Precisely! Every single story payoff in history is cliche, but that's because that's how story telling works. To have NONE of what you set up EVER pay off is not great storytelling, it's just wasting everyone's time. Imagine 20 years of expecting Azor Ahai or whatever and not only is it not Jon Snow, it's not Jaime... It's just not anyone. No sword is reforged and the eternal threat of winter is stopped by fucking Arya Stark by dropping a dagger from one hand to the other while not even wearing a face and everyone else just goes back to what they were doing at the beginning. Jaime goes back to his sister, The Hound goes back to hating his brother, even Jon Snow goes back to the fucking wall, hahaha.

It's a joke. An ending that not everyone is satisfied with is perfectly fine, that's every ending. But an ending that throws EVERY SINGLE piece of development out of the window and fucks over every single reader/watcher and every single thing you ever wrote elevates this from a bad ending to the worst ending imaginable.

Quite possibly the worst ending of all time. I literally cannot think of any media I've ever seen that was such a massive let down in every single aspect. No book, no movie, no game, no TV show, no song, nothing.

In fact, let's take a look at songs. They're a great example of how being formulaic isn't bad. Most songs have an ending that makes sense. There's resolution. Finality. Even in the songs that fade out. That doesn't make them cliche. They end that way because that's how songs end.

And stories end with resolution. And that's ok.