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Crossing the poison water


Kingmonkey

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Pretty sure the "seas go dry" refers to the Dothraki Sea in its drought. It's even jokingly alluded to when Victarion hears of it and thinks it's a real sea.

A Dothraki Sea, over run with Ghost Grass could well be said to have gone "dry" .... As in lifeless, unusable...

It is a poetic way to say never, as said before, but it also serves as a condemnation of Dany and her people. You can look it as saying that Dany's ambition to get what she wants is only achievable through the loss of all things dear to her.

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A Dothraki Sea, over run with Ghost Grass could well be said to have gone "dry" .... As in lifeless, unusable...

It is a poetic way to say never, as said before, but it also serves as a condemnation of Dany and her people. You can look it as saying that Dany's ambition to get what she wants is only achievable through the loss of all things dear to her.

Yes, I like the ghost grass symbolism there. It's on of those things that sounds like it ought to come into the story at some point, though it's hard to see at this point in the story how it's going to mean much. Perhaps the ghost grass is spreading and the Dothraki are being pushed west by a loss of grazing grounds.

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The answer to this is relatively easy, if you understand the geography of Planetos.. The Stepstones are the key. A frozen bridge would never happen that far south, but with the chain of islands that connect Westeros and Essos you would need far fewer ships acting as ferries between islands than you would if it were a strait ocean voyage.

It would take longer than just sailing, but would be far easier and safer for a host that large.

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But remember that it was never V and I's intention for them to succeed.

So V&I get the beggar king, who's a joke in Westeros, and arrange that his unconsidered kid sister gets married off to the badass king of the barbarians. Great distraction to keep people's attention in the wrong place while they finalise their plans for Project Aegon. To make things even more believable and scary, they give Dany some dragons eggs. These are proper Targs, people. Look, you Baratheons, you Lannisters, you Arryns! They have dragon eggs! They have a huge army of Dothraki screamers! Pay no attention to the Griffon behind the curtain!

Only then Viserys dies and Dany turns out to be ten times the dragon he was, and she hatches the eggs. This was not in the plan, and that's what Dany's story is all about. Ultimate pawn becomes ultimate player -- and because nobody ever told her that V&I's plan was only ever supposed to be a distraction, she's still trying to go through with it. Wouldn't it be a nicely ironic twist if Dany actually does manage to turn up in Westeros with dragons and dothraki, exactly as she wasn't supposed to actually do? She's done the one impossible thing in hatching the eggs; all she has to do now is do the other impossible thing and bring a massive dothraki army over the sea.

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Realistically, I see Dany's super khal essentially being left in Essos for cleanup/*****ing up slavers while an elite force of around 10k(+ or - 5k) sail to Westeros mostly made up of unsullied, sellswords, a few blood riders, and iron born.



The free men & dothraki will be left behind.


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Realistically, I see Dany's super khal essentially being left in Essos for cleanup/*****ing up slavers while an elite force of around 10k(+ or - 5k) sail to Westeros mostly made up of unsullied, sellswords, a few blood riders, and iron born.

The free men & dothraki will be left behind.

Yeah, leave the Dothraki to take care of ending slavery.....

The last few thousands of years really prove how much they hate the idea of slavery and would never support it...

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If she takes the entire Volantene and IB fleets back west, at most she's going to be able to take somewhere shy of 15K.

I don´t mean the fleet that sails towards SB..

The Volantenes were fond of boasting that the hundred isles of Braavos could be dropped into their deep harbor and drowned. Quentyn had never seen Braavos, but he could believe it. Rich and ripe and rotted, Volantis covered the mouth of the Rhoyne like a warm wet kiss, stretching across hill and marsh on both sides of the river. Ships were everywhere, coming down the river or headed out to sea, crowding the wharves and piers, taking on cargo or off-loading it: warships and whalers and trading galleys, carracks and skiffs, cogs, great cogs, longships, swan ships, ships from Lys and Tyrosh and Pentos, Qartheen spicers big as palaces, ships from Tolos and Yunkai and the Basilisks. So many that Quentyn, seeing the port for the first time from the deck of the Meadowlark, had told his friends that they would only linger here three days.

If she takes Volantis, she could seize all those ships,

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I don´t mean the fleet that sails towards SB..

If she takes Volantis, she could seize all those ships,

True but she has to get whomever she's taking to Volantis. She's going to have to march those people down the demon road with little to nothing in the way of supplies unless she decides to go by boat, which is far faster. There's also a chance she'd have to fight her way down the demon road too, as literally everyone but the Lhazarene want her dead and defeated.

It's around 1900 miles as the crow flies (550 leagues in the books), so you can imagine that the road route would easily exceed that. Not a march I'd be wanting to make with the numbers she currently has.

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True but she has to get whomever she's taking to Volantis. She's going to have to march those people down the demon road with little to nothing in the way of supplies unless she decides to go by boat, which is far faster. There's also a chance she'd have to fight her way down the demon road too, as literally everyone but the Lhazarene want her dead and defeated.

I think that is exactly what will happen. She will sack Matarys for supplies on her way. She´ll remember they killed her envoys.

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Volantis has all the ships she needs

The Mongolians took 3500 ships to get 100,000 men with very few horses to Japan, and that was a short enough journey they could really cram them in. The largest horse transports on the similarly short journey of the Norman invasion took 10 horses per ship.

Realistically, the Iron fleet could take perhaps as many as 500 Dothraki back with them to Westeros at a push. Unrealistically, but with GRRM vagary, they might perhaps take the 7000 or so Unsullied back with them, or say 2500 Dothraki. Even by that accounting, we'd need the Volantene fleet to be 40 times the size of the Iron Fleet to move a 100,000 strong Khalasaar.

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Invading westeros in the winter would be like invading Russia in the winter except ten times worse. Crossing an Ice sea of three hundred miles would be similar to an expedition to the North Pole. If this winter is anywhere near as bad as it's made out to be warfare will cease and everyone will be focused on surviving.

Honestly I just can't see Dany brining an Army to westeros it's too far, she had no funding, limited supplies, and is surrounded by hostile nations.

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The Mongolians took 3500 ships to get 100,000 men with very few horses to Japan, and that was a short enough journey they could really cram them in. The largest horse transports on the similarly short journey of the Norman invasion took 10 horses per ship.

Realistically, the Iron fleet could take perhaps as many as 500 Dothraki back with them to Westeros at a push. Unrealistically, but with GRRM vagary, they might perhaps take the 7000 or so Unsullied back with them, or say 2500 Dothraki. Even by that accounting, we'd need the Volantene fleet to be 40 times the size of the Iron Fleet to move a 100,000 strong Khalasaar.

It was 4400 ships for the mongols, but yeah your point stands....

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