This review analyzes George R.R. Martin's "A Feast for Crows," the fourth book in "A Song of Ice and Fire," highlighting its strengths in world-building and character development, particularly on a reread, while acknowledging the significant criticisms regarding its narrative split and perceived bloat.
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merry Christmas happy Hanukkah and happy
New Year ladies and gentlemen my name is
the advocate and today I am an advocate
review that's right ladies and gentlemen
I have returned once again I've
completed a reread of A Feast for Crows
I've got some thoughts so I decided hey
why not once again provide another video
review A Feast for Crows is the fourth
book in the aong Of Ice And Fire series
written by George R Martin it was
published on October 17th 2005 and I
honestly think this might be my most
improved Book on a second read through
so much improved that I was jumping for
joy and decided that hey I think I might
as well go to Oldtown here and uh do a
review of this book by the way don't
mind the uh the edges here uh the
dragons are just doing some weird things
here with with Oldtown now back when
this book was first released in 2005
there was a lot of hype and anticipation
in the book reading world for this book
A Storm of Swords the book prior to A
Feast for Crows was for many people
their entry point into the assang of
isce And Fire series so a lot of people
were really looking forward to seeing
how the story followed up A Storm of
Swords in fact there was so much hype
for this book that A Feast for Crows
became the first book in The A Song Of
Ice And Fire series to hit number one on
the New York Times bestsellers list
unfortunately five years of hype in
anticipation didn't really do this book
any favors a lot of people were
disappointed with the content of the
book when it was first released now part
of that had to do with the fact that you
know after spending so much time in
development not many things could live
up to 5 years worth of hype however
there was something else about this book
that didn't exactly please people many
articles criticize the content of A
Feast for Crows for being too Bleak and
plotting and lamented the fact that many
of the key characters whose stories
people wanted to follow up on were being
held off for A Dance with Dragons you
see not all the characters from A Storm
of Swords receive followup in A Feast
for Crows in fact half the point of view
characters that we've come to know In
Love from the previous entries in the
series are actually held off for the
companion book to A Feast for Crows
called The Dance with Dragons the fifth
book in the series now originally George
had typed out a manuscript where he
wanted to tell the story for all the
characters we've come to know and love
in addition to a few additional
characters however what he soon found
out was that the book was becoming
incredibly large it was getting to
unpublishable lengths and therefore he
needed to make some sort of decision in
order to split the narrative George
explained in the case of A Dance with
Dragons which was the book I thought I
was writing at the time I'm passing A
Storm of Swords and page count length
and I've hardly started some of the
story lines yet I'd originally in a
crazy sense of optimism had hoped to
deliver A Dance with Dragons in 2002 so
it could be published in 2003 so now
we're into like 2005 and it's still not
out and it's still not finished and it's
not even close to being finished well
what do I have to do what are my choices
now George's decision to split the
narrative between A Feast for Crows and
A Dance with Dragons wasn't
chronological like a lot of people
believed it was going to be but rather
geographically meaning that the
characters that were predominantly based
in King's Landing would have their own
story to tell on A Feast for Crows
meanwhile during the same timeline
characters that had stories at the wall
north of the wall or an OS would also be
participating in their own story which
was happening chronologically congruent
with the events of A Feast for Crows
George explains his reasoning for this
in his May 29 2005 na blog it was my
feeling that we were better off telling
all the story for half the characters
rather than half the story for all the
characters cutting the novel in half
would have produced two half novels our
approach will produce two novels taking
place simultaneously but set hundreds or
even thousands of miles apart and
involving different casts of
characters although George's intentions
are good it's rationale for wanting to
tell the full story for half the
characters ultimately contradicts what
wound up happening with both volumes you
see the story of A Feast for Crows takes
place roughly within a 5mon span however
the story of A Dance with Dragons
actually goes about 3 months past the
end of A Feast for Crows meaning that
not only are both books not an exact
even split of the same timeline but the
events of A Feast for Crows aren't even
the full story for half the characters
it promised to tell George believes that
this Geographic split was the best
solution given the circumstances however
I believe that there was a better
alternative to this large story
conundrum first of all A Feast for Crow
and especially A Dance with Dragons have
a bit of a bloat problem I'll touch on
the bloat problems in A Dance with
Dragons whenever we review that book in
a separate video however when looking
specifically at A Feast for Crows this
book has the longest chapters in the
series although each of the first three
books in theong of is And Fire series
saw linear increases in their chapter
lengths when analyzing average words per
chapter A Feast for Crows experienced a
dramatic increase in chapter length when
compared to a Storm of Swords the
difference is especially noticeable when
looking at the average page count of
21.2 pages per chapter now there's
nothing particularly wrong with having
longer chapters but not all the chapters
in this book justify their length in
fact you can eliminate about 87 pages
from this book and nothing of substance
would be necessarily lost from the story
besides some of the iron Islands
chapters there's a key POV character
whose story drags quite a bit at the
beginning I'll delve more into that in
the spoiler section if you remove the
unnecessary pages from both A Feast for
Crows and A Dance with Dragons you're
left with two tightly written books that
have substantially more breathing room
to maneuver some of the chapters around
without delving too deeply into spoilers
there's a specific plot twist and A
Feast for Crows where you could
conceivably end the the book and come
away satisfied with the story if you
intertwin the events of A Feast for
Crows and A Dance with Dragons that
occur prior to this plot twist not only
have you included everyone's story in
this alternative of Feast for Crows but
you can also continue the story right
from this plot twist in A Dance with
Dragons in chronological order moreover
the extra breathing room left behind by
the removal of bloat from both books
could have allowed George to include his
famous missing A Dance with Dragons
chapters that ultimately got pushed back
to the Winds of Winter thus bringing A
Dance with Dragons to a more satisfying
conclusion now last year when I read A
Feast for Crows for the first time I was
warned ahead of time that both this book
and A Dance with Dragons were two halves
of the same story and I knew that was
going to frustrate the heck out of me
because I wanted to find out what
happened with all of the characters
following A Storm of Swords so I went
online and found a reading order called
the all leather must be boiled reading
order and essentially what that is is a
comprehensive list of all the chapters
in both A Feast for Crows and A Dance
with Dragons but organized in a way
where you tell this one giant story but
told in a chronological Manner and I
went about and did that for my first
read through however the problem with
the all leather must be boiled reading
order is that because both A Feast for
Crows and A Dance with Dragons have a
bit of bloat to them not only is it a
massive massive undertaking to read
2,000 Pages worth of material in one
read through but what you get is a book
that feels just substantially bloed
there's so many POV characters there's a
lot going on all at once you also go 50
chapters between some of these POV
characters you tend to forget oh like
this person what was what was this
person up to again like it's been so
long since I've read about that person's
POV however I think for my intents and
purposes I preferred
that as opposed to having read both
books separately now if you as a
firsttime reader decide that hey I want
to go and just read these books
separately I don't want to do a weird
reading order in order to combine these
chapters chronologically you can read
this book by itself and I think honestly
you'll come away having a good time
reading it but the fact that so many
characters are missing from this story
I'm just not a fan of it now the
character split was one the things that
George struggled with when he was trying
to write A Feast for Crows the other
being he was struggling with what he
eventually called the 5-year Gap problem
essentially what that boils down to is
he wanted to do a 5-year Gap at the end
of A Storm of Swords in order to grow up
some of the child characters and have
them grow into the roles that were
designated for them in the previous
books however George later explained in
an interview that there was a couple of
logistical problems that were involved
with performing a 5-year Gap in the
story story initially I started with the
intention of skipping a number of years
after the end of A Storm of Swords and
picking up the story 5 years later the
intention there being to let some of the
younger child characters grow up a bit
and while it worked for them it didn't
work well for the adult characters who
were in the midst of things I struggled
with it as I found I had to do a lot of
flashbacks I had to postulate that
nothing much had happened in certain
story lines for 5 years which struck me
as false now your fondness For A Feast
for Crows will depend on how how willing
you are to invest yourself in planetos
as in the entire world that this series
takes place as a character A Feast for
Crows rather than narrowing the scope
towards a conclusion rather surprisingly
it decides to expand the lore of the
world and there's a lot of neat
interesting details about the world
specifically with regards to Dorne which
is in southern western R and the iron
Islands which are the islands where
Theon grey Joy grew up in however if you
just want to read about the characters
that you've previously learned about in
the series and you don't necessarily
have an interest in the politics and
minations of what's going on in the
other locations uh besides King's
Landing and Winterfell then you're
probably going to have a little bit of a
problem with the story because this
story does expand the scope and really
just delves into those other locations
now when you're reading the book you can
usually tell which chapters are the ones
that are going to delve into some of the
lore uh rather than using the
traditional chapter headers from the
previous books where you saw the name of
the person prior to reading the chapter
uh now you see something like the
prophet or captain of the guards or the
kraken's daughter and that usually
entails this particular chapter is from
the point of view from someone who is in
Dorne or from someone who is on the IR
Islands or from just whatever I do find
it interesting especially the dornish
chapters I I love the dornish chapters
the iron Islands I like them too not as
much as Dorne but again one of the
things that I have a problem with is
just some of the bloat there are a
couple of instances where I'm reading
all this information and I find myself
asking why am I reading about it I don't
need to know about uh the prophet Aaron
damp stepping on some weeds with his
black calloused feet I don't need to
know about Samuel tarley seeing a
woman's breasts the actual content when
it comes to the political situations in
these isolated areas is good but I don't
need to know about all these
miscellaneous details that don't really
build the world or don't really even
expand on the characters they're trying
to tell about it's just information
that's there for the sake of being
information so those are my general
thoughts guys with regards to the
structure of A Feast for Crows uh and
just what I think about the story in a
non-spoiler way if you can get past the
character split and some of the bloat
problems that plague this book A Feast
for Crows is George R Martin's strongest
Pros in the series seriously guys this
is in my opinion the best written book
of all the five books that I've read the
politics that go on the character
building it's fantastically immersive
there are so many monolog
there's so much description it's all
Vivid it's all in your head it's well
written and I hold that this if it
weren't for the character split this
would be the best book in the series but
with all that said guys there's a couple
things I want to go over in the spoiler
section so if you have not read A Feast
for Crows or A Dance with Dragons please
click off this video because I will be
going full bore on the spoilers for
Feast for Crows and that includes
information from the books prior to this
and the books that follow so beware now
I've touched on how this book has 87
Pages worth of bloat and filler and most
of those 87 Pages can be attributed to
one point of view character in
particular and that's Brian of Tarth now
personally I love the character of Brian
of tar I think she is a fantastic
interpretation of what a knight is
supposed to be in this world however the
adventure that she is on it's not my
favorite Story Jamie Lannister had set
Brienne to to go on this quest to
essentially find Sansa Stark however her
Adventure in the riverlands is slightly
frustrating to say the least especially
when you consider the fact that she's
not any closer to finding Sansa this
story hits way too many dead ends why am
I spending my time reading about
brienne's little adventure with a uh
dwarf in duskendale why am I spending my
time as she meets up with uh Shadrick
who is a knight that's
touched upon a little bit at the end of
the story her story only gets more
interesting when she comes across
padrick Payne and then especially H hunt
and you do get a lot of character
moments between the three of them and
it's wonderful especially when they meet
up with a septon who has the coolest
monologue in the book The Broken man
speech George could have easily moved
some of the highlights from some of
these chapters and essentially just
concentrated them as flashbacks in one
of the in one of the later Brienne
chapters she could have recounted oh
well on at one point in my story I met
up with Shadrick and we didn't do
anything or hey this dwarf told me to go
to this location in maidenpool and meet
up with this Nimble dick guy who told me
to go meet this fool not all of it but
quite a bit of it could have definitely
been shrunken down removed or just
played Up played at one of the later
chapters as flashback just so that the
reader is aware of what Brienne had done
without actually living through the
daytoday of what she is doing now this
does get remedied in the second half of
brienne's story when she meets up with
septon Mar bald and she goes to the
elder brother and she fights with biter
and then especially at the very end when
she has that very haunting haunting
encounter with lady stoneart who is the
resurrected Katan Stark but I personally
just wasn't a fan of some of the buildup
to get to that point now as I mentioned
previously I'm a huge fan of the
expansion of the lore however besides a
little bit of the problems another thing
that I have a problem with is the povs
that George chooses to tell the story of
the politics in the iron Islands the
prophet Aaron damp haare and the iron
Captain Victorian
Greyjoy both characters in my opinion
are not exactly the most fleshed out
characters to me they feel like one one
and a half dimensional characters now I
understand that both Aaron and victon's
purpose is to tell the story of theing
Kings moot through their eyes as they
see their evil super villain magical
brother euron Greyjoy get elected as
king of the iron Islands George wanted
to have eyeballs on euron grj without
necessarily making euron a point of view
character however I feel that there's
other characters who could have told
euron's story without necessarily
following victarion or Aaron damp haare
I think it would have been more
interesting to see euron's Rise Through
The Eyes of Asha Greyjoy who I do find
to be a very interesting character with
that said I do like the moment close to
the end of the king's moot where Aeron
gray Joy is absolutely terrified that
euron has been elected as king of the
iron Islands he's kind of bracing
himself for the worst in this haunting
moment of pathos the cry swelled became a
a roar
roar
Crow King it rolled up naga's hill like
the storm God rattling the CL s you're
on you're you're you're you're you're
even a priest May doubt even a prophet
May no tear Aaron damp reached within
himself for his God and discovered only
silence in my opinion euron crowy gray
Joy is easily just the most fascinating
and interesting Enigma within the series
so much so that you could say that the
title of Feast for Crows isn't
necessarily a metaphor for all the
people that are trying to scavenge the
corpses and create this new kingdom that
Rises From the Ashes but rather A Feast
for Crows is a feast for a crow the
ultimate Crow you're on Crow's ey grey
Joy Crow's eye you call me well who has
a Keener eye than the crow after every
battle the crows come in their hundreds
and their thousands to Feast upon the
Fallen a crow can aspy death from afar
and I say that all of westros is dying
those who follow me will Feast until the
end of their days now although I'm not a
fan of the book split between A Feast
for Crows and A Dance with Dragons I do
appreciate how each book focuses on
their own respective super villain this
book with euron Greyjoy and A Dance with
Dragons with Ramsay Bolton and it'll be
very interesting to see how their
stories get followed up on in the Winds
of Winter as that book Promises to tell
the continuation of the stories that
take place in both these books in
addition to the politics of Dorne and
the iron Islands which I really like
especially Dorne the number one thing
that I'm a huge fan of in this book and
I love that 17 of the 46 chapters are
dedicated to this are the Cersei
Lannister chapters and the Jamie
Lannister chapters Cersei Lannister
she's all over this book she is a
fantastic POV character it is just so
hilariously dark and wonderfully
interesting to get into the head of this
villainess who just does everything in
her power to completely shoot herself in
the foot by driving a wedge between her
and the
tyrells by electing this witless Council
it's it's just fantastically hilarious
and I loved every single Cersei chapter
especially the ones where she interacts
with Jamie Lannister who's also our
second Mega POV of this book let all of
King's Landing see the Flames it will be
a lesson to our enemies
now you sound like ays her nostrils
flared guard your tongue sir I love you
too sweet sister she also makes the
baffling decision to arm the faith
essentially creating a faith militant
group in order to quote unquote protect
the King's Landing and It ultimately
backfires on her in the very end in the
most just a tragically Karma esque way
possible like she did all this horrible
stuff she slept around with all these
King's guards people just so that she
could get them on her side so that she
can attempt to assassinate Queen
margorie who by the way also has this
moment at the very end where she
completes her character Arc and she sees
Cersei for who she really is will you
make me call my golers and have you
dragged away you vile scheming evil
it's just beautiful and her
descent into paranoia also parallels
Jaime's own Journey as he kind of Rises
towards becoming the Knight that he was
never seen as this honorable Knight
jimie has this wonderful moment in the
riverlands where a he ends a Siege at
riverrun in the most bloodless way
possible so that he keeps his promise to
catlyn Stark where he didn't raise arms
against Tully or Stark B he also
dismisses a lot of the phrase just kind
of showing that you know these phases
are just terrible people like good
riddance to them and see his time away
allows him to kind of think to himself
and realize that hey cersei's kind of
not a fun person to be around who is
this woman that I once loved come at
once she said help me save me I need you
now as I have never needed you before I
love you I love you I love you come at
once does my Lord wish to answer the
maester asked after a long silence a
snowflake landed on the letter as it
melted the ink began to blur Jimmy
rolled the parchment up again as tight
as one hand would allow and handed it to
PE no he said put this in the fire to go
from the very first book where Jamie and
Cersei were uh having some incestuous
moments to jimie just kind of completely
blackballing her sister and it's a very
good conclusion to a character Arc
there's other moments from this book
that I really enjoyed I I loved Sansa
kind of slowly learning to play the game
in the veil as she kind of starts
learning how to lie a little bit despite
the fact that little finger comes across
as a creep especially in a second readr
oh my gosh like he's like forcing him
forcing her to kiss him and it's and
then criticizing it's like oh was that
really a kiss you should kiss me more
daughter it's like oh and then arya's
training journey and then Samuel finally
arrives at Oldtown after having to say
tragic goodbye to a and Targaryen
there's a lot of other moments that I
really like from this story that just I
think Make A Feast for crows and overall
very great read and again if you can
separate the fact that this isn't the
full story then I think you'll come away
really loving this book so all in all
ladies and gentlemen character Split
Decision aside I thought this was
George's strongest work and I am looking
forward to seeing if you guys consider
this to be maybe your favorite book or
most misunderstood book or what you guys
just think about A Feast for Crows my
next video will be a review of a first
time read through of a book called
Knights of the Seven Kingdoms which
consists of three novellas following the
adventures of Duncan egg it's a book
also written by George R Martin and I'm
really looking forward to reading that
book I I feel like I need a pallet
cleanser after after A Feast for Crows
don't get me wrong I I love these books
but I feel like if I keep going at the
pace that I'm going I'm going to get
burned out by this series the dance with
dragon was my least favorite book on a
first readr and I feel like I'm not
going to be very positive on this book
on a second read through if I'm feeling
burned out so I just kind of want to
take a little bit of a break from the
main series and just kind of focus on
something else uh from George AR Mar's
catalog well will to still staying
within my wheelhouse and not completely
uh alienating myself to well the 12 of
you that watch these videos which thank
you very much by the way for those of
you who do I I really appreciate it
thank you so much so please look forward
to that ladies and gentlemen in the
meantime have a merry Christmas happy
Hanukkah happy New Year whatever you
choose to celebrate guys and I'll see
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