GRRM left the story in a mess. There is no easy way to reconcile it, which is a huge part of the reason why he has struggled for 2 decades to move it forward.

GRRM left the story in a mess. There is no easy way to reconcile it, which is a huge part of the reason why he has struggled for 2 decades to move it forward. The problem is that if you are at a point where even GRRM cannot move his own story forward, it's unlikely someone else will do a very good job. And that's basically what happened. Even if the writers are the most top notch, they aren't GRRM, otherwise they would have their own fantasy series out under their own names, as opposed to writing for TV shows.