What do you think caused Martin to loose his grip on the material?

[Lady Rhodes]

I, too, felt a sense of optimism from him in those Not-A-Blog posts and interviews he has given.  It feels different, more positive.

I think part of our frustration is that he took a different approach to updating on Winds progress than Dance progress.  He referenced Dance progress frequently, albeit vaguely, routinely in the years and months prior to Dance.  (ex. Tackled a Jon chapter, hacking away at the Meereenese Knot, floating off of the Isle of Cedars, its snowing here, maybe that means I need to go to the Wall...etc.) But we haven't had that with Winds.  I get where he was coming from - the teasers gave fans false hope.  But here we are, with Winds, with a longer distance between books than ever before....let's just say I hope he reverts and gives us snippets when he works on Dream of Spring. But, that is just my own opinion.

[Quaithe from Asshai]

43 minutes ago, Lady Rhodes said:

I, too, felt a sense of optimism from him in those Not-A-Blog posts and interviews he has given.  It feels different, more positive.

I think part of our frustration is that he took a different approach to updating on Winds progress than Dance progress.  He referenced Dance progress frequently, albeit vaguely, routinely in the years and months prior to Dance.  (ex. Tackled a Jon chapter, hacking away at the Meereenese Knot, floating off of the Isle of Cedars, its snowing here, maybe that means I need to go to the Wall...etc.) But we haven't had that with Winds.  I get where he was coming from - the teasers gave fans false hope.  But here we are, with Winds, with a longer distance between books than ever before....let's just say I hope he reverts and gives us snippets when he works on Dream of Spring. But, that is just my own opinion.

It started last April. He was replying to winds comments, albeit sourly. But, during world con he was more positive. 

This likely means he moved from another knot similar to the Meereenese Knot. 

And @Ran stated that GRRM was writing winds in April. It all fits together. Winds in nigh.

[Lady Rhodes]

4 minutes ago, Quaithe from Asshai said:

This likely means he moved from another knot similar to the Meereenese Knot

I've long said that the Meereenese Knot was never fully fixed, and, I think, reared its ugly head in Dance.  I am sure the books are going to be wonderful, but my feelings are that he regrets Tyrion not being in the Meereen inner circle (not necessarily meeting Dany, but in the inner circle) by the conclusion of Dance.

[T and A]

1 hour ago, Quaithe from Asshai said:

It started last April. He was replying to winds comments, albeit sourly. But, during world con he was more positive. 

This likely means he moved from another knot similar to the Meereenese Knot. 

And @Ran stated that GRRM was writing winds in April. It all fits together. Winds in nigh.

What is hype may never die 

[Cas Stark]

1 hour ago, Lady Rhodes said:

I've long said that the Meereenese Knot was never fully fixed, and, I think, reared its ugly head in Dance.  I am sure the books are going to be wonderful, but my feelings are that he regrets Tyrion not being in the Meereen inner circle (not necessarily meeting Dany, but in the inner circle) by the conclusion of Dance.

The Meereen Knot is kind of a stand in for the mental block that the author had as far as I can see, since unless the crackpot theory that everyone goes back to Essos/Dany never goes to Westeros is correct, then literally everything that happens in Meereen is tertiary, who arrives when is not important because they're all eventually hooking up and going to Westeros, so the fact that GRRM seemed obsessed with this sequence of events in Meereen, writing and rewriting multiple chapters, either is a huge sign of how he lost control and perspective or it means that the vast majority of fans, and his original outline are all wrong on how things are going to play out and Meereen is much more important than it seems.  I tend to believe it's the former, that he irrationally got stuck on this detail and wasted a ton of time on something that isn't even semi critical.

[Lady Rhodes]

@Cas Stark, fair enough, though I am of the belief that Meereen is central to an emotional maturation that Dany has to go through in order to become the person she is meant to be for Westeros (be that Nissa Nissa or Queen of the Seven Kingdoms) As a consequence of that, other characters are finding their way to her, and the timing of their arrival vs Dany's emotional maturation at the time will greatly affect the outcome. I respect, though, that you may not share that belief.

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

1 hour ago, Lady Rhodes said:

I've long said that the Meereenese Knot was never fully fixed, and, I think, reared its ugly head in Dance.  I am sure the books are going to be wonderful, but my feelings are that he regrets Tyrion not being in the Meereen inner circle (not necessarily meeting Dany, but in the inner circle) by the conclusion of Dance.

IIRC, the original ADWD was supposed to begin with Dany flying off on Drogon. The ADWD we eventually got, ended with Dany flying off on Drogon. Wouldn't that mean that the Meereenese Knot is solved?

[Lady Rhodes]

1 minute ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

IIRC, the original ADWD was supposed to begin with Dany flying off on Drogon. The ADWD we eventually got, ended with Dany flying off on Drogon. Wouldn't that mean that the Meereenese Knot is solved?

In part, yes. However, the issues, as I understand them, were POV (remedied by Barristan), and timing and causation (When to have Quentyn arrive? for instance).  Victarion, Moqorro, Tyrion, Penny and Jorah still have not arrived, thus are still dangling threads of the knot, so to speak.  I don't doubt his ability to craft a story that is great and makes sense and we will be none the wiser to what was troubling him unless he tells us. But my honest opinion is that he wishes he had Tyrion and Jorah arrive and become part of the Meereenese inner circle before Dany flew off, or at the very least, by the conclusion of the novel. I think the notion troubled him after he saw how it played off on TV (I'm not turning this into a book versus show debate, just pointing out that it aligns with when he admits growing frustrated and depressed with writing) 

[Cas Stark]

15 minutes ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

IIRC, the original ADWD was supposed to begin with Dany flying off on Drogon. The ADWD we eventually got, ended with Dany flying off on Drogon. Wouldn't that mean that the Meereenese Knot is solved?

I didn't know that, LOL, imagine how much further things would have gotten if he had done that!  And, that sort of goes to show then, that the entire series of Dany's interminable chapters were all filler.  

 

[The Coconut God]

1 hour ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

IIRC, the original ADWD was supposed to begin with Dany flying off on Drogon. The ADWD we eventually got, ended with Dany flying off on Drogon. Wouldn't that mean that the Meereenese Knot is solved?

That is incorrect. Originally, the reopening of the fighting pits happened early in the novel, and some scenes indeed carried through, but in that version the chapter simply ended with Drogon eating Barsena. Dany never flew on him, nor was there a poisoning attempt, and the chapter acted largely as an introduction to Meereen.

You can check out a full synopsis here. Notice how the chapter introduces many characters and plot lines that also played a part in the final version (Hizdar wanting to marry Dany, Skahaz and the shave pates, Barristan training knights, the Sons of "Ghis", the problems with Meereen's economy, Cleon the Butcher King and Yunkai's war with Astapor, etc). None of these needed to be introduced if he intended Dany to leave soon.

Granted, this version of the chapter is from a February 2003 reading, so there probably was an even older, unreleased version that happened after the 5 year gap. Who knows, maybe Dany flew off on Drogon in that one... but there's nothing concrete to point towards that. George once mentioned a scene that started out in the first Dany chapter, then moved to the second, third, and eventually ended up in the penultimate, and people jumped to the conclusion that he must have meant Dany's flight from Meereen, but evidence only points toward Drogon eating Barsena.

My personal interpretation is that this scene was originally intended to justify imprisoning the dragons, but later George replaced it with Hazzea and adapted the fighting pits for the climax of Dany's ADwD story. I may be wrong though.

[Lady Rhodes]

48 minutes ago, The Coconut God said:

My personal interpretation is that this scene was originally intended to justify imprisoning the dragons, but later George replaced it with Hazzea and adapted the fighting pits for the climax of Dany's ADwD story. I may be wrong though.

I think you are spot on.  Hazzea and the guilt Dany has for her is part of her pivotal emotional transformation in Dance, and I don't think Barsena dying would have had that same affect. Realizing that one of her children killed an innocent child is a lot different than one of her children eating an already dying Barsena.  They aren't comparable. They both may be horrific, but Drogon's behavior with Barsena would have been explained away by Dany.  Hazzea's could not.

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

1 hour ago, The Coconut God said:

George once mentioned a scene that started out in the first Dany chapter, then moved to the second, third, and eventually ended up in the penultimate, and people jumped to the conclusion that he must have meant Dany's flight from Meereen...

Ah, okay. 

[divica]

4 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

The Meereen Knot is kind of a stand in for the mental block that the author had as far as I can see, since unless the crackpot theory that everyone goes back to Essos/Dany never goes to Westeros is correct, then literally everything that happens in Meereen is tertiary, who arrives when is not important because they're all eventually hooking up and going to Westeros, so the fact that GRRM seemed obsessed with this sequence of events in Meereen, writing and rewriting multiple chapters, either is a huge sign of how he lost control and perspective or it means that the vast majority of fans, and his original outline are all wrong on how things are going to play out and Meereen is much more important than it seems.  I tend to believe it's the former, that he irrationally got stuck on this detail and wasted a ton of time on something that isn't even semi critical.

with so many characters converging in mereen it can t be a detail… And you can t Forget he has to tie what is happening in mereen with several plots like faegon and the golden company, victarion and euron, moqorro and marwyn, the present battle with the volantene fleet and danny's return...

I don t think that what happens in meereen is that important, the problem is how to tie it with   everything else and coordinate the arrivals of other characters. For exemple, quentin arriving early in mereen would be completly diferent, or if victarion arrived when danny was still there...

[divica]

4 hours ago, Lady Rhodes said:

@Cas Stark, fair enough, though I am of the belief that Meereen is central to an emotional maturation that Dany has to go through in order to become the person she is meant to be for Westeros (be that Nissa Nissa or Queen of the Seven Kingdoms) As a consequence of that, other characters are finding their way to her, and the timing of their arrival vs Dany's emotional maturation at the time will greatly affect the outcome. I respect, though, that you may not share that belief.

That isn t really true. I might be wrong because I haven t read dance in ages, but danny grows very little emotionaly throughout the book.

We have the dragon eating children incident that makes her realize her dragons are dangerous.

We have the destruction of the city she liberated before and that asked her for help several times that had some impact in her.

And we had the penultimate chapter when she realizes she has lost her way and is miserable.

All the other plots like the pale mare, children hostages that she is unable to kill, daario, the sellswords changing sides and whatever else I am forgeting didn t much impact nor did they help grow.

[Lady Rhodes]

2 hours ago, divica said:

That isn t really true. I might be wrong because I haven t read dance in ages, but danny grows very little emotionaly throughout the book.

We have the dragon eating children incident that makes her realize her dragons are dangerous.

We have the destruction of the city she liberated before and that asked her for help several times that had some impact in her.

And we had the penultimate chapter when she realizes she has lost her way and is miserable.

All the other plots like the pale mare, children hostages that she is unable to kill, daario, the sellswords changing sides and whatever else I am forgeting didn t much impact nor did they help grow.

I felt the same until recently. I just finished rereading dance and I picked up on it a lot more.

[T and A]

11 hours ago, divica said:

That isn t really true. I might be wrong because I haven t read dance in ages, but danny grows very little emotionaly throughout the book.

We have the dragon eating children incident that makes her realize her dragons are dangerous.

We have the destruction of the city she liberated before and that asked her for help several times that had some impact in her.

And we had the penultimate chapter when she realizes she has lost her way and is miserable.

All the other plots like the pale mare, children hostages that she is unable to kill, daario, the sellswords changing sides and whatever else I am forgeting didn t much impact nor did they help grow.

I agree with you. Dannys character arch in ADWD was a loop and not a forward developement.  She ends where she basically was before invading Mereen. (To go forward you must go back?!). You could have send her to Westeros right after getting the Army of the Unsullied, and you would not miss any character developement. What happens to her in terms of character: she invades Mereen, then she fails at ruling, looses her way and herself in Mereen, flees on Drogon away (in a highly symbolic manner), and in her lowest point (alone in the Dothraki see) finds herself again (Who she trully is). Now, character developements don't have to be only in a positive direction. But in the case of ASOIAF, it made no sense for Danny to undergo that developement. Because character developement has to come with story decelopement, and in the case of Mereen, I don't see anything that brought the story forward.

[The Scabbard Of the Morning]

It's my opinion that the whole thing happned because of the real world and Martin's left leaning politics affecting his writing.

When he wrote ASOS in 1999-2000.  Dany's actions more closely mirror the modern day progressive abolionist.   And his original plan was the Dany successfully rules Meereen in th 5 year gap, and having done that she turns her eyes on Westeros by the beginning of ADWD (the originally conceived book 4).

However, by the time he started to write ADWD, 9-11 and then the Iraq War happened, and the left-leaning narrative on the US invasion in Iraq became one of cultural imperialism, and Dany's occupation of Meereen became problematic for Martin.  So he decided instead of portraying it as a successful intervension by Dany (thus viewed as supporting the Iraq War) he decided to change course and now portray it as Dany stuck a quagmire (thus viewed as a cautionary tale on cultural imperialism).  

I think this change, more than anything else, wrecked Dany's storyline and her character development.  Dany's character is not at where he originally envisioned her to be when she launches her Westeros invasion. And the Meereenese knot really has been him trying to get her to that point.

[Lady Anna]

On 12/11/2018 at 7:42 PM, Bold Barry Whitebeard said:

The series would have been done by now if Dany had just accepted Yunkai's offer of gold to buy ships.  Everytime I read that chapter I want to scream at her to say yes.

I do that when Jorah (?) convinces her to stop at the bay of slaves while they're on their way to Pentos, knowing what we know now. ugh

[Cas Stark]

53 minutes ago, The Scabbard Of the Morning said:

It's my opinion that the whole thing happned because of the real world and Martin's left leaning politics affecting his writing.

When he wrote ASOS in 1999-2000.  Dany's actions more closely mirror the modern day progressive abolionist.   And his original plan was the Dany successfully rules Meereen in th 5 year gap, and having done that she turns her eyes on Westeros by the beginning of ADWD (the originally conceived book 4).

However, by the time he started to write ADWD, 9-11 and then the Iraq War happened, and the left-leaning narrative on the US invasion in Iraq became one of cultural imperialism, and Dany's occupation of Meereen became problematic for Martin.  So he decided instead of portraying it as a successful intervension by Dany (thus viewed as supporting the Iraq War) he decided to change course and now portray it as Dany stuck a quagmire (thus viewed as a cautionary tale on cultural imperialism).  

I think this change, more than anything else, wrecked Dany's storyline and her character development.  Dany's character is not at where he originally envisioned her to be when she launches her Westeros invasion. And the Meereenese knot really has been him trying to get her to that point.

That's an interesting theory, I have no idea if there is any truth to it, but it would explain the strange turns that Dany has taken, going from an almost wholly sympathetic, smart, capable leader to a bumbling, failure who repeatedly shows terrible judgement, lack of strategy or foresight, and despite her 'good' intentions created an epic debacle in slaver's bay. I've never understood why he had her fail so completely, yet he still speaks of her character as if she is a hero.  Dance ruined her for me, though, I will never root for her after all she did from Aastapor to Meereen.

[sifth]

1 hour ago, The Scabbard Of the Morning said:

It's my opinion that the whole thing happned because of the real world and Martin's left leaning politics affecting his writing.

When he wrote ASOS in 1999-2000.  Dany's actions more closely mirror the modern day progressive abolionist.   And his original plan was the Dany successfully rules Meereen in th 5 year gap, and having done that she turns her eyes on Westeros by the beginning of ADWD (the originally conceived book 4).

However, by the time he started to write ADWD, 9-11 and then the Iraq War happened, and the left-leaning narrative on the US invasion in Iraq became one of cultural imperialism, and Dany's occupation of Meereen became problematic for Martin.  So he decided instead of portraying it as a successful intervension by Dany (thus viewed as supporting the Iraq War) he decided to change course and now portray it as Dany stuck a quagmire (thus viewed as a cautionary tale on cultural imperialism).  

I think this change, more than anything else, wrecked Dany's storyline and her character development.  Dany's character is not at where he originally envisioned her to be when she launches her Westeros invasion. And the Meereenese knot really has been him trying to get her to that point.

To be fair, can't we also blame this on the abandonment of the time skip as well. George's style of writing is nothing comes easy, so without out the time skip he needed to come up with some type of conflict for Dany to face in Meereen.................I just think he might have gotten a little out of hand with just how much conflict he created for her and as a result we have the mess we are currently facing in slavers bay.