Trencher

I was at his memorial in Van Nuys in 2017.  He was a class act , and blessedly the room was packed with friends and coworkers. Lots of his art was displayed. Later, we had a game run by Sean Fannon. 

yes, he was called too soon. I remember his art from early Hero books. He had one site and I was hoping it would still be around - though 20 years later who knows.

Similar to drunkinduty said, since the end of season 1, there has been two plots: The threat from the north, and the threat from across the sea. That was obvious. 
 
Seasons 2-5 or sowere internal politicking involving the Great Houses of Westeros. Meanwhile we had Dany assembling her armies that she would invade Westeros with. And we had a further glimpse of the threat beyond the Wall. 
 
Eventually, we had Dany land on Westeros and the Night King get close to the Wall.
 
Season 7 was a preliminary to season 8. Dany clashed with the Lanisters while the Night King breached the Wall.   
 
I was interested in the Night King plot and don't really care for the Iron Throne storyline so the mid seasons were watched with barely interest. 
 
The tv show is called Game of Thrones, not The Long Night, so it makes logic sense that the conclusion of the show revolves around The Iron Throne. But I don't really care who wins, as long as House Stark survives. 

All the following comes with a YMMV.  
 
(I love a good discussion about story, the how's and why's. But I happily accept that everyone has their own POV on these things and certainly don't take differing opinions as personal affronts. I hope I'm not causing any.)
 
@Trencher - I agree with your friend; Cersei is the main villain and the climactic conflict needs to be with her. As far as characters go she is just much, much more interesting.
 
Cersei is just a much better villain than Night King. She is clever (although I always say she's not as clever as she thinks she is) and so utterly ruthless. At the same time we can see how she got to be who she is. We've met her father, her husband, her brothers, and all the other men (not women!) who've shaped her life. She started the whole thing by poisoning someone who was a threat to her children. Despite her best efforts those children are now all dead. She's been horribly abused, she's been a mass murderer, she has hit rock bottom and climbed back up, all the way to the throne. She has earned her place as main villain. She's a great character, well written, well acted.
 
I wanted the undead finished off last season to be honest. I am so over zombies and all things zombie like. Night King is dull dull dull. All he does is move implacably along killing everything in his path. Toxxus mentioned above wanting a villain monologue before Nighty got knifed. How? The guy's never said a word. And what would he say? "Brains?" Or maybe it'd be a long diatribe about how if he is a bitter and twisted thing, he was made that way by forces that are now extinct, but is exacting a terrible revenge on all living things anyway. You know, the whole long pre-history of Westeros? Tragic, but not very suitable to a climactic battle. Sorry Toxxus, but I gotta disagree with you there.
 
To put it another way - the two (main) arcs are:
 
The Iron Throne - a character driven conflict between a bunch of very well drawn characters, all with believable motives, all of whom have a great deal of audience investment.
 
The Dead - representing forces antithetical to all life. Ominous and terrifying, but ultimately impersonal. A natural disaster.
 
I plain don't like disaster movies. I find them kinda dull. The only way they work is by showing the stresses they place on the characters. Yes, we have gotten some of that. But it's been the B plot the whole way along. The audience (and I'm going to make a broad sweeping generalisation) is going to invest more in the A plot because that's the one they've had the most opportunity to invest in.
 
Politics, and all the vicious, backstabbing skullduggery that comes with it, are much more interesting to me. Okay, yes, one can do stories with all the politicking back and forth with zombies (Walking Dead, I assume, does this) but that's not how GoT has unfolded. It could have. But it didn't. So the final, climactic fight needs to be the Starks, Dany, and Cersei. 
 

It's worked for them so far.

Avengers: Endgame may well be brilliant – but the pressure to say so isn’t
Critics are now routinely monstered if they express the ‘wrong’ view of a film. But compulsory positivity serves no one
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/26/avengers-endgame-critics-film

Fun looking character. Could be a vigilante or villain.
 

 
 

And that, my friends, is why we play these games!

Further digression... in my Secret Worlds game, one of the PCs is a master hth combatant, who went undercover in a night club. He had no specific skill, but hit the dance floor while there, and rolled a 3 on his DEX roll. He now has Dancing: 13- on his character sheet, 'cause we figured he just "had the moves"... and in last night's game, he actually used it in combat. A big biker had grabbed their female contact and was manhandling her... the PC stepped up and did a multiple attack legsweep on the bad guy, grab/catch on the contact to keep her from falling. He rolled really well with both attacks, and rolled his Dancing skill... spun the young woman in a perfect spin... arms outstretched... as the big guy hits the ground. The PC then danced around her while stomping on the guy's chest then stomach, leaving the biker balled up and gasping on the floor.
 
It was great... though it deteriorated quickly as a shotgun and knives came out and things got ugly... but it was a really fun moment.

Duke there are two types of people in this world. One who likes the original trilogy and the other who are wrong. ?

I do believe the original trilogy is the best and my confirmation was my son who saw episodes 1 to 6 in story order. Claimed to really love the prequels but the only one he would ever rewatch was The Empire Strikes Back. 
 
There you go, conclusive proof
 

Because The Force Awakens had been so excruciatingly bad, I wouldn't have gone to see The Last Jedi at all if my wife hadn't dragged me to the theater. And I say this as someone who will play the prequel movies as background noise rather than listening to music.
 
I thought it was noteworthy that, after seeing The Last Jedi, my wife had no interest in dragging me to go see the Solo movie.
 
I know that most people will watch any old crap if Disney puts a "Star Wars" label on it. Honestly, I would have thought I was desperate enough to see new Star Wars material that I'd put up with any garbage that a filmmaker put out there because they couldn't bury the Star Wars goodness under a deep enough layer of crap to make the movie a flat out bad experience. 
 
But it turns out that Disney proved conclusively I was completely wrong about that.

But having Luke bitter and hateful man who tries to murder a boy and burn all the texts... not so much.

Luke in Episode IV starts out a whiny little b***h, moves into being a know-it-all in Episode V, and then tries to be the cool kid in Episode VI. Having a much older Luke essentially channeling Ben and Yoda in hiding out in a remote area, nursing his wounds, and occasionally yelling at clouds seems very much in character. 

The teaser may not be designed to help us learn what the movie is really all about, but its job is to get us excited to see the movie. That appears to have worked on kids and casual fans (not exactly the most discerning lot), but it barely moves the needle for the hardcore fans who have been wounded too deeply by the profound disappointment that was The Last Jedi and the rehash of episode IV that was The Force Awakens.

IMO, I like the prequels way more than the current sequels.   And I loathed I and II (III not so bad)
 
So, far the sequels have been a knockoff remake of the original movie, and an abomination I need to risk felony possession of illegal substances to get through again.

Unless I find out the Last Jedi is retconned into Finn's fever dream, there is no coming back.  
 
Though, if not, I demand a space battle where 2 fleets of empty ships save one droid pilot each try to maneuver themselves into position for a kamikaze hyperspeed jump.

I don't.  I trust it'll suck.
 
Skywalker is dead, he isn't rising unless there is some wacky rigor mortis issue.

I dunno. That teaser filled me with meh. I don't know if any trailer can undo the damage done by The Last Jedi at this point.
 

I hated the last movie.  The preview looks pretty good, but I am very cautious now.

I have trust issues with Star Wars now
 

Well, that's not the only reason 90s Nick Fury looks different
 

Well, he also helped end half of all plant and animal life, ,so not as much of a hero as you'd think...