The Prophet, Chapter 1

And so, the War of the Five Kings becomes the War of Five Kings, Three Queens, and A Crapload of Pagan Sailors!*

The Prophet turned out to be the late King Balon's (I did have his name right in the last post) brother, Aeron Greyjoy, called the Damphair. He's the one who almost drowned during Robert's Rebellion (or was it Balon's Rebellion, or are they the same thing?) and then became a priest. The Ironborn worship the Sea God, who's locked in an everlasting battle with the Storm Lord, his greatest enemy (note to all Greyjoys: don't fuck with Dany "Stormborn" Targareyan).

This chapter was pretty boring. I never really liked Theon, Balon, or Asha, and I don't like ol' Damphair here, either. Then again, I didn't like the Onion Lord at first either, so by the end of the book, the fish priest might be my new favorite character. Hey, someone's got to fill in for Tyrion!

I'm calling right now that this Kingsmoot (which I assume is some kind of election in which candidates drown their opponents instead of claiming they're African Muslim Terrorists From Mars Who Want Children To Think Being An Indian ("HEY, AREN'T THEM INDIANS ALL MUSLIMS!") And Killing American Generals Is Fun) is going to end with the dude who struggled while he was being drowned being crowned King of the Isles and the North (by the way, he seems to be the most sane character in this chapter; most characters in the series tend to do some stupid shit *coughSansacough* so it's nice to see a character who actually tries to, um, not be executed *coughNedcough*). I'm calling Asha for victor over the entire throne though,

Hopefully the next chapter, which is from the POV of someone called Captain of the Guards, will be better. Maybe he'll also be a minor character from two books ago!

I use way too many parentheses.

*5 Kings: Tommen, Stannis, Euron, Victarion, and Bran/Jon (hey, one of them are Robb's heir)

3 Queens: Cersei (Queen Dowager/Regent), Dany, and Asha. Might as well thrown in Zombie Cat and call it four.

Prologue

First, and this should go without saying (and will henceforth), spoilers for all four A Song of Ice and Fire books, as well as the television series A Game of Thrones, will be everywhere from here on in.

Second, I've decided that I will not write one of these blog post for every chapter in the book. Just the ones I actually have something to say about. This will make it seem like less of a chore or job, and make it more enjoyable (for me, at least).

Now, on to the actual reflection part of the post.

The prologues of these books have become somewhat predictable by now. They tend to set up a major threat or plot point in the book via killing off a one-time POV* character. But, even predictable, it's still damn good storytelling. Martin is a terrific writer, and even though no less than a half-dozen new characters were introduced in this chapter (most of which I'm sure will never be seen again), I never got any of them confused with one another, and within a few pages knew their personalities and a couple of backstories. Though bit players, they're all fully developed.

The main point of this introduction was probably to tell us that news of Dany's dragons has started to spread to Westeros. I'm sure that this will be built on more throughout the story, and it'll be interesting to watch Cersei sweat with news of the last Targareyan seemingly growing stronger.

Speaking of Cersei, I wonder what her next step will be. With both Joffrey and Tywin dead, and Tyrion on the run, she'll be in full control of King's Landing via Tommen. This would be a great time for Stannis to strike, but I doubt he'll do so, as it seems he'll be pretty busy up at the wall with Lord Commander Snow for a while. This would also, by the way, be the best time for the Greyjoys to decide on a replacement for Theon's father (his name escapes me at the moment, but I think it was Balon).

It will also be interesting to see what will happen with that Alchemist.

Oh, and how stupid is Pate? I mean, wanting to get laid is one thing, but is stealing from the Citadel so he could afford a whore really the best solution? He was too stupid not to be killed. Maybe if he hadn't demanded to see The Alchemist's face he would've let him live. (Nah, prolly not)

Also, I've heard that two of my favorite characters, Tyrion Lannister and Dany Targareyan, aren't in this book at all, and that the third, Jon Snow, only gets a few POV chapters. That's a bummer, but Martin's books are anything but disappointments, so I'm sure he'll introduce new characters just as interesting.

This post has become much too long now, so I'll end here. Thanks for reading.

*Point of view

Let's Read A Feast For Crows, by George R. R. Martin

There's a blog, called A Blog of Ice and Fire, which details a reader's thoughts and reflections on A Game of Thrones and some of A Clash of Kings on Blogger. It inspired me to do the same thing, only with A Feast For Crows instead. Having finished A Storm of Swords a few days ago, I bought A Feast For Crows yesterday while waiting at a book signing for a different author (Darren Shan, if any one's interested). It's the first time I'm reading this book, and, if I enjoy doing this, I might do it again when A Dance of Dragons is released. Be warned, however, that there's a decent chance that I'll grow bored and just stop writing. I might disable comments to avoid spoilers in the future. For now, I'll leave them on, but, if any one posts any spoilers, even slight ones that seem like nothing in the grand scheme of things, you'll ruin it for everyone and I'll disable comments until after I finish reading the book.

Because this post is only meant to introduce the purpose of this blog, I'll be posting my real first entry, about the prologue of the book, very shortly.