Black birds

Another few chapters of A Feast For Crows.

The Maid of Tarth's story continues. Brienne is strong as you like, but she's still so vulnerable because she's a woman. Always afraid that someone is going to attack her; and the taunts of the Bloody Mummers are almost unbearable. I want to watch out and see if I feel the same way when a man is taunted by the people he is fighting. And Brienne's paranoia makes her judgement poor; although perhaps she was right, and Dick Crabbe was only good compared with the Mummers. She is afraid, and then feels guilty for being afraid of someone. How very womanly.

Victarion is another difficult character to like -- he's hard as rock; and mentions having killed his wife... and then goes on to make me feel sorry for him. Gah. I enjoy the Ironmen threads because they are relatively straight forward people who are not losing their grip on reality. This was a tense chapter -- I genuinely didn't know who was going to win. I hoped it would be Asha; but then I suppose to move a story on, you need to have the worst, most terrifying outcome possible. There was a quote in this chapter, which shows where the book got its title: "After every battle, the crows come in their hundreds and their thousands to feast upon the falled. A crow can espy death from afar. And I say that all of Westeros is dying. Those who follow me will feast until the end of their days."

Poor Arianne -- I'm starting to get the feeling that she's way out of her depth here. But she is lucky in a way; because of who she is, she will never lose everything. It might almost be a game for her.