having finished A Feast for Crows...

[zwol]

I liked this one, despite having started it with serious misgivings. He got me to care about the action in this book despite that it was not the action I wanted to hear about.

( Spoilerful comments: )

• I am no longer indifferent to whether Cersei dies screaming. It must happen. Especially after that cliffhanger.
• I like this new High Septon, but militant religious orders are still a Bad Idea.
• I was not expecting to end up liking Petyr Baelish, nor did I think there was any hope that Sansa might grow a clue.
• I was not expecting Jaime Lannister to develop a non-asshole component to his personality, never mind how small.
• Dude, Brienne can't catch a single break, can she? She's totally in the wrong universe. She belongs in The King's Peace or Darkover or somewhere like that.
• What the hell with that prologue? Did I miss something, or did that have no consequences anywhere else in the novel?
• That better not have been permanent what you did to Arya.
• The iron men are hostis humani generis. Where's Cicero when you need him?
• Actually, in general, where's Cicero when you need him?
• Or the good Baron de Montesquieu?
• Speaking of which, how the hell is pure high medieval feudalism a stable form of government for as long as it apparently has been in Westeros?

Comments

[melbournite.livejournal.com]

I was not expecting Jaime Lannister to develop a non-asshole component to his personality, never mind how small.

I have no idea where in the chronology of the books this happened, but I like Jaime.

That better not have been permanent what you did to Arya.

When I finished that chapter I went, "Eeep!" and immediately flipped through the rest of the book to see what other chapters followed her. When I saw that there weren't any, I may have made a noise something along the lines of "GAAAHrrrghnooooo...!"

Speaking of which, how the hell is pure high medieval feudalism a stable form of government for as long as it apparently has been in Westeros?

Doesn't that come up in a lot of fantasy books? Also, maybe... er... maybe it's the threat of invasion from the north? Having a common enemy will sometimes force people to band together... though it doesn't really seem to be working at the moment. I don't know.

[zwol.livejournal.com]

... how the hell is pure high medieval feudalism a stable form of government ...

Doesn't that come up in a lot of fantasy books? Also, maybe... er... maybe it's the threat of invasion from the north? Having a common enemy will sometimes force people to band together... though it doesn't really seem to be working at the moment. I don't know.

Yeah, it comes up a lot in fantasy but that doesn't help with my suspension of disbelief issues, particularly when (as here) the advancement of political structures seems to have frozen at about AD 1200 when the tech level is 1700 or later. This world has merchants, it has academe, it has a powerful church, it has banking fer chrissake, but there is nothing even vaguely resembling Parliament. WTF?

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

The Arya and the Brienne and the Cersei thread endings together, and the Obscure Death of Sandor Clegane, gave the whole thing the unfortunate feeling of one of those early 90s Marvel Comics summer events where all sorts of energy and handwaving goes into trying to persuade the reader that no, honest, this time it really is going to have lasting consequences for characters you care about, but it never does. I very much doubt anything permanently bad is going to happen to Arya, and I suspect the very next it from her POV will illustrate that. The whole Brienne thread struck me as superfluous, actually, I do not see what in that requires any more than a couple of paras of her reporting it to someone at some later point.

fwiw, I was solidly in sympathy with Jaime by the end of Storm of Swords, which I thought was an amazing thing for Martin to succeed at given what we had seen of him up to then.

Also, I kind of like what he appears to be setting up with FrankenGregor.

[zwol.livejournal.com]

Did I miss something? Sandor Clegane is dead; other people were running around wearing his helmet. And I think Brienne is dead, too. The group that caught her seemed quite good at hanging people. (It occurs to me that in multi-viewpoint tight-third, if you kill a character from their viewpoint, you are forced to end the chapter there and it may be unclear whether they are genuinely dead.)

It doesn't seem like false jeopardy to me, but I have no first-hand exposure to early 90s Marvel Comics summer events so I am not sensitized. (I know what you are talking about, though.) Re Cersei, despite the bloodthirsty above, what I really want is for her to die abruptly and before that prophecy she keeps obsessing about is entirely fulfilled.

On rethought, I was beginning to develop some sympathy for Jaime during Storm of Swords and agree that it is an amazing authorial feat. I wasn't entirely convinced he had turned over a new leaf until this volume, though.

I don't know what you mean about FrankenGregor; which character are you thinking of?

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

I basically read this when it first came out, and am unlikely to do so again until the next one is imminent, so some of my recollections here may be a bit blurry.

Sandor Clegane is dead; other people were running around wearing his helmet.

We don't see him die on screeen, and there are mentions, IIRC, of a large and quiet new monk at said monastery; I think he's most likely dead but there's a backdoor being left there in case Martin wants to bring him back. I'd kind of been hoping for a definitive Sandor/Gregor clash at some point; I like Sandor as a character.

And I think Brienne is dead, too. The group that caught her seemed quite good at hanging people.

She may well be. I'm not sure whether it would irritate me more if she were, and that was all he had ever had in mind to do with her, or if she weren't and that whole ending were just gratuitous jeopardy.

(It occurs to me that in multi-viewpoint tight-third, if you kill a character from their viewpoint, you are forced to end the chapter there and it may be unclear whether they are genuinely dead.)

Yes, definitely. And considering the end of the Theon thread in Clash of Kings, we know Martin has used that device already in this series.

I have no first-hand exposure to early 90s Marvel Comics summer events so I am not sensitized.

I suggest you think of this as a piece of good fortune. Though I'm not sure the contemporary Marvel Comics tendency for major events to have lasting consequences is an improvement considering the particular consequences that have been implemented.

I don't know what you mean about FrankenGregor; which character are you thinking of?

I thought it was pretty obvious from the hints Maester Qyburn was dropping to Cersei that he had retrieved what was left of Gregor, whom again we do not see actually die, and was planning to produce a new improved version, for some very unpleasant values of "improved", but that the events of the end of the book caught up with him.