“If Qatar is so bad, why did they give me millions in bribes? It doesn’t make sense.”

"Acceptable to me"? Bro it's a show. I love the books and devoured them multiple times but at the end of the day I'm consuming a piece of media and a product. If I'm watching it, I guess I'm accepting its existence? Sure.

Dorne was pretty uninspired yeah. Shallow compared to the books. It was also like 6 scenes total in an entire season. And season 5 and 6 were, in general, still engaging television. For every 'Jaime in Dorne arc', there was still a 'Jaime in the Riverlands arc'. For every 'Arya in Braavos arc', there was still a 'Stannis burns Shireen arc'. One bad part does not erase a good part. And season 2 and, if I'm honest, season 3 also had some uninspired and simplistic parts. Long stretches of AFFC are also pretty boring and unengaging if you're reading it for the first time and are not in the right mindset for long meandering world-building. I "accept" that as well. Not everything can be Tyrion's trial level of engagement. Nor do I expect it to be.

Season 7 and 8 were, except for maybe the Field of Fire v.2 and Winterfell episodes, completely terrible. There really wasn't anything saving it on a whole. That just wasn't the case for season 5 and 6. So yeah, bad poosey and the Dorne subplot were "acceptable to me".

From Season 7 episode 4 on, every week was just incredulously staring at the screen and not being able to believe they would do what they were doing.

The biggest difference thus far is HotD being very excited with throwing a lot of characters at us. Rhaenyra, Allicent, Daemon, Viserys, Aemond, Criston, Rhaenys, Otto, Corlys, Aegon, Heleana, Jace, Luke, Baela, Rhaena, Larys, Laenor, Laena, Harwin, Lyonel, Westerling, Eryck and Aryck, Mysaria… They’re all quite well characterised, but I could do with some more character scenes that don’t necessarily advance the plot.

There doesn’t seem to be room for that, because they decided to end season 1 with the beginning of the Dance. Understandable! Hope the pace slows down a bit, but the actual plot progression, character consistency and arcs since episode 1 have been phenomenal. I’d rate this season as only weaker than S4 of GoT, and on par with season 1 and 3. Defo stronger than 2, 5 and 6 and obviously leagues above 7 and 8.

There’s a lot of respect for character drama, shown both in little moments and during the set pieces. Which is something that defines GoT and ASoIaF in general, for me.