My take on why AFfC and partially ADwD was a flop for many

[The Fattest Leech]

1 minute ago, JonisHenryTudor said:

Yes as do I...

Dream of Spring is pretty swell too. But for most fans it might as well be Dream of a Conclusion

 

[bent branch]

I have been reading recently about anticipation and satisfaction and I think it applies very much to the debate of AFFC/ADWD. Basically what the studies are saying is that individuals satisfaction with something derives from what their anticipation or expectation of that thing was. Your premise that people were unhappy with the novel because their wasn't much of the Starks in it could be one of the expectations that were unmet for some people.

I first read the first four novels after the first season of the show. I bought a four book bundle for my e-reader and read the first four books like one large novel.  All four of the books flowed one into another for me. I didn't miss any of the characters. I didn't feel the pacing was off. I didn't feel the main storyline got lost. From my perspective AFFC was a continuation of the main storyline and that story was getting better and better. Obviously I don't think AFFC or ADWD are boring, bloated or filler.

Most of the complaints against AFFC/ADWD are subjective. When someone says something like "it's boring" or "there are too many characters" it is impossible to argue with them, because that is what they feel. For them that is what the truth will be until it isn't anymore. The one claim that is made that isn't subjective is that the books are full of filler. I feel this criticism is just wrong. GRRM said he had to write these books before he could tell the rest of the story because there were too many things that he was having to explain in retrospect. As I said, I don't think these books were filler or a wandering away from the main storyline. I think all of the storylines in these books are pertinent.

[Esa1996]

A book needs either good POVs or interesting events. Preferably both. AGOT - ASOS have both. AFFC has neither. ADWD has some of both. If the POVs are good I don't mind if the pace is slow. I've got through many books where nothing happened but I cared about the POVs so I didn't mind (eg. Crossroads of Twilight). I've also gotten through some where I didn't really care about any of the characters but the events were interesting enough to keep me going (eg. Gardens of the Moon). The latter kind tend to be harder to push through, for some reason. Now for AFFC and ADWD.

AFFC: 1. Nothing happens? Check. Apart from the very end there is nothing interesting in the book and even the end is pretty lame considering it's an ending. 2. I don't care about the POVs? Check? Jaime was great as usual. A few others were okay. Roughly half were plain boring.

ADWD: 1. Nothing happens? Check? Some stuff happened and some more stuff was about to happen in the end but it got moved onto TWOW. Again the ending was lame for an ending, but at least it would've probably been pretty good had it not been cut. 2. I don't care about the POVs? In ADWD I actually did care about quite a few POVs. There were still POVs like Quentyn whom I consider totally needless, but at least we had Jon, Tyrion and Dany. As can be expected, I rate ADWD far above AFFC.

[JonCon's Red Beard]

I already wrote this in other place. People feel disappointed about Feast because the expectations they have about the books. I used the example of Signs: many hate that movie because "it doesn't explain the aliens!!". That movie is not about aliens, is about a man losing his faith and finding it back: the aliens are just the way in which he does that. If you drop the "we need to have a final CGI battle at the end with scientists explaining all!!" mentality, you can enjoy the movie for what it is, a beautiful story full with symbolism and amazing cinematography and direction work. The same with Feast and Dance: it has beautiful prose, the new characters all delightful, we see new places, and specially, the fight to find their own identities is even bigger than before.

Feast, for me, it’s like Martin’s refractory period. After A Storm of Swords, many people expect Martin to keep giving readers one and many shivers and twists. But, from a literary or narrative point of view, this was impossible. At some point, the characters were going to start to deal with the consequences of those killings and backstabbings. And the story was definitely going to change after the death of important people. This is the “end of an era” and the beginning of a new one (hence why it does feel like a prologue).

[Farerb]

2 minutes ago, JonCon's Red Beard said:

I already wrote this in other place. People feel disappointed about Feast because the expectations they have about the books. I used the example of Signs: many hate that movie because "it doesn't explain the aliens!!". That movie is not about aliens, is about a man losing his faith and finding it back: the aliens are just the way in which he does that. If you drop the "we need to have a final CGI battle at the end with scientists explaining all!!" mentality, you can enjoy the movie for what it is, a beautiful story full with symbolism and amazing cinematography and direction work. The same with Feast and Dance: it has beautiful prose, the new characters all delightful, we see new places, and specially, the fight to find their own identities is even bigger than before.

Feast, for me, it’s like Martin’s refractory period. After A Storm of Swords, many people expect Martin to keep giving readers one and many shivers and twists. But, from a literary or narrative point of view, this was impossible. At some point, the characters were going to start to deal with the consequences of those killings and backstabbings. And the story was definitely going to change after the death of important people. This is the “end of an era” and the beginning of a new one (hence why it does feel like a prologue).

Exactly! I think there are people who don't understand the importance of the quiet moments that let the characters deal with the consequences of every twist and every plot point that has happened to them. It's important for character development to see how the wars and the bloodsheds and the conquests have affected them as well as preparing them to what's to come. Characters development is no less important than moving the plot forward.

[Ibbison from Ibben]

a few points

GRRM had us speeding along in overdrive at the end of ASoS, then he downshifted to 2nd gear in AFfC. I didn't mind that (in fact I like the variety), but some people didn't. You have to take your time with Feast to appreciate the characterization.

I didn't mind the split format, but I found the split to be unbalanced. If Dany and Tyrion are in one book, Jon should be in the other, if at all possible.

In Feast, Dorne and the Iron Islands were scattered across too many POVs. (9 chapters, 6 POVs.) Arianne is the main protagonist in Dorne; tell the story exclusively from her POV. In the Iron Islands, Aeron Greyjoy was a mistake as a POV. Concentrate on Asha and Victarion (proxy for Euron).

Dance needed some editing. Jon, Dany, and Tyrion storylines could have been tightened up by at least 1 chapter each.

Feast actually came out a bit short, although that was deliberate. They wanted to get back to Game/Clash sized books after the very long Storm. I think, in hindsight, that was a mistake. If some content had been moved to a longer Feast, there might have been enough room in Dance to show the battles that were cut.

[Dorian Martell]

On 4/4/2016 at 7:56 PM, Lord Parker said:

 Thoughts?

The only reason people were disappoint is time. half a decade and they mostly get new P.o.v.s from previously minor characters. It took over a half a decade for the next book, and during all that time, fans ramped up their expectations. Feast is actually the best written book of the series, but captain one hand, the ugly giant woman, the fat guy from the wall and the crazy woman who tries to solve everything with sex are not the fav characters that fans wanted, so people poo poo the book 

[HexMachina]

2 minutes ago, Dorian Martell said:

The only reason people were disappoint is time. half a decade and they mostly get new P.o.v.s from previously minor characters. It took over a half a decade for the next book, and during all that time, fans ramped up their expectations. Feast is actually the best written book of the series, but captain one hand, the ugly giant woman, the fat guy from the wall and the crazy woman who tries to solve everything with sex are not the fav characters that fans wanted, so people poo poo the book 

That's not true at all though, as it assumes all readers of AFFC and ADWD experienced those long waits between books, when that isn't the case at all. Many will have jumped into the series later, with the release of one book or the other, or when the HBO adaptation began. So the long wait does not really explain things

[Dorian Martell]

1 minute ago, HelenaExMachina said:

That's not true at all though, as it assumes all readers of AFFC and ADWD experienced those long waits between books, when that isn't the case at all. Many will have jumped into the series later, with the release of one book or the other, or when the HBO adaptation began. So the long wait does not really explain things

Your exception does not invalidate my now highlighted proposition. 

[Daendrew]

Combining it into the FeastDance reading order, as recommended by Boiled Leather made it far more enjoyable.  I did it with the audiobook. 

I think Feast is unjustly pilloried. This is the end of the second act where things are steaming up for the third... setting up the finale.  I am biased however because I read them back to back and didn't have years in between unlike other readers.

The undead are coming, a multi-civil war is coming while Cersei, with the help of Petyr, almost singlehandedly destroys the kingdom. Plus, Septon Meribald's speech is incredible.

You can't have nonstop assassinations and purple bar mitzvahs. Just as Doran was the grass that hid the Red Viper; Feast is the calm before the night.

[The King Who Cared]

16 hours ago, JonCon's Red Beard said:

 People feel disappointed about Feast because the expectations they have about the books.

You're right. Like the first three books, I expected Feast to be good, but it failed to meet those expectations.

[WilliamWesterosiWallace]

I think that an easy way to "fix" AFFC (or break it completely) would've been to put Bran's chapters in AFFC. It'd be really weird, parallel-wise, but it'd fix the Stark quota. Problem is, it'd add another set of boring chapters to AFFC.

[bent branch]

7 hours ago, Dorian Martell said:

The only reason people were disappoint is time. half a decade and they mostly get new P.o.v.s from previously minor characters. It took over a half a decade for the next book, and during all that time, fans ramped up their expectations. Feast is actually the best written book of the series, but captain one hand, the ugly giant woman, the fat guy from the wall and the crazy woman who tries to solve everything with sex are not the fav characters that fans wanted, so people poo poo the book 

 

7 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

That's not true at all though, as it assumes all readers of AFFC and ADWD experienced those long waits between books, when that isn't the case at all. Many will have jumped into the series later, with the release of one book or the other, or when the HBO adaptation began. So the long wait does not really explain things

I hope the two of you don't mind, but your posts kind of highlight something I have noticed about AFFC on Goodreads. I will end up agreeing and disagreeing with you both.

Anyhow, I have noticed that the rating for AFFC has gone up from 4.06 to 4.07 in the time I have noticed what the book's rating is on the website. Big whoopy doo, you may be thinking, but it really is kind of amazing. The reason is that AFFC has hundreds of thousands of ratings. After this many ratings the overall rating of the book should be in relative equilibrium since it would take thousands of votes all in the same direction to move the rating even the little bit it has moved. Since I first looked up AFFC on Goodreads there have been over 40,000 additional ratings. The slight movement upwards would indicated that these ratings have been more positive than negative. I was so amazed to see even this small amount of movement, so I went and read the reviews for this year and all of 2015.

Helena is right in that there are newer readers who never had to wait for the book who rated it 2 or 3 (but very, very few 1s), so the wait for the book is not the entire reason for the unhappiness with the book. However, older reviews of the books are more negative and do reflect some dissatisfaction with the wait for the book.

But, the most interesting thing about the reviews from this year and last is how often this sentiment is expressed, "Wow, I heard this book was really bad. It's nowhere near as bad as I had heard." And 4 or 5 stars were usually attached to reviews that expressed this sentiment. I think this goes back to what I and Dorian said about expectations only in the opposite direction. In this case people were led to believe the book was really horrible and they were pleasantly surprised to find that isn't true so they potentially gave the book a little higher rating than they might have otherwise in their relief.

I have always maintained that the criticisms of AFFC were greatly exaggerated.

 

12 hours ago, Ibbison from Ibben said:

a few points

GRRM had us speeding along in overdrive at the end of ASoS, then he downshifted to 2nd gear in AFfC. I didn't mind that (in fact I like the variety), but some people didn't. You have to take your time with Feast to appreciate the characterization.

I didn't mind the split format, but I found the split to be unbalanced. If Dany and Tyrion are in one book, Jon should be in the other, if at all possible.

In Feast, Dorne and the Iron Islands were scattered across too many POVs. (9 chapters, 6 POVs.) Arianne is the main protagonist in Dorne; tell the story exclusively from her POV. In the Iron Islands, Aeron Greyjoy was a mistake as a POV. Concentrate on Asha and Victarion (proxy for Euron).

Dance needed some editing. Jon, Dany, and Tyrion storylines could have been tightened up by at least 1 chapter each.

Feast actually came out a bit short, although that was deliberate. They wanted to get back to Game/Clash sized books after the very long Storm. I think, in hindsight, that was a mistake. If some content had been moved to a longer Feast, there might have been enough room in Dance to show the battles that were cut.

The bolded is a common sentiment that I disagree with. None of the other Greyjoys are of a religious bent. This means Aeron is really the only one that we could get a good look at the IB religion from. If we reach the end of the book and the IB religion doesn't feature prominently in the War for the Dawn, then I will agree that Aegon was a bad choice. However, I think the IB religion will be very important and we needed information about the religion that would have been out of character for any of the other Greyjoys.

[Faereth]

Righty following up from my previous post, have just finished re-reading the both of them. 

AFFC - I actually didn't mind it so much this time. I think what was jarring first time around was that it was the limited pool of POV's that were written. Now I understand GRRM's reasons but for me that is part of the reason why this book will never be my favourite. 

ADWD - I've got to say I still struggled with this one.

- Tyrion's chapters with Aegon didn't annoy me half so much as the first time around although it still grates a bit that there is this supposedly new big player for the IT when we've gotten so used to everyone else. 

-Quentyn Martell. I struggled a lot with these chapters, especially just the sheer number of new names that we are bombarded with in his chapters (same with Mereen) but I could appreciate their worth more this time around. There is something about them that for me personally just didn't fit with the rest of the book. 

Victarion - It's either that I just really don't like his character, or he's badly written. I just found him very basic and a bit of a cliche. Not a fan of his chapters, although I did like the parts about how we glean a bit of his childhood, how he couldn't understand when he was being mocked and hated being laughed at - much like Theon was driven to his actions at Winterfell because he didn't want to be laughed at. 

But those above are all personal things I think. My biggest problem with ADWD is the pacing and also the editing. 

I lost count of the number of times floppy bunny ears and as useless as nipples on a breastplate were used. This is either deliberate and GRRM is going to have a big reveal that the nipples on the breastplate actually are useful (har!) or it's bad editing. 

Also the book is very frustrating. Cliff hangers galore sometimes left halfway through it like with Davos and Jamie. But I guess that's because we've been waiting so long...

Basically I think splitting half in AFFC and then half in the first part of ADWD just didn't really work for me, and some of the new POV's for me didn't work.  

[Cas Stark]

On 4/10/2016 at 2:31 AM, farerb said:

Exactly! I think there are people who don't understand the importance of the quiet moments that let the characters deal with the consequences of every twist and every plot point that has happened to them. It's important for character development to see how the wars and the bloodsheds and the conquests have affected them as well as preparing them to what's to come. Characters development is no less important than moving the plot forward.

I'm not sure what character development people are talking about in Feast.

Other than Cersei and Jamie who have development and Cersei has an actual story arc, I don't know what people are talking about here.  Sansa and Arya undergo no serious character development.  Brienne and Sam are exactly the same as they were at the start.  Brienne did al lot of random stuff, but she didn't change in any fundamental way.

The rest of the characters are new and none of them either undergo any character evolution.  So, I must say that I feel this is an excuse that people use for a "novel" that is for the most part a collection of random chapters that do not fit together plotwise or thematically.

Dance has a different problem of being woefully overwritten and poorly edited. And repetitious.  But at least there is some character evolution and development and what could reasonably be called story arcs, to be found burried in the midst of authorial eccentricities and more random POVs.

[WSmith84]

On 4/10/2016 at 3:24 AM, JonCon's Red Beard said:

I already wrote this in other place. People feel disappointed about Feast because the expectations they have about the books. I used the example of Signs: many hate that movie because "it doesn't explain the aliens!!". That movie is not about aliens, is about a man losing his faith and finding it back: the aliens are just the way in which he does that. If you drop the "we need to have a final CGI battle at the end with scientists explaining all!!" mentality, you can enjoy the movie for what it is, a beautiful story full with symbolism and amazing cinematography and direction work. The same with Feast and Dance: it has beautiful prose, the new characters all delightful, we see new places, and specially, the fight to find their own identities is even bigger than before.

Well, Signs has plenty of problems not related to the aliens, although aliens invading a planet primarily made up of a substance that is deadly to them is a pretty big freaking plot hole if you ask me. It has Shyamalan's tropes all over it: pretentious dialogue, no one speaks like an actual human being, obvious symbolism and 'hidden' meanings etc. I don't think Signs is as bad as, say, The Happening (poor Mark Wahlberg) and definitely not as bad as Lady in the Water, but I don't think it's any kind of measure of quality.

Feast and Dance do have real problems, and they can't all be brushed away with 'not what we were expecting' or 'long wait to be released.' Feast, for all people claim it is a character development book, actually develops relatively little character. Jaime and Cersei, yes. Brienne, a tiny bit. Sam constantly feels like he's developing and then regressing, so much so that he seems to be in pretty much the exact same position as when he started. Now, many of the characters in Feast are new and so are being established rather than developed. Which leads to the next problem...

Some of the new PoVs are just not interesting. You can make all the arguments about the merits of Hotah as a PoV, but the man has no personality of his own. And that makes his chapters dull. I'd much rather read about what happens in Dorne solely from Arianne's PoV. Ditto with Asha and the Iron Islands. We did not need three PoVs to see the Kingsmoot. Now, maybe this is all personal opinion, but I bet if you conducted a poll and asked if Feast would be better off with or without Aeron and Hotah's PoVs, the answer would be 'without.'

Both Feast and Dance have an awful lot of bloat. I feel like you could cut a good chunk of Brienne, Tyrion and Daenerys' chapters without losing anything. The themes and such are still there, and you'd have a tighter read. We did not need the amount of chapters we had to learn 'ruling is hard', 'compromise is necessary', 'war is hardest on the poorest' etc. Dany's chapters are mostly the same thing over and over with slightly different framing; reading them in succession makes it really obvious how repetitive they are.

There are very few plot arcs that are resolved, as well. AGOT managed to set up and complete several story arcs whilst setting up ones for future books, so I don't buy that we shouldn't criticise Feast and Dance because they are just setting the stage. Very few of the existing plots or the new ones that are introduced are solved by the end of Feast or Dance.

Saying all that, Dance is my second favourite book. But I can't deny that it is flawed.