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 40-46Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 40 Summary: “Cersei”
Cersei hears from one of her maesters, Pycelle, that Margaery has taken “moon tea.” This is a drink to induce abortion, so Margaery must, reasons Cersei, have a lover. Still, as she says, “we need to catch them during the deed” (654) and identify the lover to prove Margaery’s “treason.” This will force the other Tyrells to disown her. To accomplish this, she arrests a singer, “The Blue Bard,” who has often been seen with Margaery. He is tortured into confessing that he had carnal relations with Margaery and that he saw her with other men as well. Cersei also convinces Osney Kettleblack to lie about having slept with Margaery and her cousins.
Chapter 41 Summary: “The Princess in the Tower”
Arianne is taken into custody by her father Doran for plotting rebellion against him. She is imprisoned in a tower in Sunspear and only allowed to see a handful of servants, who are forbidden to talk with her. Arianne convinces one servant Cedra to smuggle out a letter about her situation to potential supporters, but it is intercepted. As she says, “The loneliness was like to drive her mad” (675). When she is finally allowed to see Doran, she is unrepentant and asks why her younger brother Quentyn rather than her is Doran’s heir to the rule of Dorne. Doran reveals that he intended Arianne to marry Daenarys’s now-dead brother and become Queen of Westeros. In any case, he vows that he will get vengeance for her dead uncle by bringing back Daenerys and her dragons from over the narrow sea to the aid of Dorne.
Chapter 42 Summary: “Alayne”
With the approach of winter and with Baelish away at a wedding, Sansa takes responsibility for ensuring that the young and sickly Lord Robert gets away from the Eyrie to a more temperate location in the Vale below before it freezes. Sansa is told to meet with Baelish. who has arrived back from the wedding early. At a castle in the Vale, Baelish explains that he has arranged a marriage for Sansa with a young, recently knighted man named Harrold Hardyng. When Robert dies, which looks likely, Hardyng is next in line to be Lord of the Eyrie and the Vale. Then, claims Baelish, when she reveals at their wedding that she is Sansa Stark, the Lords of the Vale will rally to her cause and help her win back her home of Winterfell.
Chapter 43 Summary: “Brienne”
When Brienne regains consciousness, she is in intense pain and tied to a moving horse. She discovers from her guards that she is being taken to a female outlaw leader known as “Stoneheart” or “the hangwoman” to be tried for her crimes and potentially hanged. She is held in a dungeon-cave while awaiting her trial. When Brienne is taken before Stoneheart, she is accused of supporting the Lannisters. The letter she has with Tommen’s approval for her mission, her sword which is a Lannister design, and the fact that Podrick was squire to Tyrion Lannister are all used as evidence. Stoneheart is revealed to be Lady Catelyn Stark, who has been brought back from the dead by sorcery. She offers Brienne a choice: Either find and kill Jaime Lannister or be hanged. Brienne refuses to fight Jaime, whom she loves, and is thus executed.
Chapter 44 Summary: “Cersei”
Cersei hears news that Margaery Tyrell and her cousins have been arrested on the orders of the High Septon and imprisoned in the Great Sept. This is due to rumors about adultery and sexual misdemeanors, which Cersei herself started. Cersei goes to visit the Great Sept and see Margaery to enjoy her humiliation. However, the High Septon detains Cersei. He shows her the shackled Ser Osney, who has also been arrested and has confessed to sleeping with Cersei. She is then locked in a bare cell and woken every hour to extract a confession from her. The next day, Qyburn is allowed to visit Cersei. He informs her that she is “to be tried before a holy court of seven, for murder, treason, and fornication” (743). In her desperation, she tells Qyburn to get a message to Jaime at Riverrun, asking him for help. She also learns that her Hand, Ser Harys Swift has sent a message to her uncle Kevan asking him to return to King’s Landing and assume the regency in Cersei’s place.
Chapter 45 Summary: “Jaime”
Jaime’s tactic of threatening Edmure Tully works, and the garrison at Riverrun surrenders. However, to Jaime’s annoyance, Lord Tully escapes, swimming across the river. Nevertheless, with the fall of this castle and of Dragonstone, resistance to Lannister domination in Westeros appears all but over. Jaime receives Cersei’s letter from King’s Landing. It says, “I need you now as I have never needed you before. I love you” (761). Jaime refuses to answer and has the letter thrown in the fire.
Chapter 46 Summary: “Samwell”
Sam arrives at Old Town with Gilly and heads to the Citadel, the place where the maesters and their apprentices live and work. He plans to show them letters he has from Jon Snow and inform them of Maester Aemon’s death. While waiting to be admitted to see the archmaester, he is taken by another novice to a Maester Marwyn. Sam tells Marwyn that Aemon “believed that Daenerys Targaryen was the fulfilment of a prophecy” (775) about saving Westeros, and he asks that the Citadel send a maester to guide her. Having heard this, Marwyn decides to go to Daenerys himself in place of Aemon. Sam is now given the chance to train as a maester. Marwyn advises him never to mention prophecies or dragons to the other maesters. At the book’s end, the novice then reveals that he is “Pate,” the character who ostensibly died in the prologue.
Chapters 40-46 Analysis
When Arianne is confined to a tower in Sunspear after the failure of her plot, she initially reflects that “hers was a gentle prison” (665). Her father, whom she conspired against, provides a comfortable and large room for her. This includes a featherbed, wine to drink, and a “splendid” view that allows her to “watch the sun rise over the sea” (667). Yet he also forbids anyone from talking to her. The servants who bring her food are silent, and after several weeks Arianne comes to believe that she “would have welcomed a touch of a hot iron, or an evening on the rack” (675). Her punishment is fitting. Her plot to depose Doran was driven by bloodlust and vengeance against others. As such, it is appropriate that her punishment should involve no violence, denying her contact with others—including a torturer and someone to hate.
Similarly, Cersei’s eventual fate is appropriate. Having spent so much time arranging for others to be thrown in dark cells, it is fitting that she should be so confined. Cersei subconsciously anticipates this after getting Qyburn to extract a confession from the bard. She dreams that “it was her chained to the wall in place of the singer […] and blood dripped from the tips of her breasts where the Imp had torn off her nipples with his teeth” (660). She imaginatively substitutes herself for her victim, something she is unable to do while awake. She even imagines that she has been subject to the same method of torture inflicted on the singer.
More specifically, her treatment by her jailers involves a similar symmetry. As she says, “inside the cell, three silent sisters held her down as a septa named Scolera stripped her bare” (741). Cersei is deprived of her clothes and humiliated in the same way that she had plotted to humiliate Margaery. This is also a repeat of what happened to the latter when arrested by the sparrows. Here, nakedness has a symbolic and literal meaning. It signifies the removal of the protection offered by name and social status, and the exposure of one’s unadorned humanity and actions. In Cersei’s case, these actions are incest, regicide, and murder. Having attempted to shame and expose Margaery for having an affair, Cersei finds herself on public trial for these far more heinous crimes. In a final irony, it is her earlier monopolization of power which renders her powerless now. By ensuring that Tommen has no agency and simply stamps what is put in front of him, she allows her rivals to wrest back power unopposed. She also ensures that Tommen cannot arrange to have her rescued.
However, not all the characters get what they deserve. While the fall of Cersei and, to a lesser extent, Arianne is dramatically satisfying and their punishments warranted, this is not the case for others in the novel. The Blue Bard is innocent, yet Qyburn tortures him until his “high blue boots were full of blood” (658). Then he is captured and whipped by the sparrows to make him admit that this first confession was a lie. His suffering is entirely senseless, a point made worse by the fact that, as an entertainer, he has no interest in political games or power.
Moreover, there are those whose “punishment” is not merely a matter of bad luck; rather, it is the opposite of what they deserve, insofar as their actions should be rewarded. This is seen in the case of Brienne. Throughout A Feast for Crows Brienne tries to act justly and gives everything to find and protect Sansa. She also defends the innocent. This is shown outside the inn near Saltpans, where she risks her life to protect some orphans from a group of outlaws. Yet she is tried by the Brotherhood Without Banners for being on the Lannisters’ side and associated with those troops killing civilians. Thus, when apprehended, she thinks “this is an evil dream” (712). Given all she has gone through to help Sansa, it seems unreal that she should be tried for abetting Sansa’s enemies. Even worse, she is presented with the impossible “choice” of being hanged or committing to killing the man she loves, Jaime. Like the Blue Bard, who must confess to the sparrows his lie and be punished, or continue being punished for not confessing to it, there is no way out for Brienne. This suggests that the just punishments for Cersei and Arianne are the exceptions. In Westeros, punishment, like violence and death in general, is something more fundamentally chaotic and amoral.
Related Titles
By George R. R. Martin
