A Feast for Crows

A Feast for Crows, the fourth book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series, was released five years after A Storm of Swords, following a troubled writing process. The author first decided that the plot would jump five years in time, which would allow the children and dragons to grow. However, long after he had produced enough material, George R. R. Martin abandoned that idea, noticing that more than half of what had been written was in the format of flashback. Martin then decided to start again from scratch, picking up the story from where the third volume left off. After some time, he also realized that this new novel had become too long, with more than one thousand five hundred pages, which made the publishers request him to split the story into two parts. Following the advice of a friend, Martin split it in a way that would at least preserve some narrative focus by dividing it according to the character’s location in the story. Therefore, A Feast for Crows would deal with the events that take place in the south of Westeros whereas A Dance of Dragons, the fifth volume, with those in the north and in Essos. However, despite the author’s good intentions, this brief summary already manifests the major problem afflicting every page of the novel: the lack of adequate planning. After all, every story told in A Feast for Crows, both on a larger scale, such as the whole plot involving the Greyjoys, and on a small one, as with the character of Hyle Hunt, shows to be completely devoid of point or conclusion.

The Greyjoy chapters, for example, are surely the pinnacle of what there is of worst in the book. The plot here is quite simple: there is a dispute for the throne of the Iron Islands and Aeron Greyjoy, a priest of the Drowned God, decides to settle it by calling for a vote to elect the new king. Thus, we are presented in a meticulously and dense way, as is usual with this series, to the main candidates (Asha, Victarion, Euron …), to the various secondary characters, such as the calm Reader, and to the exhaustive preparations for the election. However, by its end, everything remains the same. Both the characters and the political structure of the Iron Islands are not modified by the event in any way, shape, or form. Now, if the election would not change a thing why, for the Drowned God’s sake, we followed it this closely? If movie editors would already cut a very short scene of someone ringing the doorbell and entering a house just because it would signify an additional six useless seconds in their movie, imagine their reaction when coming across a whole plot that, in addition to sounding a bit artificial – voting doesn’t seem to match the Greyjoys’ motto of “We do not sow” – also doesn’t appear to have any effect in that world whatsoever. After all, if nothing has changed, nothing actually has happened. It’s possible, of course, that the election will be important later one due to some technicality in its proceedings or whatnot, but this doesn’t change the fact that it produces no impact in A Feast for Crows.

And if we look at the secondary characters, like the knight Hyle Hunt, we will also note that following them through Westeros is completely unnecessary. The knight, for example, doesn’t add anything of value to the chapters focusing of Brienne’s point of view and if the character didn’t exist nothing major that happened to her would have changed. In fact, Brienne’s whole story is also questionable in its result. Her journey through Westeros, which never goes anywhere, serves to show the dire consequences that the War of the Five Kings brought to the common people. But again, the book fails to show anything new in this respect, as Arya’s narrative in both A Clash of Kings and in A Storm of Swords had already done exactly this, by exposing the little girl to atrocities, injustices, and death in a brutal and ruthless environment. Therefore, the desolate and blood-soaked landscapes, as well as the treacherous and vile people Brienne encounters never surprise, and the outcome of her journey is even more alarming, if not reversed at some later point in A Song of Ice and Fire.

Jaime, however entertaining he may be, also hardly contains some semblance of arc, since there is no prospect of evolution in the character. Jaime needs to resolve the siege of Riverrun, which puts in check his promise to Catelyn Stark – which he thinks is his last way of safeguarding what’s left of his honor – as he gradually steps away from his sister’s influence. The honor thing was considerably dispensable, since it was also dealt with – and more effectively – in the previous novel, while the problems of his relationship with Cersei are repeated to exhaustion. It’s unbearable, for example, the number of times these Tyrion’s words are repeated: “she’s been fucking Lancel and Osmund Kettleblack and probably Moon Boy for all I know…”. You can even make a drinking game with it: they appear at least once a chapter and sometimes more than two times on a single page. At least, this whole repetition serves to make very comical the moment when Jaime actually gets to dream with the Moon Boy fucking Cersei, whoever the Moon Boy is.

Cersei, on the other hand, surprises by being the one with the most important character arc in the book, showing a completely disturbed personality that makes her both annoying and fascinating. To Cersei everything is always a great conspiracy: if a servant smiles at her, Cersei immediately begins to deduce the motives of such a smile and its hidden meanings, concluding that the girl is obviously a spy, that the laugh was a mockery, that the maid is an insolent and foolish girl, who represents an enormous danger to her children and to the kingdom and who, for these reasons, must be slaughtered like the cockroach she is. Paranoia forms the oppressive atmosphere of Cersei’s chapters: the entire kingdom is plotting against her, her counselors are useless and possibly traitors, and the fate of the Seven Kingdoms rests entirely on her shoulders. Therefore, it is interesting to observe how, at the same time she wants to be the cunning, resolute and powerful son Tywin Lannister always desired to have, and tries to prove to be this person in court, considering herself successful in this mission, her subjects keep watching appalled as she makes more and more dubious choices and sinks in the mud of her own making. Her arc is by far the most complex and well-developed in the novel, with just one downside: the attempt to make her the Snow White Queen by the exhaustive repetition (as it’s usual here) of a random prophecy in which she would be queen only until a more beautiful and powerful girl appeared to steal her crown. This strategy seems to suggest a need to reinforce the hatred Cersei feels for another character, but it is a feeling that was convincing enough without this prophecy.

The quality of Cersei’s story differs so much from the rest of the novel that even her supporting characters are interesting. From the Kettleback brothers – the “Snow White Huntsmen” – to the mysterious High Sparrow and his sect, all have their significance and all impact the final events. One highlight, for example, is maester Qyburn who, with his experiments in a secret laboratory in King’s Landing, turns out to be a sadistic, sinister man, which helps to foment the stifling atmosphere of Cersei’s chapters.

Nevertheless, the rest of the book suffers from serious problems regarding a general lack of resolution. The plot situated in the southern kingdom of Dorne, besides being introduced extremely late in the series, has no closure whatsoever, which also happens to the point of views of the sisters Alayne Stone and Cat of the Canals, who cannot even finish the training which they are submitted to. Meanwhile, Samwell Tarly simply travels for work and has an ending that only lore fanatics will fully grasp.

George R. R. Martin attempted to slow down the pacing of the story and give it a more philosophical, reflective, melancholic tone, but in the process allowed the narrative to swallow its own tail, forgetting to make the discussions and metaphors still relevant to the series. In A Feast for Crows, the fantasy world seems to get bigger than what Martin can effectively work with. The solution, therefore, was possibly not to split the original manuscript in two, but to cut its edges, removing all the fat and giving the reader a much more efficient story.

December 04, 2018

Originally published in Portuguese on March 11, 2015.