JLE

He's not getting *any Dothraki army* to the West without a time skip. Dany can come alone by flying, her dragons are an army in themselves, and they move faster. But if Dany returns to Meereen... we may assume that with the help of Drogon she can kill Khal Jhaqo and take command there... Then either she will return there *without* Dothraki, at the speed of a flying dragon, or she will return there with them at the speed of the slowest trotting horse in her army. And that's even if you assume she goes directly to Meereen with Jhaqo's khalasar. If she wants to go to Vaes Dothrak to assert dominance there, that'll take weeks or months more. Meanwhile... Victarion's Iron Fleet lost a third of its strength in even getting to Meereen. Their ships are full. They have, at best, a few thousand men, and no room for more, even if they are all killed and replaced by Dothraki (who cannot sail, and also require room for their horses, and fodder for their horses because the horses cannot live on fish even if Victarion's men can.) The Ironborn ships are not going to take an army of tens of thousands of Dothraki, and tens of thousands of Dothraki horses, back to Westeros, and still arrive there intact - if even Victarion and his skilled sailors lose a third of their number on the way over, how many more would be lost on the way back, of unskilled Dothraki who do not know their way around a ship? There is a second, larger fleet, on its way to Meereen. The armada of Volantis, which is largely troop transports, hugging the coast (except where it must pass around Valyria) and taking on supplies wherever it can. If the ships were to reach Meereen intact, and were all to be emptied when they get there (e.g. by having their armies slaughtered en masse) but still have the ships themselves survive intact (so the ships must arrive safely and the armies be destroyed in a land battle from which they fail to escape back to their ships), then they *could* conceivably take a Dothraki army back to Westeros... Over the course of weeks or months of slow travel. If they could find enough supplies in Meereen, Astapor and Yunkai to even start the journey and sail far enough to reach the next place they could take on more supplies (possibly New Ghis or Qarth - regardless of whether they acquire said supplies by purchase, or by sacking the city), and if they could there acquire supplies to get them to the next place that they could either buy supplies or at least forage or loot for them. Again, I don't see them making it with the horses as well as the men. So no... a Dothraki army is not sailing to Westeros from Meereen. Whatever may have been Martin's initial plans, if he has any sense he will have had to abandon that. (Conveniently, Khal Pono and a couple of other leftover Khals from Drogo's original Khalasar are currently raiding the west end of Essos, and could make the shorter hop from the Free Cities if boats were available. Unfortunately all the boats that could take *them* have already been commandeered by the Golden Company.) If Daenerys manages to command Jhaqo's khalasar, would she give up on Meereen and strike out westwards (along what is described as "the demon road via Mantarys", inland around the *north* of Valyria's remnants), and run into Khal Pono's Dothraki once she gets near the Free Cities? Assuming she then disposes of Pono and commands his men, they still have to cross the Narrow Sea. See the above problem. I think the biggest thing Martin's going to have to face is that Dothraki are not coming to Westeros. And the Golden Company are her best chance of fulfilling the role that Martin originally planned for the Dothraki, of being "the army that could eventually follow her" - except, thanks to Jon Connington and Tyrion, they're currently supporting the wrong candidate and have jumped there early. ************************************* How I'd write it: Jhaqo's Dothraki, now Daenerys's, being led to Meereen. Everything going up in flames there. Victarion, having done a smash-and-grab with the dragon horn, getting control over one dragon, and finding Daenerys not there, has bugged out and is already gone by the time Daenerys returns. Smashing up the Volantene fleet on the way out, as they're coming in. Viccy gets home, only to find that the dragon-horn, and therefore the dragon, answer to Euron, not to him. Victarion dies in a blaze of glory (and dragonfire). Euron has Rhaegal. Daenerys getting to Meereen to find there are no ships to take her Dothraki army, all three cities are in ruins, Barristan dead, probably Hizdahr dead as well, the place is in chaos, and Rhaegal stolen. And flying on an impulsive chase after her stolen dragon, to Westeros. Tyrion, somehow surviving, nursing the injured Viserion back to health, managing to tame him... And being there to meet Archmaester Marwyn when the latter arrives, just too late to miss everyone else... Tyrion learns things from Marwyn, possibly about the maesters of Oldtown plotting against magic and dragons. And takes off after Daenerys on Viserion... Meereen is left behind at last, in ruins. Perhaps Kandaq Shavepate will be able to impose order. Perhaps not. Who cares any more. Let Essos look after itself, we're bugging outta here too. And nobody cares about what Khal Pono does to the Pentos, Braavos or the Free Cities either. Westeros is where we're returning. Fake Aegon declaring himself, believing himself to be the real thing, being hailed as the real thing... Only to meet the very real Daenerys. She has a very real dragon (Drogon). He does not. Aegon does not survive the encounter. The Dragon King is dead, long live the Dragon Queen... The Golden Company are now Daenerys's army in Westeros, and they have horses and elephants and enough Westerosi men that they're not *entirely* seen as a foreign invader, and they have Daenerys and a dragon. Half the men in the company had been told they were going to be supporting her claim *anyway*, years ago, before Young "Aegon" showed his face. Cersei would then have to look to Euron for a possible ally, since she cannot ally with Daenerys... And Euron might be glad of it. Meanwhile in the north Stannis has beaten the Frey army, received the defection of the Manderlys, and Ramsay has sneaked into his camp in disguise (as a defecting Manderly soldier) to assassinate him and return to Winterfell with his head, the red sword Lightbringer, and whatever else he can grab, with the help of his own allies in the camp (the Karstarks). But the Karstark plot has been discovered: Stannis is pulling off an imposture to fake his death, Ramsay gets the right sword but the wrong man, and escapes with Stannis's own Northern allies wearing Karstark colours, gets back to Winterfell, murders Roose to take control, writes the Pink Letter believing its contents to be true. And gets an almighty surprise when the fake "Karstarks" and Hother Umber's "Umber greybeards" open the gates from the inside when the real Stannis comes calling (with Northern clansmen, Manderlys and "Umber youths" - whose grandfathers have been helping their Stark-loyalist grandsons' cause from the inside.) Ramsay escapes, to cause future chaos. Infighting at the Wall leaves a losing faction to fall back towards Winterfell, along with Stannis's family and Jon's body ("we will not bury a traitor to the Watch here, he was a Stark bastard so take him to Winterfell"), so Stannis gets to meet Shireen again here, and when winter weather closes in, Melisandre demands a sacrifice... "Two kings to wake the dragon": Theon's time has come at last, he dies by the sword... but I would say, the one who goes into the fire should be not Shireen but Stannis himself. Fire and blood... Two kings, albeit uncrowned... And the Bastard Dragon (Jon Snow) rises from the dead? To face off against Ramsay and Dreadfort reinforcements in a Battle of the Bastards? Not sure where I would go from there but it's a better outline already than D&D have written...

Hot Pie.

I think it's important that he *is* dead. After all, there is that prophecy... "Fire and blood to wake the dragon"... "Two kings to wake the dragon". And, not far south of here, we have two kings... uncrowned and uncrownable. Stannis, the rightful King in King's Landing, heir to Robert since Cersei's sons are bastards, but half his kingdom does not recognise this, and even many of those that do recognise it *within his own kingdom* would rather accept the illegitimate boy-king Tommen as the man in possession, for the sake of stability, than go through yet another war for a man who brings a foreign religion and burns people to death (regardless of the fact that he has now apparently stopped doing so: "Pray harder, there will be no more burnings"). The only people willing to fight for Stannis - other than the few thousand he brought to the Wall with him - are Northerners, people whose own kingdom, the North, has actually seceded from the South of Westeros, who want him as a *neighbour* not an overlord. And, for the second king, another uncrowned and uncrownable. Theon Greyjoy, missing believed dead at the time of the Iron Islands Kingsmoot, is the only one who can rightfully challenge Euron at the moot, because he had not been there to press his claim: he can claim to be Balon's rightful heir. However if he ever gets close enough to the Iron Islands to *make* that claim he will be laughed out of the moot, in his current physical condition. Like Stannis, he is a rightful king that can never actually be crowned. In any case, Theon is about to be executed. Asha has not pleaded for his life: only for the mercy of a quick death, let him be beheaded in front of the heart tree. BLOOD. And Stannis... well there is a lot of talk about whether he will burn Shireen at the stake, and whether or not this will be Melisandre's order. Forgetting the fact that, in conversation with Davos (in ASOS), Stannis has seen a vision in the flames: the only fire-vision to be granted to an atheist rather than a true believer. A vision of a burning KING - not a burning child-princess. I believe that Stannis is the one who will die in FIRE. Two kings, to die in fire and blood... Two who will never sit their rightful thrones, and will never live as kings, but if they die, will *die* as kings... To wake the Dragon... the Bastard Dragon, Jon, son of Rhaegar and Lyanna, but unacknowledged since Rhaegar would not *annul* his marriage to Elia (having a living son from her, the real Aegon who was killed by Gregor Clegane - a son who would be bastardized by an annulment, since the definition of annulment is to declare the marriage to have been void from the start, thus bastardizing its children): nor could he *divorce* Elia formally or legally (and bring a legal end to the legal marriage preserving his son's legitimacy) without his insane father's consent: nor marry Lyanna bigamously without the same.

The above, of course, still suggests that Dany - having taken control of the Dothraki - will ride towards Meereen at all. She may give up on the place and ride *west* with the Dothraki and Drogon - but that is still a ride which takes literally months. And there are other Dothraki hordes in between her and the west coast of Essos as well - Khal Pono's, for starters - and the Free Cities. In any case, there's no boats to take her to Westeros from there, even over the Narrow Sea, because most have gone east from Volantis towards Meereen, and the rest are already in Westeros having taken the Golden Company there. A passenger ship for a dozen or so might be found: enough for tens or hundreds of thousands of Dothraki, not a chance. Once again, the Dothraki may reach the ends of the land but will still not cross the sea to Westeros in the numbers they have. (Not that they would be of much use in a Westerosi winter against fortified castles - though they could slaughter peasants by the thousand. And die for lack of winter supplies.) In either case, when Dany has Jhaqo's horde, no matter whether she rides west or east - and they're currently at the wrong end of the Dothraki grasslands - they aren't coming to Westeros with her. She can come quickly, *alone*, on Drogon - if she can master him enough.

Ironborn fleet arrives, not knowing who is friend and who is foe (and neither defenders nor attackers know whether they are friend or foe), except that they want Daenerys... Who is not there, but two of the dragons are. At least one dragon, either Viserion or Rhaegal, is mastered by the blowing of the dragon horn... But who does the horn, and thus the dragon, recognise as master? In the preview Tyrion chapter that GRRM read out, Tyrion is playing cyvasse again, and apparently one of the things that happens is that a white dragon piece is somehow spattered with blood, and wiped clean by Tyrion Lannister. It is also, separately reported - I don't know if it's in a Tyrion or Barristan preview chapter - that the dragons were flying over the battle, attacking randomly, but one - Viserion, the white dragon - has withdrawn, probably injured by ballista shot: the other, Rhaegal the green dragon, is flying over where the Ironborn ships are about to arrive. Which suggests to me that if a dragon is mastered by the horn, it will most likely be Rhaegal. And GRRM has hinted, more than once, that Tyrion may ride a dragon: perhaps he nurses an injured Viserion back to health after the battle? Anyway. The defenders of Meereen get the upper hand against the slaver army, thanks to the tactics of Barristan. The ironborn's arrival throws everything into confusion, especially if Victarion and Barristan meet - it's been stated that Barristan led the attack on Old Wyk, so the two may see each other as enemies. As such, the Ironborn have not the numbers to take and hold Meereen while Dany is not there. They must take whatever they can take, turn around and go home. If the horn is blown, and masters at least one dragon (and probably not more than one), then their prize will therefore be a dragon, with Daenerys not there to either oppose it or be taken by them. The safest guess is that it will end up in the hands of Euron, and Rhaegal under Euron's control, sooner or later, and for Victarion to die in dragonfire - the blaze of glory predicted by Moqorro. Now... Daenerys is going to massacre Khal Jhaqo and the remaining Dothraki lords, with Drogon, and take command of the Dothraki. This much can be taken as a given. However, if the Dothraki come, they will come at the speed of a trotting horse, not a flying dragon, and this will take days, possibly weeks. And the first weapon used against Meereen, by the Slaver forces (Yunkai, Ghis, mercenaries and surviving Meereenese / Astapor slavers), was... corpses of plague victims. Plague will soon be uncontrollable inside the city - which, let us not forget, has also had its farmlands pillaged. Meereen, even if it wins, will be ravaged by plague and starvation long before Daenerys arrives. Yet another reason for the Ironborn not to stay till Daenerys gets here with the Dothraki. And when the Ironborn go home... They're going to run headlong into the Volantis fleet coming the other way. And either sail past them, or give battle. This is the Ironborn - they have already avoided the fleet once, to overtake them on the way: this time if they have a dragon with them (Rhaegal and the dragonhorn, remember), they'll give battle. Dragons breathe fire, and ships are made of wood, and sails of cloth. The Volantene fleet will burn. Neither Meereen nor the Slavers have much left of a navy, and the Ironborn fleet couldn't have taken a whole extra army of men and horses too, especially not an army that outnumbers them massively. They came here to take Daenerys, and Daenerys alone, and if she's not there, the city's condition won't allow them to wait for her. They'll be gone without her, but with a dragon. So when Daenerys arrives with her Dothraki horde, however long later, *there will be NO ships in fit condition to take forty thousand Dothraki and forty thousand horses to Westeros* - even if they were completely emptied, and filled with the Dothraki, who know nothing of sailing. And even if enough of the Volantene fleet survives coming in, after encountering the Ironborn on the way out... they are slow, will take many months (which is how the Iron Fleet overtook them), and remember what we just mentioned? Meereen's FOOD problem and its PLAGUE problem. There's no way that Meereen will be able to suddenly provide that many Dothraki with enough food for a sea voyage of that length (the Ironborn can survive without it, because they know how to fish, and there are fewer of them: the Dothraki are absolute landlubbers.) Most of those who arrive won't leave at all. Dany will have brought the Dothraki to the end of the world... the ends of *their* world, across the wastes, to a city which is riddled with plague and does not have enough food to even feed them on the way back, certainly not for the many months it would take to journey by sea. The great Dothraki horde ends in Meereen, in plague, famine and fire. And if she leaves and heads for Westeros... she's coming alone, on Drogon, leaving the cities burning behind her. As for the other perpetual survivor? Tyrion. If he's managed to tame Viserion, he too has an escape route, chasing after Dany (whether or not he meets her and allies with her first). There is also the small matter of whether Maester Marwyn, on the Cinnamon Wind, reaches Meereen in time to meet Daenerys (prediction: too late) or Tyrion (prediction: just in time). He, at least, on *one* ship and a fast one at that, might be able to turn round and return to Westeros, if he is still relevant after his encounter with whomever he meets there.

Ramsay had better die at some point. If not in the battle, then by an official formal execution with Jon wielding the sword and the rest of the Northern lords looking on and recognizing his right to do so..

I don't think Asha is planning to kill Stannis - in any case, as a prisoner herself, she is in no position to do so. After all, he's spared her when he could have executed her, and he's treated her and the ironborn prisoners reasonably well - even allowing some of them to be ransomed to serve as bodyguards for Tycho Nestoris. It is clear, from the fact that Stannis has talked to her, (a) he considers her worth talking to, and (b) he recognises her situation as different from Theon's: while she was an "enemy" to the North, she does not have the additional angle of having been a betrayer from a position of trust, as Theon was (both from having been a ward / hostage, and also from having been sent as a trusted envoy by one who considered him a friend.) Also, there were no mass murders and sackings from her, on the contrary, she treated the prisoners of Deepwood Motte reasonably well - possibly upon finding that their leader was a woman (Sybil Glover) - and has even been back to the Iron Isles and openly stated that, having taken part in the attack on the North, she now believes it was a foolish thing to have started. At the Kingsmoot, she argued *against* the position that she had followed under Balon. Thus, she is an ironborn person that the north and indeed Stannis can negotiate with in good faith. In fact Asha's suggestion to Stannis, of executing Theon under the heartwood tree, would most likely win him Northern support and cement the alliance. She knows that there is no hope of the North or Stannis letting him go - the only hope of his escape is in the confusion of an attack, but then he would most likely be recaptured by the victor, and Stannis or the Northern Clans would be a more merciful option than falling back into the hands of the Boltons. Stannis is so far holding back on executing Theon, but he has good, sound military reasons for doing so, which should be enough to satisfy the Northern Clans: namely, Theon may actually understand more of how the Boltons are likely to think and act, and his knowledge could prove useful.

I believe the whole Azor Ahai problem is that the intial one *didn't* - he sacrificed his wife, the person he loved most AFTER himself. And I think, if the myth is true, that he got it wrong. My question is, will the next Azor Ahai be the one that gets it right?

What if it's to Littlefinger... not asking him to bring his army north, but getting it to attack the Freys so the Northern hostages there can escape? Or... perhaps... to Old Walder Frey, with the news of how Fat Walda was murdered by Ramsay Bolton (as was Roose Bolton who made the deal) and surely an actual murder is ten times worse than breaking a marriage contract, therefore the Freys have no business supporting the Boltons against the Starks any more, and since it's *his* keeping Northern lords prisoner that is now holding their families on the Bolton side, could he perhaps see his way to setting them free and suddenly Bolton has has no bargaining chips to keep the Northern lords on his side?

I don't think Victarion assumes Euron has not done this: indeed, far from it, he now knows that he must himself do what's necessary to "claim" it for himself, thus breaking the previous "claim" (after all, Euron would have had to do it himself). After all, if Euron has NOT "claimed" it, then it will still acknowledge a previous master - even if that master is long dead - and thus, "not Victarion". Dumb as a stump he may be, but I don't believe he's dumb enough to misunderstand that. I don't, however, think he will succeed in mastering the horn for himself, although he may for a time believe he has succeeded.

I think there is a whole lot of foreshadowing that Theon is to be king - with a twist: He's a cripple. And a eunuch. Having exchanged one captor for another, his situation is only better in that Stannis is not actively torturing him - he is merely kept in chains and fed until the day of his end. He won't be able to travel far or fast. And if by some miracle he gets back to the Iron Islands, they'll never have him. Nor will anywhere else: the whole eunuch thing will be too big a problem for a position that is, after all, by and large meant to be hereditary (although not so on the Iron Islands). His record is hardly great: he has nothing to brag about, no great achievements that didn't turn to disaster. He has, plain and simple, nothing to offer the ironborn... and Asha also knows that he has no hope of escape. Even if Stannis loses the battle, Theon cannot flee anywhere in the chaos, he will only die in the snow if he is not retaken. His only hope even of a "clean" death is if Stannis goes ahead with his promise of execution by beheading... which is why Asha pleaded for Theon's death to be by the sword, the Northern way, rather than by the fire, the way Stannis has dealt with other criminals on the march (murderers and cannibals among his own forces - never simply for refusing to bow to the Lord of Light.) ...Except that, unlike everybody else, he is the only person of whom it can be said that he did not either stake a claim that was rejected (Asha, Victarion, Ironmaker, Farwynd) or be present and fail to stake a claim of his own, thus acquiescing to the Kingsmoot's choice (like every other lord who did not stand.) He can't live as a king. But, thanks to his claim being unresolved, he can *die* as a king. I think he will be one of the "two kings to wake the dragon ... fire and blood to wake the dragon" that may relate to Melisandre's prophecy. And, of course, since he is due an execution for his former crimes - and Stannis has promised that he will do it the Northern way, by beheading, which at least is quick - then he will fulfil the "blood" part, which means that if the prophecy is true, another king will die in fire (a king, not a child princess, hint hint: and guess which king has already seen a flame-vision of a king burning away to ashes?), possibly as part of the same incident. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As for Euron and the Faceless Men: What is the FM's price - is it "give to them", or "give up" what they most value, as the price for their services? If so, Euron might conceivably have had a dragon egg and thrown it into the sea... (but WHERE? Was it near where Balon fell? Was it near Pyke? Or indeed, was it near Old Wyk where the kingsmoot was held?) Since when he has done, or at least paid for, a murder which could be seen almost as a blood sacrifice since the Faceless Men have a religious-ritual element to them. And he has had the dragon horn blown three times, presumably after doing whatever was necessary to bind it to his ownership. In a hall, on a hill, that are said to have been built from the bones of a sea dragon. So... We have a dragon horn that has been blown three times, a missing dragon egg, a blood sacrifice (it took fire and blood to hatch Daenerys's three) and a whole lot of "sea dragon" imagery around (even a Sea Dragon Point at the closest point of the mainland to the Iron Isles). As far as I can see, this is all too much to be coincidence... And if he really *did* give up his dragon egg, only to hatch it and gain control of the resulting dragon (and it looks like dragons grow FAST - look how fast Daenerys's three have grown) - then he has ended up paying nothing and got an extra ace up his sleeve: in short he's double-crossed the Faceless Men. Which could conceivably explain if Jaqen / Pate is in Oldtown looking to steal the book that Euron wants, to prevent it falling into his hands should he sack the town. Either that, or the FM (or a faction among them) are working with him and Jaqen is there to help Euron, but I'm not sure that's actually the case... In any case. Since Dany isn't going to meet Victarion over there (Victarion is not going to sit in Meereen for unspecified time, he's there to grab and go)... it's what the dragon horn does, and who is its master. If Euron is still the horn's master, then he gets a dragon (probably Rhaegal, who was reported as flying near the ironborn ships in a Tyrion chapter): if Victarion has broken Euron's control on the horn thanks to Moqorro, then I think Euron already has insurance against that, and a plan to defeat his brother and take control of whatever Victarion brings back. (see all the sea-dragon imagery above: also if he has any means of power over krakens, to sink Victarion's ship, that would work too.)

Also, Quentyn set the dragons free, otherwise they would still have been chained... So that they are participating in the Battle of Meereen while not under control of any person or faction... So that at least one of them will be within range of the dragon horn when Victarion has it blown... And in the end, it will be controlled *against* Dany. Because Dany is not there to meet Victarion, nor will Victarion be able to stay to meet her. In the preview Tyrion chapter that GRRM has read, it was hinted that Rhaegal (the green one) was flying over near the ironborn warships - and is thus within potential range of the horn - while Viserion (the white one) has left the battle. The fact that Tyrion is later seen wiping blood off a blood-specked white dragon cyvasse piece may hint that Viserion is injured (hence fleeing from the battle) and that Tyrion will nurse him back to health and become Viserion's rider. Leaving Rhaegal heading back towards Westeros - under either Euron's control, if he is still bound to the horn as its true "master", or Victarion's. In either case, Rhaegal will be the first dragon of Dany's three to come back to Westeros, and its master will have free rein to do whatever he likes there until he is opposed by another dragon - probably Dany on Drogon, belatedly hearing the news that one of her "children" has been stolen from Meereen. Tyrion, arriving late on Viserion, may prove to be a third factor in the battle, but Dany and Euron will be *against* each other: Drogon will fight Rhaegal in another Dance of the Dragons. Whether Rhaegal is the first dragon *at all* to be seen there, depends on what becomes of Euron's dragon egg, whether he threw it into the sea or gave it to the Faceless Men (I believe the former is more likely than the latter - and given the sea-dragon imagery that exists, the later appearance of a sea dragon under Euron's control would not surprise me one bit). My best guess is that Euron has some surprise plan left over for if Victarion does succeed in coming back with a dragon, and betraying him - either he thinks the horn is still "his" and will bind the dragon (Rhaegal) to him, or he has plans to defeat Victarion even if Victarion becomes a master of dragons. This is where I wonder about his sea dragon egg being a potential factor - or indeed the fact that Euron appears to be after the dragon-lore tome in Oldtown.

I don't think even Quentyn was necessarily bloat. If news of his death gets back to Dorne, it could prove the vital thing that sets Dorne *against* Daenerys, and perhaps makes them declare for the False Dragon (Aegon) against the True Dragon (Daenerys).

Where is there *any* evidence of a connection between Bloodraven and Euron? Where is there *any* evidence of Bloodraven having made a "big mistake"? Book, chapter, text?

I think one thing's for certain... GRRM just blew the show completely out of the water. There's no way they can NOW get from where they are, to where GRRM is. If he had read the Aeron chapter years ago, we might have actually seen some Greyjoys earlier: instead of which, to introduce them as pretty much a Diabolus Ex Machina would ruin the show (worse than it already is), having had zero foreshadowing of it in the show.