^ I guess the answer is "you weren't paying close attention".
I finally finished. I tried getting through AFFC twice and ended up getting distracted twice. Finally, I read it in conjunction with ADWD - basically, as one book, as originally intended or something close to.
http://boiledleather.com/post/259025...ng-order-for-a
Made the whole thing much better and flowed quite well.
As far as speculation goes, I really don't understand people theorizing that a) Dani will never come to Westeros, and b) Jon will be resurrected by Melisandre and hailed as Azor Ahai reborn.
Aemon Targaryen has already burst this bubble for us. Melisandre was wrong about Stannis, it's Dani who is AA reborn. It aligns with the prophecies, the comets, etc. Consequently, Dani has to end up in Westeros for the epic showdown with the Great Other, thus providing the "fire" part of the culmination of "A song of ice and fire". I know there are competing theories, but this one is the best fleshed out and provides a good plot path. I mean, really, the Others are ice and vulnerable to dragonglass; did we really think that a battle with them was likely to happen absent dragons?
Who's the ice bit? This is less clear. However, I would be none too surprised if Jon ended up being re-animated in a similar fashion to Coldhands (who may himself be a Stark) - dead, yet still fully sentient, neither a wight nor an Other. Thus far, the Others have been characterized as a force of pure evil, but it should be obvious that one of Martin's overriding themes is that there's no such thing as "pure evil", or "pure good", and the series stands in direct contrast to dark vs. light archetypes. All we've heard is one side of the story, likely altered over 8000 years. One or both of Bran and Jon may end up fighting on the side of winter and night when it all comes to a head. That's just speculative, though.
On the whole, even at 1000 pages apiece, give or take, it's going to be tough to wrap all of this up in 2 books. He's going to really need to aggressively go after certain characters' storylines to fit it all in. What I think will happen, and how much exposition is required:
-Arya needs to somehow make her way back to King's Landing as an assassin and kill someone, possibly multiple people, possibly Cersei. That's it. No room for much else. Which seems like a weak payoff for all the time we've spent with her.
-Rickon emerges from Skagos, but isn't he still like eight? Even if he leads the Skagosi or something, I don't know what to do with this. Potentially a character who ends up getting short shrift. But then, they've dispatched Davos to him, so he's definitely going to get some page-time.
-Victarion and Euron showdown needs to happen relatively swiftly. Asha and Theon play into this, as Asha's going to want the Kingsmoot declared invalid because Theon wasn't there. Problem: Victarion hasn't even reached Meereen yet. This is also going to need some pages; there are four POV characters involved (Asha, Theon, Victarion and Aeron).
-Aegon VI Targaryen: One would think that his attempted triumphant return will be the central means of advancing the plot in the next book; either he's set up to mop up the field after the 5 Kings decimated each other or he's killed off relatively quickly, likely depending on what Doran Martell does. If the former, this will take a fair bit of time and writing to deal with, as there are lots of POV characters involved (though you'd think Arianne and Hotah and Connington could just be forgotten about, except Arianne already has POV chapters confirmed for #6).
-Dany: needs to get her Dothraki back (could be we just assume that's happened and she starts the 6th book with them), return to Meereen (presumably after Selmy has dealt with Yunkai and Volantis, or been killed, or both), deal with Victarion, probably head back west overland you'd think (possibly capturing Pentos or something), sail to Westeros, possibly do stuff on Westeros, and engage in an epic last battle. IMO. Yeah that could take a couple of chapters.
-Tyrion: really just needs to turn the Second Sons around and make his way next to Dany. Problem is you have to assume that GRRM wants a lot of the remaining POV chapters to be Tyrion chapters, so maybe he does a lot of Dany's plot progress from Tyrion's POV, which would help a lot in terms of remaining space.
-Cersei etc.: using this as a catchall for all the crap that happens in King's landing between now and the end. Assuming it'll take a couple hundred pages. I honestly don't know what happens, aside from the obvious duel between Strong and whoever. Presumably there will be some purpose to the church's militant arm existing, but who even knows what.
-Stannis/Boltons: There's a major battle involved here, and then there's what happens to Stannis after, assuming Ramsay was lying, and what happens to Mance. And presumably some cathartic end for Ramsay and Roose. Possibly the Reeds getting involved somehow, the Karstarks and Manderlys with synchronized treasons.
-Sam/Oldtown/Jaqen: I think we can all agree that Martin does not have time to provide us with Sam's own Hogwarts adventure to becoming a Maester. Presumably Jaqen's presence creates a plotline given that an entire prologue was dedicated to the place. It hasn't advanced since, though, so you'd have to think there are a few chapters that will need to be used to deal with it.
-Brienne / Cat / Jaime: No clue what he does with this, but it'll take a couple of chapters just to resolve the Cat/Kingslayer showdown, and presumably there will be more for whoever makes it out of that encounter.
-Bran: Will presumably learn much from Bloodraven and play some major role in the ultimate denouement of the story. I don't know if this will take much in terms of page space but it could certainly allow for some exposition as to who the others are and what their story is.
-Littlefinger and Sansa: Given the stakes at this point in the story and the fact that we have to be coming up on an Other invasion of Westeros, does
anyone anywhere actually give a flying monkey crap what happens to Robert Arryn or the Vale or Sansa Stark? And yet so much time has been spent on this stuff that it needs to go somewhere, and you can't just eliminate the whole storyline in three chapters. Again, no idea what GRRM does with this but it's going to take some precious time to deal with.
-The wall: Whatever happens with Jon, whatever happens with the wildlings, possibly some sort of chaotic fight between the two, followed by Others taking advantage and overrunning the wall in the meantime. They have to end up moving south somehow.
Have I missed anything? I figure that's got to take over 2000 pages. And you know there will be other stuff thrown in and a lot of that will end up not being how things end up - I've tried to come up with resolutions to plotlines that would take the minimum amount of time. He's not a very efficient writer.
It seems to me that the best way to deal with it would be to find a way to amalgamated as many Essos storylines into Dany's as possible, amalgamate as many Westeros storylines into Aegon or Stannis's storyline as possible (depending on who dies), kill off a few of these storylines by killing off the principals (a tried and true GRRM method), and then spend remaining time dealing with the Other invasion and resulting battles or whatever.
