Light spoilers ahead. What's your favorite part of the A Song of Ice and Fire series? Some love it for the characters- specifically Tyrion really. I've heard more than one person say they will give up on the books or show if Tyrion is killed off, but there's so many more- Daenerys, who improbably rose to power, raises dragons and frees slaves; Jaime Lannister, with his fantastic redemption arc; or even Joffrey Baratheon, not exactly likable, but a child-king who took the concept of 'evil' to new heights. Some love it for that sheer brutality, as the series is known for numerous shocking deaths and the idea that no "good guy", if you can even call them that, is safe. For me though, I think my favorite aspect of it is the scope. The two continents of Westeros and Essos are so fully realized and are jam-packed full of story to the point where it wouldn't bother me that much if say, Tyrion, or Jon Snow, or Daenerys were killed off, because every time a big death has occurred, the story manages to keep chugging along just fine. The books are written from the point of view of a dozen or so characters, and each new book adds in a few new points of view to the story. Because of this, I wasn't as worried about A Feast for Crows as I probably should have been; I had been assured that it wasn't nearly as good as any of the three preceding books of the series (especially the excellent third installment A Storm of Swords), specifically because those three characters I just mentioned- Tyrion, Jon Snow, and Daenerys, three of the most beloved characters in the series, are nowhere to be found. This was understandably disappointing for fans who had waited five years to find out where their stories go, but as George R. R. Martin has explained there was just no way to fit everyone's story into one book and he divided up the point of views, having A Feast for Crows take place during roughly the same time as the next novel, A Dance With Dragons, which took another six years to come out. What's happening up on the Wall and and across the sea in Essos is only hinted at in the stories we have here; for now we mostly focus on King's Landing and the surrounding areas in the immediate wake of Jaime freeing his brother just before his execution, leading to the death of the Hand of the King.
Overall, it was still pretty good, but unfortunately there just wasn't all that much happening in King's Landing now compared with the non-stop action of what was happening at the end of A Storm of Swords. What's more, one of the least-liked characters of all, Cersei, becomes the central point of view character in this book, racking up the most chapters to herself. We also get Jaime and Brienne hanging around nearby, and while their stories are a little better, they don't really get all that great until the end. As I said before though, what I appreciate about the series is its scope, and as such there are fringe stories that get a few chapters, which I thought mostly worked well. Sansa's was a bit slow, but it's always good to see Littlefinger up to some scheming; Arya's were great, and honestly I think she's my favorite character at this point; Samwell's varied (including a stinker of a final chapter). What's more, we started getting "settings" chapters- we gets a few one-off point-of-view chapters for some of the Greyjoys in the Iron Islands, and a few more featuring the Martells in Dorne (Oberyn's family- you remember him, right?). Overall I liked the stories in Dorne and the Iron Islands, but I still think they could have been accomplished by focusing on a single character as usual- probably Asha Greyjoy and Arianne Martell, but I'm no writer. Most of the stories here felt more like 'place-setting', which makes sense as the general structure of the series was at some point supposed to be two trilogies set a few years apart; we read the exciting end to the first in A Storm of Swords, and now it was time to slow down and take a few breaths before moving forward. Most of the different storylines here end pretty well with major cliffhangers for a few, which has me curious why Sam's mediocre final chapter was made the last of the book, but I can safely say that the slowest book yet has not killed any interest I had in the series- I'll probably jump into A Dance With Dragons within a few weeks.
I think a huge part of enjoying Book 4 (and, to a lesser extent, Book 5) to the fullest is the ability to "read between the lines" and "see the bigger picture," or something similar. Books 1-3 submerge you into this world and this story, but you see it largely through the eyes of the various members of one family. Naturally, you're inclined to think that the entire series is the story of the Starks, of Tyrion Lannister, and of Daenerys. These focal points slowly expand and spread out, and by the end of Book 3 it's clear that this is the story of several families vying for power. But here in Book 4, where there is no Tyrion and no Dany and there are only a few Starks, and neither of them are self-identifying as Starks, you begin to see that it isn't even the POV characters themselves that matter; the real meat of the story at this series midpoint is happening on the periphery of what we're seeing. It's great to hear from Arya and Sansa, but all their chapters in this story really do is give us some filtered insight into the Faceless Men of Braavos and Littlefinger, respectively. Cersei and Jaime don't really do very much, but their chapters are laden with third party reports about the current status and happenings elsewhere in the Seven Kingdoms. Dorne and the Iron Islands aren't limited to solitary POVs, and while I'm with you in thinking that they probably could have been, I also appreciate how many more characters' motivations are made clear as a consequence of having these multiple POVs. Anyway, look for this to continue in DWD. Theon's got a fine little arc, but it's everything else going on in the North that's really interesting. Ditto for Jon at the Wall and Tyrion... at large. Plus once you're all caught up I can forward you all kinds of probably-batshit-insane-but-they-make-you-think-all-the-same fan theories about where certain characters are headed.
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