Do we think George passed 1500 manuscript pages?

[Werthead]

I suspect George has produced way, way more than 1500 MS pages at this point. He notes that to produce the 1520 MS pages of ADWD he actually wrote more than twice that number (but not as much as three times) in fragments, partials and even completed chapters that were then junked.

If he has 1500 MS pages completed and ready to go, then that's a possibility and he is actually writing to the end of what he considers to be the "TWoW arc," and once it's done he'll see what his publishers want to do. He could turn in a book that's 500,000 words (80,000 words or 25% longer than ADWD) and it would still be publishable in one volume (his friend Diana Gabaldon has two books in her Outlander series of that size), especially given his now much greater fame.

More likely, I suspect, he wants to keep the book to 1500 pages and some of the problems on TWoW have been down to retaining this space limit whilst getting the book to do what he needs it to do, which likely requires a faster pace than ADWD but not wanting to go so fast that it ends up feeling forced or contrived.

On 12/4/2019 at 4:16 PM, Lord Varys said:

All or some of that make it very clear that the plot is not going to move to Westeros soon. Daenerys has her own story in the east now, and that story has to play - and George did everything in his power to make it a broader story in ADwD, introducing many new characters and plot lines and conflicts.

I think this point is disregarding the likely, key point that Victarion will seize one of the two other dragons in TWoW and may choose to sail home, perhaps thinking to use the dragon against Euron. When Dany returns to Meereen with the Dothraki, the dragon-napping may be enough to inspire her to return to Westeros immediately to get him back (which will probably fail and the dragon will die; the Night King/dragon resurrection story in the show, one of the few storylines we 100% know is never going to happen in the books, is rather awkwardly an adaptation of this story). I think events are building to a Gotterdamerung in Slaver's Bay and if things happen in Volantis and Pentos, they'll be side-stories, possibly relayed off-camera, and not a primary focus going forwards.

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Did GRRM ever give a detailed answer or blog post explaining why he abandoned the 5 year gap? I suppose Book 4 would have started off slow as each character remembered what had happened the past 5 years. But the result has been a weird mix of 5 year gap content and GRRM trying to find a way to still advance the plot.

The 5 year gap was never the original plan for the series. He introduced it during the writing of ACoK and jettisoned it a year after ASoS came out, so it was really only a thing for three years or so, twenty years ago at this point.

As for why he abandoned it, it worked brilliantly for some characters (Daenerys, Bran, Arya, Sansa) and it worked really badly for other characters (Cersei, Brienne, the Dornish) and there was a bunch of characters (chiefly Jon) where it kind of worked but also didn't, as in having Jon as Lord Commander for five years and now being in his twenties was good but it made selling the betrayal harder and it also created a weird situation where we had the urgency of the Others being on their way, but then they go to Reno or something for a five year break. I think the idea that either Stannis or Ramsay would just sit around for five years without trying to defeat the other was unlikely as well (OTOH, Theon's state in ADWD does fit him being a prisoner of Ramsay for five years maybe better than one).

AFFC was the main source of friction between pre, during and post-five year gap storylines mixing for all the characters, but I believe by the end of ADWD the characters are almost entirely past their gap narratives.

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We don't seem to even be at the end of Arya's 5 year gap yet. You'd assume he intended for her training to be done when we rejoined her after the 5 year gap. What does he plan for her to do afterwards? 

 

As said before, negatory, the plan was always that we'd rejoin her in Braavos in the "Mercy" chapter. This suggests that there is something more important and obviously plot-related for her to do in Braavos before returning to Westeros.

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Jon I'd guess would have been Lord Commander for the 5 year gap? I think almost all of Jon's ADWD chapters were post 5 year gap content. 

I think most of Jon's material was five-year gap material and only at the end did he move decisively past that.

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What we have is a story where the POV characters are out of sinc with eachother. Some parts of the story aren't even out of the 5 year gap yet. Dany has a TON of stuff left to do unless she never heads for Westeros. 

Dany is post-gap now as well. Her original Book 4 storyline opened with her marriage, so it would have been relatively fast for us to get to the arena and her flying off on Drogon, conquering the Dothraki etc and getting back to Meereen again.

My suspicion is that this storyline - which appears to have been adapted from George's notes pretty much as-is for the TV show, with the major difference of her fire-immunity (which doesn't exist in the books) being used to overawe the Dothraki instead of just using Drogon to scare the shit out of them - will be also fairly accelerated in TWoW, and the dragon-napping by the ironborn will be used as the catalyst for her to return to Westeros rather than continuing to dick around in Essos.

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George, have all these problems and much more been worth not spending half of Book 4 with your characters thinking back on what happened during the 5 year gap as we are introduced to what they are doing post 5 year gap? You could have hit the ground running afterwards and finished all 9 books by now. What was it about the 5 year gap that was so bad that you T-boned your story to avoid it?

Narrative gaps rarely work in fiction, and have sometimes fucked up stories very badly (Battlestar Galactica 2.0 pretty much blew itself up with its 16-month gap between Seasons 2 and 3 and never really recovered the oustanding form of its early episodes, as it kept using is as crutch to explain why all the characters were now massively acting out of character). George was also reluctant to introduce the gap, and only did so because not enough time was passing in the main story as he'd anticipated and he didn't want to keep writing the kids at the ages they were. But as he later said, "if a twelve-year-old has to save the world, so be it."

I don't think the five-year gap would have been the magical panacea to ASoIaF's problems that some people believe it to be. I do think the problems and stress of dealing with the gap may have been the moment ASoIaF's forward momentum was derailed and it's clearly never quite recovered since then, but if it hadn't been the gap, it would have been something else (probably the Meereenese Knot, which would have still happened, just in a slightly different context).

[Lord Varys]

27 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I suspect George has produced way, way more than 1500 MS pages at this point. He notes that to produce the 1520 MS pages of ADWD he actually wrote more than twice that number (but not as much as three times) in fragments, partials and even completed chapters that were then junked.

If he has 1500 MS pages completed and ready to go, then that's a possibility and he is actually writing to the end of what he considers to be the "TWoW arc," and once it's done he'll see what his publishers want to do. He could turn in a book that's 500,000 words (80,000 words or 25% longer than ADWD) and it would still be publishable in one volume (his friend Diana Gabaldon has two books in her Outlander series of that size), especially given his now much greater fame.

More likely, I suspect, he wants to keep the book to 1500 pages and some of the problems on TWoW have been down to retaining this space limit whilst getting the book to do what he needs it to do, which likely requires a faster pace than ADWD but not wanting to go so fast that it ends up feeling forced or contrived.

More than 1,500 manuscript pages if you count everything, sure, but not more than 1,500 completed manuscript judged to be ready for publication. If he had those, we would have a publication date for TWoW.

The natural end for ADwD would have been after those battles ... possibly even only after Aegon taking the Iron Throne (that would have been a great cliffhanger for the KL story) and yet they were moved to the next book. I cannot see George or any of his publishers to insist that a 1,000 page book be turned into 1,200 or 1,300 page book after the audience is waiting for it for nearly ten years now. I could be wrong, but I'd be very surprised if I were.

A faster pace works when events move fast - like they are right now with the battles and likely also with Aegon's campaign. But other plots move very slowly. And once the crucial battles are over, there will be need of a brief respite, to make new plans, assess the situation in other places, etc.

In Slaver's Bay things could move very fast until after the Volantenes have arrived, but then they will have to get together and make some plans. And a realistic setting is that with Dany not being there yet - and people giving up hope that she still lives - her movement will start to tear itself apart, especially if there are two more dragonrider around.

27 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I think this point is disregarding the likely, key point that Victarion will seize one of the two other dragons in TWoW and may choose to sail home, perhaps thinking to use the dragon against Euron. When Dany returns to Meereen with the Dothraki, the dragon-napping may be enough to inspire her to return to Westeros immediately to get him back (which will probably fail and the dragon will die; the Night King/dragon resurrection story in the show, one of the few storylines we 100% know is never going to happen in the books, is rather awkwardly an adaptation of this story). I think events are building to a Gotterdamerung in Slaver's Bay and if things happen in Volantis and Pentos, they'll be side-stories, possibly relayed off-camera, and not a primary focus going forwards.

The Vic idea doesn't strike me as very likely. Both because Moqorro is in charge of the Dragonbinder plot now, and he is there because he has very accurate visions of future events and went through a very ugly ordeal to get to Victarion in time. He uses him for his own ends ... which, to our knowledge, are to prevent Euron from getting the dragons/Dany. The other hint is that Moqorro's words about the glory that awaits Victarion Greyjoy seem to me to have a very ominous undertone - meaning that the most likeliest outcome of the sounding of Dragonbinder will be that Rhaegal shoots down from the sky and turns Victarion into a pile of ashes.

Even if he became a dragonrider - it has been made clear again and again that he wants the fairest woman in the world for himself. A dragon would give him the mobility to search for Dany in the Dothraki Sea, and one assumes he would do just that if he could. There would be no need for him to rush things now that he has a dragon. Vic's fantasy/desire is that he takes the woman Euron wants ... because Euron robbed him of his woman back when he was exiled.

Also - why should Dany care all that much about one of her dragons being taken? She can only ride one and has claimed Drogon now.

I'm also not sure that Dany will feel a strong need or desire to return to Slaver's Bay quickly after she has won over the Dothraki. She turns her back on the people there when she decides to go back. And George himself has said that Tyrion and Dany will only hook up 'eventually' in TWoW, making it clear that this is not something that's going to happen soon ... and which might only happen because Tyrion might become a dragonrider, too, allowing him to fly to Vaes Dothrak himself.

I agree that we won't see all those Free City campaigns - if Dany controls all the khalsars she can send a couple of them to Qohor, Norvos, Pentos, and Myr without accompanying them in person (although I don't think she will turn against Pentos until she has good reason to mistrust Illyrio). And being a dragonrider she could be with them much faster, say, to witness the actual sacking of those cities and ensuring that the slaves are freed and atrocities remain at a minimum (or everybody gets brutally raped and murdered, if she wants that).

But I think her way from Vaes Dothrak will lead her to Qarth, not back to Slaver's Bay. She has unfinished business there. Quaithe seems to be waiting for her there, and it might also be the place where she meets Archmaester Marwyn - who likely didn't find a ship taking him to Meereen. After all, it is a huge issue for Aegon and Quentyn that ships no longer go to Slaver's Bay, meaning that Marwyn may have ended up on a ship that skipped Slaver's Bay on their journey and dropped him at Qarth.

Talking to Tyrion and Marwyn may provide her with sufficient motivation to make Westeros her target. Without the information these two can give her, she would most likely not bother in light of the way she has been written so far. Tyrion can inform her about Aegon - and, with the combined knowledge of Tatters and Selmy he might have figured out who and what Varys and Illyrio were about the entire time - and Marwyn will help her make sense of all the prophecy stuff surrounding her person as well as the true purpose behind all that stuff.

If she doesn't know about the Others she could still spend winter in Essos and decide to crush Aegon or whoever else sits on her throne by then next spring. With all the Dothraki at her disposal she will have the power to conquer all of Essos west of the Bones - and could even challenge the Jogos Nhai and the YiTish. A war-torn Westeros couldn't stand against her for long. Especially if she took her time and consolidated her power in Essos in winter.

But with the stuff about the Others it will become clear that there is a certain urgency for her to go to Westeros.

Slaver's Bay will likely already be half through TWoW when they have dealt with the Volantenes. They will have to deal with the schemers in Meereen, destroy Yunkai, and to pass the time while Dany is still away they could carry the war to the other cities - Mantarys, Tolos, New Ghis, etc. Slavery is not going to disappear because the Yunkish allies are defeated before the walls of Meereen, but only when they and their allies have been destroyed or forced into permanent submission.

[Mithras]

51 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I think this point is disregarding the likely, key point that Victarion will seize one of the two other dragons in TWoW and may choose to sail home, perhaps thinking to use the dragon against Euron. When Dany returns to Meereen with the Dothraki, the dragon-napping may be enough to inspire her to return to Westeros immediately to get him back (which will probably fail and the dragon will die; the Night King/dragon resurrection story in the show, one of the few storylines we 100% know is never going to happen in the books, is rather awkwardly an adaptation of this story). I think events are building to a Gotterdamerung in Slaver's Bay and if things happen in Volantis and Pentos, they'll be side-stories, possibly relayed off-camera, and not a primary focus going forwards.

I don't think there will be a wight dragon in the books. GRRM laid enough setup for the Others to produce their own ice dragon, if he needs to give them one. There is also the possibility of a shadow dragon (which I think will be the case).

I think the more basic problem is, who will be the Night's King incarnate? There are only two candidates, especially considering the parallel character (“Storm King” Ineluki) from MS&T: Stannis or Euron, both of whom can be literally called Storm King one way or the other. Stannis should be the natural choice here. Fall of a human character is much more interesting and ASOIAF-like than a 1-D villain that is cartoonishly evil right from the start.

As for sailing home, Dany does not need further reasons. At the end of ADwD, she already realized that Meereen was never her home and her place should be Westeros. The quickest way to advance the story is to let Tyrion and Victarion bring some sort of passable resolution to Slaver’s Bay while Dany is consolidating her Dothraki. This way, when Dany finally returns to Meereen, she can meet these new allies and they can all directly start moving westwards. However, her journey through Essos cannot be relayed off-screen. They will not give her a free passage. She will have to carve a bloody path, which also helps advancing Dany’s violent turn.

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

I don't think the five-year gap would have been the magical panacea to ASoIaF's problems that some people believe it to be. I do think the problems and stress of dealing with the gap may have been the moment ASoIaF's forward momentum was derailed and it's clearly never quite recovered since then, but if it hadn't been the gap, it would have been something else (probably the Meereenese Knot, which would have still happened, just in a slightly different context).

I agree with this. I think the SPLIT was the worst decision ever made. It is the primary cause of the story spiraling out of control. Instead of splitting and publishing AFfC, GRRM should have kept rewriting and trimming until the entirety of AFfC/ADwD could fit into a single volume, even if it took several more years.

[Werthead]

32 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

More than 1,500 manuscript pages if you count everything, sure, but not more than 1,500 completed manuscript judged to be ready for publication. If he had those, we would have a publication date for TWoW.

The natural end for ADwD would have been after those battles ... possibly even only after Aegon taking the Iron Throne (that would have been a great cliffhanger for the KL story) and yet they were moved to the next book. I cannot see George or any of his publishers to insist that a 1,000 page book be turned into 1,200 or 1,300 page book after the audience is waiting for it for nearly ten years now. I could be wrong, but I'd be very surprised if I were.

The other possibility is that George has more than 1,500 pages ready to go right now, but thanks to his nonlinear writing process, he still has not finished chapters occurring early in the book. This is especially likely if he has difficult scenes involving the death of major characters (like the Red Wedding). Having say Chapters 4-7 incomplete would effectively prevent anything being published at all, whilst having Chapters 65-70 incomplete and the book already being over 1500 pages would allow it to be published immediately, as those chapters could be shunted to ADoS.

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The Vic idea doesn't strike me as very likely. Both because Moqorro is in charge of the Dragonbinder plot now, and he is there because he has very accurate visions of future events and went through a very ugly ordeal to get to Victarion in time. He uses him for his own ends ... which, to our knowledge, are to prevent Euron from getting the dragons/Dany. The other hint is that Moqorro's words about the glory that awaits Victarion Greyjoy seem to me to have a very ominous undertone - meaning that the most likeliest outcome of the sounding of Dragonbinder will be that Rhaegal shoots down from the sky and turns Victarion into a pile of ashes.

Even if he became a dragonrider - it has been made clear again and again that he wants the fairest woman in the world for himself. A dragon would give him the mobility to search for Dany in the Dothraki Sea, and one assumes he would do just that if he could. There would be no need for him to rush things now that he has a dragon. Vic's fantasy/desire is that he takes the woman Euron wants ... because Euron robbed him of his woman back when he was exiled.

Moqorro is a wild card and you are right in that his impact on Victarion's story remains to be seen. However, if George wants to get Dany back to Westeros quickly, perhaps side-stepping storylines he earlier thought he'd have time to explore more fully, this would be a reasonable way of executing that. 

I also think that George has sometimes put multiple guns on the mantelpiece but not made a decision on which to fire, to give him more narrative options later in the story. Moqorro has that feel: he could be hugely important or could die relatively easily if George decides to take Victarion in another direction.

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Also - why should Dany care all that much about one of her dragons being taken? She can only ride one and has claimed Drogon now.

She is the Mother of Dragons and cares for all three, regardless of being only able to ride one. This strikes me as a logical and transactional assessment of the situation, not one rooted in Dany's emotions and character. If someone stole one of her dragons, she absolutely would move heaven and earth to recover them.

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I'm also not sure that Dany will feel a strong need or desire to return to Slaver's Bay quickly after she has won over the Dothraki. She turns her back on the people there when she decides to go back. And George himself has said that Tyrion and Dany will only hook up 'eventually' in TWoW, making it clear that this is not something that's going to happen soon ... and which might only happen because Tyrion might become a dragonrider, too, allowing him to fly to Vaes Dothrak himself.

Dany still needs ships to invade Westeros and there are ships to be had in Slaver's Bay. Her other dragons are there, the root of her power, and regardless of how she may have decided to say screw it to Meereen, she still has friends and allies there, plus her Unsullied. She also needs other troops experienced in siege warfare, which the Dothraki lack. The idea of her saying she's not going to return to Meereen seems unlikely.

Tyrion taming a dragon to fetch Dany back seems possible, but also George would have to execute that storyline carefully to avoid cheese.

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I agree that we won't see all those Free City campaigns - if Dany controls all the khalsars she can send a couple of them to Qohor, Norvos, Pentos, and Myr without accompanying them in person (although I don't think she will turn against Pentos until she has good reason to mistrust Illyrio). And being a dragonrider she could be with them much faster, say, to witness the actual sacking of those cities and ensuring that the slaves are freed and atrocities remain at a minimum (or everybody gets brutally raped and murdered, if she wants that).

The Tattered Prince has already been promised Pentos, which I think makes Illyrio's trustworthiness or not immaterial.

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But I think her way from Vaes Dothrak will lead her to Qarth, not back to Slaver's Bay. She has unfinished business there. Quaithe seems to be waiting for her there, and it might also be the place where she meets Archmaester Marwyn - who likely didn't find a ship taking him to Meereen. After all, it is a huge issue for Aegon and Quentyn that ships no longer go to Slaver's Bay, meaning that Marwyn may have ended up on a ship that skipped Slaver's Bay on their journey and dropped him at Qarth.

I don't see any logical reason for the story to return to Qarth or move east at all. That would be a retrograde step (not as much as going to Asshai, which some people think is still possible for some reason). Marwyn I think will turn up with one of the fleets, or may have even done as you said and already be on a Qartheen ship bound for Meereen (although I don't think the timeline makes that likely).

I also believe that George has listed Marwyn as one of the important characters headed for Meereen whose arrival was in flux, along with Quentyn's, Tyrion's and Victarion's. That makes his arrival in Meereen early in TWoW much more probable.

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I don't think there will be a wight dragon in the books. GRRM laid enough setup for the Others to produce their own ice dragon, if he needs to give them one. There is also the possibility of a shadow dragon (which I think will be the case).

That's what I was saying: we know there will be no wight dragon story in the books. In the books, dragons can't pass over the Wall and the Night King does not exist, which makes the entire storyline impossible.

This storyline will instead take place with Victarion and/or Euron in the books. Most likely, the showrunners moved all of the supernatural elements from Euron to the Night King when they decided not to focus on the ironborn in the show, which then caused problems when they later changed their minds and reverse-engineered Jack Sparrow Euron into the TV show.

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I think the more basic problem is, who will be the Night's King incarnate? There are only two candidates, especially considering the parallel character (“Storm King” Ineluki) from MS&T: Stannis or Euron, both of whom can be literally called Storm King one way or the other. Stannis should be the natural choice here. Fall of a human character is much more interesting and ASOIAF-like than a 1-D villain that is cartoonishly evil right from the start

Although possible, I don't think this will happen. The Others and the White Walkers are dramatically different in conception between books and show, with the Others apparently being more a civilisation of equals who have endured for thousands of years and come south now for rational reasons, unlike the White Walkers in the show who instead spent that time asleep, apparently can't even talk (they did in the first episode, but all later references to them being able to speak were eliminated) and are much more about the endless hordes of the undead, which in the books seems to be more of a bonus ability they have then their entire focus of existence. The Others don't need a Night King, and GRRM as been pretty clear that there will be no analogue in the books (they may have a leader or a group of leaders, but it won't be as in the show).

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I agree with this. I think the SPLIT was the worst decision ever made. It is the primary cause of the story spiraling out of control. Instead of splitting and publishing AFfC, GRRM should have kept rewriting and trimming until the entirety of AFfC/ADwD could fit into a single volume, even if it took several more years.

I think we dodged a bullet there. When the split was made, the book was 1700 manuscript pages long and George had barely started some story arcs (Bran especially) and others were in some state of disarray (Jon and Dany especially). If he'd kept going, we'd have added the Meereenese Knot into that mess, and there's no way he'd have fitted all of AFFC/ADWD-as-published in a single volume. It's also worth remembering that ADWD as it was conceived in 2005 is not the ADWD we got in 2011; it was a lot shorter and more focused. We may have gotten a complete narrative for all the characters then split in half, but I think we'd actually be behind where we are now, as there would not have been space in a single volume to push the story as far ahead as ADWD eventually did.

[Lord Varys]

22 minutes ago, Werthead said:

The other possibility is that George has more than 1,500 pages ready to go right now, but thanks to his nonlinear writing process, he still has not finished chapters occurring early in the book. This is especially likely if he has difficult scenes involving the death of major characters (like the Red Wedding). Having say Chapters 4-7 incomplete would effectively prevent anything being published at all, whilst having Chapters 65-70 incomplete and the book already being over 1500 pages would allow it to be published immediately, as those chapters could be shunted to ADoS.

That is a good point. I don't expect there to be a Red Wedding-like indicent in TWoW (in the sense that George will butcher a couple of good guys who were in the series from the very beginning) but the chance that he has written enough chapters on other POVs which together would take the book beyond 1,500 manuscript pages is certainly a possibility.

I imagine writing Dany, Mel/Jon, Davos, Bran, Sansa, Arya is going to be pretty easy since none of those characters are very likely to intersect with many others throughout the first half or so, but the Slaver's Bay, KL, Stormlands, and Riverlands situation might become very tangled very quickly - as might the Euron and Dorne plot.

22 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Moqorro is a wild card and you are right in that his impact on Victarion's story remains to be seen. However, if George wants to get Dany back to Westeros quickly, perhaps side-stepping storylines he earlier thought he'd have time to explore more fully, this would be a reasonable way of executing that. 

If he wanted to get her back to Westeros quickly he would have scrapped that Dothraki plot. No reader would have complained if she had never returned to the Dothraki. Doing that means he doesn't want her to go soon. It means the opposite. The way to move her quickly would have been to have her crush resistance at Meereen and remain there until all her visitors arrived, after which she could have then, at the end of ADwD, made the decision to go.

And it seems clear that both Euron and Aegon have to be build up some more before they can clash with Daenerys. At this point they are still very powerless. They couldn't stop her if she came now, nor could they challenge her properly once she has landed. And if the Westerosi knew she was coming throughout TWoW they would not side with Euron or Aegon or Stannis or whoever else is going to rise to prominence and power. The people have to be committed to a new pretender to stay with them once the dragon queen shows up.

22 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I also think that George has sometimes put multiple guns on the mantelpiece but not made a decision on which to fire, to give him more narrative options later in the story. Moqorro has that feel: he could be hugely important or could die relatively easily if George decides to take Victarion in another direction.

It seems rather that Victarion is a catalyst whose sole purpose might be to bring a fleet and the horn to Slaver's Bay. Moqorro isn't a guy I see to be dying soon ... or in a pointless manner. He could sacrifice himself for the cause of bringing Dany to R'hllor, of course, but anything else he should be able to dodge. He seems to know the future like no other character. Telling somebody precisely when and where ships are in the middle of the ocean is true magic.

22 minutes ago, Werthead said:

She is the Mother of Dragons and cares for all three, regardless of being only able to ride one. This strikes me as a logical and transactional assessment of the situation, not one rooted in Dany's emotions and character. If someone stole one of her dragons, she absolutely would move heaven and earth to recover them.

I'm not so sure about that. It has been build up that she is going to think of the other dragonriders as those other two dragon heads, i.e. men she is going trust and likely even marry. In that sense she might be following Victarion to find him, but I'm not sure she would see that as him stealing a dragon.

We can also expect Tyrion becoming a dragonrider being the crucial thing that convinces her to trust this kinslayer and kingslayer and son and brother of her family's worst enemies. I could never imagine her allowing Tyrion in her council if he had just shown up as a penniless ugly dwarf with the worst reputation imaginable.

But I think the Aegon thing will provide her with a better political reason to go to Westeros. As will Marwyn's story about the Others.

22 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Dany still needs ships to invade Westeros and there are ships to be had in Slaver's Bay. Her other dragons are there, the root of her power, and regardless of how she may have decided to say screw it to Meereen, she still has friends and allies there, plus her Unsullied. She also needs other troops experienced in siege warfare, which the Dothraki lack. The idea of her saying she's not going to return to Meereen seems unlikely.

Sure, she should go back there eventually. But going there no longer has any urgency for her. That is why she went to the Dothraki. And taking them over will open up a new world to her. A world where she is truly powerful and can do whatever the hell she wants.

And the way to get the Dothraki to Westeros doesn't lead through Slaver's Bay. She can conquer all the Free Cities at the coast (i.e. Pentos, Myr, and Volantis) and then take the ships there. That has the advantage that the Myrish and Pentoshi contingent of her troops would have a very short journey to Westeros.

I expect her to fly back to Meereen eventually to tell her people that she still lives and to tell them what she is going to do, etc. but there is no reason to believe she will move all her Dothraki there.

Although it is more likely that her people - especially the dragonriders if there are any - will search her out in Vaes Dothrak or Qarth.

22 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Tyrion taming a dragon to fetch Dany back seems possible, but also George would have to execute that storyline carefully to avoid cheese.

Oh, it should be easy enough if he is Aerys' bastard. If not, then Dragonbinder could do the trick as well. Tyrion is more likely to ride a dragon than Victarion who is a huge and heavy man - remember, Drogon is larger than the other dragons and still could barely lift Dany back in ADwD. Viserion should carry Tyrion easily enough, but Victarion won't ride Rhaegal for quite some time even if he claimed him somehow.

The idea that any of the dragons die or end up on 'the evil side' also strikes as very unlikely for the books. Tyrion will live likely until the very end of the series, and if he becomes a dragonrider said dragon is not likely to ever get another rider until after the final climax (it the dragon survives that), and the other dragon is ultimately for Jon Snow. While said dragon could have a succession of riders before - Victarion or Brown Ben Plumm (who is a much more likely candidate than Vic due to his Targaryen blood) - we can be pretty sure that this dragon, too, won't die until the very end of the series (i.e. only after Jon has mounted him).

The show killed the dragons because they scrapped the entire dragonrider plot. Without that plot two of the dragons were pretty pointless, anyway. It is a miracle that they had Jon ride a dragon for a couple of minutes in the show.

22 minutes ago, Werthead said:

The Tattered Prince has already been promised Pentos, which I think makes Illyrio's trustworthiness or not immaterial.

That presupposes Dany gives a fig about the word her safe-appointed 'Hand' gave the guy - which I don't think she will unless she is given a good reason. Not to mention that Dany deciding to give her Dothraki the Free Cities has nothing to do with anything that happened in Meereen during her absence. Selmy isn't going to teleport troops to Pentos before her return ... but Dany might make plans with her Dothraki at Vaes Dothrak and execute them before she reconnects with her gang in Slaver's Bay.

And that's why I think she is only going to consider attacking Pentos after she has spoken with both Selmy and Tatters - or heard about Illyrio and Varys via Tyrion who likely is going to talk with them about all that pretty soon.

22 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I don't see any logical reason for the story to return to Qarth or move east at all. That would be a retrograde step (not as much as going to Asshai, which some people think is still possible for some reason). Marwyn I think will turn up with one of the fleets, or may have even done as you said and already be on a Qartheen ship bound for Meereen (although I don't think the timeline makes that likely).

It would be part of the 'you have to go back to get forward' thing. Asshai seems to be out of the question as a place she is going to go (although George may have once planned to take her there), but Qarth is a crucial place. They have to abolish slavery, too, they have to punished for their involvement in the war against Dany, the Dothraki might want to sack the place, and there is Ran's talk about George being unwilling to share anything detailed about the Qartheen for TWoIaF. That implies detailed background information about the Undying, the warlocks, the shade of the evening, their eerie, weirwood-like trees, how they got Dragonbinder, etc. was considered to be too spoilery. That wouldn't make much sense if we didn't see the place in the future.

We still don't know why the Undying wanted to consume Dany and how they knew so much about her future. Not a question many people ask but since Dragonbinder seems to have been an artifact Euron got from Pyat Pree and his companions one wonders whether one of those Undying wasn't an ancient Valyrian dragonlord himself - a man or woman who left Valyria before the Doom to take this powerful instument with him.

But that is all not necessary, of course. Although I think it could be a powerful scene if Dany and the readers were given the first complete and preliminary interpretation of this prophesied prince prophecy complex and all it entails according to Westerosi scholarly tradition in the ruins of Qarth - given by both Marwyn and Quaithe in the flesh (at which point her true identity and signficance would also be revealed). It could mark the next twist for Dany - her twist at the end of ADwD was to turn her back at her people meaning her story in TWoW might be another temptation: to truly become the Stallion Who Mounts the World for the Dothraki and no longer caring about Westeros and Slaver's Bay or any other people.

After all, as I said: She will be nearly all powerful as their ruler. Why shouldn't she build her own empire in Essos? She doesn't know Westeros and was never in a hurry to get there. Even Aegon could originally come as a relief - let him avenge the family and reclaim what their ancestors built. She would be free to do what she wants. She only took her brother's burden because she believed she was the last Targaryen. With the Dothraki she would be free to do as she wants - which would also mimic her first emancipation story back in AGoT where joining the Dothraki freed her from her brother.

22 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I also believe that George has listed Marwyn as one of the important characters headed for Meereen whose arrival was in flux, along with Quentyn's, Tyrion's and Victarion's. That makes his arrival in Meereen early in TWoW much more probable.

Sure, he should arrive wherever he shows up early in TWoW. But it might be more fun to have him find Dany directly rather than meeting her people before.

22 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Although possible, I don't think this will happen. The Others and the White Walkers are dramatically different in conception between books and show, with the Others apparently being more a civilisation of equals who have endured for thousands of years and come south now for rational reasons, unlike the White Walkers in the show who instead spent that time asleep, apparently can't even talk (they did in the first episode, but all later references to them being able to speak were eliminated) and are much more about the endless hordes of the undead, which in the books seems to be more of a bonus ability they have then their entire focus of existence. The Others don't need a Night King, and GRRM as been pretty clear that there will be no analogue in the books (they may have a leader or a group of leaders, but it won't be as in the show).

I think there has to be some kind of directing force/presence in the Heart of Winter - because that's the place Bran is afraid of back in the dream - but that's likely not going to turn out to be an Other but a very ancient, frozen greenseer of the Children who first created the Others and who is basically nothing but frozen hate and anger about what the First Men did to the Children after they broke the pact - which should be the secret and ugly twist there: That the famed and much remembered great Pact lasted only a 2-3 generation until the short-lived First Men forgot everything and expanded some more.

And I think the war can only end if that force/power can be killed - or rather: be convinced to finally die and let go of all the pain he or she still feels as if everything happened yesterday. With ASoIaF originally being heavily influenced by Osten Ard, I expect this to be a variation of the immortal Norn Queen Utuk'ku. A being who just lives for the purpose to kill everybody else before itself will finally die.

And if the story ends on a positive/tragic note then whoever the hero is has to fly on dragonback (or walk) to the Heart of Winter to confront this being. It could also turn out that it might be caught in a trap of its own making - sort of being the fuel/magical center that keeps the Others and their wights and plans going, while itself abandoned said plans millennia ago but is unable to kill itself or stop its own creatures from doing what they do.

Although I think the subtlety and careful planning the Others show throughout the series  - which might go back decades and centuries - implies that there is a directing force of some kind behind them. And they themselves seem to be lack individuality to truly be careful planners. Then the great heroic deed at the end might be to make said person understand that the plans and goals are wrong - which is something Bran could provide the necessary knowledge for because he is the only being who could uncover the 'mortal story' behind the origin of the Others.

[Mithras]

10 hours ago, Werthead said:

Although possible, I don't think this will happen. The Others and the White Walkers are dramatically different in conception between books and show, with the Others apparently being more a civilisation of equals who have endured for thousands of years and come south now for rational reasons, unlike the White Walkers in the show who instead spent that time asleep, apparently can't even talk (they did in the first episode, but all later references to them being able to speak were eliminated) and are much more about the endless hordes of the undead, which in the books seems to be more of a bonus ability they have then their entire focus of existence. The Others don't need a Night King, and GRRM as been pretty clear that there will be no analogue in the books (they may have a leader or a group of leaders, but it won't be as in the show).

If the Others have a civilization, then it is more likely that they might be looking for a leader or a general from the humans. At the very least, they should be trying to find a proper fool who can be tricked into removing the Wall’s magic for them. After all, they seem to have no solution to the Wall problem from where they stand (otherwise, they should have breached it long ago).

10 hours ago, Werthead said:

I think we dodged a bullet there. When the split was made, the book was 1700 manuscript pages long and George had barely started some story arcs (Bran especially) and others were in some state of disarray (Jon and Dany especially). If he'd kept going, we'd have added the Meereenese Knot into that mess, and there's no way he'd have fitted all of AFFC/ADWD-as-published in a single volume. It's also worth remembering that ADWD as it was conceived in 2005 is not the ADWD we got in 2011; it was a lot shorter and more focused. We may have gotten a complete narrative for all the characters then split in half, but I think we'd actually be behind where we are now, as there would not have been space in a single volume to push the story as far ahead as ADWD eventually did.

“Shorter and more focused” is the way to go. GRRM should have massively trimmed and combined chapters from the AFfC manuscript, which is not simple fat removal as he said he did for ADwD by cutting 80 MS pages from the ADwD manuscript. He should have dropped the non-essential characters or subplots that do not advance the story.

The series expanded from a single location through a handful of POV characters. It had to contract at one point. Then or now, this is the most important obstacle in the writing. GRRM avoided addressing this problem for short term gains, which caused even more serious problems in the long term. The reason why he is having a hard time synchronizing some 20 novels now is because he avoided this synchronization in the last two volumes; or at least, he did not pay enough attention to the synchronization problem while carelesly expanding the story by creating new places/characters/subplots at every turn. I mean, whenever he hit a roadblock, his go-to solution was to add a new POV or a new place or a new subplot with a bunch of characters. This was quick and easy, and he did not have to care about synchronizing this new stuff while the story was expanding. He should have thought about the inevitable contraction. If he had done the trimming (which he did not want back then but now he is forced to) before, now he might have been struggling to synchronize only 10 novels instead of 20. And that would have taken much lesser time.

[Morte]

On 4/6/2020 at 5:11 AM, QhorinQuarterhand said:

Dany seems to have at least 3 books of material left depending on who I talk to. Not saying what I think but it seems to be theorized that she will go to Vaes Dothrak and unite the Dothraki under her. Then she will burn Volantis and deal with Meereen. GRRM would have to be extremely efficient with her TWOW to do all that in 1 book. Then she and her army have go get to Westeros. Possibly meaning we don't hear from her for awhile in Book 7 so she can travel off screen while we read other POVs. Then she has to deal with Aegon and Dorne and King's Landing and maybe Cersei. All before she can finally turn her focus to the Others (whose invasion is held off til the end of Book 7 or somewhere in Book 8?). Then that plot has to play out. Then what? We get Dany's Westerosi Tax Policy?

Something has to give unless GRRM is going to 9 books. 

The problem is: Westeros and the Others can not wait for six to twelve months till Dany does arrive, the story on the Wall would become ridiculous that way. That's why I think that the Wall will have already fallen, when Dany sets foot on Westeros and that the "Dance" will be after the conflict with the Others.

[Werthead]

11 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That is a good point. I don't expect there to be a Red Wedding-like indicent in TWoW (in the sense that George will butcher a couple of good guys who were in the series from the very beginning) but the chance that he has written enough chapters on other POVs which together would take the book beyond 1,500 manuscript pages is certainly a possibility.

There is certainly scope for a Red Wedding-level event, especially if the conflagration of the Sept of Baelor/entire city of King's Landing takes place in TWoW.

Quote

If he wanted to get her back to Westeros quickly he would have scrapped that Dothraki plot. No reader would have complained if she had never returned to the Dothraki. Doing that means he doesn't want her to go soon. It means the opposite. The way to move her quickly would have been to have her crush resistance at Meereen and remain there until all her visitors arrived, after which she could have then, at the end of ADwD, made the decision to go.

Recruiting the Dothraki has been Dany's Essos endgame storyline since 1993, it's even in the earliest outline of the series (when the Qarth and Slaver's Bay storylines do not exist at all). Dany bulking out her army with the Dothraki to invade Westeros has always been how she will invade the Seven Kingdoms with enough troops to be a viable threat to the competing powers there. There's not an easy alternative to this storyline, unless it has Dany invading Westeros with far too few troops to be a viable threat and having to over-rely on her dragons.

Quote

It would be part of the 'you have to go back to get forward' thing. Asshai seems to be out of the question as a place she is going to go (although George may have once planned to take her there), but Qarth is a crucial place. They have to abolish slavery, too, they have to punished for their involvement in the war against Dany, the Dothraki might want to sack the place, and there is Ran's talk about George being unwilling to share anything detailed about the Qartheen for TWoIaF. That implies detailed background information about the Undying, the warlocks, the shade of the evening, their eerie, weirwood-like trees, how they got Dragonbinder, etc. was considered to be too spoilery. That wouldn't make much sense if we didn't see the place in the future.

I really don't see Qarth involved in the story at all, and certainly Daenerys will not be travelling back there. There simply isn't enough time.

I think the endgame for Essos is a massive conflagration in Slaver's Bay that ends with Daenerys destroying the forces arrayed there and making it clear what will happen to those cities that continue to oppose her. That can be expanded - maybe Daenerys destroys Volantis on her way back to Westeros as a final show of might which convinces everyone else to stop opposing her - but GRRM is not going to have massive tangent narratives that realistically will take entire books to explore, not when he has to wrap this up in two more volumes and he has been saying for years that the real story is in Westeros, not Essos.

Quote

And I think the war can only end if that force/power can be killed - or rather: be convinced to finally die and let go of all the pain he or she still feels as if everything happened yesterday. With ASoIaF originally being heavily influenced by Osten Ard, I expect this to be a variation of the immortal Norn Queen Utuk'ku. A being who just lives for the purpose to kill everybody else before itself will finally die.

This is a pretty good idea and accords with what I was saying for years, that one way to end the story is to have Team Bran travelling deep behind the front lines, basically being Frodo and Sam to everyone else's Aragorn, and ending the situation with the Others there whilst armies clash elsewhere.

Depending on how public that story becomes, that may also do a better job of explaining why Bran becomes king (or at least the spiritual ruler/fisher king analogue) at the end of series.

Quote

If the Others have a civilization, then it is more likely that they might be looking for a leader or a general from the humans. At the very least, they should be trying to find a proper fool who can be tricked into removing the Wall’s magic for them. After all, they seem to have no solution to the Wall problem from where they stand (otherwise, they should have breached it long ago).

I don't see any logical reason for the Others to recruit a human leader or general, there seems to be no need. It is true that there is a reason the Others are moving now rather than say 700 or 2,000 years ago, and that needs to be explained. It may be that the Others have simply spent that long gathering their power or it might be that they are aware that the Horn of Joramun was discovered which makes breaching the Wall now possible whilst it wasn't previously.

Quote

 

“Shorter and more focused” is the way to go. GRRM should have massively trimmed and combined chapters from the AFfC manuscript, which is not simple fat removal as he said he did for ADwD by cutting 80 MS pages from the ADwD manuscript. He should have dropped the non-essential characters or subplots that do not advance the story.

The series expanded from a single location through a handful of POV characters. It had to contract at one point. Then or now, this is the most important obstacle in the writing. GRRM avoided addressing this problem for short term gains, which caused even more serious problems in the long term. The reason why he is having a hard time synchronizing some 20 novels now is because he avoided this synchronization in the last two volumes; or at least, he did not pay enough attention to the synchronization problem while carelesly expanding the story by creating new places/characters/subplots at every turn. I mean, whenever he hit a roadblock, his go-to solution was to add a new POV or a new place or a new subplot with a bunch of characters. This was quick and easy, and he did not have to care about synchronizing this new stuff while the story was expanding. He should have thought about the inevitable contraction. If he had done the trimming (which he did not want back then but now he is forced to) before, now he might have been struggling to synchronize only 10 novels instead of 20. And that would have taken much lesser time.

 

The problem is that George does not believe there are any "non-essential characters or subplot that do not advance the story." To him, all of these elements are important. You might get him to admit perhaps he could have shifted the weight of those stories and characters - maybe having Arys Oakheart as a POV was redundant when Arianne was telling that story well enough by herself etc - but to him those stories do need to be told.

The issue of contracting the story I think is a real and serious one, and one that is complicating matters, but I think it does help that as such contraction takes place, extraneous POVs will die or become redundant. The problem is making this happen.

Quote

The problem is: Westeros and the Others can not wait for six to twelve months till Dany does arrive, the story on the Wall would become ridiculous that way. That's why I think that the Wall will have already fallen, when Dany sets foot on Westeros and that the "Dance" will be after the conflict with the Others.

In order for George to finish in two volumes, I think he will by necessity have had to take a chainsaw to some ideas he was previously working towards. Having Dany's invasion and the Others' invasion occur much more closely together than he first planned (when Dany's invasion would be done and dusted in the second act before the Others' invasion in the third act) is at this point a necessity.

[Lord Varys]

57 minutes ago, Werthead said:

There is certainly scope for a Red Wedding-level event, especially if the conflagration of the Sept of Baelor/entire city of King's Landing takes place in TWoW.

You actually think something like that is going to happen? That would George killing a couple of plots he went to considerable lengths to build up. The Faith Militant was not brought back to disappear in a huge and pointless explosion.

But even if you were right there - this wouldn't be an event George could describe from the inside since there simply are no Tyrell or Faith POVs. Nor is this something like the Red Wedding if it were described from the inside ... it is just a huge explosion that kills people instantly. Meaning it wouldn't make much trouble for George writing that.

57 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Recruiting the Dothraki has been Dany's Essos endgame storyline since 1993, it's even in the earliest outline of the series (when the Qarth and Slaver's Bay storylines do not exist at all). Dany bulking out her army with the Dothraki to invade Westeros has always been how she will invade the Seven Kingdoms with enough troops to be a viable threat to the competing powers there. There's not an easy alternative to this storyline, unless it has Dany invading Westeros with far too few troops to be a viable threat and having to over-rely on her dragons.

Well, you yourself imagine Victarion's story to change easily enough. Once George had Dany go to Slaver's Bay and gave her sellswords and freedmen and possibly Ironborn as well there was really no need for her to get any Dothraki.

As I said - the fast road would have been to take all her visitors to her, including Aegon and the Golden Company, have them make a pact, marry both Quentyn and Aegon, free Volantis along the way and take all the tiger soldiers with them as well (who should number in the thousands, too) and then use the Dornishmen and all the other Targaryen loyalists who are still in Westeros to crush whatever meager resistance the other pretenders can offer (which would be essentially nothing in the military department).

If you think back before ADwD there was essentially nobody who considered that Dany might go back to the Dothraki. We all wanted and expecter her to leave Meereen for Westeros as quickly as possible.

George decided to have the other Targaryen beat Dany to Westeros. And that plot now has to play out.

57 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I really don't see Qarth involved in the story at all, and certainly Daenerys will not be travelling back there. There simply isn't enough time.

She does have a dragon now, she can fly. And if time was an issue, a khalasar could have been already on the way to Qarth when she takes over the Dothraki at Vaes Dothrak.

57 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I think the endgame for Essos is a massive conflagration in Slaver's Bay that ends with Daenerys destroying the forces arrayed there and making it clear what will happen to those cities that continue to oppose her. That can be expanded - maybe Daenerys destroys Volantis on her way back to Westeros as a final show of might which convinces everyone else to stop opposing her - but GRRM is not going to have massive tangent narratives that realistically will take entire books to explore, not when he has to wrap this up in two more volumes and he has been saying for years that the real story is in Westeros, not Essos.

Dany is not very likely going to be involved in any of that. Her enemies will be defeated in the battle that happens right now. The Yunkish allies will be crushed, and the Volantenes will turn their cloaks upon their arrival - that is what Benerro would have told them and to see that this happens is also why Moqorro is there right now. The Sons of the Harpy will be dealt with by Tyrion and the others. Ideally Dany is going to show up again at a moment before her movement is going to tear itself apart, but the way to pass the time could be to have them destroy the other cities before she returns, i.e. Yunkai itself, Tolos, Mantarys, New Ghis, etc.

Volantis doesn't have to be destroyed. There will be a slave uprising there, starting when Dany moves west. Or perhaps earlier, when the Volantene slaves learn the tiger soldiers rebelled. The Widow of the Waterfront is likely going to become one of the post-slavery triarchs.

But even when the gang from Slaver's Bay is past Volantis they are still a long way from Westeros. They have to get past the Stepstones which are full of pirates right now, and the Three Daughters have huge fleets. Myr can be crushed by the Dothraki since it is on the mainland, but Lys and Tyrosh are on islands. Regardless what Dany wants to do ... those cities cannot in a realistically written novel just ignore the threat she poses. She could send a thousand envoys ensuring them that she doesn't mean them any harm ... but they would not believe it. They are slaver cities, after all. And unlike the Volantenes they do not use slave soldiers, nor do they have this ratio of five slaves for every free citizens. It is 3:1 there, and they all have standing militaries and sellswords and sellsails, too. If there is an uprising there, it will likely be crushed. These cities will fight back. And Lys is going to be visited in any case since Edric Storm is there and Lynesse Hightower as well, who Jorah is likely going to see again before the end.

And there are a lot of hints, in my opinion, how the story there progresses. We do have Aurane Waters and Salladhor Saan (back) in the waters of the Stepstones, we have Euron's entire fleet (sans the Iron Fleet) near the Arbor. The logical continuation of that story, in my opinion, is that Euron takes the Arbor after he crushes the Redwyne fleet early in TWoW. There he will set himself up as king, sending envoys to the Hightowers and their bannermen demanding that they bend the knee to him or suffer the consequences (and they will accept because if this man controls their waters permanently the trade which is the lifeblood of Oldtown will cease). There Cersei might meet with Euron to marry him - which he is going to do either for the time being while still waiting for Dany, or because he, too, will believe she is dead/will never come. Cersei will then move on to Casterly Rock to raise a new army there. Once Euron learns about Aegon he'll move east, possibly with the intention to attack KL with his armada. On the way he should attack Sunspear, possibly killing both Doran and Trystane Martell and destroying the castle along with the shadow town (they seem to be pretty defenseless against an attack from the sea). In the Stepstones Euron will forge a powerful alliance with the pirates there ... but also striking a deal with the Three Daughters and eventually leading the grand anti-Dany coalition once her armada finally moves west. To put Dany in a bad position in Westeros she has to lose a third or half or even more of her forces in a gigantic sea battle before she can get to Westeros. Only then will she look weak enough that not the entire continent quickly defects to her side. And that is necessary if there is to be a Second Dance in Westeros.

I'm aware that this sounds like a massive plot, but I really think there is no way around all that. Something like that is the natural progression of this story. This cannot really be rushed. Just as the series cannot possibly be wrapped up in two volumes.

57 minutes ago, Werthead said:

This is a pretty good idea and accords with what I was saying for years, that one way to end the story is to have Team Bran travelling deep behind the front lines, basically being Frodo and Sam to everyone else's Aragorn, and ending the situation with the Others there whilst armies clash elsewhere.

I'm rather inclined that Jon Snow might be the Frodo/Sam guy there. After all, we all assume that he is going to be imbued with fire during his resurrection ritual, so he and Mel could be Frodo and Sam if there was a walk there ... but since chances are also very high that he is going to become a dragonrider there might be a faster way to get him there. The fire inside him could allow him to withstand the cold at this place which might be so dreadful that no normal creature could survive it - which might also be the reason why the Children of the Forest could never neutralize this threat, not even back in the day when their powers were still greater, and they had to help build the Wall so this poison could not advance down south.

I certainly think this will be a walk/quest of no return, but Bran certainly could be there in Jon's mind the entire time.

57 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Depending on how public that story becomes, that may also do a better job of explaining why Bran becomes king (or at least the spiritual ruler/fisher king analogue) at the end of series.

I still can't see Bran becoming a mundane king ... but he certainly could become some sort of living god for the people of Westeros. In fact, he already is something like that, people just don't know it yet. But if the weirwoods are starting to speak to everybody throughout the Seven Kingdoms this is going to have a massive impact on everybody. He will be seen as an old god. And there happen to be three weirwoods at Highgarden of all places.

57 minutes ago, Werthead said:

In order for George to finish in two volumes, I think he will by necessity have had to take a chainsaw to some ideas he was previously working towards. Having Dany's invasion and the Others' invasion occur much more closely together than he first planned (when Dany's invasion would be done and dusted in the second act before the Others' invasion in the third act) is at this point a necessity.

I don't think it makes any sense to take him at his word there. If rushed things in this manner the book series would become a worse travesty than the show since style and substance both in the last two books would have to be even more superficial than AGoT - which rushed things uncharacteristically compared to later volumes. He cannot get back to that simplicity. It would gut the story. And if he wanted to do that he would have done it in AFfC or ADwD already, back when there were still the potential to move along things fast.

I don't understand why he thinks he can do it in two volumes, but I guess the reason is that there is a huge discrepance between the story/scenes in his head and the number of chapters and pages it is going to need to bring them to life. And that's hardly surprising considering the complexity creeps in during the writing process - that's also when all those hundreds of characters showed up and the world got ever more detailed.

You yourself gave the example of the Meereen story getting more and more complex during the writing process. That's not going to stop now with later plots. The Aegon story in the Stormlands was to move much faster originally ... and then George said there would be another Connington chapter covering the fall of Storm's End. We would not just get there in the third Arianne chapter and get this story sort of in reverse. And there are countless other such examples.

[Mithras]

3 hours ago, Werthead said:

I don't see any logical reason for the Others to recruit a human leader or general, there seems to be no need. It is true that there is a reason the Others are moving now rather than say 700 or 2,000 years ago, and that needs to be explained. It may be that the Others have simply spent that long gathering their power or it might be that they are aware that the Horn of Joramun was discovered which makes breaching the Wall now possible whilst it wasn't previously.

The CotF recruited human greenseers twice in a row. If the Others have a civilization, they might also have their own prophesized savior. Since the earliest times, GRRM had the notion of human-Others interbreeding. Maybe the prophesized savior of the Others should be a hybrid. This also explains why the Others are acting now. There might be a dark secret in the history of the Starks.

I think GRRM gave up on the horn idea because it is extremely cheesy. Someone blowing a horn at the other side of the continent and bringing the Wall down does not make any dramatic or logistical sense.

3 hours ago, Werthead said:

The problem is that George does not believe there are any "non-essential characters or subplot that do not advance the story." To him, all of these elements are important. You might get him to admit perhaps he could have shifted the weight of those stories and characters - maybe having Arys Oakheart as a POV was redundant when Arianne was telling that story well enough by herself etc - but to him those stories do need to be told.

I am aware of this, which is why I grew bitter.

[Kyll.Ing.]

On 5/16/2020 at 3:06 PM, Werthead said:

Recruiting the Dothraki has been Dany's Essos endgame storyline since 1993, it's even in the earliest outline of the series (when the Qarth and Slaver's Bay storylines do not exist at all). Dany bulking out her army with the Dothraki to invade Westeros has always been how she will invade the Seven Kingdoms with enough troops to be a viable threat to the competing powers there. There's not an easy alternative to this storyline, unless it has Dany invading Westeros with far too few troops to be a viable threat and having to over-rely on her dragons.

Problem is, the series has stated pretty clearly on several occasions that the Dothraki cannot invade Westeros. It would be a logistical impossibility. The Golden Company, a highly professional unit, was scattered all over the Stepstones by the weather, showing how hard it is to bring a fleet across the Narrow Sea. Now try to bring ten times as many people over, each with a horse or two, and Dothraki culture would complicate things immensely. For one, their aversion to the sea and salt water. They are also shown as having no loyalty to a Khal who isn't there. Put a hundred Dothraki on three ships, and only the one with the Khal on it would make it out of the harbour before the two others draw their swords on the captain and force him to to turn the ship around, starting a new Khalasar back home while the old Khal sails away. Then the concept of waiting for the "ferry": there's no way a fleet could carry all the Dothraki across the sea at once (we're talking how many people? A hundred thousand, each with a horse? Even the Iron Fleet is only a hundred ships), so there would necessarily be quite a large horde camped out in Essos for a while (feeding their horses how? They'd graze the area empty in a few days, hence why the khalasars are always on the move) waiting for ships to come back for a second trip. All while the Khal (or Khaleesi, as it may be) is far away and the Dothraki Sea lies there unclaimed by anybody. There's no way cohesion would be maintained, is what I'm saying. Daenerys and her dragons can only be on one side of the Narrow Sea at a time.

Then there's the military value of the Dothraki: next to none in Westeros' climate and terrain. Again, feeding the horses would be a massive concern. After all, it's winter, and Westeros doesn't have the vast grassy plains the Dothraki thrive in. The Dothraki also have no concept of sieges, don't wear armour, can't draw a bow in the saddle as well as a foot archer could, and have no battle strategy apart from "charge straight ahead". They'd be butchered by any reasonably competent army unless the battle is fought in extremely favourable terrain. 

So yeah, if George wanted from the start for the Dothraki to invade Westeros, he sure hasn't set it up well. A culture that can't organize a crossing of the sea, a sea that can't be reliably crossed even by a well-organized force, an army that can only feed itself in a terrain Westeros doesn't have, with soldiers who can't fight a modern battle, and winter coming up. Every piece seems set up for this to fail spectacularly. 

Then again, I guess it could be reasonably believable for the Dothraki to help Daenerys conquer the Free Cities, from where she could assemble a force of actual soldiers to invade Westeros while the Dothraki bugger off back to their grasslands.

[Werthead]

10 hours ago, Kyll.Ing. said:

So yeah, if George wanted from the start for the Dothraki to invade Westeros, he sure hasn't set it up well. A culture that can't organize a crossing of the sea, a sea that can't be reliably crossed even by a well-organized force, an army that can only feed itself in a terrain Westeros doesn't have, with soldiers who can't fight a modern battle, and winter coming up. Every piece seems set up for this to fail spectacularly. 

Then again, I guess it could be reasonably believable for the Dothraki to help Daenerys conquer the Free Cities, from where she could assemble a force of actual soldiers to invade Westeros while the Dothraki bugger off back to their grasslands.

In the original outline for ASoIaF, the Dothraki invade Westeros with Dany and her dragons at their head. Given that the show had them do this as well, I think it's clear that this element came from George's notes, and the ending to ADWD is a clear sign this storyline is still tracking.

The details may be different: I doubt it will be realistically possible to bring 100,000 Dothraki across the Narrow Sea whilst contested (unless they land in a safe, allied area first, which may or may not be possible) so Dany may only bring say 20,000 across with the Unsullied and various mercenary groups. Illyrio may also be able to fund a much larger transport system out of Pentos than otherwise would be possible, and there could be other equalising factors in play (Moqorro having some kind of spell up his sleeve to quieten the seas, for example).

As for how she keeps the Dothraki in line, I suspect it will be a case of terror of the dragons and some manipulation of the Dothraki belief system (the "stallion that mounts the world" prophecy may be applied via Drogon, the fact he has a Dothraki name leaned into etc) to ensure their obedience.

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I don't think it makes any sense to take him at his word there. If rushed things in this manner the book series would become a worse travesty than the show since style and substance both in the last two books would have to be even more superficial than AGoT - which rushed things uncharacteristically compared to later volumes. He cannot get back to that simplicity. It would gut the story. And if he wanted to do that he would have done it in AFfC or ADwD already, back when there were still the potential to move along things fast.

I don't understand why he thinks he can do it in two volumes, but I guess the reason is that there is a huge discrepance between the story/scenes in his head and the number of chapters and pages it is going to need to bring them to life. And that's hardly surprising considering the complexity creeps in during the writing process - that's also when all those hundreds of characters showed up and the world got ever more detailed.

 

I think the problem is that as late as ADWD, George was clearly believing he could conclude the series much more quickly, and that, worse case scenario (at that stage), if he took 5-6 years per book and even if the series expanded to another volume, it would still be possible to publish and deliver three books in a reasonable timeframe (say 2016, 2022 and 2028); that would mean finishing the series when he turned 80 which is optimistic but not impossible (Gene Wolfe, Jack Vance, Brian Aldiss and others continued producing quality work into their late eighties and even, in the latter two cases, early nineties).

From the POV of 2020 without almost twice that time elapsed without a single book, the view I think is very different. If George wants to finish the series himself, he's getting to the point where some story elements will have to be accelerated or it will simply become impossible for him to finish it himself. I don't even think it's necessary for it to become artificially rushed. If he could simply return to the shorter, punchier chapter style of AGoT (and to a lesser extent ACoK), it should be possible to wrap up the series in a relatively timely manner without it feeling too accelerated. He may find it simply impossible to achieve this, however.

[Morte]

On 5/16/2020 at 4:46 PM, Lord Varys said:

I still can't see Bran becoming a mundane king ... but he certainly could become some sort of living god for the people of Westeros. In fact, he already is something like that, people just don't know it yet. But if the weirwoods are starting to speak to everybody throughout the Seven Kingdoms this is going to have a massive impact on everybody. He will be seen as an old god. And there happen to be three weirwoods at Highgarden of all places.

While I agree with you that Bran would not become a mundane king on his own. Making him an old god for the people of Westeros instead however, would mean for me to have given Martin way to much forward credits, as it would be a poor - typical fantasy-like - misunderstanding of the whole plot of the God Emperor by Herbert. So I hope it will not happen either.

On 5/16/2020 at 4:46 PM, Lord Varys said:

I don't think it makes any sense to take him at his word there. If rushed things in this manner the book series would become a worse travesty than the show since style and substance both in the last two books would have to be even more superficial than AGoT - which rushed things uncharacteristically compared to later volumes. He cannot get back to that simplicity. It would gut the story. And if he wanted to do that he would have done it in AFfC or ADwD already, back when there were still the potential to move along things fast.

I don't understand why he thinks he can do it in two volumes, but I guess the reason is that there is a huge discrepance between the story/scenes in his head and the number of chapters and pages it is going to need to bring them to life. And that's hardly surprising considering the complexity creeps in during the writing process - that's also when all those hundreds of characters showed up and the world got ever more detailed.

You yourself gave the example of the Meereen story getting more and more complex during the writing process. That's not going to stop now with later plots. The Aegon story in the Stormlands was to move much faster originally ... and then George said there would be another Connington chapter covering the fall of Storm's End. We would not just get there in the third Arianne chapter and get this story sort of in reverse. And there are countless other such examples.

Agree. And I really hope he doesn't rush and keeps his Gardening; if it means I will never see the end of the story, so be it. Better than rushing it to were he wants/wanted it to end, chopping of story lines and forcing the characters to act ooc.

[Lord Varys]

2 minutes ago, Morte said:

While I agree with you that Bran would not become a mundane king on his own. Making him an old god for the people of Westeros instead however, would mean for me to have given Martin way to much forward credits, as it would be a poor - typical fantasy-like - misunderstanding of the whole plot of the God Emperor by Herbert. So I hope it will not happen either.

Well, I still don't think that Bran can or will ever leave that cave. The show didn't include any of the real fantasy/magical elements - no weirwood perception of time, no weirnet deep down in the earth, no collective immortal consciousness the greenseers tap into and eventual join, etc. In the books, Brandon Stark will be able to be everywhere and with everybody he wants to be. He doesn't have to move physically to be with anyone - he can see them and speak to them through the trees.

If he survives the final battles he will be much more powerful than any king could ever hope to be. In that sense, he will be the ruler of Westeros like nobody ever was - especially if they were to worship and sacrifice to him throughout the Long Night and War for the Dawn (which they likely might do).

But this doesn't mean he can or will become a physical king on a physical throne down in King's Landing. That wouldn't work. He isn't one for mundane politics. Instead, one imagines, he would the great guardian of the people, the power in the shadows who lives for hundreds of years who ensures that the society they rebuild is not going to repeat the mistakes of the people who nearly destroyed everything. He will see to it that nobody ever plays the game of thrones again, so to speak.

2 minutes ago, Morte said:

Agree. And I really hope he doesn't rush and keeps his Gardening; if it means I will never see the end of the story, so be it. Better than rushing it to were he wants/wanted it to end, chopping of story lines and forcing the characters to act ooc.

Yeah, that would be a travesty. And he is not going to work. An incomplete great work is still much better than a complete work which was ruined by the last two volumes.

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

In the original outline for ASoIaF, the Dothraki invade Westeros with Dany and her dragons at their head. Given that the show had them do this as well, I think it's clear that this element came from George's notes, and the ending to ADWD is a clear sign this storyline is still tracking.

Sure, but here we see an interesting phenomenon. I don't think (m)any reader(s) expected Dany to return to Vaes Dothrak now. We thought she would take over Jhaqo's khalasar and return with them to Meereen to continue the plot and finally get things going for Westeros. But with the show taking her back to Vaes Dothrak we can take that as a sign that she will go there in the books, too. And it is not going to be easy to take over all the Dothraki because that will be something many khals simply won't want. And some of the dosh khaleen might don't like the idea, either. That one vision Dany had of herself with the crones at the Womb of the World indicated this plot, but very few people saw that as a sign that she would really have to go back there.

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

The details may be different: I doubt it will be realistically possible to bring 100,000 Dothraki across the Narrow Sea whilst contested (unless they land in a safe, allied area first, which may or may not be possible) so Dany may only bring say 20,000 across with the Unsullied and various mercenary groups. Illyrio may also be able to fund a much larger transport system out of Pentos than otherwise would be possible, and there could be other equalising factors in play (Moqorro having some kind of spell up his sleeve to quieten the seas, for example).

She could bring pretty much all of them across the Narrow Sea if she doesn't try to fit them all in one fleet. She is a dragonrider now and can coordinate a vast migration easily enough. A couple of khalasars go to Pentos and Myr, others go to Volantis, others still to Qarth, and the rest to Slaver's Bay. There they seize the ships and move to Westeros. That wouldn't be that difficult. If they still need more they might get them once they crushed Lys and Tyrosh and conquered the Stepstones on the way to Westeros.

The easiest way, of course, would be to use the same ships over and over again to move people from Myr and Pentos to KL, Duskendale, Maidenpool, the Stormlands, and Dorne.

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

As for how she keeps the Dothraki in line, I suspect it will be a case of terror of the dragons and some manipulation of the Dothraki belief system (the "stallion that mounts the world" prophecy may be applied via Drogon, the fact he has a Dothraki name leaned into etc) to ensure their obedience.

It will go through the dosh khaleen. They rule over the Dothraki as a people and they will anoint the Stallion That Mounts the World. But this is not just going to happen automatically.

[Morte]

 

17 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

But this doesn't mean he can or will become a physical king on a physical throne down in King's Landing. That wouldn't work.

Agree. That wouldn't work. His power comes from the trees, without them, he would be a skinchanger, yes, and may have some Green Dreams, but he isn't some kind of magician.

19 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Instead, one imagines, he would the great guardian of the people, the power in the shadows who lives for hundreds of years who ensures that the society they rebuild is not going to repeat the mistakes of the people who nearly destroyed everything.

As my personal theory is that the Long Night is coming again because humans tried to kill magic in the world, breaking the pact that ended the first Long Night back then, he would be a part of this yes. Just as the Citadel will be, then they accept to live in a world that will one day become Steam Punk in the far future and finally stop trying to kill the dragons off.

[Kyll.Ing.]

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

She could bring pretty much all of them across the Narrow Sea if she doesn't try to fit them all in one fleet. She is a dragonrider now and can coordinate a vast migration easily enough. A couple of khalasars go to Pentos and Myr, others go to Volantis, others still to Qarth, and the rest to Slaver's Bay. There they seize the ships and move to Westeros. That wouldn't be that difficult. If they still need more they might get them once they crushed Lys and Tyrosh and conquered the Stepstones on the way to Westeros.

Seizing the ships and moving to Westeros would require some seamanship, which the Dothraki are repeatedly stated not to possess an iota of. They are said to be terrified of the "poison waters". Sending a khalasar to a fortified city with the mission to capture ships and taking them to Westeros would probably result in, in decreasing order of likelihood...

• ... the khalasar to travel just out of sight of Daenerys, then declare independence and bugger off to the Dothraki Sea.
• ... the khalasar splitting up en route to the city, due to disagreement over the "let's go to sea" plan. Possibly including a murder of the lieutenant Dany sent to command the khalsar. Everyone then buggers off to the Dothraki Sea.
• ... the khalasar failing to take the city due to zero experience with siege warfare and outdated battle tactics. Survivors bugger off to the Dothraki Sea.
• ... the khalasar somehow taking the city, plundering it, then declaring independence and/or splitting up, and bugger off to the Dothraki Sea.
• ... the khalasar taking the city, plundering it, then deciding to ditch the sea plan and make a fortune selling off the captured citizens as slaves before buggering off to the Dothraki Sea.
• ... the khalasar taking the city, but failing to seize the ships as the wealthy citizens use them to evacuate long before the siege is over. The khalasar figures the mission to have failed and buggers off to the Dothraki Sea.
• ... the khalasar taking the city and somehow the ships, then finding out that loading a horse onto a ship requires the ship to be built for it specifically. Someone is sent to report to Daenerys that of all the captured ships, maybe three or four are suitable for transporting maybe a hundred horses in total, provided there is a deep-water port for the ships to unload at in Westeros. Meanwhile, the khalasar breaks up and buggers off to the Dothraki Sea.
• ... the khalasar somehow managing to load up onto ships, then finding out they have no idea how to steer the things. Most ships sink before they even leave the harbour. Half the captains plainly refuse to lift anchor due to fear of the Poison Water. Most of the few that don't, change their minds after being persuaded by the point of an arakh. Everyone then buggers off to the Dothraki Sea.
• ... the khalasar somehow making it out of the port, then promptly scattering and/or sinking as the Dothraki have no experience with naval navigation or for that matter running a ship.
• ... the khalasar somehow making it out to sea (somehow recruiting abled sailors in the city they sacked?), then get smashed by the fleets of Myr, Lys, and Tyrosh, which actually do have experience with naval battles.
• ... the khalasar somehow arriving in Westeros, then promptly get slaughtered when fighting in unknown terrain against foes that don't obey the "no armour pls" rule of warfare.

Thing is, Daenerys can only be in one place at once. Sure, she could follow up and support one khalasar taking one city, but the others would promptly declare Daenerys to be far away and take their chances to scatter across the Dothraki Sea again. What we've seen of Dothraki culture makes it apparent that they really only belong in that one place with that one nomadic lifestyle, and they don't obey a leader if he's out of sword range. Some would support Daenerys, but some wouldn't, and disagreements have a tendency to tear khalasars into small, independent pieces. That plain is huge and the Dothraki are many. Daenerys could spend her whole life hunting renegades from the back of her dragon, she'd never be able to catch them all. Never mind being a functional queen while doing so. If the Dothraki broke away from her - and ruling them is like herding cats even at the best of times - she would never be able to round them up again.

 

Sure, there might be ways for the Dothraki to magically overcome their own superstitions, their own culture, and the tough laws of logistics, then somehow magically invading Westeros. But the way things are set up, and the information George has given on their behaviour, their numbers, and the naval capabilities of Planetos, all contradict that idea. It might be unintentional, but nevertheless, the pieces are firmly positioned in a "this plan would never make it past the first phase" formation, and he'd have to redefine the rules a bit for it to be believable. Or just gloss it over and have the square Dothraki peg fit neatly into the round hole of the Iron Fleet, like the show suggested. Have a hundred ships ferry a hundred thousand Dothraki warriors and their horses, alongside however many Unsullied there are and their usual complement of seamen as well. It won't be a satisfying detail to read, but if it gets the story where it needs to be, then so be it.

[Mithras]

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I don't think (m)any reader(s) expected Dany to return to Vaes Dothrak now. We thought she would take over Jhaqo's khalasar and return with them to Meereen to continue the plot and finally get things going for Westeros. But with the show taking her back to Vaes Dothrak we can take that as a sign that she will go there in the books, too.

Ahem

[Lord Varys]

4 hours ago, Kyll.Ing. said:

Seizing the ships and moving to Westeros would require some seamanship, which the Dothraki are repeatedly stated not to possess an iota of. They are said to be terrified of the "poison waters". Sending a khalasar to a fortified city with the mission to capture ships and taking them to Westeros would probably result in, in decreasing order of likelihood...

Nobody said anything about only the Dothraki doing that. They would force and/or hire the good sea captains of the Narrow Sea. Those people will still want to have harbors along the Narrow Sea, no?

And the scenario is after Daenerys Targaryen is acknowledged and worshipped as the supreme leader of all the Dothraki, not some sort scenario where they merely pretend to go along with her ideas. They would be okay with the idea to go to Westeros in such a scenario.

Once they have Myr and Pentos and Volantis they don't need that many ships, anyway. They could use the same ships over and over again to get them across the water, especially from Myr and Pentos where the journey is very short, and the ships could dump a couple of thousand Dothraki or more each day, sail back, and dump some more.

7 hours ago, Morte said:

Agree. That wouldn't work. His power comes from the trees, without them, he would be a skinchanger, yes, and may have some Green Dreams, but he isn't some kind of magician.

My idea is more that it doesn't work that a small crippled child is going to rule as king in his own right, nor that a child with the knowledge and powers of Bran, if for some reason not permanently wed to the trees, would bother with the tedious business of law-making, tax-collecting, and copper-counting. Exploiting peasants, directing knights, and overseeing scheming lords isn't what you do when you become a living god. You laugh about, mock, or pity people who waste their lives doing shit like that.

Just look at Bloodraven - once he reached that cave he would have realized that his entire life, possibly even his tenure as Lord Commander of the Night's Watch (which likely wasn't particularly focused on 'the true enemy'), was a waste of time. Who truly cares about Blackfyre vs. Targaryen? Who whether this or that guy has a better claim to the throne?

The way for somebody like that to exert power if he wants it done is by being a living god - and that you don't by putting your frail, vulnerable body on a throne for everybody to see and target.

7 hours ago, Morte said:

As my personal theory is that the Long Night is coming again because humans tried to kill magic in the world, breaking the pact that ended the first Long Night back then, he would be a part of this yes. Just as the Citadel will be, then they accept to live in a world that will one day become Steam Punk in the far future and finally stop trying to kill the dragons off.

I don't think anyone wanted to kill magic, just that there are some people think it doesn't really work all that well and allowing those who can master it to rule over others is pretty stupid in the long run ... just as having a bunch of self-involved pricks with dragons as your rulers.

If the Citadel took care of the dragons they did so for everybody's benefit, even the Targaryens - because those dragonriders could burn all of Westeros twice over in their petty little succession wars.

[Morte]

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Just look at Bloodraven - once he reached that cave he would have realized that his entire life, possibly even his tenure as Lord Commander of the Night's Watch (which likely wasn't particularly focused on 'the true enemy'), was a waste of time. Who truly cares about Blackfyre vs. Targaryen? Who whether this or that guy has a better claim to the throne?

The way for somebody like that to exert power if he wants it done is by being a living god - and that you don't by putting your frail, vulnerable body on a throne for everybody to see and target.

But Bloodraven also doesn't think of himself as a living god, nor does he mess with the lifes of others (except for Bran, whom he needs, because he himself is dying).

So in my opinion it would be more a guardian role for Bran, a knowledge-keeper so to say, a little more known and prominent than Bloodraven now, but not a living god messing with the lifes outside.

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I don't think anyone wanted to kill magic, just that there are some people think it doesn't really work all that well and allowing those who can master it to rule over others is pretty stupid in the long run ... just as having a bunch of self-involved pricks with dragons as your rulers.

If the Citadel took care of the dragons they did so for everybody's benefit, even the Targaryens - because those dragonriders could burn all of Westeros twice over in their petty little succession wars.

Sure, they thought they did the right thing, but it seems they disturbed the balance with this. I think it is in the Dunk&Egg-stories, there it is stated that winter has become harsher and longer since the last dragon died?

Still: If one thinks the dragons dangerous and (rightly) isn't keen on being ruled by some magic users just because they manage to use that magic, than the same people would be even more horrified with an all-knowing living god in the trees - and rightly so. An ending with Bran in such a position would not be bitter-sweet, but lovecraftian and kafkaesk at the same time, it would be horrible. That's why the original God Emperor Leto II is working on his "Golden Path", to ensure there will never be another being like him, to ensure there will be no more gods. But Bran doesn't have that agenda, nor can I imagine him developing something like that.

All in all I think we will end up with either all magic being alive again, or all magic being dead/diminishing at the end of the series.

[QhorinQuarterhand]

17 hours ago, Werthead said:

In the original outline for ASoIaF, the Dothraki invade Westeros with Dany and her dragons at their head. Given that the show had them do this as well, I think it's clear that this element came from George's notes, and the ending to ADWD is a clear sign this storyline is still tracking.

The details may be different: I doubt it will be realistically possible to bring 100,000 Dothraki across the Narrow Sea whilst contested (unless they land in a safe, allied area first, which may or may not be possible) so Dany may only bring say 20,000 across with the Unsullied and various mercenary groups. Illyrio may also be able to fund a much larger transport system out of Pentos than otherwise would be possible, and there could be other equalising factors in play (Moqorro having some kind of spell up his sleeve to quieten the seas, for example).

As for how she keeps the Dothraki in line, I suspect it will be a case of terror of the dragons and some manipulation of the Dothraki belief system (the "stallion that mounts the world" prophecy may be applied via Drogon, the fact he has a Dothraki name leaned into etc) to ensure their obedience.

I think the problem is that as late as ADWD, George was clearly believing he could conclude the series much more quickly, and that, worse case scenario (at that stage), if he took 5-6 years per book and even if the series expanded to another volume, it would still be possible to publish and deliver three books in a reasonable timeframe (say 2016, 2022 and 2028); that would mean finishing the series when he turned 80 which is optimistic but not impossible (Gene Wolfe, Jack Vance, Brian Aldiss and others continued producing quality work into their late eighties and even, in the latter two cases, early nineties).

From the POV of 2020 without almost twice that time elapsed without a single book, the view I think is very different. If George wants to finish the series himself, he's getting to the point where some story elements will have to be accelerated or it will simply become impossible for him to finish it himself. I don't even think it's necessary for it to become artificially rushed. If he could simply return to the shorter, punchier chapter style of AGoT (and to a lesser extent ACoK), it should be possible to wrap up the series in a relatively timely manner without it feeling too accelerated. He may find it simply impossible to achieve this, however.

Well, off the top of my head, much of what fans expect to happen in the rest of the series is just that....what the collective "we" expect. Dany does not have to do all of the 3-4 books of material fans come up with. Like making half/all Dothraki bend the knee in Vas Dothrak+ go burn/set free Volantis+ Mereen+ cross with giant army to Westeros+ deal with Cersei and/or Aegon+ fight the Others. If we can cut most of this out then the rest of the story would fall into place better. I don't think any other character seemingly has as much left to do as Dany. I'm still not sure he'd get it done in two books. Even if they are 2000 MS pages each. 

Fans say we need to see what happens next in the Vale, KL, etc but George can have the Others descend on Westeros and wreck all those plans in short order. Maybe it can be done. Maybe the TWOW sample chapters are a slow build into the Battle of Fire and the Battle of Ice and a short breather while people make plans then BOOM the Others are laying waste to Westeros while Dany is conquering Essos.