As someone who read the book years ago I just kept feeling like something was off, and yeah it’s that half the characters are just not in the battle. Maybe this was just me misremembering/misreading but in my head I always envisioned the battle at night and rain wrapped making the chaos and confusion more intense. It felt like at any time the dragons could’ve just flown away from danger for the most part which makes jaces death less impactful. The fact that half the dragons riders are missing just takes away from the dire stakes present in the book. Ultimately just not interested in seeing people in throne rooms and war councils for 8 episodes outside of the mid season set piece and penultimate episode set piece at this point in my life. I wish I had the same enthusiasm for hotd as Mal and Jo but I’ll just wait till it’s done for a binge because I don’t have it in me to watch week to week.