Repairing GOT storylines

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A lot of people have signed petitions to re-do Season 8 of the hugely successful TV adaption "Game of Thrones". For reasons I can understand but emphatically do not share, they disliked the last batch of episodes and where the series ended up. However, I think these people are mistaken for another reason. The moment where we need to repair storylines is not seasons 7 and 8, which for me set the show on the right track again. If I could have a do-over, I would remake certain storylines from seasons 5 and 6, which for me are where the show really faltered.

And just to get this out of the way beforehand: I do have zero problems with how Stannis' arc went down, for example, so I'm going to concentrate on such arcs as I personally experienced as sub-par or problematic. Your mileage may differ. 

First Arc: Dorne

I can't imagine getting any discussion on the quality of this one. Season 5 spent quite some time for the epiphany a bewildered Doran Martell delivered: "Why didn't you simply ask?" Yeah, why indeed didn't Jaime simply ask for Myrcella to be sent back to King's Landing? 

The answer lies with a problem of adaptation. In getting rid of certain elements, the themes of the Dornish arc were left hanging. Doran was made into a whuzz, easily shoved aside by whoever was doing the shoving, instead of a overly cautious, revenge-obsessed player. Losing Arianne in the bargain meant that the Sandsnakes had to pull double-duty. Yet, instead of making Elaria Sand into the counter-point, counseling restraint and peace, she became simply the leader of the badass Sandsnakes revenge squad, with a hapless (and obviously out of his depth) Doran to provide a befuddled counter-point. 

Since the whole backstory of how the Dornish fit in the Rebellion was cut out, the Sandsnakes' thirst for revenge was unmotivated by anything other than their one-dimensionality as characters. At the same time, Oberyn's splashy inclusion in Season 4 made a follow-up a necessity. 

This provides a bad conundrum for the writers. They can't really create story-arc in which, like in the books, Dorne functions with a complete new set of characters. This barely works in the novel, and on screen it would have been a gigantic piece of alien intrusion. If they went with Dorne, someone needed to go there. A major cast member. And the decision is easy once you arrive at this conclusion. 

You kill Jaime's wandering through the Riverlands, which is hard to translate on screen anyway, given how much of it is inner monologue. You exchange Ser Illyn Payne for Bronn, to have a sparring partner. Everyone loves Bronn anyway. All of these decisions make sense. It's the execution where it falters. 

This starts with the obvious problem: motivation. Jaime is sneaking in as a commando, yet he can't fight. This is just an incredibly bad idea. And not only Doran doesn't understand why he does so in the first place. So, the focus of the Dorne plot would need to lay more on the political side of things. 

This is a tough sell, being boxed in by the outlined restrictions, because the plot that makes sense really doesn't square with the characters that make sense to go there. So, while I can totally see someone in a "fish-out-of-the-water"-scenario, trying to navigate the waters of this new and strange culture, that person isn't Jaime. Not because he's not a fish desperately grasping for cultural air in Dorne, but because he is ALSO a fish out of the water when it comes to politics. And what on earth do you do with his only sparring partner, Bronn, in that scenario? 

So, as we see, as a writer, there simply aren't any good options here. If we stuck to the books for Jaime, we'd need to invent a host of new characters regardless, only they'd be Riverlanders and less interesting than Dorne. So, no way out. I think this storyline can only be improved on the margins, really. 

The best bet would likely be to make Jaime into Myrcella's official guard, taking over the role of Arys Oakheart to an extent, and making the Sandsnakes and Elaria his main foil. That way, you could combine both elements. Since Myrcella is going to die anyway, you'd end up at the same point anyway, but you could make MUCH better use of the criminally underused Trystane-Myrcella-relationship, give Doran more agency and maybe even make Elaria a voice of reason instead of bloody vengeance and complicate the whole picture a bit. Still not ideal, though. 

Second Arc: Winterfell

Season 6 presented us with the whole problem of Littlefinger inexplicably marrying Sansa to Ramsay and not picking up that Ramsay is a bit evil for whatever reason, leading to lots of stupid character interactions later on. This is easily remedied in my view and spares us the whole Sansa-rape-affair that rightfully earned a lot of scorn. 

So, the solution here is neat because it gives Sansa a better arc, avoids the whole charged issue of "rape as character growth" and makes a lot more sense politically. We marry Sansa to Ramsay, but Ramsay actually is forced to behave like a politician in Westeros and to keep up the optics. So, instead of the super-evil super-villain Ramsay we get in Season 6, we get someone who really, really, really would love to be super evil but can't. Because he leads an alliance of Northern lords who would jump ship the second he violates "Ned's girl". 

This would give us a season of cat-and-mouse games, in which Sansa tries to maneuver herself into a position of power (by building connections to some lords) and blow up the alliance Roose forged. At some point, she'd still need to flee the castle for some reason, at which point we return to the original storyline. 

Third Arc: Meereen

The last big problem of seasons 5 and 6 was Tyrion. After being center stage for three seasons and practically the face of the show, the writers had no chance to push him aside for a bit as more or less happens in the books. True to their intent of making Tyrion much more agreeable and a good guy, they also didn't want the miserable drunk of ADWD. 

The problem, of course, is that Dany - after the stupid fuckery of Season 5's "Sons of the Harpy" uprising - has no real opponents left in Meereen. She's abducted by the Dothraki, a plot that will resolve itself almost hilariously easy, but Yunkai is never a threat. This weakness carries over from ADWD, but there, it was less of a problem because the whole conflict was internal. 

The show tried to alleviate this by positioning Tyrion between several conflicting ideals, especially Missandei's and Grey Worm's desire for venegance and no compromise, but the actual execution was hamfisted, with Tyrion negotiating obviously bad agreements, getting showed up and then Dany, again hilariously easy, resolving the whole mess for a whole of "well, that didn't amount to much". 

So, here we have a similar problem to Jaime's arc. The structure of the whole plot and previous decisions boxed the writers in. I also see possible improvement only on the margins, with Tyrion being torn between several options - maybe personified by a bit more roguish and bloodthirsty Daario on the one hand and Missandei as standing in for Dany's course, with a reluctant Grey Worm, on the other - and no good outcome. It would essentially be a hijacking of Dany's arc, but she lost it anway in Season 6, so it's only a hypothetical loss. 

And that's my thoughts.  What do you guys think? Tell me in the comments.