Game of Thrones begins....

[grumbler]

I've always liked The Scouring of the Shire.

I did as well, mainly because it showed the growth (hehe) the characters had experienced during their travels.

If anything, the last season of GoT is an example of how to destroy the characters you've been building.

Agreed.  The Scouring of the Shire was the Quest to Destroy the Ring brought down to a human scale (hehe).   The consequences of the actions of the heroes were small by world standards, but bigger to them (bar Frodo) than the Quest itself.

The equivalent in GoT would be that Dani doesn't go crazy, but her threat (which, it must be remembered, included the dangerous Unsullied and the murderous Dothraki) to the continuance of Westerosi life (as they know it) forces Jon and Tyrion to embark on the Scouring of King's Landing, with Jon forced to kill Dani even though he doesn't want to.

The insanity of Danarys made this too easy and pat to be at all satisfying, let alone the fact that Jon not only didn't pay much of an emotional price for killing her, but got to live happily ever after rather than feeling compelled, like Frodo, to accept death ("Gone West" was WW1 British Army slang for "dead," as in "where's Bill?"  "Gone West").