Personally I think they dumbed the show down as it got more popular. Focusing more on love stories than world building and story telling. I can’t tell you how many people at work talked about the show and had no fucking clue about any of the lore, the larger implications of actions, or concern for story telling . “Omg did you see the dragon lady burn stuff? Like omg she needs to burn that bitch down!” That’s an actual quote from someone that is in my office. Not to mention the same shit happened with the Hobbit and the fucking dumb love story crap in those movies.