- Shireen could have ended up being burned and sacrificed, but by Mel and in order to revive his father, rather than by the hands of her own father, extinguishing his bloodline in order to just get a little tad warm weather
- Jon could have ended up getting stabbed by his comrades at the night's watch, for he convinced them to focus into the Northern treath of the White Walkers only to change his mind 24 hours after when he knew about his sister's travails, hence the "for the watch" line, instead of "Olly really hates Wildlings!"
- Sansa could have ended up being married to Ramsay end even end up raped, but then plot to turn Bolton father against children by killing fat Walda, showing cunning and deliberate ruthlessness rather than just waiting to be rescued and ending up killing a made up character (Myranda) by chance, just to show how much "stronger" she has become
- Jaime could have ended up becoming an ally of Dorne out of conviction, re-forging of his owm identity as a peacemaker with the help of Doran, instead of being seduced / talked out of it by a shuddenly-reasonable Ellaria
There's a million ways to arrive to the same plot destinations that Martin laid out for his books without needing to resorting to bad, "shocking" characterization. I don't believe that the show's writters are evil, nor heretic hacks hell bent into changing the books so they can enrage the fanbase. They're just whoefully mediocre writters. And that's really sad, because there was a real oportunity to improve the books, purism nonwithstanding.