A Feast for Crows
Jan. 10th, 2006 10:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akaihyoJust 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.
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.
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Date: 2006-01-10 09:53 pm (UTC)