MikeDC

Maester Aemon was seemingly beloved by everyone who met him, the last known legitimate Targaryen in Westeros, and possibly the oldest man in Westeros. And he caught a cold and died on a boat in the middle of nowhere. And got put in a barrel and pickled for the rest of the voyage. So... yeah.

I'm not exaggerating because I don't really know. It's not clear what she'll have left after the battle for Mereen, what her stance to Victarion will be, or what Victarion himself might think. In any case, even a large army on boats are at the mercy of all sorts of factors. They have to sail past lots of potentially unfriendly places, and could lose lots due to weather. On the other hand, I do think if she wins the support of the Dothraki, it'll be feasible to cross Essos via the Dothraki Sea.

1. Except that the path from Mereen to the Narrow Sea appears to be slow, dangerous and difficult. 2. As I said, taking "we won't see Asshai" to mean we won't have an immediate POV perspective doesn't settle the question. Danny could sail right by and not stop and look around. Danny/Tyrion/Barristan/Vicatarion could stop and look around, but we only see a flashback of it. Like pretty much everything else GRRM says, he leaves it open enough that if he wants to, he could switch things up, and I wouldn't expect any certainty at this point

Doesn't mean she can't sail by it. Maybe "we won't see it" just means we don't get a POV character stopping and looking around and doing anything there....

Heh, if GRRM really liked us, he could release more but smaller books. He's probably already written half of a normal sized novel and read it out loud. I could settle for 1 400 page novel a year instead of an 800 page novel every two years.

Mel seems to be be extremely focused on her "mission" though. I would have said she fits the pattern perfectly. Everything she does is to aid give rise to AA and battle the Unnamed God. It's as if somewhere the Red Priests or whomever it was got together and assigned her the task of heralding the return of AA and leading the battle. And oh yeah, then killing her and bringing her back to undeath so she could survive an unnaturally long time to complete the mission. Also, I find the Mel POV to be one of the strangest detours in the entire series. She's been there since CoK and all of a sudden we get a single POV chapter to clue us in on several things about her nature, and possibly Jon's nature, but not really to advance anything as far as I can tell.