you are probably tired of this conversation but i miss miss the time of hotd s1, the fandom has not been the same since s2. yes some still enjoy the show but some also seem to dread next episodes lol, as in something which may not be in books or even part of earlier seasons. the inconsistency within the writing hits like a whip and the fandom conversation becomes dumber to try to justify it.
there is more dread, confusion, disappointment of expectations, frustration than anticipation and excitement about each new episode. i almost get the vibe that many people are just waiting for this season to be over.
as someone who has been here since s1 i remember how vibrant and lively the fandom was, some parts were toxic sure but it was alive. now its largely dead aside from few fanfics here & there and the same conversations over & over—at least on tumblr. there is also fair criticism on other sites. i think grrm being so critical also had an impact on fans especially book enjoyers, the show has let them down there is no denying that. also the success of akotsk has been refreshing which makes hotd not the only thrones spin-off to adore.
if only ryan condal, sara hess and their writers had made genuine efforts and looked at the story from a non-biased ensemble lens, this show could have been so so great. but i dont feel even they know what they are doing at this point aside from current politics and try and trace almost every subplot back to daemon, rhaenyra and alicent.
i can't say i enjoyed season 1--i found it just good enough to see its potential but so awful to alicent that i began to dread every time she came on screen by mid-season. that said, i definitely perceive what you're saying about the audience shift. season 1's storytelling craft still had SOME level of restraint that in my view fell apart laughably early into season 2. even hate-watching seems to have dropped off at this point. people are not even complaining, they're just silent because they can't suffer through another boring and confusing episode anymore.
my specific tunnel vision on alicent admittedly put me in the minority but allowed me to see the show's greatest weaknesses much earlier than most people. i think now that those weaknesses have started to impact the scripting of fan favorites, more people are starting to feel how i felt in s1.
most of the loyalty to hotd has been predicated on the mindset that "any writing is better than got writing." but imo hotd's writing is worse than got. granted, got's writing had a much steeper drop-off, and line by line, scene by scene, hotd is passable. but the macro of the story--the choices characters make, huge elements of the book's worldbuilding, the domino of events from episode to episode--has absolutely no organic flow. there is no unifying subtext or theme aside from "rhaenyra is awesome and did nothing wrong ever and everyone else sucks." and you can get away with that when it affects one or two storylines of unpopular characters (ie s1), but now it's endemic to every single plot.
got haters won't want to admit this, but got actually engaged and excited people up to the very last episode. hotd on the other hand is an absolute mess. the force of the writing so blunt that you can't possibly suspend your disbelief for even an episode at a time. fandom conversation is as exhausting, inconsistent, and self-contradictory as the experience of watching the show. it's not even charmingly camp like teen wolf or ouat, which actually have strongly defined and comprehensible characters. hotd fandom is just either people defending the show's every decision and ascribing completely fake depth to it or on the other hand driving themselves insane trying to make sense of the adaptational liberties taken.
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