Sparrow and his zealots manipulated Tommen into supporting them and every single one of them apparently ended up in [[spoiler: the Sept of Baelor when it blows up (with the novel versions of the Stars travelling throughout Westeros to fulfill their oaths to protect the faithful)]].

* The resolution of the White Walker invasion in Season 8 has been one of the biggest points of contention for viewers. Despite being built-up as an extreme, nigh-unstoppable threat to Westeros since the ''very first scene of the series'' and the emphasis in Season 7 that they are "the true enemy" that the characters need to band together to defeat, [[spoiler: the White Walkers are ultimately defeated in a single episode and a single night, with few significant casualties, while the south remains none the wiser about how real this threat was. It's a bit inconsistent between episodes as to how many forces Daenerys lost and most of the named characters who died were either side characters (Edd, Beric, Lyanna) or characters that had come to the end of their arc (Theon, Melisandre); the only major character whose death has an impact on the subsequent events is arguably Jorah, given that the loss of her friends/allies is implied to drive Dany into madness, while other major characters are seen [[PlotArmor surviving under very unlikely odds.]] Numerous times, main characters were pinned or swarmed to the point that their survival should be impossible(in the case of Sam, multiple times), only to invariably escape their doom and showing that the writers simply manipulated the viewers emotions. There are viewers who felt that the White Walkers were dealt with too swiftly in an anticlimactic way; they were also disappointed we never learnt more about the White Walkers, the Night King, their connection to the Three-Eyed Raven and what was the deal with those weird symbols they left everywhere. As a result, the conclusion of the White Walker invasion can end up feeling more like a FillerArc that has little impact on the wider story, despite seven seasons of set-up as a major threat]].
* Related to the above example, the entire sub-plot of [[EndlessWinter the Winter season]] finally arriving in Westeros. Much like the White Walkers, the threat of Winter has been a major plot point in much of the Northern characters' story arcs (Jon, Samwell, Gilly, Bran and the Night's Watch in particular) and was even made [[MemeticMutation infamous]] by Ned Stark's ominous ''"Winter is coming..."'' line from ''the very first episode.'' It was built up on several occasions as the darkest part of Westerosi history and would be a deciding factor in the return of the White Walkers and the struggles of the characters all across the continent when it arrived. [[spoiler:And yet, if one were to watch Season 8 even with proper context, you wouldn't know that Winter is "here" at all. The landscape doesn't change in the slightest, Winterfell and the North is still basically the same as it was during Summer [[AmbiguousSituation (or Autumn?)]] and there is hardly any mention of it at all from the other characters. In fact, despite Season 7 ending with [[OhCrap Jaime feeling the snow coming to King's Landing,]] come Season 8 it looks as though you could go out sunbathing. Fans have made a point of this, as many were left wondering what all the hype and build-up (again beginning from Season 1) was for, as it virtually had no impact on the story, setting or characters whatsoever, to the point it's very easy to believe the writers [[MemeticMutation just kind of forgot]] to include it. What could have been an epic saga in the series ended in a colossal disappointment and a complete waste of time.]]

* The show's "true" final villain, the Mad Queen, [[spoiler:aka Daenerys Targaryen,]] ''could'' have been an interesting plotline and would have served as a good twist for the story... had it been executed properly. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, the storyline itself feels extremely shoehorned in at the last minute with hardly a shred of buildup or foreshadowing. While the writers pointed out a few moments from the show to "foreshadow" this (such as her killing of the slave masters), many fans called bullshit, as the moments did nothing to actually indicate she was turning evil or going mad and in fact showed her as a WellIntentionedExtremist at worst, a far cry better than many of the other villainous characters in the books and show. The moments in Season 8 leading up to her FaceHeelTurn (such as Missandei's death and Jorah's HeroicSacrifice for her and the revelation of Jon's parentage) also fall very flat when one considers that she had virtually no interaction with Missandei since Season 7 and she has gone through far worse without compromising her morals. Dany's turn from a strong and principled woman who wants to be a good queen and break the cycle of bad rulers to a vengeful and deluded [[TheCaligula Caligula]] who willingly burns innocent people, children included, for no real reason not only rings very hollow, but also makes little sense narrative-wise, leading to her very abrupt and frankly pointless and underwhelming death (when it had the potential to be one of the greatest deaths ever put on television). Her entire final storyline was extremely disheartening for many fans and a complete character assassination for Dany and Creator/EmiliaClarke (who admits herself the plotline was very upsetting), which caused a large outcry from many a loyal fan.]]

* Sansa's story in Season 4 ends with her playing the lords of the Vale like a fiddle, and showing that she's figured out how to appeal to Littlefinger's interests, suggesting she's going to start being a much more active player in politics. Come Season 5, [[spoiler:Sansa spends most of Season 5 locked in a room being abused by Ramsay in Winterfell, which can come off as a rehash of what happened to her in the first four seasons (which didn't happen in the books). Meanwhile, Littlefinger seems to lack any sort of bigger scheme for organising the marriage; he just leaves Sansa in the North and never contacts her or maneuvers her for his own advantage, leaving it a bit vague as to why he did it in the first place.]]

In a series with dozens and dozens of storylines all going on at the same time, it is inevitable that some of them will end in an anti-climatic or unsatisfactory way, or not be explored to their fullest potential.

* The resolution of the White Walker invasion in Season 8 has been one of the biggest points of contention for viewers. Despite being built-up as an extreme, nigh-unstoppable threat to Westeros since the ''very first scene of the series'' and the emphasis in Season 7 that they are "the true enemy" that the characters need to band together to defeat, [[spoiler: the White Walkers are ultimately defeated in a single episode and a single night, with few significant casualties, while the south remains none the wiser about how real this threat was. It's a bit inconsistent between episodes as to how many forces Daenerys lost and most of the named characters who died were either side characters (Edd, Beric, Lyanna) or characters that had come to the end of their arc (Theon, Melisandre); the only major character whose death has an impact on the subsequent events is arguably Jorah, given that the loss of her friends/allies is implied to drive Dany into madness, while other major characters are seen [[PlotArmor surviving under very unlikely odds.]] Numerous times, main characters were pinned or swarmed to the point that their survival should be impossible(in the case of Sam, multiple times), only to invariably escape their doom and showing that the writers simply manipulated the viewers emotions. There are viewers who felt that the White Walkers were dealt with too swiftly in an anticlimactic way (and that the tactics in the episode were running on IdiotPlot fuel); they were also disappointed we never learnt more about the White Walkers, the Night King, their connection to the Three-Eyed Raven and what was the deal with those weird symbols they left everywhere. As a result, the conclusion of the White Walker invasion can end up feeling more like a FillerArc that has little impact on the wider story, despite seven seasons of set-up as a major threat]].

* The show's "true" final villain, the Mad Queen, [[spoiler:aka Daenerys Targaryen,]] ''could'' have been an interesting plotline and would have served as a good twist for the story... had it been executed properly. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, the storyline itself feels extremely shoehorned in at the last minute with hardly a shred of buildup or foreshadowing. While the writers pointed out a few moments from the show to "foreshadow" this (such as her killing of the slave masters), many fans called bullshit, as the moments did nothing to actually indicate she was turning evil or going mad and in fact showed her as a WellIntentionedExtremist at worst, a far cry better than many of the other villainous characters in the books and show. The moments in Season 8 leading up to her FaceHeelTurn (such as Missandei's death and Jorah's HeroicSacrifice for her and the revelation of Jon's parentage) also fall very flat when one considers that she had virtually no interaction with Missandei since Season 7 and she has gone through far worse without compromising her morals. Dany's turn from a strong and principled woman who wants to be a good queen and break the cycle of bad rulers to a vengeful and deluded [[TheCaligula Caligula]] who willingly burns innocent people, children included, for no real reason not only rings very hollow, but also makes little sense narrative-wise, leading to her very abrupt and frankly pointless and underwhelming death (when it had the potential to be one of the greatest deaths ever put on television). Her entire final storyline was extremely disheartening for many fans and a complete CharacterDerailment for Dany and Creator/EmiliaClarke (who admits herself the plotline was very upsetting), which caused a large outcry from many a loyal fan.]]

* Related to the above example, the entire sub-plot of [[EndlessWinter the Winter season]] finally arriving in Westeros. Much like the White Walkers, the threat of Winter has been a major plot point in much of the Northern characters' story arcs (Jon, Samwell, Gilly, Bran and the Night's Watch in particular) and was even made [[MemeticMutation infamous]] by Ned Stark's ominous ''"Winter is coming..."'' line from ''the very first episode.'' It was built up on several occasions as the darkest part of Westerosi history and would be a deciding factor in the return of the White Walkers and the struggles of the characters all across the continent when it arrived. [[spoiler:And yet, if one were to watch Season 8 even with proper context, you wouldn't know that Winter is "here" at all. The landscape doesn't change in the slightest, Winterfell and the North is still basically the same as it was during Summer [[AmbiguousSituation (or Autumn?)]] and there is hardly any mention of it at all from the other characters. In fact, despite Season 7 ending with [[OhCrap Jaime feeling the snow coming to King's Landing,]] come Season 8 it looks as though you could go out sunbathing. Fans have made a point of this, as many were left wondering what all the hype and build-up (again beginning from Season One) was for, as it virtually had no impact on the story, setting or characters whatsoever, to the point it's very easy to believe the writers [[MemeticMutation just kind of forgot]] to include it.]]

* Related to the above example, the entire sub-plot of [[EndlessWinter the Winter season]] finally arriving in Westeros. Much like the White Walkers, the threat of Winter has been a major plot point in much of the Northern characters (Jon, Samwell, Gilly, Bran and the Night's Watch in particular) and was even made [[MemeticMutation infamous]] by Ned Stark's ominous ''"Winter is coming..."'' line from ''the very first episode.'' It was built up on several occasions as the darkest part of Westerosi history and would be a deciding factor in the return of the White Walkers and the struggles of the characters all across the continent when it arrived. [[spoiler:And yet, if one were to watch Season 8 even with proper context, you wouldn't know that Winter is "here" at all. The landscape doesn't change in the slightest, Winterfell and the North is still basically the same as it was during Summer [[AmbiguousSituation (or Autumn?)]] and there is hardly any mention of it at all from the other characters. In fact, despite Season 7 ending with [[OhCrap Jaime feeling the snow coming to King's Landing,]] come Season 8 it looks as though you could go out sunbathing. Fans have made a point of this, as many were left wondering what all the hype and build-up (again beginning from Season One) was for, as it virtually had no impact on the story, setting or characters whatsoever, to the point it's very easy to believe the writers [[MemeticMutation just kind of forgot]] to include it.]]

* Related to the above example, the entire sub-plot of [[EndlessWinter the Winter season]] finally arriving in Westeros. Much like the White Walkers, the threat of Winter has been a major plot point in much of the Northern characters (John, Samwell, Bran and the Night's Watch in particular) and was even made [[MemeticMutation infamous]] by Ned Stark's ominous ''"Winter is coming..."'' line from ''the very first episode.'' It was built up on several occasions as the darkest part of Westerosi history and would be a deciding factor in the return of the White Walkers and the struggles of the characters all across the continent when it arrived. [[spoiler:And yet, if one were to watch Season 8 even with proper context, you wouldn't know that Winter is "here" at all. The landscape doesn't change in the slightest, Winterfell and the North is still basically the same as it was during Summer [[AmbiguousSituation (or Autumn?)]] and there is hardly any mention of it at all from the other characters. In fact, despite Season 7 ending with [[OhCrap Jaime feeling the snow coming to King's Landing,]] come Season 8 it looks as though you could go out sunbathing. Fans have made a point of this, as many were left wondering what all the hype and build-up (again beginning from Season One) was for, as it virtually had no impact on the story, setting or characters whatsoever, to the point it's very easy to believe the writers [[MemeticMutation just kind of forgot]] to include it.]]

** This can also be considered for the Sparrows plotline as well,as the High Sparrow and his zealots manipulated Tommen into supporting them and every single one of them apparently ended up in [[spoiler: the Sept of Baelor when it blows up(with the novel versions of the Stars travelling throughout Westeros to fulfill their oaths to protect the faithful)]].

* [[spoiler: Lord Walder's death and that of every(male)Frey's. Arya uses a face stolen to disguise herself as a serving wench, then takes the part of Wyman Manderly and feeds him the Frey pies before revealing herself as Arya Stark and slitting his throat. The very next episode(and the beginning of season 7), Arya somehow manages to make a mask of Walder's face and poison every single complicit Frey from the Red Wedding. Considering the sheer number of Walder's brood, some believed that they would be better served their revenge by Edmure Tully, the reassembled Stark army or even Daenerys Targaryen (as Harrenhal showed, the Twins strength would do little against dragonfire). Instead, every single one of them die with little fanfare just to wrap up the plotline and show Arya as badass.]]

* The Stannis plot in Season 5 ended very abruptly, with a single off-screen raid by Ramsay and then another off-screen CurbStompBattle, culminating in Brienne [[spoiler:apparently killing Stannis... off-screen]]. This gets especially bad considering in the books [[spoiler:Stannis is still alive and looks set to defeat the Boltons]] and gets worse when in Season 6, Stannis' overall CharacterArc is transplanted to [[spoiler:Jon and Sansa, who seek to rally the Northern allies and ally with the Mormonts, who in the books finally did ally with Stannis]]. Considering that the plot is identical to Season 5's, where TheHero gathers a RagtagBunchOfMisfits, and marches through the cold, to fight the same villain outside the same location, many are upset that Stannis' arc was short-circuited just so TheMainCharactersDoEverything. It's also thought that Stannis' military plan in the books, [[spoiler:where it is widely theorised he intends to trick a Frey army into charging onto an icy lake]], would have looked much better than the battle in the show, where a Vale army just turns up suddenly to defeat Ramsay. This has also upset players of the Telltale Game of Thrones, considering that the Forresters' only appearance in the books has them joining Stannis, which lots of players were looking forward to but now can't happen. D&D even said that they did not like or understand Stannis, which further explains his character assassination.

** [[spoiler: This troper even feels that the White Walkers were underused in the final episode, as they had shown themselves as one of the toughest adversaries of GOT thanks to their mystical ice blades, which shatter any weapon not of Valyrian steel like icicles. Instead, they sit atop their undead horses and do nothing until they enter the Godswood with the Night King(who very slowly reaches for his own weapon, giving an immense amount of time for his defeat.)]]

* The Stannis plot in Season 5 ended very abruptly, with a single off-screen raid by Ramsay and then another off-screen CurbStompBattle, culminating in Brienne [[spoiler:apparently killing Stannis... off-screen]]. This gets especially bad considering in the books [[spoiler:Stannis is still alive and looks set to defeat the Boltons]] and gets worse when in Season 6, Stannis' overall CharacterArc is transplanted to [[spoiler:Jon and Sansa, who seek to rally the Northern allies and ally with the Mormonts, who in the books finally did ally with Stannis]]. Considering that the plot is identical to Season 5's, where TheHero gathers a RagtagBunchOfMisfits, and marches through the cold, to fight the same villain outside the same location, many are upset that Stannis' arc was short-circuited just so TheMainCharactersDoEverything. It's also thought that Stannis' military plan in the books, [[spoiler:where it is widely theorised he intends to trick a Frey army into charging onto an icy lake]], would have looked much better than the battle in the show, where a Vale army just turns up suddenly to defeat Ramsay. This has also upset players of the Telltale Game of Thrones, considering that the Forresters' only appearance in the books has them joining Stannis, which lots of players were looking forward to but now can't happen.

** This can also be considered for the Sparrows plotline as well,as the High Sparrow and his zealots manipulated Tommen into supporting them and every single one of them apparently ended up in the Sept of Baelor when it blows up(with the novel versions of the Stars travelling throughout Westeros to fulfill their oaths to protect the faithful).

* Lord Walder's death and that of the(male)Frey's. Arya takes the part of Wyman Manderly and feeds him the Frey pies before revealing herself as Arya Stark and slitting his throat. The very next episode(and the beginning of season 7), Arya somehow manages to make a mask of Walder's face and poison every single complicit Frey from the Red Wedding. Considering the sheer number of Walder's brood, some believed that they would be better served their revenge by Edmure Tully, the reassembled Stark army or even Daenerys Targaryen (as Harrenhal showed, the Twins strength would do little against dragonfire). Instead, every single one of them die with little fanfare just to wrap up the plotline and show Arya as badass.

** This troper even feels that the White Walkers were underused in the final episode, as they had shown themselves as one of the toughest adversaries of GOT thanks to their mystical ice blades, which shatter any weapon not of Valyrian steel like icicles. Instead, they sit atop their undead horses and do nothing until they enter the Godswood with the Night King(who very slowly reaches for his own weapon, giving an immense amount of time for his defeat.)

* The resolution of the White Walker invasion in Season 8 has been one of the biggest points of contention for viewers. Despite being built-up as an extreme, nigh-unstoppable threat to Westeros since the ''very first scene of the series'' and the emphasis in Season 7 that they are "the true enemy" that the characters need to band together to defeat, [[spoiler: the White Walkers are ultimately defeated in a single episode and a single night, with few significant casualties, while the south remains none the wiser about how real this threat was. It's a bit inconsistent between episodes as to how many forces Daenerys lost and most of the named characters who died were either side characters (Edd, Beric, Lyanna) or characters that had come to the end of their arc (Theon, Melisandre); the only major character whose death has an impact on the subsequent events is arguably Jorah, given that the loss of her friends/allies is implied to drive Dany into madness, while other major characters are seen [[PlotArmor surviving under very unlikely odds.]] There are viewers who felt that the White Walkers were dealt with too swiftly in an anticlimactic way (and that the tactics in the episode were running on IdiotPlot fuel); they were also disappointed we never learnt more about the White Walkers, the Night King, their connection to the Three-Eyed Raven and what was the deal with those weird symbols they left everywhere. As a result, the conclusion of the White Walker invasion can end up feeling more like a FillerArc that has little impact on the wider story, despite seven seasons of set-up as a major threat]].

* The Dorne subplot in season 5 deviates heavily from that of the books, and few fans see any of the changes made as an improvement over what George RR Martin wrote. Arianne Martell is cut out of the show entirely, and her plot to put Myrcella on the Iron Throne is replaced with Ellaria Sand's [[InsaneTrollLogic frankly nonsensical plot]] to kill Myrcella [[RevengeByProxy in retaliation for Oberyn's death]], which the young princess had no involvement in. Doran Martell goes from [[spoiler: a [[TheChessmaster chessmaster]] who plays the part of a weak old man out of necessity to...[[AdaptationalWimp actually being a weak old man.]]]] The Sand Snakes go from unique characters with their own personalities and skill sets to generic [[ActionGirl action girls]] who all [[AdaptationalPersonalityChange basically have the same personality,]] turning them from [[EnsembleDarkHorse fan favorites]] to some of the most notorious [[TheScrappy scrappies]] in the whole series. On the whole, while the Dorne plot in the books [[BrokenBase divided readers,]] viewers were pretty unanimous in their hatred of the show's version, which missed an opportunity to improve on the books shortcomings by instead gutting everything that made the book's version worthwhile.

In a series with dozens and dozens of characters, with half of them with their own storylines, it is inevitable that some of them will end in an anti-climatic or unsatisfactory way.

* Despite being one of the biggest plot twists of the series, [[spoiler: Jon Snow being the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, and the legitimate heir to the Iron Throne (R+L=J), ultimately has little impact on the overarching story beyond causing some tension between Daenerys and Jon that partially contributes to Daenerys's FaceHeelTurn in Season 8, which is yet another plot audiences felt could've been implemented better. [[note]] Namely, Jon is too freaked out by their SurpriseIncest to go back to their sexual intimacy, which Dany doesn't take well; she also fears others will press Jon's claim to the Iron Throne, despite his refusal of the crown and UndyingLoyalty to her. Daenerys's fears are realized upon Varys discovering the truth and using it to plot against her (while practically shouting it from the rooftops, which earns him a "[[CharacterDeath Dracarys]]"), which helps contribute to her subsequent SanitySlippage.[[/note]] R+L=J subsequently never comes up again as a significant plot point, and is not even mentioned when the lords of Westeros are trying to decide who should be the new ruler in the wake of Cersei and Dany's deaths. This kind of revelation would have major ramifications in-universe if it were made public, as it recontextualizes Robert's Rebellion, alters the political landscape of Westeros once again and would possibly change how both Jon and Ned are viewed by other characters, but very little is done with this potential. Jon doesn't really react much to finding out his entire life is a lie, we don't even see how Sansa and Arya react to finding out the truth and it doesn't seem to change their view of Jon or their father in the slightest, and it largely remains a secret from the majority of Westeros]].

* Cersei's pregnancy subplot. In Season 7, [[spoiler:she unexpectedly reveals to Jaime that despite most people thinking she's past her childbearing years, she's pregnant again. Viewers went wild with speculation over the potential consequences, from Cersei really being pregnant but having a miscarriage or dying before the pregnancy came to term due to the prophecy stating she'd only have three kids, Cersei lying about the pregnancy to try and guilt trip Jaime into staying with her or even a phantom pregnancy]]. Things get even more interesting when [[spoiler:she tells Euron ''he's'' the baby's father after they hook up. Tyrion later tries to persuade Cersei to surrender for the sake of her unborn child in earshot of Euron, who many viewers thought would be able to figure out that something didn't add up because if the baby were his, Tyrion shouldn't know]]. However [[spoiler:ultimately nothing really happens with the pregnancy at all and Cersei dies in the penultimate episode. It's left sort of vague as to whether she was really pregnant and a lot of viewers wondered what the point of any of it was, besides Cersei using it to trick Tyrion into thinking she'd help fight the dead]]. [[note]]According to Lena Headey, she filmed a scene where Cersei ended up having a miscarriage, [[WhatCouldHaveBeen but this plot point was never included in the show]].[[/note]]

* Sansa's story in Season 4 ends with her playing the lords of the Vale like a fiddle, and showing that she's figured out how to appeal to Littlefinger's interests, suggesting she's going to start being a much more active player in politics. Come Season 5, [[spoiler:she's shipped off to Winterfell pretty quickly, removing her from the Eyrie, Littlefinger, and politics in general for the rest of the season]].

* Many book fans have complained that removing [[spoiler:Lady Stoneheart]] from the show completely guts the entire purpose to the Brotherhood Without Banners story, plus Brienne and Pod's entire subplot, resulting in their infamously spending all of Season 5 waiting to see a candle being lit.

* It's implied that Cersei [[spoiler: blowing up the Sept of Baelor and killing the much-loved Tyrells]] to seize the throne would have major ramifications for Cersei, such as people openly resisting her rule and flocking to support either Dany or Jon. However, in Seasons 7 and 8, no one in King's Landing (or elsewhere) seems to care much and the only notable consequence of her actions is that it prompts Olenna Tyrell to ally with Daenerys to get revenge [[spoiler: and even then she ultimately ends up contributing little to the war effort, due to the Lannisters sacking Highgarden and killing her]].
* At the beginning of Season 8, Sansa brings up concerns about being able to feed all the people in Winterfell and especially Dany's dragons in the middle of winter, which seems like a very legitimate problem that could have potentially severe consequences. However, it's never brought up again after the second episode and never has any impact on the characters. Likewise, in "Winterfell" there is a scene where Daenerys expresses concern that the dragons are barely eating, but this is never elaborated upon or even addressed again for the rest of the season.
* In a previously mentioned deviation from the books, Sansa ends up being [[spoiler: married off to Ramsay]] in Season 5, with Littlefinger's intention being for Sansa to [[spoiler: help orchestrate the Boltons' downfall from within]]. Unfortunately nothing much happens with this; Sansa spends most of Season 5 [[spoiler: locked in a room being abused by Ramsay]], which can come off as a rehash of what happened to her in the first four seasons (which didn't happen in the books). Meanwhile, Littlefinger seems to lack any sort of bigger scheme for organising [[spoiler: the marriage]]; he just leaves Sansa in the North and never contacts her or maneuvers her for his own advantage, leaving it a bit vague as to why he did it in the first place.