A Feast for Crows is the fourth book in this series which I have been reading for so long...and it's frustrating me out of my mind. Many characters are never mentioned, several new are introduced, and four stories are going on at once so I can't keep them straight. In this one, the biggest theme is, yet again, oaths and betrayal. A bunch of the characters have sworn oaths not to harm their enemies...which makes it a difficult situation for Jaime Lannister. As he is the Kingslayer, many people don't trust him anyway. Later, when he was captured by Catelyn Stark, he was forced to swear an oath to send her daughters, Arya and Sansa, home, and to never harm her family, the Tullys, again. Later in the series, where I am in the book, he is leading an attack on Riverrun, their home. Jaime doesn't want to be an oathbreaker, but would it matter anymore? He was sworn to protect Mad King Aerys, and he killed him, earning the title and losing the trust of many others. He was an oathbreaker before he even had so may oaths sworn. Can he condemn himself farther? Or is he too far gone to care? With losing his hand, did he lose the last of his morals as well?
Trusting anyone is, in Westeros, the most foolhardy thing to do. Arya trusted the "kindly" priests in Braavos, and they blinded her. Sansa trusted Littlefinger/Petyr Baelish, and he saved her from one unhappy marriage only to bind her into another. What's more, he constantly tries to seduce her, since he loved her mother. Daenerys (who wasn't even in this book for some reason) trusted Ser Jorah, and he turned out to be the King's spy. I wish there was a couple GOOD people in this book. There are no clear good guys, and no clear bad guys, since there are so may main characters. I guess Cersei is bad. But Jaime? Or Tyrion? Or Stannis? Or anyone? It goes on and on and on.
Oathkeeper, Jaime named his sword. He gave it to Brienne, a woman sworn to Catelyn, to find her daughters and keep the oath he'd sworn. But is it oathkeeping if you send someone else to do it? He's enabling her to do it, but you don't see him risking his life to do it. Will he feel like he kept it if she does it for him? I suspect that Brienne loves Jaime, and that he has some feelings for her too. If they get married-yeah, right, very likely. I should change that- if they ever even see each other again, will he feel like he fulfilled it? Will Brienne even find Sansa and Arya? I was sure she would, because of symbolism, but George R. R. Martin doesn't seem to care about symbolism. Why not kill off the characters before they finish their quest?
In other books, I know everything will be alright in the end. Because it's a book. Authors- correction, the majority of authors- like to end a book by clearing up all questions and all conclusions. This? SO much unexpected has happened, I don't see how it will ever be resolved. Since this will be a 7 book series and 1-5 are out now, it may be a long time until I find out. But for now, I will quote a certain movie and say, "You almost didn't want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was, when so much bad had happened?" Except I do very much want to know the end, and I eagerly await the publishing to those last two.
Interesting is all I have to say. You don't talk about whats in the books you also talk about what happens outside of the book.
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