I don’t watch the TV show. As for the books they lost whatever didactic unity they had after book 2 or 3, followed shortly after by any first-order narrative drive

I have a sense that GRRM has an idea where the players have to end up but no organic sense of how to get there from within his Gordian knot of plot threads; half the arcs at this point – Tyrion’s Jungle Desert Cruise, Brienne’s snipe-hunt fetch quests, Dorne – are excuses to use up pages wallowing in worldbuilding – geography, history, religion, medicine, songs, soup. Meanwhile others – Cersei’s downfall, say – are rushed and noticeably substandard even with ages between books.

It’s Neal Stephenson Syndrome – just keep writing for thousands of pages in lieu of any good idea how to end things