50 pages • 1 hour read
George R. R. MartinA Feast for Crows
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2005A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 17-24Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 17 Summary: “Jaime”
After Tywin Lannister’s funeral procession out of King’s Landing, Jaime talks to Cersei. He is concerned that Cersei is filling the small council with weak and dubious characters to further her own interests and out of paranoia about the Tyrells. One of these is Taena Merryweather, who is spying on Margaery Tyrell for Cersei. Another is a man called Qyburn, who is acting as her grand maester. The maesters in Old Town revoked Qyburn’s license for performing experiments on live humans. Jaime worries that Cersei is becoming like “the Mad King,” Aerys Targaryen, the king before Robert Baratheon. Aerys burnt countless people alive and was eventually killed by Jaime to stop him from setting fire to King’s Landing.
Chapter 18 Summary: “Cersei”
Cersei meets with her small council and chooses Ser Harys Swift as her Hand. He is “soft, bald, and obsequious” (270), and his weakness helps cement Cersei’s monopoly on power. In addition, he is “more hostage than hand” (270); his daughter is her uncle Kevan’s wife, meaning Kevan would think twice about betraying her since Harys could be hurt in retaliation. After the council, Cersei meets alone with one of her knights, Ser Osney Kettleblack. She orders Ser Osney to seduce Queen Margaery and then be discovered. This will humiliate Margaery and annul her wedding to Tommen. Cersei will then also have a pretext to send Osney to the Wall as punishment, along with one hundred other men. There, he will kill Jon Snow whom, as Eddard Stark’s son, Cersei suspects of being disloyal. In return, Osney, after being pardoned, will be given a lordship and become Cersei’s consort.
Chapter 19 Summary: “The Iron Captain”
Victarion Greyjoy, younger brother of the dead King Balon, arrives at Old Wyk where all the participants in the following day’s kingsmoot have gathered. Despite being younger than his other brother, Euron, Victarion believes he has a legitimate right to the “Seastone Chair” and to be ruler of the Iron Islands. This is because Euron is godless and morally debauched. This is shown by the fact that, as Victarion tells Asha, Balon sent Euron into exile for raping and impregnating Victarion’s wife. Asha also offers a deal to Victarion to help defeat Euron. She will support Victarion’s claim in the kingsmoot and withdraw her own if he makes her his Hand. Victarion rejects her offer.
Chapter 20 Summary: “The Drowned Man”
The next morning, everyone on the island is summoned for the kingsmoot. Several weak candidates put forward their cases to be king and fail. Victarion then states his case. He has support from his younger brother Aeron, and he emphasizes his military prowess and strength. Victarion gets considerable support from the lords and captains. Next, Asha promises “peace and victory” (309) if she is made queen. This will be achieved by allying with the lords in the North. Finally, Euron Greyjoy steps forward and promises to win all of Westeros for the ironborn. This, he claims, can be achieved with the help of dragons, which he is able to summon with a special horn. After this, Euron gets the most shouts and support, emerging victorious in the kingsmoot.
Chapter 21 Summary: “Brienne”
Brienne travels with Podrick and Nimble Dick to the ruined castle of “the Whispers” where she hopes to find Sansa. When they arrive after several days, they see evidence that a small group has been staying nearby. However, these turn out to be three men Nimble Dick had previously cheated by telling them the whispers was still used as a smuggler’s cove. The men confront and attack Brienne’s party, with one of them revealing that Sansa was with the knight known as “the Hound.” Nimble Dick is killed in the attack, but Brienne manages to fight off and kill the three men with the help of Podrick. Shortly thereafter, Brienne decides to look for Sansa to the west where she believes the Hound is hiding.
Chapter 22 Summary: “The Queenmaker”
To provoke war with the Lannisters and avenge Oberyn’s death, Arianne and a small group of men, including Ser Arys, abduct Princess Myrcella. They are travelling to the city of Hellholt in Dorne to crown her Queen of Westeros. By doing so, Arianne believes that “all Dorne will rally to my banners” (343), and that she will be able to usurp her father as Dorne’s ruler. Unfortunately, someone in her camp has betrayed her, and when they reach the river that will help take them to Hellholt, they are confronted by Doran’s forces. Arianne is forced to surrender, though Ser Arys is killed in a vain attempt to defend her.
Chapter 23 Summary: “Arya”
Arya lives in “The House of Black and White” as a servant. She is told that those who want to serve the Many-Faced God worshipped there must renounce and transcend the self. As such, Arya throws away her remaining possessions tying her to the identity of Arya Stark, including a silver fork, her money, and her previous clothes. However, she keeps her sword “Needle,” hiding it nearby. Arya is then made a novice in the temple, continuing her training. After a spell doing this, she is sent away to work as a helper to a fishmonger in Braavos, selling shellfish. This is so that she can become fluent in the braavosi language and learn to change identities.
Chapter 24 Summary: “Alayne”
Calling themselves “the declarants,” six Lords of the Vale seek to remove Baelish as Lord Protector. They blockade the Eyrie, preventing supplies from reaching it. To resolve this impasse without violence, Baelish arranges a meeting with them. At first, they are resolved to “speak with one voice” (381) and tell Baelish to give them Lady Lysa’s young son and heir to the Vale, the sickly Prince Robert. However, Baelish has bribed one of the six Lords, Ser Lyn Corbray. As instructed, Corbray feigns offense at Baelish’s words and draws his sword during the meeting. Due to the strong taboo against such actions on the part of guests, this allows Baelish to shame the Lords into backing down. The Lords lift the siege and give Baelish another year as Lord Protector.
Chapters 17-24 Analysis
After Baelish’s successful meeting with the “lord declarants” who sought to remove him as Protector of the Vale, Sansa reflects on how “he bewitched them” (385). His charm, combined with his ruse with Corbray, allows him to disorient and divide his opponents. This in turn allows him to defuse their rebellion and defeat a military force which, collectively, is far stronger than his own. This shows the efficacy of plots and manipulation. Especially in times of civil strife, the ability to trick one’s enemies and beat them, as Cersei says, “with a dagger, not a declaration” (280), is paramount. This can be as important or more so than military strength or legitimacy. For example, in the “War of the Five Kings,” Rob Stark never lost a battle to the Lannisters. However, he was killed and the war ended when he attended the wedding of a daughter of a lord whom he thought was an ally. Walder Frey had been persuaded by Tywin to change sides and to murder the Stark family while guests in his house. Indeed, it is the notoriety of this “Red Wedding” which Baelish, who had a hand in it, invokes in his scheme with Corbray.
Scheming and manipulation can also triumph over reason. In the kingsmoot, Euron’s political theatrics and seductive promises win out over Victarion’s simple message of strength and Asha’s more nuanced pitch. She argues that with her as queen the Iron Islands can have “peace and victory” (309) through an alliance with the North, which guarantees additional lands and ends decades of conflict. However, this reasonable idea is forgotten in the face of Euron’s promises that the Iron Islands can win the whole of Westeros, thanks to the mythical dragons he controls. Dragons in this context serve as a metaphor for the dangers and appeal of the politics of populism and nationalist myth making, over reason and pragmatism.
However, plots and manipulation are not without their drawbacks. For one, they do not always succeed. As seen in Arianne’s bid to provoke war with the Lannisters and depose her father, several factors must coalesce if a plot is to work. It must be brilliantly conceived, have total secrecy amongst the plotters, and be ruthless in its execution. It is not clear that Arianne’s scheme accomplishes any of these requirements. She is betrayed by someone in her own camp, but her plan also seems rather clumsy and ill-considered from the start. Doran already knows from his nieces that crowning Myrcella is how his opponents intend to foment war. Moreover, she is not ruthless. When one of her knights suggests killing Myrcella while she is still in their power, Arianne replies, “I am no murderer of children” (339). This may be a noble sentiment, yet she misses her one serious chance to create a fait accompli of imminent war and to step forward as the one to lead Dorne into it. And her bungled plot causes Ser Arys’s death and Myrcella’s disfigurement.
Finally, there is a deeper danger with this type of policy. Buoyed by her father’s success with the Red Wedding, Cersei plots with Ser Osney to destroy Margaery by means of an engineered affair. She then intends to have Jon Snow murdered by Osney when the latter is sent to the Wall for his “crime.” Yet the problem with such actions—aside from their obvious immorality—is not just that they leave much to chance. In continually scheming and plotting themselves, the plotter starts to see everyone as a conspirator. This is evidenced in Cersei’s remark that “no one can be trusted” (277). Her machinations lead her to see plots and enemies where there are none. As Jaime observes, it pushes her to see “dwarfs in every shadow and mak[e] foes of friends” (264)—a reference to her young brother Tyrion. Such paranoia is both self-perpetuating and self-fulfilling. It causes Cersei to plot even more obsessively. This leads to greater suspicion, fear of counterplots, and the devising of ever more thorough ways to destroy “enemies.” This is what happened with the “Mad King” Aerys, and the same fate may befall Cersei.
Related Titles
By George R. R. Martin
