Somehow I managed to force myself to finished George R.R. Martin’s fourth book of the Fire and Ice Series, “A Feast for Crows.” As always, spoilers.
Wow was this book hard to read. The book should have been called “Cersei and Misogyny” or something. The book’s second chapter gets right into how women aren’t good for anything but reproduction. Now, it does show how crazy religious fanatics are, and would be great if the book started that way and all the women (and the majority of the characters in this book are female) proved to be amazingly strong individuals and accomplished anything in the book.
But they don’t. Cersei is beyond crazy the entire book; due to the dramatic irony, Brienne just appears like an idiot through her search for Sansa; Neither Sansa nor Arya are in this book much, and neither really accomplish anything either; Ginny, with Sam, cries the whole book; the Sand Snakes do basically nothing as well. Asha Greyjoy is really the only character who could’ve been a strong female character, and after the King’s Moot, she just vanished.
Cersei was the most prominent character in the book. Cersei had the most chapters of any character, which were showing us first hand how crazy she was. Jaime had the next most chapters, and most of Jaime’s chapters were an outside perspective just further proving Cersei was insane. This wouldn’t necessarily be horrible if something actually ever occurred. The only significant thing Cersei does during her chapters is set up the church to have their own army. Meanwhile, in the background of all this, we’re hearing about the Saltpans, or about the Lightning Lord, or people being sent to murder Bronn and Jon Snow. We hear that epic things are happening in the world, and all we get to see is Cersei run around screaming about how everyone is a moron and wants to kill her and her son, and no-one actually doing anything like that.
Part of the reason Cersei appears so crazy is because we only get her perspective, and her thinking is madness. She is completely paranoid while also extremely power-hungry. There are chapters where she talks about everything as if she has no other concern than to protect her son, Tommen, from the evils around, yet all the evils she sees are completely fabricated. Juxtaposed to that, there are chapters where the only thing she desires is power. To be the true ruler, and be remembered as the greatest ruler there was, with almost no mention of Tommen. When Tommen is mentioned in the power-hungry chapters, he is painted like another imaginary dragon she must vanquish to keep her power. This back and forth is inconsistent, and not only makes Cersei appear as crazy, but possibly makes Martin appear like a bad writer.
Now, George R.R. Martin broke the book up on purpose based on location and other things. The problem with this is we don’t get to see if Tyrion or other characters are actually just toying with Cersei. Since it doesn’t appear that its Littlefinger torturing her, and we don’t see Tyrion or any other character, Cersei comes off as completely insane. It’s very possible she is just insane, but it is also possible that Tyrion is toying with her. That Tyrion did leave that coin just to drive her mad. That someone is whispering in Margaery’s ear, and she is trying to over throw Cersei. But we don’t see any of that, and since we don’t see it, we have to assume its not happening... and thus, that Cersei is imaging it all.
Now, it was nice to see all her plans collapse because she made hasty decisions...but this doesn’t really help women. Being the most prominent character, and strongest woman, the only thing she accomplished was to destroy herself. A great message to women everywhere. “You are insane, and without a man, you’ll destroy yourself.” She does scream for Jaime in the end, and as much as she thinks she can rule again, if she had taken Jaime’s advice at any point of the book, she would have been much more sane, and much more bearable as a character.
But perhaps her character isn’t done with. It’s very possible she returns in the 6th book and somehow isn’t sentenced to death. George R.R. Martin is quite capable of doing that. I hope not. I hope I never have to read another chapter involving Cersei.
So what other characters do we have? Brienne...another character who just might be dead, but we don’t know. For the good of this book, both Sansa and Arya really should’ve have not appeared. Through this book, we know exactly where Sansa and Arya are, and we know Brienne is hunting for them. We are forced to listen to Brienne throw out, without a second thought, the idea of going to the Eyrie or cross the sea. Since we know exactly where they are, listening to Brienne throw these ideas out just makes her appear like a fool. Does she have a good reason not to go there? Perhaps I’m bias from the dramatic irony, but her reasoning for not going to the Eyrie just seemed wrong. It is still perfectly reasonable that Sansa got to the Eyrie before Tully got killed, and that Sansa is still there. Instead, Brienne chases ghosts that are obvious traps, before we even get there. Traps that made me feel like I was watching a horror movie and was watching the blonde try to get away from the monster, and just screaming at the book "No! Don't go into the creepy haunted ruins!"And what the hell was wrong with Catelynn Stark? I mean, I already hated that character when she was alive, but now she’s even more heartless and less rational? Great. Well, at least Catelynn is consistent.
I wish I could talk more about Sansa and Arya. I actually started to like Sansa, because she finally appeared like she could become a strong character. She’s the stone for King Robert, and she is able to notice all the same strings that Littlefingers is. She’s finally intelligent, compassionate, and we see that she’s actually struggling with reality. But, she’s just not in the book enough. At least her end is pleasing; that she might finally get the throne. It is unlikely that this plan will ever be witnessed, but it is nice to finally think that at least one of the Starks might have a happy ending.
Arya’s story is interesting, but entirely incomplete. It is intriguing to see the training The Faceless go through to become The Faceless. I want to see her walk down that road, but she was barely in the book, and was only on the first steps of her progression. The book ends with her blind, a cliffhanger that has me stunned...and upset. Martin had an entire book to go through with Arya, but instead we get a constant stream of unnecessary details about Cersei’s madness, but an incomplete story on Arya. We’re forced to endure maddening invisible plotlines that never come true through Cersei’s perspective, but we don’t have enough time to actually get the story of a character that people want to read about?
The sand people’s plot line was uninteresting to me, and slightly confusing. I’m not quite sure what happened to Myrcella or the Black Star or anything like that. All I know is it ends that prince Doran does actually want revenge, and is an evil conniving bastard. The only thing that makes the entire Sand peoples storyline interesting is that it ends with us knowing that there are actually people who want to see the Targaryens back in power. Seriously, all of those chapters, the big reveal is that someone not even in the book might one day possibly do something. This could have been established a lot quicker, and without wasting so much of my time. Still, I’m glad these chapters existed simply because they weren’t Cersei.
Than there are the Greyjoys. First chapter starts off with Damphair being extremely misogynistic, and the chapters only get worse on that regard. Not too surprising considering their entire view on life, and that Theon came from them. Again, these chapters, which changed the main character each time, amounted to almost nothing happening. The Ironmen king some crazy man who wants to sail across the sea and steal Dany’s dragons. This actually sounds like it might get to be fun... but oh wait, next chapter, The Ironmen basically decide not to go across the sea and they just want to kill. So, a possibly awesome story is cut short, and now the Ironmen aren’t doing anything.
I’d really of loved to see what Asha Greyjoy would’ve done. She was a promising character. She was strong, she was smart, she was ruthless when she needed to be, and she didn’t take anyones shit. She could have been a strong female lead. She could’ve been more interesting than Arya, while stronger and more driven than Cersei, and with half the crazy. Unlike the sand people, she could have also been able to do something. Instead, she gets the Kings Moot, promises not what the Ironmen want to hear, and basically vanishes. Martin finally had a chance of making an actually cool female character...and instead he decided sexism would be cooler.
Sam’s storyline was...well it was definitely in the book. Supposedly the book was separated by the geography of the characters, and I’m not sure why Sam was in this one as he spent very little time on Westeros. Only reason I can think of is it because the dramatic irony will make Jon’s storyline on the wall more interesting. Possibly, but Martin already failed at using dramatic irony once, and it sounds like Jon’s storyline is going to be plenty interesting with him being the Commander, having to deal with Stannis, having to deal with multiple of his men wanting him dead, and having to deal with assassin’s being sent after him... but still, it could add more.
So, overall...I didn’t like the A Feast For Crows. Too much of it followed Cersei, and no-where enough time on Sansa nor Arya. The book ended with too little being accomplished through it, and the things that were accomplished are questionable as Martin is known for bringing dead people back to life. The only major benefit was that it made the next book just seem epic. The Saltpans, the assassination attempt against Bronn, the assassination attempt against Jon Snow, Dany and her dragons and potential suitors to help her claim the throne, and where the hell is Tyrion!? All of these things should prove to be quite entertaining, and A Feast For Crows was really just a build up for that.
Some might think thats good writing...have you wanting more. The problem is this book was frustrating. Yeah, it’s going to get me to read the next, but if the next starts out disappointing, I’m going to drop it before I finish it, and that’s not good. If I don’t finish it, I definitely won’t read the following. As may have been obvious since my write up of Book 2 and 3, my confidence in George R.R. Martin’s writing skills is waning. Perhaps this is all planned out, and I’m sure much of what I rolled my eyes at will come to a great fruition (e.g. Prince Doran). The thing is though, Martin appears to be the type of writer that really enjoys writing and letting the story wander as he writes. Personally, I’m not into that style of writing. For me, Stephen King’s best writing was The Stand, which he had planned what was going to happen before he started writing. The Dark Tower was written in the “lets just see where the story takes me” way, and personally much of those books annoy me. It’s still a great series, but its a great series that could’ve been massively edited and still said the same thing. A Feast For Crows could have easily been edited down, and that gives me fear that Martin doesn’t know where he’s taking these characters. I wonder if Arya and Sansa weren’t in this book simply because he didn’t know where they are going in the series?
Well, hopefully A Dance With Dragons is much more entertaining, so that I can stand reading the (perhaps, maybe, supposedly) conclusion in his next. I'd also love to be wrong, and have him really know where he's taking the characters.
