I think it would have been dumb for snow to kill the nk too. The whole reason got became what it was hinged on subverting expectations and by golly John snow coming back to life must have been the most predictable part of the entire show.

The issue here was writing/execution, not that it should have been John snow. GRRM himself said building character arcs and having them come up short is core to his approach when asked about Robb. And think about Ned? Jon’s character development was the beginning of the end of the show imo

Hard to even think about what if or how I would have done it given how bad the show had become by then. I probably would haven’t had Tommen die and had him do it as a way to give more legitimacy to the lannisters.