It is hard for me to divorce myself from the books, so that is central to my complaint with where the television series has gone diverging from the source material.
Actions need to mean something for stakes and consequences to be appreciated. For example, killing the ruling family of one of the seven kingdoms requires a great deal of work and has massive consequences.
The death of Eddard Stark led to a war, and only through betrayal by Theon ("killing Bran and Rickon") and Frey/Bolton (Killing Catelyn and Robb) with Arya in exile and Sans ain hiding could the Starks be brought down. Even then the Bolton's grasp on the North is tenuous and needed backing from the Lannisters with simmering resentment against them "The North Remembers".
Now, let us look at how the show handled Dorne so dramatically different from the books. The Sand Snakes kill Doran Martell and Trystane (in the show that is the whole of the Martells as far as I can tell, Arianne and Quentyn have been removed). So...who rules Dorne? House Sand with Ellaria? Given the guards failed to do anything to protect or avenge their Prince I assume the other houses in Dorne will be fine being ruled by bastards as doubt they'll add a Dornish Civil War to the show.
It just comes across as lazy in the show to kill people without thought. The reason death has an impact is the consequences. Just killing people left and right for shock value makes them feel meaningless because "Game of Thrones" is a far simpler show as the writers ignore the vast complexities Martin had in "A Song of Ice and Fire" cutting characters, story lines, and just dumbing down so many aspects and apparently giving people the ability to travel 100x faster to places than they could making the world feel small.
I'll keep watching, but no doubt in my mind Book 6 "The Winds of Winter" will be far superior and intricate a tale than what the show writers slapped together once they went beyond source material. Maybe that doesn't affect others feelings, but such a ground thought out world drew me in and seeing what feels like bad fan fiction is frustrating.
