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Do you like Feast and Dance?


miyuki

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On 8/16/2019 at 9:21 AM, Ser Arthur Hightower said:

Feast suffers from the problem of having too many new characters and plots introduced. This isn't too much of a problem in rereads because you are familiar with the characters and understand their place in the plot a bit better, and you're probably not reading as impatiently since you have already been through it before anyway. But a big problem is that 22/46 chapters are Dorne, Iron Islands, Brienne and Sam, I cared about none of those things when I first read the books. I definitely have grown to like those a lot more now, especially the Iron Islands and Brienne plots, but I've got to admit I don't like Sam's chapters in that book.

The other stuff: 24/46 chapters, is Arya, Sansa, Cersei and Jaime, and I did like all of that when I first read it, and still like it now.

ADwD is a book I will defend to the death and then some. Would it have been better if we could have had Meereen and Winterfell in this instead of Winds? Maybe, but it was getting to the point where he could not put more stuff in the book, and honestly I enjoyed the buildup enough that I don't really care as much about getting the "payoff" in the form of battles.

I think Dance actually stands out from the other books as to just how much depth and character is going on. Not to say that the other books don't have that, just that I think Dance has more, and does it better. There is a crazy amount of analysis of Dance on the internet, mostly focused on the big 3 (Jon, Dany and Tyrion), but there's also a lot around more minor characters as well: Theon's brilliant chapters, Davos's short but amazing journey, Quentyn's arc in Slaver's Bay. The book even managed to make me care about JonCon and Aegon more than I think it should have been able to.

Specifically regarding Dany, I think she is a character that hasn't had much interesting going on since AGoT, and even in that book I didn't care too much for her TBH. I feel like her ACoK chapters were pretty pointless, in ASoS she conquers 3 cities, but I never found that very captivating or interesting to read, given that she just kind of rolls over everyone without facing too many obstacles. ADwD makes her ASoS arc better, because we see that the decisions she made in that book are now having real consequences for her, and she is having to do things she doesn't want to do in order to deal with them.

So overall I would say that AFfC is probably slightly below the other books for me, but ADwD is my favourite.

I agree with this so much.  I can appreciate AFFC a little more on reread, but I'm still mostly just bored by it.  The 22 chapters you mentioned are for the most part completely uninteresting to me (I'd say out of them, only the King's Moot really captured by attention).  The Brienne stuff I liked a lot more on reread, but that's not saying much.  I went from actively hating it to just being mostly bored by it.  And don't get me started on Aeron, Arys and Aereo even having POVs.

ADWD is much more enjoyable for me because the Dany, Jon, Theon chapters are really good and although the Tyrion stuff can drag at times, I really enjoyed his time with Jon Con and Aegon and it ends with a bang with him joining the Second Sons.  I do have to knock down ADWD because it doesn't get to the battles of Mereen and Winterfell, and instead wastes too much time on Quentyn, Areo (only 1 POV I think but still annoying), Victarion (I enjoyed these chapters but still think pointless), Barristan and Jon Con.  

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On 8/14/2019 at 3:48 PM, miyuki said:

Going through older threads here in this website, I've noted that many people think that "A Feast for Crows" and "A Dance with Dragons" are much less enjoyable, if not outright boring books compared to the earlier books in GRRM's series. Most likely this kind of thread was once made already, but has any re-read or anything else changed your opinion over the years? Or have you always liked them, or always and forever hated them? If you don't like them, is it because of something other than "nothing happens"?

Personally, I've always loved the 4th and 5th book. 

I liked all of the books except aFfC.  That one was pretty lame.  The stars were missing in action.

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On 8/14/2019 at 3:48 PM, miyuki said:

Going through older threads here in this website, I've noted that many people think that "A Feast for Crows" and "A Dance with Dragons" are much less enjoyable, if not outright boring books compared to the earlier books in GRRM's series. Most likely this kind of thread was once made already, but has any re-read or anything else changed your opinion over the years? Or have you always liked them, or always and forever hated them? If you don't like them, is it because of something other than "nothing happens"?

Personally, I've always loved the 4th and 5th book. 

I didn't like Feast the first time around, but it definitely improved on re-read. When Dance came out, it was easy to see where and why it fit into the scheme of things. 

I did enjoy Dance. It's another one that improves with age. The northern arc, and Theon's, were very well done IMO. I really loved the introduction of Lord Manderly and Davos' chapters. 

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Really had to think about this one! I think Feast is more consistently "bad" but Dance has some things unforgivable for how overall "good" of a book it is...which kinda makes Dance worse. Like Dany's flight chapter is amazing. It's also her only good PoV in the book. Tyrion started and finished strong but Penny and Jorah make the middle chapters a struggle. 

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Am I the only person that A Feast of Crows is his favorite book? I am shocked by some fo the comments in here. I would swear most people would say that A Clash of Kings is the worst (I love all the books though). 

A Feast of Crows has Dorne POVS, Oldtown, Lady Stoneheart, Politics in King's Landing with Cersei and The Tyrells, siege of Riverrun with Jaimie and Blackfish confrontation, Jaimie and Loras, Three Eye'd Raven, introduction of Euron Greyjoy, Arianne Martel conspiracy, The Vale politics, Aleras-Sarela theory and Doran mic dropping us with Fire and Blood. 

What else do you guys need?

I started reading and ended the books the last 3 years (ended in 2018) and so I haven't experienced the waiting and the disappointment people felt about the splitting of AFOC and ADWD in two books but from all the books I have read, AFOC was my quickest read and I loved it the most.  

For me A Feast of Crows (together with ADWD) is his book that defines Martin's writing style the most.

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On 8/21/2019 at 8:44 PM, Rose of Red Lake said:

But did he have to make it so large in the first place? He wonders why it had to be 7, he admits he clearly bit off more than he could chew. And I think the central conflict of the series is Lannister/Stark/Targaryen anyway, and that's what grabbed my interest in the beginning. 

This is what made Martin's story interesting from the beginning, the complexity and realism it had. Removing the other players from the table is what the series did and it's not ASOIAF.

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1 hour ago, Dreadscythe95 said:

Am I the only person that A Feast of Crows is his favorite book? I am shocked by some fo the comments in here. I would swear most people would say that A Clash of Kings is the worst (I love all the books though). 

A Feast of Crows has Dorne POVS, Oldtown, Lady Stoneheart, Politics in King's Landing with Cersei and The Tyrells, siege of Riverrun with Jaimie and Blackfish confrontation, Jaimie and Loras, Three Eye'd Raven, introduction of Euron Greyjoy, Arianne Martel conspiracy, The Vale politics, Aleras-Sarela theory and Doran mic dropping us with Fire and Blood. 

What else do you guys need?

I started reading and ended the books the last 3 years (ended in 2018) and so I haven't experienced the waiting and the disappointment people felt about the splitting of AFOC and ADWD in two books but from all the books I have read, AFOC was my quickest read and I loved it the most.  

For me A Feast of Crows (together with ADWD) is his book that defines Martin's writing style the most.

While I love Feast, I can understand why fans do not like the book. In the first 3 books it was mostly close knit and did not delve into other povs from Iron irons or Dorne then there was a huge waiting period and some characters were missing from the book only to wait years later for their povs in another book. I like the way he wrote the book but if there’s one criticism is that he didn’t introduce many of the characters in Feast in his previous books and not allowing fans to know the characters from Feast beforehand.

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3 hours ago, Dreadscythe95 said:

 

I started reading and ended the books the last 3 years (ended in 2018) and so I haven't experienced the waiting and the disappointment people felt about the splitting of AFOC and ADWD in two books but from all the books I have read, AFOC was my quickest read and I loved it the most.  

 

Basically that's the issue, it seems. The dislike comes from the fact that people had to wait for many years for the books to come out and when they did, they didn't include the parts most people wanted them to have. I think this kind of criticism in invalid, because you shouldn't criticize the content of a book based on how long you had to wait for its release and neither should you criticize a book based on things it's not about or doesn't include.

Thinking the books are boring is a reasonable criticism though I disagree with that. Slowing down business and expanding the world are both inevitable for such a series and necessary. Think about the HBO adaption which neither slowed down at any moment nor expanded the scope of the story - the result is that they kept trying to re-create the shock value of the red wedding and the massive action of the battle of the Blackwater. What was the result? The show kept becoming more and more absurd to the point that for the sake of things being "interesting" and "unexpected" and that the viewers wouldn't get "bored", we got stuff like teleportation, Shireen's burning, Arya killing Night King etc etc.

So I think If GRRM had continued the story on the same thriller notion that was ASOS, I think things would have quickly lost meaning and value and the series' worth as good literature would have been destroyed for the sake of a few cheap thrills. This is why I think Feast and Dance are necessary and great continuation of the story so far. Sometimes slowing down is needed before the next great explosion.

 

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14 hours ago, Crona said:

While I love Feast, I can understand why fans do not like the book. In the first 3 books it was mostly close knit and did not delve into other povs from Iron irons or Dorne then there was a huge waiting period and some characters were missing from the book only to wait years later for their povs in another book. I like the way he wrote the book but if there’s one criticism is that he didn’t introduce many of the characters in Feast in his previous books and not allowing fans to know the characters from Feast beforehand.

Man how many things could he introduce from book 1 though? Every book is already massive and there are two many info for the reader to put into place. Have in mind that readers that have no clue of the plot and haven't watched the series can't even put the places on the map or the History of Westeros in line. Making references to characters that you won't see in that book is not wise.

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57 minutes ago, miyuki said:

So I think If GRRM had continued the story on the same thriller notion that was ASOS, I think things would have quickly lost meaning and value and the series' worth as good literature would have been destroyed for the sake of a few cheap thrills. This is why I think Feast and Dance are necessary and great continuation of the story so far. Sometimes slowing down is needed before the next great explosion.

 

It;s true. After ASoS most of the things we knew since the beginning are crumbling so the next books need to fill the story again and show us the bigger picture. If he didn't introduce new characters and stories then the books would end up like the series, empty of substance and with massive plots.

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A while back an 2011 NPR interview caught my interest. Martin was promoting the upcoming. I thought yeah, might be something I would be interested in reading.

The first book had eight pov's to tell the story.  In martin's first book the prologue contained:

A Game of Thrones - Prologue     The wind had stopped. It was very cold.  The Other slid forward on silent feet. In its hand was a longsword like none that Will had ever seen. No human metal had gone into the forging of that blade. It was alive with moonlight, translucent, a shard of crystal so thin that it seemed almost to vanish when seen edge-on. There was a faint blue shimmer to the thing, a ghost-light that played around its edges, and somehow Will knew it was sharper than any razor./

My main question was who is Eddard's baby momma. I read book two which moved to nine pov's.  I read book three which moved to ten pov's.

As an aside, even in DWD martin threw in another Eddard baby momma via Davos --- a fisherman's daughter who helped Eddard get from the Vale to Winterfell during Robert's Rebellion.

All of a sudden book four took a turn. There were 12 pov's and new characters.

To add insult to injury martin added at the end of FFC --- MEANWHILE BACK AT THE WALL... and further went on to add a CAVIL ON CHRONOLOGY in DWD.

I guess I'm gonna have to wait until martin releases his next two books to evaluate the extent of his story telling ability.

 

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@Clegane'sPup I don't really understand what you mean by this

41 minutes ago, Clegane'sPup said:

To add insult to injury martin added at the end of FFC --- MEANWHILE BACK AT THE WALL... and further went on to add a CAVIL ON CHRONOLOGY in DWD.

 

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26 minutes ago, miyuki said:

@Clegane'sPup I don't really understand what you mean by this

 

When trying to tag someone type the @     with no space betwixt the @ and the name.

Appears you latched on to a cherry pick

1 hour ago, Clegane'sPup said:

To add insult to injury martin added at the end of FFC --- MEANWHILE BACK AT THE WALL... and further went on to add a CAVIL ON CHRONOLOGY in DWD. 

I did not enjoy FFC. I was quite confudicated by the expansion of the story. I am at a lose for closure of martin's saga because he has not written nor published it as yet.

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3 hours ago, Dreadscythe95 said:

Man how many things could he introduce from book 1 though? Every book is already massive and there are two many info for the reader to put into place. Have in mind that readers that have no clue of the plot and haven't watched the series can't even put the palces on the map or the History of Westeros in line. Making references to characters that you won't see in that book is not wise.

Oh I agree with the pacing of his books, I’m just saying I understand how people could be offput by it

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On 8/22/2019 at 11:42 PM, miyuki said:

Thinking the books are boring is a reasonable criticism though I disagree with that. Slowing down business and expanding the world are both inevitable for such a series and necessary.

I wholeheartedly agree, A Feast for Crows was not my favorite on my first read (it's a grower, it's now easily my second favorite) but I'll admit GRRM did a great job in expanding the universe. Brienne's encounters with smallfolk and hedge knights in the Crownlands and Riverlands, Dorne with its different cultures, customs, laws and cuisine, the Iron Islands, Sam in Oldtown and etc. may not have been the most welcome additions initially but I liked how they gave flavor, color and size to GRRM's fantasy world. What's the point of having a large, vast world with several cultures and unique places if it's not going to be expanded and explored at some point?

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On 8/14/2019 at 6:18 PM, Wolf's Bane said:

A Dance with Dragons is a great novel.  I enjoyed the chapters in Essos.  I loved the expansion of the storyline because I was getting tired of the river lands and the north.  Characters that I like are finally converging in Mereen.  Daenerys, Barristan, Tyrion, and Jorah are all awesome characters and are my favorites.  

I am so glad that I am not the only one who was getting tired of the Riverlands, the Crownlands and the North.

The setting (aka the geography of those places) are too similar for my taste. The North is the most unique one out of the three but that's because it's colder there and there are less rivers. Until The Winds of Winter comes out, it just doesn't feel that much different from the Riverlands. And the Riverlands and the Crownlands are practically indistinguishable.

So yeah...give me the rainforests of the Stormlands, the deserts and floodplains of Dorne, sea-stricken Iron Islands, the arid hills of Meereen, the canals of Braavos, the flowers of the Reach.

I, for one, can't wait to get to Skagos and spend more time in the Lands of Always Winter.

A lot of fantasy writers either give up on worldbuilding after the first go-around or they are limited to worldbuilding only when plot demands it. JK Rowling is notorious for that, so much so that she continues to worldbuild, add new tidbits and contradict herself well after the Harry Potter series has ended. And she doesn't even do this in books; she does it in social media and in interviews which is lame but that's another story.

On 8/14/2019 at 6:38 PM, Tyrion1991 said:

Its not so much “nothing happens” it’s that you have two books of build up and then the book abruptly ends on cliffhangers.

To round off the list:

- Cersei trial

- Battle of Mereen

- Battle of Winterfell

- Battle of Blood at Oldtown

- Battle of Storms End 

These are all events which were meant to occur and actively built up in during crows and especially Dance. Events touted to occur in the opening of Winds.

I’ve reread Dance a few times and he clearly wants Mereen to be the biggest and most complicated battle to date. It’s way more involved than Blackwater. All of Dany, Barristan, Quentin, Victorian and Tyrion’s story is set up for this main event. There’s a bit of a myth that George resolved the Mereenese Knot because he still has to spend a good chunk of Winds on this battle.

Its a huge deal and it completely guts A Dance with Dragons as a novel. It’s clearly unfinished and of course thats a huge problem a decade on from when the last book dropped.

This is true.

A Dance with Dragons is not really a finished novel. I mean, I can forgive -- even better, totally understand and defend -- the decision to move the Battle of Winterfell and the Battle of Redwyne Straits to The Winds of Winter. It makes sense on so many different levels.

But for the life of me, the Battle of Meereen should have been in A Dance with Dragons. It's literally, the name of the book. AT THE VERY LEAST A Dance with Dragons could have ended after the Battle of Meereen has already begun...with a crazy cliffhanger. Like, for example, Dance ends with Victarion having one of his men blow the dragonhorn.

Cersei's trial? Meh, I don't know. I feel like her trial would work better in Winds

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