Quote Originally Posted by TheMeMan View Post
I am also certain GRRM has indicated that he knows how the books will end (and said as much a long time ago), it's getting there that is the problem. Dany going mad makes a hell of a lot of sense in the context of the book, and I have no doubt GRRM has always intended it to go that way. Hell, I am willing to bet that the majority of the deaths and major actions (potentially including the Northmen slaughtering unarmed and surrendering Lannisters) that happened in episode 5 are exactly what he wanted to happen. I have no doubt as well that he laid out a fairly detailed description of how he wanted it to end.

The problem is that once the show caught up with the books, and once GRRM's material was tapped they had to wing it and piece it together themselves with no direction. Hell, GRRM likely has very little idea on how to move the story along to where he wants it to end.

He has likely always known roughly how the books would end, as that's the easy part. He likely hammered it out to what we have seen sometime early on in the show or by the time he got to book 4 and 5.

He just had had very little idea on how to piece together what he has and now. The biggest failing of the show and Season 8 isn't anything they have done, its that they didn't do quite enough to set a lot of it up in the past few seasons.
This would be much more convincing had they actually followed the books. They didn't.
The most glaring issue is that they cut out Aegon and gave his (probable) role to Cersei.
They put themselves in this mess, then decided to force elements of the books ending in their version even if it made no sense.

And I seriously doubt that the books ending will really resemble that of the show. The biggest difference being that the Others and the Winter problem won't be dealt with before the Iron Throne.