(Scope: I'll be talking about the narrative structure of Feast and Dance. I'll also be giving away the ending of Dany's arc in Game and that big revelation Doran Martell makes at the end of Feast. And I'll be mentioning some backstory details about Rhaegar Targaryen that don't get revealed until... um... well, it's a Kingsguard who brings these details up, so Storm at the earliest.)
The Rebellion
Aside from that little bit about the Kingsguard at the Tower of Joy later on, the only other important details we don't learn here are 1) why it's called Robert's Rebellion when the general sense I get is that Jon Arryn and Ned Stark won the war, and 2) why Aerys didn't haul Rhaegar back to court at the beginning of this whole mess considering (as we learn much later) Aerys suspected Rhaegar of conspiring against him.
So after two chapters with the Starks we suddenly hop across the Narrow Sea to the Free City of Pentos. The first time I read this chapter, I immediately hopped back to the map at the beginning of the book and spent about five minutes looking for Pentos. Hey, that map was there, and it had been useful so far... just a little arrow saying "Pentos this way" would have been nice. Just saying.
Now to get way, way ahead of myself, I suspect that the people who most disliked A Dance With Dragons were the ones who read this chapter and assumed that Daenerys would eventually become the main villain of the series. A much more sympathetic villain that usual, yes, but her role in the story would essentially be to show up somewhere down the line with a Dothraki horde/three dragons/three dragons and an army of eunuchs and raise all manner of hell for "our protagonists." Because that was my assumption about Dany for quite some time.
Did I think Viserys was a real threat? Not really. I figured he'd be the POV character if the Essos plot was about him. My next post is going to go more into the topic of POV choices, but since the whole "no Kings, only advisers" rule doesn't really become obvious until the second book (this is why Robb Stark isn't a POV character, for example), I think I can be forgiven for sussing that Viserys wasn't the real "antagonist."
Back to the three chapters I'm ostensibly covering in this post. I like the way Martin slowly bleeds out the details. For example, the Kingslayer gets mentioned in Dany's chapter, and then Jaime gets introduced in Eddard's, but it's not until Jon's that the name is put with the title. Too much backstory at once would swamp the already lethargic narrative. But he's got a lot of ground to cover, honestly, and if, as some people seem to think, A Song of Ice and Fire is all about an exiled princess reclaiming her birthright and all the Westerosi political intrigue is just a metastasized subplot, then why in the seven hells did he start the novel here?
It's interesting which details the three characters emphasize about the war. Dany and Jon don't remember anything about it, so all their accounts come secondhand. Dany thinks about her dead brother Rhaegar, "dying for the woman he loved" (this is the first time Rhaegar is mentioned in the text and George is already tying him in with Lyanna...). She thinks of the Starks and Lannisters as villains who butchered her family; we already know Ned Stark is a fairly grim dude, but this is a very different take on him than the one we've gotten from Bran or Catelyn. At the same time, it's not an unreasonably different one when you consider that a) yeah, he was a pretty big figure on the other side, and b) everything she knows about history she learned from her psychotic almost-rapist of a brother. (Sidebar: those extra details we learn about Viserys in A Dance With Dragons... didn't think it was possible for you to be less sympathetic, bro, but you pulled it off.)
Ned's recollections of the war are tied up almost entirely with two people: Robert and Lyanna. Makes sense, I suppose, but upon re-reading I'm surprise that there are virtually no details about Jon Arryn here, given that he seems to have been just as important a figure in the war as Robert or Ned. But most of Ned's war recollections are taken up with noting that Robert's gotten fat and remembering that he promised Lyanna he would
Jon's isn't so much a "rebellion detail" chapter the way the other two are, but it is the one that puts a name to the Kingslayer, which is why I included it. I'll get into his stuff a little more in the next section.
As a side note, it's funny how the four houses Viserys mentions that would support his claim are Tyrell, Redwyne, Darry and Greyjoy. Not only did he miss the major house that actually is supporting him, but the Tyrells and Greyjoys have gone and seized power on their own, Redwyne is riding Tyrell's coattails, and Darry is Hufflepuff. I doubt any of them will stir for Dany by the time she gets there. (Okay, he does mention "the Dornishmen." With the benefit of hindsight it's funny that he can't even name the House that has been orchestrating his return.)
On Arranged Marriages and Social Status
These three POV characters - Dany, Ned and Jon - are about as far displaced from each other as far as social status goes as is possible. Ned's a lord, about to be the second most powerful man in the kingdoms. Dany is an exiled princess. As a bastard, Jon gets to enjoy all the lordly trappings without any of the power that comes with it.
Now, these three chapters are the ones that essentially put the entire plot into motion. Dany is forced into an arranged marriage with Drogo. Robert "requests" that Ned become Hand and betroth Sansa to Joffrey. Only Jon actually gets to make a choice - and this feels like the weakest of the three plot developments. For people who have only watched the TV show: yes, Jon's decision to join the Night's Watch comes out of nowhere in the book as well. (This is actually a reoccurring problem, in that very rarely do Our Heroes actually get to make choices that affect the plot,* and when they do they seem kind of contrived.)
*The italicized portion was added because both Ned and Jon make choices towards the end of this book, but Ned's choice ends up being meaningless and Jon's friends persuade him to change his mind.
Now, granted, heroes rarely getting to be proactive in affecting the plot is a fairly standard trope. But when they do affect the plot in Martin's work... well, it's not always for the most convincing of reasons. When I get to Catelyn's decision to abduct Tyrion, I'll explain what I mean in greater detail.
All of that said, I think it's amusing - and Arya's chapters across both this book and the following ones will further reinforce this - that the high lords and princesses aren't free at all. Dany's options from this point until the third book are going to be extremely limited. Ned has to obey his sovereign. (Sansa's going to be a caged bird for quite a long time. As Tyrion says, great things are expected of him just because of who his father is. And so on.) Only the bastard who doesn't get a seat at the high table for fear of offending the royalty actually gets to make a choice... and the choice that he makes in this book is the choice to surrender his freedom.
Finally, I think George was pretty judicious about the ordering of his chapters. I don't think it's at all a coincidence that we learn of Dany's arranged marriage to Drogo immediately before we learn of Sansa's arranged marriage to Joffrey. What could he possibly be implying...?
Ok, next time we'll be covering four chapters, and talking about GRRM's choices when it comes to POV characters.
No comments:
Post a Comment