http://www.newsweek.com/game-thrones-season-7-pace-criticism-director-alan-taylor-653038

It makes sense why the quality has gone downhill so much since Season 5 when you have guys like this involved.

It's above-average fan fiction at this point.

It's fan fiction where they know the ending but have to make shit up on how to get there. Doesn't help that even GRRM seems to have problems figuring that out. Now you get a different writer who's less concerned with emulating the style than getting everything done within the episodes that are left (which is kind of important).

Another problem is the predictability of deaths because the series is trying to be 'unpredictable'. It's like they have a quota of 'kill one or more somewhat developed character per episode' which makes sense from the 'everyone dies' perspective but it does mean they need to develop a few new characters to keep things interesting. In season 7 the only new-ish (not even that new) character they developed a little bit was Euron, all the others are the old guard from prior seasons. They are simply running out of characters with any depth so now they pull out the 1000 mph raven to save the day when most major characters get surrounded on a lake like idiots, but aren't allowed to die just yet. If they want to keep killing everyone that's fine, but at least create a few interesting characters to make up for it. The series feels very empty now and mostly based off walking death action scenes rather than good plot, which is a shame.

Also funny that in episode 6 a raven and a dragon flew over 1000 miles each in what seems like a day and in episode 7 littlefinger says 'it's not easy for ravens to fly in these storms'. They can become jets when it really matters I guess. The cgi is cool and all, but the plot is completely lost and the characters make nonsensical decisions and have convenient amnesia as a result.

This season just needed much more Dothraki fighting. They had 1 battle since they landed and that fight wasn;t even hard enough to ruin all the heavy eye make-up they wear.

I agree with the Varys and Littlefinger and Arya stuff, but the Dany Jon thing was hinted at from the beginning, I don't think both of them will survive.

Some things that will happen in the next season:

Cersei's Death: I think that Jamie (not Tyrion) will kill Cersei. The prophecy says that her "younger brother" will strangle her. Jamie is her twin brother but she was born first. I believe Jamie will poison her because of the prophecy. During that conversation, the the lady said "Your death is here tonight, little one. Can you smell her breath? She is very close." One of the poisons is called "the strangler" and its a good assumption that the witch had some (or the components, like the plant) in her hut that day and it was giving off the scent for Cersei to smell.

Dragon vs Dragon Battle: I really hope that the Night King and his dragon (Viserion) are going to clash in the sky with Daenerys and Drogon akin to the old battles during the civil war called "Dance of Dragons". My prediction is that somehow Daenerys dies in the coming conflict but her largest dragon Drogon survives. That dragon already knows who Jon Snow is when he allowed him to touch his nose. Jon will fly Drogon and win the final battle, which leads to:

The Prince that was Promised: There are so many fan theories and changing information that I don't know what to believe. All I know is that the entire show seems to revolve around Jon Snow and his story. Danereys might seem to be separate but now we see that she is also woven into Jon Snow's story-line and not the other way around. With so many arrows pointed at Jon Snow, I have to believe he is going to be the Prince who was promised at the very end.

While the story was a little more predictable in this season (all of the most popular characters go to the North to form a Friendship Brigade) I think part of the reason that people are starting to turn on the show is that several of the episodes were very poorly paced relative to the last several seasons. There was also one episode that had like sub-college film student level cinematography I think it was #3 where it constantly jump cut to super tight shots of peoples faces whenever they spoke - likely because the proper actors weren't on set at the same time. Granted, seasons 1 and 2 had lots of good and bad stuff kinda mixed into the same episodes and then the show really hit its stride, and now it's regressing somewhat. But it's still plenty fun - I could come up with a lot worse ways to spend an hour.

I agree that Varys has done pretty much nothing this season but there's not much that people like Varys or Littlefinger or even Tyrion can do with the current situation being how it is, not to mention that Qyburn took some of his little birds when he was made master of whisperers

It's plausible that Jon actually kills Dany because in the Azor Ahai prophecy he has to murder his wife in order to forge Lightbringer and end the Long Night, however with what the show has become now it probably won't happen because of all the Dany fangirls that would probably cry endlessly if this happened

But isn't Lightbringer already forged and being used? Stannis had the sword already and pulled it from the fire they set on the beach a few seasons ago. I believe the last anyone saw of Stannis and/or the sword was after he lost the battle near Winterfell.

I have not read the books yet, is this one of the instances where the books and the show differ greatly?

That's a fake Lightbringer

Yeah that sword was clearly not lightbringer lol. Stannis was not the prince that was promised and there is no way he would have the right sword. It was literally just his normal sword that she used magic on. There could be an argument made that Longclaw is lightbringer but even that would be a little iffy.