0:02 merry Christmas happy Hanukkah and happy
0:04 New Year ladies and gentlemen my name is
0:06 the advocate and today I am an advocate
0:15 review that's right ladies and gentlemen
0:16 I have returned once again I've
0:19 completed a reread of A Feast for Crows
0:21 I've got some thoughts so I decided hey
0:24 why not once again provide another video
0:26 review A Feast for Crows is the fourth
0:27 book in the aong Of Ice And Fire series
0:29 written by George R Martin it was
0:33 published on October 17th 2005 and I
0:36 honestly think this might be my most
0:39 improved Book on a second read through
0:41 so much improved that I was jumping for
0:43 joy and decided that hey I think I might
0:47 as well go to Oldtown here and uh do a
0:49 review of this book by the way don't
0:52 mind the uh the edges here uh the
0:54 dragons are just doing some weird things
0:57 here with with Oldtown now back when
0:59 this book was first released in 2005
1:01 there was a lot of hype and anticipation
1:04 in the book reading world for this book
1:06 A Storm of Swords the book prior to A
1:08 Feast for Crows was for many people
1:09 their entry point into the assang of
1:11 isce And Fire series so a lot of people
1:12 were really looking forward to seeing
1:14 how the story followed up A Storm of
1:17 Swords in fact there was so much hype
1:19 for this book that A Feast for Crows
1:21 became the first book in The A Song Of
1:23 Ice And Fire series to hit number one on
1:25 the New York Times bestsellers list
1:27 unfortunately five years of hype in
1:29 anticipation didn't really do this book
1:31 any favors a lot of people were
1:33 disappointed with the content of the
1:35 book when it was first released now part
1:38 of that had to do with the fact that you
1:40 know after spending so much time in
1:43 development not many things could live
1:45 up to 5 years worth of hype however
1:47 there was something else about this book
1:50 that didn't exactly please people many
1:51 articles criticize the content of A
1:53 Feast for Crows for being too Bleak and
1:55 plotting and lamented the fact that many
1:57 of the key characters whose stories
1:59 people wanted to follow up on were being
2:01 held off for A Dance with Dragons you
2:03 see not all the characters from A Storm
2:05 of Swords receive followup in A Feast
2:08 for Crows in fact half the point of view
2:09 characters that we've come to know In
2:11 Love from the previous entries in the
2:13 series are actually held off for the
2:15 companion book to A Feast for Crows
2:17 called The Dance with Dragons the fifth
2:19 book in the series now originally George
2:21 had typed out a manuscript where he
2:23 wanted to tell the story for all the
2:25 characters we've come to know and love
2:26 in addition to a few additional
2:28 characters however what he soon found
2:31 out was that the book was becoming
2:33 incredibly large it was getting to
2:36 unpublishable lengths and therefore he
2:37 needed to make some sort of decision in
2:39 order to split the narrative George
2:41 explained in the case of A Dance with
2:43 Dragons which was the book I thought I
2:45 was writing at the time I'm passing A
2:47 Storm of Swords and page count length
2:48 and I've hardly started some of the
2:50 story lines yet I'd originally in a
2:52 crazy sense of optimism had hoped to
2:54 deliver A Dance with Dragons in 2002 so
2:57 it could be published in 2003 so now
2:59 we're into like 2005 and it's still not
3:01 out and it's still not finished and it's
3:04 not even close to being finished well
3:07 what do I have to do what are my choices
3:08 now George's decision to split the
3:10 narrative between A Feast for Crows and
3:12 A Dance with Dragons wasn't
3:13 chronological like a lot of people
3:16 believed it was going to be but rather
3:18 geographically meaning that the
3:20 characters that were predominantly based
3:22 in King's Landing would have their own
3:24 story to tell on A Feast for Crows
3:27 meanwhile during the same timeline
3:29 characters that had stories at the wall
3:32 north of the wall or an OS would also be
3:34 participating in their own story which
3:36 was happening chronologically congruent
3:38 with the events of A Feast for Crows
3:40 George explains his reasoning for this
3:43 in his May 29 2005 na blog it was my
3:45 feeling that we were better off telling
3:47 all the story for half the characters
3:49 rather than half the story for all the
3:51 characters cutting the novel in half
3:54 would have produced two half novels our
3:56 approach will produce two novels taking
3:59 place simultaneously but set hundreds or
4:01 even thousands of miles apart and
4:03 involving different casts of
4:05 characters although George's intentions
4:07 are good it's rationale for wanting to
4:09 tell the full story for half the
4:10 characters ultimately contradicts what
4:13 wound up happening with both volumes you
4:15 see the story of A Feast for Crows takes
4:18 place roughly within a 5mon span however
4:20 the story of A Dance with Dragons
4:22 actually goes about 3 months past the
4:24 end of A Feast for Crows meaning that
4:26 not only are both books not an exact
4:28 even split of the same timeline but the
4:30 events of A Feast for Crows aren't even
4:32 the full story for half the characters
4:34 it promised to tell George believes that
4:36 this Geographic split was the best
4:38 solution given the circumstances however
4:40 I believe that there was a better
4:41 alternative to this large story
4:44 conundrum first of all A Feast for Crow
4:47 and especially A Dance with Dragons have
4:49 a bit of a bloat problem I'll touch on
4:50 the bloat problems in A Dance with
4:52 Dragons whenever we review that book in
4:54 a separate video however when looking
4:56 specifically at A Feast for Crows this
4:58 book has the longest chapters in the
5:00 series although each of the first three
5:02 books in theong of is And Fire series
5:04 saw linear increases in their chapter
5:06 lengths when analyzing average words per
5:08 chapter A Feast for Crows experienced a
5:10 dramatic increase in chapter length when
5:12 compared to a Storm of Swords the
5:14 difference is especially noticeable when
5:16 looking at the average page count of
5:19 21.2 pages per chapter now there's
5:21 nothing particularly wrong with having
5:23 longer chapters but not all the chapters
5:26 in this book justify their length in
5:28 fact you can eliminate about 87 pages
5:30 from this book and nothing of substance
5:32 would be necessarily lost from the story
5:34 besides some of the iron Islands
5:36 chapters there's a key POV character
5:38 whose story drags quite a bit at the
5:40 beginning I'll delve more into that in
5:43 the spoiler section if you remove the
5:45 unnecessary pages from both A Feast for
5:47 Crows and A Dance with Dragons you're
5:49 left with two tightly written books that
5:51 have substantially more breathing room
5:53 to maneuver some of the chapters around
5:55 without delving too deeply into spoilers
5:57 there's a specific plot twist and A
5:58 Feast for Crows where you could
6:00 conceivably end the the book and come
6:02 away satisfied with the story if you
6:04 intertwin the events of A Feast for
6:06 Crows and A Dance with Dragons that
6:09 occur prior to this plot twist not only
6:10 have you included everyone's story in
6:13 this alternative of Feast for Crows but
6:14 you can also continue the story right
6:16 from this plot twist in A Dance with
6:20 Dragons in chronological order moreover
6:21 the extra breathing room left behind by
6:24 the removal of bloat from both books
6:26 could have allowed George to include his
6:27 famous missing A Dance with Dragons
6:29 chapters that ultimately got pushed back
6:32 to the Winds of Winter thus bringing A
6:34 Dance with Dragons to a more satisfying
6:36 conclusion now last year when I read A
6:38 Feast for Crows for the first time I was
6:40 warned ahead of time that both this book
6:43 and A Dance with Dragons were two halves
6:45 of the same story and I knew that was
6:47 going to frustrate the heck out of me
6:49 because I wanted to find out what
6:50 happened with all of the characters
6:53 following A Storm of Swords so I went
6:55 online and found a reading order called
6:57 the all leather must be boiled reading
7:01 order and essentially what that is is a
7:02 comprehensive list of all the chapters
7:04 in both A Feast for Crows and A Dance
7:07 with Dragons but organized in a way
7:11 where you tell this one giant story but
7:14 told in a chronological Manner and I
7:15 went about and did that for my first
7:17 read through however the problem with
7:19 the all leather must be boiled reading
7:22 order is that because both A Feast for
7:23 Crows and A Dance with Dragons have a
7:25 bit of bloat to them not only is it a
7:28 massive massive undertaking to read
7:31 2,000 Pages worth of material in one
7:34 read through but what you get is a book
7:38 that feels just substantially bloed
7:41 there's so many POV characters there's a
7:44 lot going on all at once you also go 50
7:46 chapters between some of these POV
7:49 characters you tend to forget oh like
7:50 this person what was what was this
7:52 person up to again like it's been so
7:54 long since I've read about that person's
7:57 POV however I think for my intents and
8:00 purposes I preferred
8:02 that as opposed to having read both
8:05 books separately now if you as a
8:07 firsttime reader decide that hey I want
8:09 to go and just read these books
8:12 separately I don't want to do a weird
8:13 reading order in order to combine these
8:16 chapters chronologically you can read
8:18 this book by itself and I think honestly
8:21 you'll come away having a good time
8:23 reading it but the fact that so many
8:26 characters are missing from this story
8:28 I'm just not a fan of it now the
8:30 character split was one the things that
8:31 George struggled with when he was trying
8:33 to write A Feast for Crows the other
8:36 being he was struggling with what he
8:38 eventually called the 5-year Gap problem
8:41 essentially what that boils down to is
8:43 he wanted to do a 5-year Gap at the end
8:46 of A Storm of Swords in order to grow up
8:47 some of the child characters and have
8:49 them grow into the roles that were
8:50 designated for them in the previous
8:53 books however George later explained in
8:55 an interview that there was a couple of
8:57 logistical problems that were involved
8:59 with performing a 5-year Gap in the
9:01 story story initially I started with the
9:03 intention of skipping a number of years
9:05 after the end of A Storm of Swords and
9:07 picking up the story 5 years later the
9:08 intention there being to let some of the
9:11 younger child characters grow up a bit
9:13 and while it worked for them it didn't
9:15 work well for the adult characters who
9:17 were in the midst of things I struggled
9:19 with it as I found I had to do a lot of
9:21 flashbacks I had to postulate that
9:23 nothing much had happened in certain
9:25 story lines for 5 years which struck me
9:28 as false now your fondness For A Feast
9:32 for Crows will depend on how how willing
9:35 you are to invest yourself in planetos
9:37 as in the entire world that this series
9:40 takes place as a character A Feast for
9:43 Crows rather than narrowing the scope
9:46 towards a conclusion rather surprisingly
9:50 it decides to expand the lore of the
9:52 world and there's a lot of neat
9:55 interesting details about the world
9:58 specifically with regards to Dorne which
10:00 is in southern western R and the iron
10:03 Islands which are the islands where
10:06 Theon grey Joy grew up in however if you
10:09 just want to read about the characters
10:11 that you've previously learned about in
10:12 the series and you don't necessarily
10:14 have an interest in the politics and
10:17 minations of what's going on in the
10:19 other locations uh besides King's
10:21 Landing and Winterfell then you're
10:22 probably going to have a little bit of a
10:23 problem with the story because this
10:27 story does expand the scope and really
10:29 just delves into those other locations
10:31 now when you're reading the book you can
10:33 usually tell which chapters are the ones
10:36 that are going to delve into some of the
10:38 lore uh rather than using the
10:39 traditional chapter headers from the
10:41 previous books where you saw the name of
10:43 the person prior to reading the chapter
10:46 uh now you see something like the
10:49 prophet or captain of the guards or the
10:52 kraken's daughter and that usually
10:53 entails this particular chapter is from
10:57 the point of view from someone who is in
10:59 Dorne or from someone who is on the IR
11:02 Islands or from just whatever I do find
11:04 it interesting especially the dornish
11:07 chapters I I love the dornish chapters
11:09 the iron Islands I like them too not as
11:11 much as Dorne but again one of the
11:14 things that I have a problem with is
11:16 just some of the bloat there are a
11:18 couple of instances where I'm reading
11:22 all this information and I find myself
11:24 asking why am I reading about it I don't
11:27 need to know about uh the prophet Aaron
11:31 damp stepping on some weeds with his
11:33 black calloused feet I don't need to
11:36 know about Samuel tarley seeing a
11:38 woman's breasts the actual content when
11:40 it comes to the political situations in
11:44 these isolated areas is good but I don't
11:45 need to know about all these
11:47 miscellaneous details that don't really
11:49 build the world or don't really even
11:50 expand on the characters they're trying
11:53 to tell about it's just information
11:54 that's there for the sake of being
11:56 information so those are my general
11:57 thoughts guys with regards to the
12:00 structure of A Feast for Crows uh and
12:02 just what I think about the story in a
12:05 non-spoiler way if you can get past the
12:08 character split and some of the bloat
12:10 problems that plague this book A Feast
12:13 for Crows is George R Martin's strongest
12:16 Pros in the series seriously guys this
12:20 is in my opinion the best written book
12:23 of all the five books that I've read the
12:25 politics that go on the character
12:27 building it's fantastically immersive
12:29 there are so many monolog
12:32 there's so much description it's all
12:34 Vivid it's all in your head it's well
12:37 written and I hold that this if it
12:40 weren't for the character split this
12:43 would be the best book in the series but
12:44 with all that said guys there's a couple
12:45 things I want to go over in the spoiler
12:48 section so if you have not read A Feast
12:51 for Crows or A Dance with Dragons please
12:53 click off this video because I will be
12:55 going full bore on the spoilers for
12:57 Feast for Crows and that includes
13:00 information from the books prior to this
13:03 and the books that follow so beware now
13:05 I've touched on how this book has 87
13:08 Pages worth of bloat and filler and most
13:11 of those 87 Pages can be attributed to
13:12 one point of view character in
13:15 particular and that's Brian of Tarth now
13:16 personally I love the character of Brian
13:18 of tar I think she is a fantastic
13:19 interpretation of what a knight is
13:22 supposed to be in this world however the
13:25 adventure that she is on it's not my
13:28 favorite Story Jamie Lannister had set
13:30 Brienne to to go on this quest to
13:33 essentially find Sansa Stark however her
13:35 Adventure in the riverlands is slightly
13:37 frustrating to say the least especially
13:39 when you consider the fact that she's
13:41 not any closer to finding Sansa this
13:44 story hits way too many dead ends why am
13:46 I spending my time reading about
13:50 brienne's little adventure with a uh
13:53 dwarf in duskendale why am I spending my
13:57 time as she meets up with uh Shadrick
13:59 who is a knight that's
14:01 touched upon a little bit at the end of
14:03 the story her story only gets more
14:05 interesting when she comes across
14:08 padrick Payne and then especially H hunt
14:09 and you do get a lot of character
14:11 moments between the three of them and
14:12 it's wonderful especially when they meet
14:15 up with a septon who has the coolest
14:16 monologue in the book The Broken man
14:18 speech George could have easily moved
14:20 some of the highlights from some of
14:21 these chapters and essentially just
14:23 concentrated them as flashbacks in one
14:25 of the in one of the later Brienne
14:27 chapters she could have recounted oh
14:30 well on at one point in my story I met
14:32 up with Shadrick and we didn't do
14:34 anything or hey this dwarf told me to go
14:37 to this location in maidenpool and meet
14:39 up with this Nimble dick guy who told me
14:42 to go meet this fool not all of it but
14:44 quite a bit of it could have definitely
14:48 been shrunken down removed or just
14:49 played Up played at one of the later
14:51 chapters as flashback just so that the
14:53 reader is aware of what Brienne had done
14:55 without actually living through the
14:58 daytoday of what she is doing now this
15:00 does get remedied in the second half of
15:01 brienne's story when she meets up with
15:04 septon Mar bald and she goes to the
15:08 elder brother and she fights with biter
15:10 and then especially at the very end when
15:13 she has that very haunting haunting
15:15 encounter with lady stoneart who is the
15:18 resurrected Katan Stark but I personally
15:21 just wasn't a fan of some of the buildup
15:23 to get to that point now as I mentioned
15:26 previously I'm a huge fan of the
15:28 expansion of the lore however besides a
15:30 little bit of the problems another thing
15:33 that I have a problem with is the povs
15:35 that George chooses to tell the story of
15:37 the politics in the iron Islands the
15:40 prophet Aaron damp haare and the iron
15:42 Captain Victorian
15:46 Greyjoy both characters in my opinion
15:49 are not exactly the most fleshed out
15:52 characters to me they feel like one one
15:55 and a half dimensional characters now I
15:57 understand that both Aaron and victon's
15:58 purpose is to tell the story of theing
16:01 Kings moot through their eyes as they
16:04 see their evil super villain magical
16:06 brother euron Greyjoy get elected as
16:09 king of the iron Islands George wanted
16:12 to have eyeballs on euron grj without
16:15 necessarily making euron a point of view
16:16 character however I feel that there's
16:18 other characters who could have told
16:21 euron's story without necessarily
16:24 following victarion or Aaron damp haare
16:25 I think it would have been more
16:27 interesting to see euron's Rise Through
16:29 The Eyes of Asha Greyjoy who I do find
16:32 to be a very interesting character with
16:34 that said I do like the moment close to
16:36 the end of the king's moot where Aeron
16:38 gray Joy is absolutely terrified that
16:42 euron has been elected as king of the
16:43 iron Islands he's kind of bracing
16:46 himself for the worst in this haunting
16:49 moment of pathos the cry swelled became a
16:51 a roar
16:53 roar
16:57 Crow King it rolled up naga's hill like
17:00 the storm God rattling the CL s you're
17:04 on you're you're you're you're you're
17:06 even a priest May doubt even a prophet
17:09 May no tear Aaron damp reached within
17:12 himself for his God and discovered only
17:15 silence in my opinion euron crowy gray
17:17 Joy is easily just the most fascinating
17:21 and interesting Enigma within the series
17:23 so much so that you could say that the
17:25 title of Feast for Crows isn't
17:28 necessarily a metaphor for all the
17:31 people that are trying to scavenge the
17:34 corpses and create this new kingdom that
17:38 Rises From the Ashes but rather A Feast
17:41 for Crows is a feast for a crow the
17:43 ultimate Crow you're on Crow's ey grey
17:48 Joy Crow's eye you call me well who has
17:51 a Keener eye than the crow after every
17:53 battle the crows come in their hundreds
17:55 and their thousands to Feast upon the
17:59 Fallen a crow can aspy death from afar
18:02 and I say that all of westros is dying
18:04 those who follow me will Feast until the
18:07 end of their days now although I'm not a
18:09 fan of the book split between A Feast
18:11 for Crows and A Dance with Dragons I do
18:13 appreciate how each book focuses on
18:15 their own respective super villain this
18:17 book with euron Greyjoy and A Dance with
18:20 Dragons with Ramsay Bolton and it'll be
18:21 very interesting to see how their
18:23 stories get followed up on in the Winds
18:25 of Winter as that book Promises to tell
18:28 the continuation of the stories that
18:30 take place in both these books in
18:33 addition to the politics of Dorne and
18:34 the iron Islands which I really like
18:36 especially Dorne the number one thing
18:39 that I'm a huge fan of in this book and
18:42 I love that 17 of the 46 chapters are
18:44 dedicated to this are the Cersei
18:45 Lannister chapters and the Jamie
18:47 Lannister chapters Cersei Lannister
18:49 she's all over this book she is a
18:52 fantastic POV character it is just so
18:55 hilariously dark and wonderfully
18:56 interesting to get into the head of this
18:59 villainess who just does everything in
19:02 her power to completely shoot herself in
19:07 the foot by driving a wedge between her
19:08 and the
19:12 tyrells by electing this witless Council
19:14 it's it's just fantastically hilarious
19:17 and I loved every single Cersei chapter
19:19 especially the ones where she interacts
19:22 with Jamie Lannister who's also our
19:25 second Mega POV of this book let all of
19:27 King's Landing see the Flames it will be
19:29 a lesson to our enemies
19:31 now you sound like ays her nostrils
19:34 flared guard your tongue sir I love you
19:37 too sweet sister she also makes the
19:40 baffling decision to arm the faith
19:42 essentially creating a faith militant
19:46 group in order to quote unquote protect
19:48 the King's Landing and It ultimately
19:50 backfires on her in the very end in the
19:55 most just a tragically Karma esque way
19:57 possible like she did all this horrible
20:00 stuff she slept around with all these
20:02 King's guards people just so that she
20:05 could get them on her side so that she
20:07 can attempt to assassinate Queen
20:09 margorie who by the way also has this
20:11 moment at the very end where she
20:14 completes her character Arc and she sees
20:17 Cersei for who she really is will you
20:18 make me call my golers and have you
20:21 dragged away you vile scheming evil
20:24 it's just beautiful and her
20:28 descent into paranoia also parallels
20:31 Jaime's own Journey as he kind of Rises
20:34 towards becoming the Knight that he was
20:37 never seen as this honorable Knight
20:39 jimie has this wonderful moment in the
20:41 riverlands where a he ends a Siege at
20:43 riverrun in the most bloodless way
20:45 possible so that he keeps his promise to
20:47 catlyn Stark where he didn't raise arms
20:50 against Tully or Stark B he also
20:52 dismisses a lot of the phrase just kind
20:54 of showing that you know these phases
20:56 are just terrible people like good
20:59 riddance to them and see his time away
21:01 allows him to kind of think to himself
21:03 and realize that hey cersei's kind of
21:05 not a fun person to be around who is
21:08 this woman that I once loved come at
21:12 once she said help me save me I need you
21:14 now as I have never needed you before I
21:17 love you I love you I love you come at
21:19 once does my Lord wish to answer the
21:22 maester asked after a long silence a
21:24 snowflake landed on the letter as it
21:27 melted the ink began to blur Jimmy
21:29 rolled the parchment up again as tight
21:31 as one hand would allow and handed it to
21:36 PE no he said put this in the fire to go
21:39 from the very first book where Jamie and
21:43 Cersei were uh having some incestuous
21:48 moments to jimie just kind of completely
21:51 blackballing her sister and it's a very
21:53 good conclusion to a character Arc
21:54 there's other moments from this book
21:57 that I really enjoyed I I loved Sansa
21:59 kind of slowly learning to play the game
22:01 in the veil as she kind of starts
22:03 learning how to lie a little bit despite
22:04 the fact that little finger comes across
22:06 as a creep especially in a second readr
22:08 oh my gosh like he's like forcing him
22:10 forcing her to kiss him and it's and
22:12 then criticizing it's like oh was that
22:13 really a kiss you should kiss me more
22:17 daughter it's like oh and then arya's
22:19 training journey and then Samuel finally
22:21 arrives at Oldtown after having to say
22:23 tragic goodbye to a and Targaryen
22:25 there's a lot of other moments that I
22:27 really like from this story that just I
22:30 think Make A Feast for crows and overall
22:32 very great read and again if you can
22:35 separate the fact that this isn't the
22:38 full story then I think you'll come away
22:40 really loving this book so all in all
22:42 ladies and gentlemen character Split
22:44 Decision aside I thought this was
22:47 George's strongest work and I am looking
22:49 forward to seeing if you guys consider
22:52 this to be maybe your favorite book or
22:54 most misunderstood book or what you guys
22:56 just think about A Feast for Crows my
22:59 next video will be a review of a first
23:01 time read through of a book called
23:03 Knights of the Seven Kingdoms which
23:05 consists of three novellas following the
23:08 adventures of Duncan egg it's a book
23:10 also written by George R Martin and I'm
23:11 really looking forward to reading that
23:13 book I I feel like I need a pallet
23:15 cleanser after after A Feast for Crows
23:17 don't get me wrong I I love these books
23:18 but I feel like if I keep going at the
23:20 pace that I'm going I'm going to get
23:22 burned out by this series the dance with
23:23 dragon was my least favorite book on a
23:25 first readr and I feel like I'm not
23:26 going to be very positive on this book
23:28 on a second read through if I'm feeling
23:30 burned out so I just kind of want to
23:31 take a little bit of a break from the
23:33 main series and just kind of focus on
23:35 something else uh from George AR Mar's
23:36 catalog well will to still staying
23:40 within my wheelhouse and not completely
23:42 uh alienating myself to well the 12 of
23:44 you that watch these videos which thank
23:45 you very much by the way for those of
23:46 you who do I I really appreciate it
23:48 thank you so much so please look forward
23:50 to that ladies and gentlemen in the
23:51 meantime have a merry Christmas happy
23:53 Hanukkah happy New Year whatever you
23:55 choose to celebrate guys and I'll see
