Turns out Benioff's father was former head of Goldman Sachs.

You don't get to be anyone, if your family wasn't already someone.

So, during season 7 there were a HALF-DOZEN spin-off shows planned. After the season 8 collapse (which D&D said "they had no idea what they were doing, they made it up on set, they didn't like the magical aspect") that was cut to ONE spin-off "The Long Night"/codename "Bloodmoon".

I speculated that the reason they offed the nightking so quickly and without exposition (while having him SMILE, indicating emotion/personality rather than a-moral killing machine) was so that the spin-off show could serve as his backstory.

Then D&D admit they fucked up (as per OP) and now even that spin-off is cancelled. However, a week later they announce a NEW Spin-off - "House of the Dragon" or some such shit.

Valuable franchise that the profit-driven people just can't face reality about (leave it alone for 10 years, do something else, you can make money from it later (and during, from merch sales)) - yet, it's a rich universe, filled with possibility - if only George would finish the last two fucking books.

Edit:

As Nerdrotic says: "You just have to face the fact that untalented hacks work in hollywood."