A Feast for Crows

[akaihyo]

Just finished reading this yesterday. Still trying to sort out some things in my mind, but, although I know it is only half the story, I found it a little disappointing, and, worse, annoying at times. Maybe it has just been too long since I read the first three, or maybe his style has changed, I am not sure. But this book did not seem to flow as well as the other or to "click" as well with me.


It struck me as I read this as how few of the characters we started out with are still around. While I realize this is part of the grim and realistic tone of the work but it is a bit wearying if every character with redeeming features that you start to like gets beheaded/disemboweled/dies of some strange cause.

Example: Brianne, who spends the entire book trying to make things right only to be hanged for no good reason at the end after she defends an inn full of orphans from horrible brigands . . . Why? To show that there are no happy ending in Westeros? We kind of figured that out by now. That chivalry and honor is pointless? In which case, why should we care about anyone in the books? Really, really annoying.

Cersi slowly sinks into madness and ends up getting caught in her own trap. This should have been really satisfying, I have hated Cersi since the beginning of the series. But she was a good character, dangerous, a manipulator, a strong villain. She lost all of that in this book, her 'defeat' (if such it proves to be) was entirely anticlimactic because the book leading up to it showed how weak and ineffectual she had become. Defeating Cersi at the height of her power would have brought cheers, this was just sad and disappointing.

Rape! Yes, I get that Westeros is a realistic and dangerous fantasy world. But, especially in the chapters with Brianne, rape and the threat of it seemed to be a constant undercurrent. Again, yes, I know Westeros is "historically" accurate and terrible things happened to women during wars but it just seemed excessively hammered on to me.

So, yes, disappointing and annoying sum up the book for me. It was still good, but it was not great.

Comments

[shieldhaven.livejournal.com]

Personally, I think that something will happen so that Brienne doesn't wind up being dead. But then, this is GRRM and he is ruthless with the lives of his characters, as other authors could only hope to be (we're looking at you, Robert Jordan).

[akaihyo.livejournal.com]

Perhaps. I am not sure if that would make me any more content with her storyline however.

[shieldhaven.livejournal.com]

I guess the main reason I think she's still alive (at the beginning of a theoretical Book Six) is one of metaplot - if she's dead, that entire part of the world gets a lot less interesting without anything else becoming more interesting. The Red Wedding, although even more disastrous, made Catelyn more interesting as a character. Also, the entirety of the convoluted story that brought Brienne to that meeting will have been an incredible waste of "plot resources" - specifically, pages of the book that GRRM could have excised to bring himself back down to one book instead of splitting into two.

But I could be wrong.

[akaihyo.livejournal.com]

We will see. He used Brianne to show a lot of how bad things were in the central parts of the kingdom too. I find her an interesting character and I would hate for her to be wasted.

[simon-draskovic.livejournal.com]

I've also found that a lot of people who disliked Brienne disliked Sansa for the same reason: They're not players in the game of thrones. Sansa mostly serves to show "Meanwhile, back in King's Landing" during the first three books, and Brienne sheds light on how all this has affected the smallfolk. With the newly-rearmed Faith likely to be a new player, I think it's important to see this, so we can see where this massive religious army comes from, and what their motivations are.

[simon-draskovic.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure Brienne doesn't didn't die, and the word she screams is 'sword'. Also consider AFfC takes place mostly in the south, whereas most of the surviving characters introduced in the first three books are in the north or across the narrow sea now (Bran, Jon, Dany, Davos, and Tyrion, off the top of my head). It doesn't help that those characters are generally the most well-liked ones, and the south is stuck with Jaime, Cersei, Sansa/Alayne, Brienne, and a bunch of one-shot POVs.

One reviewer on Amazon.com said, "Don't think of it as Act I, Scene IV. Think of it as Act II, Scene I."

[akaihyo.livejournal.com]

I kept that in mind, it still does not help my general dissatisfaction.

[akaihyo.livejournal.com]

Why do you think Brianne shouts "Sword" and how does that keep her from dying?

[simon-draskovic.livejournal.com]

Pages 640-641:

Lady Catelyn's fingers dug deep into her throat, and the words came rattling out, choked and broken, a stream as cold as ice. The northman said, "She says that you must choose. Take the sword and slay the Kingslayer, or be hanged for a betrayer. The sword or the noose, she says. Choose, she says. Choose... [Brienne] took a ragged breath and said, "I will not make that choice."

I think she yells 'sword', which spares her life to seek out Jaime.

[comic-monkey.livejournal.com]

I completely agree with your appraisal of the book and my disastisfaction mirrors yours completely. I'm so unimpressed I'm actually not really looking forward to the next book since it feels like all the characters I like are just going to die. WHile I can take some death among my favored characters, after a point why root for them since they're just going to bite it?

[akaihyo.livejournal.com]

Oh, I am still interested in the reading the next book. I still find the world extremely interesting . . . I am just not as happy with this book as I had hoped I would be.