I agree. I would have loved more info about some of the loose ends in AFFC (Marwyn, Brienne etc).
Overall I enjoyed the read. The slower pace was quite enjoyable for a while actually. I admit some chapters might have been a tad bit boring and repetitive (everything that has something to do with Martells) but as someone said the Griff storyline was brilliant. The part when Connington takes his glove off to look at his hand was a brilliant ending for a chapter (would be cool if they'd finish a TV series episode with that moment too, it felt exactly like a suitable one).
I expected a bit more of the Meereenese knot but I suppose it's one of cases that what seems simple to the reader is hard for the writer and vice versa.
Also I never expected that I'd start to dislike Daenerys but I think that's just great writing. Would be boring if all she done would make the readers Aww or You go girl!
Oh well, back to lurking and rereading the 5 books from time to time now I guess.
I guess I'm alone on this one but my feelings on Dany are exactly the opposite. In the early books I really really disliked her, and found her character intensely irritating. All that changed when she hatched the dragons, though. Once she had the dragons it was like she began to discover who she really is supposed to be, and that's when she became interesting to me.
Although I agree the time in Mereen seemed to drag, I think it served a purpose on several fronts. Dany needed a chance to catch her breath. I think one of the reasons Robert was such an abysmal failure as a king (apart from the fact that he was a great warrior but no true leader) is that he assumed the throne having had no real "practice" at ruling....only the thrill of battle. Robert found the responsibilities of the crown tedious and left them to others, people who either did not rule because they felt it was not their place, or undermined his rule because he allowed them the freedom to do so. Robert was not mature enough to understand that wearing a crown is not about glory, but it is a calling and a responsibility. Cersei and even Margary's failure as queens reflect much of the same reasoning. Dany....though considerably younger than Robert when he took the throne, certainly younger than Cersei as Queen Regent and even younger than Margary in her half-queendom.....fully gets that. Only Dany seems to understand that a monarch serves her people, not the other way around.
Despite her youth, Dany is far more mature than any of those mentioned above, and more mature than most anyone else aspiring to a crown in the series. She makes Sansa look even more like an addle-brained prat, and they're roughly the same age. You may be bored with Mereen and anxious for Dany to move on, but consider her reasons for staying.
1) She was tired of the march and wanted to stay put for awhile, I think she needed that emotionally and physically. To have maintained the hard press all the way into Westeros, when the real battle would've waged and there would be no time to rest, it would only ensure that as she assumed the Iron Throne she would be weary and just as overwhelmed with the responsibilities of ruling as Robert had been (though I do think she would've handled it better). For her general well-being, this stop was necessary.
2) All her reasons for staying in Mereen have to do with taking responsibility for her choices. Unlike other would-be monarchs in the story she isn't just chasing glory. She recognizes that she set all these people free from slavery and she cannot simply abandon them until they've found their own way forward (much like Jon cannot abandon his sense of responsibility toward the wildlings? hmmm) What kind of ruler would she be if she simply abandoned Mereen in the chaos she created when she took the city? Robert with Teats, most likely. No, Dany is more responsible than that.
Her sense of responsibility is also the reason she chained up her dragons. Though I hated it just as you all did, I do understand why she did it. She loves her winged children, but she bears the guilt of the babies slain by her dragons, and the guilt is crushing her soul. She knows no other way to control them so she resorts to locking them up. But I think she knew all along that it would never work, and that eventually the dragons would have to come out.
I don't think any of the decisions she made in ADWD (save, perhaps, her affair with Darrio) were borne of impetuous youth. I think her actions were driven by her attempts to make the right decision when presented with two impossible choices.
"If you wish to be the queen of rabbits, you must wear your floppy ears." She can't be all things to all people, but she is trying to be the right thing to the people before her now. And that journey from the new Dragonstone through the Dothraki Sea brought it all together for her. These lessons were necessary, and the time in Mereen will make her better suited for her eventual rule in Westeros.
