A Song of Ice and Fire Series Review Part 4: For a Feast for Crows, Many Are the Guests
A Song of Ice and Fire Book 4: A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin
*Spoiler Warning*
Introduction
Often considered the quote-unquote worst book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series, a Feast for Crows had a lot to live up to immediately following the masterpiece that A Storm of Swords truly was. The stylistic choice that George R.R. Martin made for this novel was also divisive among Ice and Fire fans. For those who don’t know, books 4 and 5 (A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons) were originally meant to be one installment. Upon realizing that this would not he possible based on the behemoth length of the novel, it was decided that it would be published as two separate books. The problem came about when Martin decided that it didn’t do the plot and thematic concerns of the novel justice to simply cut it in half at the midway point. So instead, he decided that he would split the novel by geographical perspective. All the viewpoint characters in Westeros would be featured in Feast, and all the viewpoint characters outside of Westeros or on the Wall would be featured in the next novel, A Dance with Dragons.
The divisiveness in the fanbase came about in response to this because many fan favorite characters were not featured at all in the fourth installment, including Tyrion Lannister, Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow only made a brief cameo at the beginning of Feast from Sam Tarly’s perspective. With only getting half the story, it left readers of the novel wanting for more of the plot that they would not receive until 2011 (6 years later). It was also, arguably, the downfall point of HBO’s Game of Thrones.
A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons take place, chronologically, at the same time. The showrunners had the task of taking two massive novels and trying to weave all their chapters together into coherent order as GRRM always intended for the story to be told, and also had to try and cram about 1500 pages of source material into just ten episodes. Not to mention the sheer number of new characters who were introduced in these installments meant the show would have needed to organically introduce a plethora of new cast members into a show that was already thriving with its current characters. How did the show rise to this challenge, you ask? I answer, they didn’t. I would say that about 75% of Feast was left off the screen. The Dorne storyline is completely gutted and removes one of the most important WOC characters, major new players from the Iron Islands are removed, random show-only plots are invented for Jaime to go to Dorne and fill the void of the real Dornish plot and for Sansa to marry Ramsay Bolton (abandoning her entire Vale plot with Littlefinger) since Jeyne Poole was never cast, Stannis Baratheon is prematurely killed off before his character arc can round out, Arya’s House of Black and White storyline—one of the most confusing plots in the books already—is made unnecessarily more confusing, and of course Lady Stoneheart and Young Griff/Aegon Targaryen are nowhere to be seen.
We all saw the result of removing Feast from the story with the way seasons 6-8 of GoT went. So for those who think this is the weakest link in A Song of Ice and Fire, I must stress to you how important this book will be in terms of the longevity of the story as a whole, rather than as an individual novel.
Summary & Review
One of Feast’s greatest strengths is finally introducing Cersei Lannister as a point of view character. Martin has kept her innermost thoughts and feelings at an arms length from his readers thus far, and the result is that Cersei always came across a bit like the stereotypical Evil Queen trope in fantasy. Getting inside her head in this novel allows Martin the opportunity to flip the narrative, just as he did with Jaime Lannister in the previous book. Cersei is by no means a morally defendable person, but we finally get to understand the true motivations that drive her. And it’s not necessarily just desperation to cling to power. I mean, it is that, but it’s also so much deeper.
It is revealed in this novel that Cersei received a prophecy when she was a child. Part of the prophecy states that she will eventually be replaced by a younger more beautiful queen—which explains her hatred of Sansa and later Margaery Tyrell, as both were betrothed to Joffrey and in line to be Cersei’s replacement. But the prophecy also states that she will one day he choked to death by the valonqar, the Valyrian word for “little sibling.” Cersei has taken this meaning literally and spent her entire life believing this means her own younger brother Tyrion will one day be the one who murders her. This belief has only been strengthened within her after supposedly Tyrion killed her son Joffrey at his wedding, as the prophecy also states that all three of Cersei’s children will die and she will outlive them.
The prophecy’s revelations retroactively explain a large portion of Cersei’s characterization. She’s hated Tyrion and tried to have him killed many times, but now the reader knows it isn’t just because she’s a hateful villain. She’s fearful of for her life. She’s trying to outrun her own doom, and she thinks if she kills Tyrion, then she gets rid of her valonqar before he kills her. The other amazing part of this writing is that the reader can actually see how Cersei’s prophecy is really a self-fulfilling prophecy of doom. The more she does to try and outrun her fate, she actually puts herself a few steps closer, especially in regards to her brothers. Never forget that it is canon in the novels that Jaime Lannister is the younger twin. Jaime is, very technically, Cersei’s younger brother and therefore a candidate to eventually be her valonqar. The further she alienates their brother Tyrion and shows her true colors, the further the rift grows between Jaime and Cersei, the more hatred Jaime develops for his manipulative twin whom he once loved. The more Cersei clings to power, with the hope of protecting her children, the more enemies she makes who threaten her children. It’s brilliant craftsmanship on Martin’s part because not all writers can do the self-fulfilling prophecy properly without it seeming too obvious.
Of course, the outcome of this prophecy is blatantly obvious, because Martin hadn’t made any secret of the fact that it will end with Cersei dead. It’s just the constant wondering of who is ultimately going to do the deed that keeps you turning the page. Jaime or Tyrion? There’s other possibilities of course too. Since Maggy the Frog who gave her the prophecy said the valonqar and not your valonqar, theoretically anyone who is a younger sibling to anyone could be the identity. Arya Stark is a strong possibility, given that Cersei is now the highest name on her list with Joffrey dead. Daenerys Targaryen is also a candidate. Given that the topic of conversation between Cersei and Maggy prior to the prophecy was about Rhaegar Targaryen, it’s more than possible that Maggy was talking about Rhaegar’s younger sibling, and not Cersei’s specifically.
We also learn a lot more into the past of Cersei’s marriage to Robert Baratheon. We learn that her true motivation for killing Robert had little-to-nothing to do with Ned Stark and Jon Arryn’s investigation into her children’s paternity. It was actually because Robert was raping and abusing Cersei constantly, and she wanted to be free of the torment. Again, a lot of Cersei’s actions make her pretty irredeemable, but I have a hard time hating her for getting rid of her rapist in the only way possible for the circumstance she was in. Again, not saying Cersei’s actually secretly a good person, just that she has been a victim and that she is very much the product of her life experience.
One of the flaws in Cersei’s arc though is definitely her relationship with Taena Merryweather. I do hope Martin develops Taena more in future novels so that her entire purpose in this story isn’t just to be an excuse for GRRM to write some F/F sex scenes for no reason other than fetishization. He already did that once with Dany and Irri in the last book, and he does it again with Cersei and Taena this time. As a WLW myself writing this, I certainly don’t have a problem with gay and bisexual female characters in literature. The main issues with both instances from Martin is that neither are about an actual F/F relationship. Both involve white women in positions of power using a woman of color who is in service to them for the purpose of sexual satisfaction, and neither Dany nor Cersei are portrayed as having any genuine romantic/sexual interest in other women. For Dany, it was nothing more than masturbation after having a wet dream, but she couldn’t have Daario so she let Irri get her off, and she didn’t even reciprocate the pleasure for Irri in any way. Irri is essentially relegated as a sex servant. For Cersei, she had some genuine curiosity and there was more mutual reciprocation, but her primary motivation was just trying to understand what Robert was feeling all those times he slept with other women. She didn’t even enjoy it. Neither of these instances are good representation of real female bisexuality and there is a very uncomfortable racial power dynamic underlying the on the surface, with Dany and Cersei both being white and being the women in power, and with Irri and Taena both being women of color and being, let’s be brutally honest, the queens’ respective servants.
I only hope that Martin himself understands the problematic undertones of what he has written here and did it for a reason, that he’s hoping to develop these points later as part of the foiling of Dany and Cersei’s characters and also in exploring the already prevalent colonial undertones of Daenerys’ storyline with most of her liberated slaves becomes her own servants. Either that or Martin just wanted some hot girl-on-girl action and wasn’t thinking through the ick factor of how he chose to portray it. Without Winds, I really can’t say yet if this is a brilliant representation of real world colonialism and white feminism or if it’s a fetishization of WLW and WOC.
Dorne is also increasingly becoming one of the most interesting subplots in the series. I’m really enjoying Arianne Martell and seeing where her character ends up. I like that Myrcella actually has a role in the story other than to die to further the plot. The Darkstar is probably going to become a very intriguing villain as we explore his motives further. And I absolutely love how much more depth is given to the Dornish characters that did get cast for the show—Doran Martell, who is playing the long con in the game of thrones and actually has things all planned out; Ellaria Sand, who isn’t evil, has no interest in murdering Myrcella, and is actually one of the few characters in Dorne who doesn’t want war with the Lannisters (I mean, come on HBO, can we talk about character assassination), and of course The Sand Snakes. Oberyn’s daughters actually all have their own personalities in the book and aren’t hyper sexualized the way they were on the show. Oh, and there’s a fourth who might be posed as a man in the Citadel right now, for purposes that are yet unclear.
The Citadel storyline is also vastly more interesting in the novels because there’s such a unique cast of existing characters there, all for different purposes, including Samwell Tarly, Jaqen H’ghar wearing a new face, Sarella Sand (probably), as well as Marwyn the Maege—the Westerosi maester who taught Mirri Maz Duur the maegi the black magic she used to try and resurrect Khal Drogo and probably caused Daenerys to become fireproof and hatch dragon eggs. Not to mention the fact the Euron Greyjoy is slowly encroaching on the Reach and the Citadel for, once again, purposes still unknown!
(And I’ll never forgive the show for removing the subplot of Sam docking in Braavos on his way to the Citadel and actually encountering Arya Stark without knowing she’s Jon’s sister).
There’s another high point in this book. Euron Greyjoy is actually a cool character. I mean cool in an evil, twisted, horrific kind of way, but book-Euron is easily more terrifying than the show’s version of Ramsay Bolton. I can easily see him going on to become on of the series’ most terrifying villains. Victarion Greyjoy’s story is also removed from the show, and while he wasn’t my favorite from the new cast of characters introduced in the novels, I do see the importance he holds, especially given that he’ll probably be instrumental in both defeating Euron (he’s never gotten over the fact that Balon made him kill his wife instead of his brother) and finally getting Daenerys to Westeros and bringing this story to the climax that it’s been slowly building to all this time.
We do catch up with some already familiar POV characters including Jaime and Brienne in the Riverlands, Sansa in the Vale, and Arya in Braavos—one of the few characters not in Westeros to appear in Feast.
I appreciate the way Martin built up to Arya being able to warg cats by associating her with cats first, such as by having her chase cats in the Red Keep in the first book (Balerion the black cat is one of my favorite recurring elements that many readers won’t pick up on), or by having her alias in Braavos be Cat for a while. It also makes me anxious to see if Martin has any plans to develop Sansa’s ability to warg. He’s associated her character closely to birds in a way similar to Arya and cats, and thus far, Sansa is the only Stark child to have yet to be either confirmed or implied to be a skinchanger. Also, the way that Sansa and Arya both wanted to use “Catelyn” and “Cat” as their aliases respectively after their mother Catelyn died absolutely shattered my heart. Often times, Ned is the lost family member that our POV Starks remember the most, so seeing the girls grieve for their lost mother is very refreshing and heartbreaking at the same time.
And speaking of Catelyn Stark…
….Brienne and Jaime. Or Braime, if you will.
Brienne’s storyline in this novel is definitely the weakest link in Feast. I love her character, but most of what we did in her chapters in this book is wander around the Riverlands with a character unironically named Dick Crab. Clearly Martin was biding time until her unavoidable first meeting with Lady Stoneheart because he wanted this to be a cliffhanger for the end of the book, but most of what happens building up to it is filler and bares no significance to the plot. Maybe if Martin didn’t have this much meandering, his books wouldn’t end up so long that he has to break them in half, and we might have actually had the Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring by now.
Words are wind, George, as you’re so fond of reminding us. Surely this means you can cut down on some of yours.
Jaime’s Riverland story was definitely more interesting than Brienne’s. Some might find the slow build to Jaime’s capture of Riverrun with no casualties a bit boring and anticlimactic, but I actually found it quite interesting to watch Jaime try and go back to being his ruthless self when it’s blatantly clear that he’s just not that man anymore. I also enjoyed that this storyline is building up to larger importance for some minor characters including Robb Stark’s widow Jeyne Westerling, Jeyne’s mother Sybell, the Blackfish and Edmure Tully, as well as the Brotherhood Without Banners.
Also, if Jaime burning Cersei’s letter that she writes him begging for him to come to her aid in King’s Landing wasn’t your favorite part of this book, then I don’t know what to tell you.
Ultimately, this book was slower paced than the three previous installments in A Song of Ice and Fire. It was missing some of the big dynamic characters, and it was lacking some major Epic Moments, I don’t think it was pointless or boring or bad. This novel was the comedown we needed from the high of A Storm of Swords, so that Martin could start slowly moving pieces back in place for the penultimate installment of the series, The Winds of Winter. We needed the exposition for the new characters, and some slow rising action for the preexisting characters, so that they’ll be right where GRRM needs them to pull off his ending. If A Feast for Crows weren’t necessary to the story, then GOT seasons 6-8 would have been masterpieces after scrapping most of this book, and they weren’t, because we do need Feast.
It’s also the first A Song of Ice and Fire book that I read after watching the show first where I actually didn’t know what was going to happen next. Maybe that’s why I’m so partial to it.
The other strength about Feast is that I could tell you, conclusively, what I feel the true thematic concern of this novel is. A lot of epic fantasy novels end up lacking heart because it’s all plot and world building with no grounding theme to drive it all forward. There’s no story. This is actually what I feel the primary flaw is with Feast’s successor novel, A Dance with Dragons. It’s as though when Martin split his behemoth fourth novel into two different books, Dance got all the major epic plot points, with no overall resounding themes gluing the plot pieces together in a real mosaic, and Feast got all the slow build up for characters, and it got all the story’s thematic concern with it. So while we don’t get any major battles or beheadings, I can still very confidently tell you what this book is about.
It’s about the fall of House Lannister from power following Tywin’s death. That’s even where the title comes from, the metaphorical crows come to feast on Tywin’s corpse. It means the way that the other rising Houses in Westeros are going to take advantage of this major loss for House Lannister to their own benefit, and the way the Lannisters have done this to themselves because of how many enemies they’ve created over the years. Without Tywin around and with Tyrion alienated from their family, there’s no one left to make House Lannister the powerful and feared House it once was. They’ll never be the most powerful House in Westeros again. This is the beginning of their Rains of Castamere.
This is also where the show really started to stumble, by having Cersei triumph to the throne and being Dany’s final adversary. It completely loses track of the fact that the houses that are going to be the biggest players in the ending are the Starks, the Martells, the Greyjoys, and the Targaryens (who extend further than just Daenerys now). The Lannisters’ glory days are supposed to be over. Tywin’s rise brought them to power, and Tywin’s death is meant to be their fall.
Final Thoughts
My overall rating for A Feast for Crows is 4 out of 5 stars. I liked it, I think it’s necessary to the larger story. But I have to dock a few points, primarily because the early Brienne chapters were pretty brutal to get through, and because of the mishandling of Taena’s character that only time will tell if we get any payoff too.
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