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History of the center of the Universe
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Figure of the heavenly bodies — An illustration of the Ptolemaic geocentric system by Portuguese cosmographer and cartographer Bartolomeu Velho, 1568 (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris), depicting Earth as the centre of the Universe.
The center of the Universe is a concept that lacks a coherent definition in modern astronomy; according to standard cosmological theories on the shape of the universe, it has no center.
Historically, the center of the Universe had been believed to be a number of locations. Many mythological cosmologies included an axis mundi, the central axis of a flat Earth that connects the Earth, heavens, and other realms together. In the 4th century BCE Greece, the geocentric model was developed based on astronomical observation, proposing that the center of the Universe lies at the center of a spherical, stationary Earth, around which the sun, moon, planets, and stars rotate. With the development of the heliocentric model by Nicolaus Copernicus in the 16th century, the sun was believed to be the center of the Universe, with the planets (including Earth) and stars orbiting it.
In the early 20th century, the discovery of other galaxies and the development of the Big Bang theory led to the development of cosmological models of a homogeneous, isotropic Universe (which lacks a central point) that is expanding at all points.
Contents
[hide]
1 Outside astronomy
2 Center of a flat Earth
3 Earth as the center of the Universe
4 Sun as center of the Universe
5 Milky Way's galactic center as center of the Universe
6 The nonexistence of a center of the Universe
6.1 Expanding Universe
6.2 Copernican and cosmological principles
7 See also
8 Notes
9 References
Outside astronomy[edit]
Nature timeline
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Also see: Human timeline and Life timeline
In religion or mythology, the axis mundi (also cosmic axis, world axis, world pillar, columna cerului, center of the world) is a point described as the center of the world, the connection between it and Heaven, or both.
Mount Hermon in Lebanon was regarded in some cultures as the axis mundi.
Mount Hermon was regarded as the axis mundi in Caananite tradition, from where the sons of God are introduced descending in 1 Enoch (1En6:6).[1] The ancient Greeks regarded several sites as places of earth's omphalos (navel) stone, notably the oracle at Delphi, while still maintaining a belief in a cosmic world tree and in Mount Olympus as the abode of the gods. Judaism has the Temple Mount and Mount Sinai, Christianity has the Mount of Olives and Calvary, Islam has Mecca, said to be the place on earth that was created first, and the Temple Mount (Dome of the Rock). In Shinto, the Ise Shrine is the omphalos. In addition to the Kun Lun Mountains, where it is believed the peach tree of immortality is located, the Chinese folk religion recognizes four other specific mountains as pillars of the world.
A 1581 map depicting Jerusalem as the center of the world.
Sacred places constitute world centers (omphalos) with the altar or place of prayer as the axis. Altars, incense sticks, candles and torches form the axis by sending a column of smoke, and prayer, toward heaven. The architecture of sacred places often reflects this role. "Every temple or palace--and by extension, every sacred city or royal residence--is a Sacred Mountain, thus becoming a Centre."[2] The stupa of Hinduism, and later Buddhism, reflects Mount Meru. Cathedrals are laid out in the form of a cross, with the vertical bar representing the union of earth and heaven as the horizontal bars represent union of people to one another, with the altar at the intersection. Pagoda structures in Asian temples take the form of a stairway linking earth and heaven. A steeple in a church or a minaret in a mosque also serve as connections of earth and heaven. Structures such as the maypole, derived from the Saxons' Irminsul, and the totem pole among indigenous peoples of the Americas also represent world axes. The calumet, or sacred pipe, represents a column of smoke (the soul) rising form a world center.[3] A mandala creates a world center within the boundaries of its two-dimensional space analogous to that created in three-dimensional space by a shrine.[4]
In medieval times some Christians thought of Jerusalem as the center of the world (Latin: umbilicus mundi, Greek: Omphalos), and was so represented in the so-called T and O maps. Byzantine hymns speak of the Cross being "planted in the center of the earth."
Center of a flat Earth[edit]
The Flammarion engraving (1888) depicts a traveller who arrives at the edge of a Flat Earth and sticks his head through the firmament.
The Flat Earth model is a belief that the Earth's shape is a plane or disk covered by a firmament contain heavenly bodies. Most pre-scientific cultures have had conceptions of a Flat Earth, including Greece until the classical period, the Bronze Age and Iron Age civilizations of the Near East until the Hellenistic period, India until the Gupta period (early centuries AD) and China until the 17th century.[citation needed] It was also typically held in the aboriginal cultures of the Americas, and a flat Earth domed by the firmament in the shape of an inverted bowl is common in pre-scientific societies.[5]
"Center" is well-defined in a Flat Earth model. A flat earth would have a definite geographic center. There would also be a unique point at the exact center of a spherical firmament (or a firmament that was a half-sphere).
Earth as the center of the Universe[edit]
Main article: Geocentric model
The Flat Earth model gave way to an understanding of a Spherical Earth. Aristotle (384–322 BCE) provided observational arguments supporting the idea of a spherical Earth, namely that different stars are visible in different locations, travelers going south see southern constellations rise higher above the horizon, and the shadow of Earth on the Moon during a lunar eclipse is round, and spheres cast circular shadows while discs generally do not.
This understanding was accompanied by models of the Universe that depicted the Sun, Moon, stars, and naked eye planets circling the spherical Earth, including the noteworthy models of Aristotle (see Aristotelian physics) and Ptolemy.[6] This geocentric model was the dominant model from the 4th century BCE until the 17th century CE.
Sun as center of the Universe[edit]
Main articles: Copernican heliocentrism and Copernican revolution
The heliocentric model from Nicolaus Copernicus' De revolutionibus orbium coelestium
Heliocentrism, or heliocentricism,[7][note 1] is the astronomical model in which the Earth and planets revolve around a relatively stationary Sun at the center of our Solar System. The word comes from the Greek (ἥλιος helios "sun" and κέντρον kentron "center").
The notion that the Earth revolves around the Sun had been proposed as early as the 3rd century BCE by Aristarchus of Samos,[8][9][note 2] but had received no support from most other ancient astronomers.
Nicolaus Copernicus' major theory of a heliocentric model was published in De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres), in 1543, the year of his death, though he had formulated the theory several decades earlier. Copernicus' ideas were not immediately accepted, but they did begin a paradigm shift away from the Ptolemaic geocentric model to a heliocentric model. The Copernican revolution, as this paradigm shift would come to be called, would last until Isaac Newton’s work over a century later.
Johannes Kepler published his first two laws about planetary motion in 1609, having found them by analyzing the astronomical observations of Tycho Brahe.[10] Kepler's third law was published in 1619.[10] The first law was "The orbit of every planet is an ellipse with the Sun at one of the two foci."
On 7 January 1610 Galileo used his telescope, with optics superior to what had been available before. He described "three fixed stars, totally invisible[11] by their smallness", all close to Jupiter, and lying on a straight line through it.[12] Observations on subsequent nights showed that the positions of these "stars" relative to Jupiter were changing in a way that would have been inexplicable if they had really been fixed stars. On 10 January Galileo noted that one of them had disappeared, an observation which he attributed to its being hidden behind Jupiter. Within a few days he concluded that they were orbiting Jupiter:[13] Galileo stated that he had reached this conclusion on 11 January.[12] He had discovered three of Jupiter's four largest satellites (moons). He discovered the fourth on 13 January.
His observations of the satellites of Jupiter created a revolution in astronomy: a planet with smaller planets orbiting it did not conform to the principles of Aristotelian Cosmology, which held that all heavenly bodies should circle the Earth,[12][14] and many astronomers and philosophers initially refused to believe that Galileo could have discovered such a thing.[12][clarification needed]
Newton made clear his heliocentric view of the solar system – developed in a somewhat modern way, because already in the mid-1680s he recognised the "deviation of the Sun" from the centre of gravity of the solar system.[15] For Newton, it was not precisely the centre of the Sun or any other body that could be considered at rest, but rather "the common centre of gravity of the Earth, the Sun and all the Planets is to be esteem'd the Centre of the World", and this centre of gravity "either is at rest or moves uniformly forward in a right line" (Newton adopted the "at rest" alternative in view of common consent that the centre, wherever it was, was at rest).[16]
Milky Way's galactic center as center of the Universe[edit]
Great Andromeda Nebula by Isaac Roberts (1899)
In 1750 Thomas Wright, in his work An original theory or new hypothesis of the Universe, correctly speculated that the Milky Way might be a body of a huge number of stars held together by gravitational forces rotating about a Galactic Center, akin to the solar system but on a much larger scale. The resulting disk of stars can be seen as a band on the sky from our perspective inside the disk.[17] In a treatise in 1755, Immanuel Kant elaborated on Wright's idea about the structure of the Milky Way. At the time, the existence of other galaxies had not been discovered.
The nonexistence of a center of the Universe[edit]
In 1917, Heber Doust Curtis observed a nova within what then was called the "Andromeda Nebula". Searching the photographic record, 11 more novae were discovered. Curtis noticed that novas in Andromeda were drastically fainter than novas in the Milky Way. Based on this, Curtis was able to estimate that Andromeda was 500,000 light-years away. As a result, Curtis became a proponent of the so-called "island Universes" hypothesis, which held that objects previously believed to be spiral nebulae within the Milky Way were actually independent galaxies.[18]
In 1920, the Great Debate between Harlow Shapley and Curtis took place, concerning the nature of the Milky Way, spiral nebulae, and the dimensions of the Universe. To support his claim that the Great Andromeda Nebula (M31) was an external galaxy, Curtis also noted the appearance of dark lanes resembling the dust clouds in our own Galaxy, as well as the significant Doppler shift. In 1922 Ernst Öpik presented a very elegant and simple astrophysical method to estimate the distance of M31. His result put the Andromeda Nebula far outside our Galaxy at a distance of about 450,000 parsec, which is about 1,500,000 ly.[19] Edwin Hubble settled the debate about whether other galaxies exist in 1925 when he identified extragalactic Cepheid variable stars for the first time on astronomical photos of M31. These were made using the 2.5 metre (100 in) Hooker telescope, and they enabled the distance of Great Andromeda Nebula to be determined. His measurement demonstrated conclusively that this feature was not a cluster of stars and gas within our Galaxy, but an entirely separate galaxy located a significant distance from our own. This proved the existence of other galaxies.[20]
Expanding Universe[edit]
Hubble also demonstrated that the redshift of other galaxies is approximately proportional to their distance from the Earth (Hubble's law). This raised the appearance of our galaxy being in the center of an expanding Universe, however, Hubble rejected the findings philosophically:
...if we see the nebulae all receding from our position in space, then every other observer, no matter where he may be located, will see the nebulae all receding from his position. However, the assumption is adopted. There must be no favoured location in the Universe, no centre, no boundary; all must see the Universe alike. And, in order to ensure this situation, the cosmologist, postulates spatial isotropy and spatial homogeneity, which is his way of stating that the Universe must be pretty much alike everywhere and in all directions."[21]
The redshift observations of Hubble, in which galaxies appear to be moving away from us at a rate proportional to their distance from us, are now understood to be a result of the metric expansion of space. This is the increase of the distance between two distant parts of the Universe with time, and is an intrinsic expansion whereby the scale of space itself changes. As Hubble theorized, all observers anywhere in the Universe will observe a similar effect.
Copernican and cosmological principles[edit]
The Copernican principle, named after Nicolaus Copernicus, states that the Earth is not in a central, specially favored position.[22] Hermann Bondi named the principle after Copernicus in the mid-20th century, although the principle itself dates back to the 16th-17th century paradigm shift away from the geocentric Ptolemaic system.
The cosmological principle is an extension of the Copernican principle which states that the Universe is homogeneous (the same observational evidence is available to observers at different locations in the Universe) and isotropic (the same observational evidence is available by looking in any direction in the Universe). A homogeneous, isotropic Universe does not have a center.[23]
See also[edit]
Cosmic microwave background radiation
Doughnut theory of the universe
Illustris project
Multiverse
Religious cosmology
Notes[edit]
Jump up ^ Copernican heliocenterism held that the Sun itself was the center of the entire Universe. As it is modernly understood, Heliocenterism refers to the much narrower concept that the sun is the center of the Solar System, not the center of the entire Universe.
Jump up ^ The work of Aristarchus's in which he proposed his heliocentric system has not survived. We only know of it now from a brief passage in Archimedes's The Sand Reckoner.
References[edit]
Jump up ^ Kelley Coblentz Bautch (25 September 2003). A Study of the Geography of 1 Enoch 17-19: "no One Has Seen what I Have Seen". BRILL. pp. 62–. ISBN 9789004131033. Retrieved 28 June 2011.
Jump up ^ Mircea Eliade (tr. Willard Trask). 'Archetypes and Repetition' in The Myth of the Eternal Return. Princeton, 1971. p.12
Jump up ^ Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrandt. The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols. Editions Robert Lafont S. A. et Editions Jupiter: Paris, 1982. Penguin Books: London, 1996. pp.148-149
Jump up ^ Mircea Eliade (tr. Philip Mairet). 'Symbolism of the Centre' in Images and Symbols. Princeton, 1991. p.52-54
Jump up ^ "Their cosmography as far as we know anything about it was practically of one type up til the time of the white man's arrival upon the scene. That of the Borneo Dayaks may furnish us with some idea of it. 'They consider the Earth to be a flat surface, whilst the heavens are a dome, a kind of glass shade which covers the Earth and comes in contact with it at the horizon.'" Lucien Levy-Bruhl, Primitive Mentality (repr. Boston: Beacon, 1966) 353; "The usual primitive conception of the world's form ... [is] flat and round below and surmounted above by a solid firmament in the shape of an inverted bowl." H. B. Alexander, The Mythology of All Races 10: North American (repr. New York: Cooper Square, 1964) 249.
Jump up ^ Lawson, Russell M. (2004). Science in the ancient world: an encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. pp. 29–30. ISBN 1851095349. Retrieved 2 October 2009.
Jump up ^ Teaching about Evolution and the Nature of Science (National Academy of Sciences, 1998), p.27; also, Don O' Leary, Roman Catholicism and Modern Science: A History (Continuum Books, 2006), p.5.
Jump up ^ Dreyer, J.L.E. (1906). History of the planetary systems from Thales to Kepler. pp. 135–48.
Jump up ^ Linton, C.M. (2004). From Eudoxus to Einstein: A History of Mathematical Astronomy. E-Libro. Cambridge University Press. p. 38,205. ISBN 9781139453790.
^ Jump up to: a b Holton, Gerald James; Brush, Stephen G. (2001). Physics, the Human Adventure: From Copernicus to Einstein and Beyond (3rd paperback ed.). Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press. pp. 40–41. ISBN 0-8135-2908-5. Retrieved December 27, 2009.
Jump up ^ i.e., invisible to the naked eye.
^ Jump up to: a b c d Drake, Stillman (1978). Galileo at Work: His Scientific Biography. University of Chicago Press. pp. 146, 152, 157–163.
Jump up ^ In Sidereus Nuncius,1892, 3:81 (in Latin)
Jump up ^ Linton, C.M. (2004). From Eudoxus to Einstein: A History of Mathematical Astronomy. E-Libro. Cambridge University Press. p. 38. ISBN 9781139453790.
Jump up ^ See Curtis Wilson, "The Newtonian achievement in astronomy", pages 233–274 in R Taton & C Wilson (eds) (1989) The General History of Astronomy, Volume, 2A', at page 233.
Jump up ^ Text quotations are from 1729 translation of Newton's Principia, Book 3 (1729 vol.2) at pages 232–233.
Jump up ^ Evans, J. C. (1995). "Our Galaxy". Retrieved 25 April 2012.
Jump up ^ Curtis, H. D. (1988). "Novae in Spiral Nebulae and the Island Universe Theory". Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. 100: 6. Bibcode:1988PASP..100....6C. doi:10.1086/132128.
Jump up ^ Öpik, E. (1922). "An estimate of the distance of the Andromeda Nebula". Astrophysical Journal. 55: 406–410. Bibcode:1922ApJ....55..406O. doi:10.1086/142680.
Jump up ^ Hubble, E. P. (1929). "A spiral nebula as a stellar system, Messier 31". Astrophysical Journal. 69: 103–158. Bibcode:1929ApJ....69..103H. doi:10.1086/143167.
Jump up ^ Hubble, E. P. (1937). The observational approach to cosmology. Oxford University Press.
Jump up ^ H. Bondi (1952). Cosmology. Cambridge University Press. p. 13.
Jump up ^ Livio, Mario (2001). The Accelerating Universe: Infinite Expansion, the Cosmological Constant, and the Beauty of the Cosmos. John Wiley and Sons. p. 53. Retrieved 31 March 2012.
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A Feast for Crows
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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This article is about the George R. R. Martin fantasy novel. For the Corpus Christi album, see A Feast for Crows (album).
A Feast for Crows
US hardcover edition
Author
George R. R. Martin
Audio read by
John Lee (2005)
Roy Dotrice (2011)
Country
United States
Language
English
Series
A Song of Ice and Fire
Genre
Fantasy
Published
2005 (Voyager Books/UK & Bantam Spectra/US)
Pages
976 (US paperback)
ISBN
0-00-224743-7 (UK hardback)
ISBN 0-553-80150-3 (US hardback)
OCLC
61261403
Dewey Decimal
813/.54 22
LC Class
PS3563.A7239 F39 2005
Preceded by
A Storm of Swords
Followed by
A Dance with Dragons
A Feast for Crows is the fourth of seven planned novels in the epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire by American author George R. R. Martin. The novel was first published on October 17, 2005, in the United Kingdom,[1] with a United States edition following on 8 November 2005.[2]
In May 2005, Martin announced that the "sheer size" of his still-unfinished manuscript for A Feast for Crows had led him and his publishers to split the narrative into two books.[3] Rather than divide the text in half chronologically, Martin opted to instead split the material by character and location, resulting in "two novels taking place simultaneously" with different casts of characters.[3] A Feast for Crows was published months later, and the concurrent novel A Dance with Dragons was released on July 12, 2011.[4] Martin also noted that the A Song of Ice and Fire series would now likely total seven novels.[3]
A Feast for Crows was the first novel in the series to debut at number one on The New York Times Best Seller list,[5] a feat among fantasy writers only previously achieved by Robert Jordan[6][7][8][9][10] and Neil Gaiman.[11] In 2006 the novel was nominated for the Hugo Award, the Locus Award, and the British Fantasy Society Award.[12] It has since been adapted, along with A Dance With Dragons, for television as the fifth season of Game of Thrones, though elements of the novel appeared in the series' fourth and sixth seasons.
Contents
[hide]
1 Plot summary
1.1 In the Seven Kingdoms
1.1.1 Prologue in Oldtown
1.1.2 King's Landing
1.1.3 Riverlands
1.1.4 The Vale
1.1.5 Iron Islands
1.1.6 Dorne
1.2 Across the Narrow Sea
2 Characters
3 Editions
4 Publication
5 Release details
6 Reception
7 Awards and nominations
8 References
9 External links
Plot summary[edit]
The War of the Five Kings is slowly coming to its end. Stannis Baratheon has gone to the aid of the Wall, where Jon Snow has become the 998th Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. King Tommen Baratheon, Joffrey's eight-year-old brother, now rules in King's Landing under his mother, Cersei Lannister. Brienne, the Maid of Tarth, is on a mission to find Sansa Stark, aided by Jaime Lannister. Sansa is hiding in the Vale, protected by Petyr Baelish, who has murdered his wife Lysa Arryn and named himself Protector of the Vale and guardian of eight-year-old Lord Robert Arryn.
In the Seven Kingdoms[edit]
Prologue in Oldtown[edit]
Pate, a young apprentice at the Citadel in Oldtown, is studying to become a maester. He has stolen an important key to a depository of books and records at the request of a stranger in exchange for a reward; after turning over the key and receiving the reward, he dies abruptly from poison.
King's Landing[edit]
Following the death and funeral of Tywin Lannister, Cersei's reign is marked by rampant cronyism, and her councils staffed with incompetent loyalists. She also disregards accurate advice by her uncle Kevan Lannister and her brother Jaime, alienating them both. Making matters worse is Cersei's increasing distrust of the Tyrells, particularly Margaery, whom Cersei implicates in a prophecy that Cersei herself will see her children crowned but all of them will die before her.
Her incompetent management raises the kingdom's debts to the Iron Bank of Braavos and the Faith of the Seven. When Cersei dismisses its representatives, the Iron Bank refuses to grant new loans and demands immediate repayment, nearly crippling the economy of Westeros. To settle the crown's debts to the Faith of the Seven, Cersei permits the restoration of that religion's military order, the Faith Militant, ignoring the danger to her own power. Hoping to weaken the Tyrells, Cersei dispatches Ser Loras Tyrell to besiege Stannis Baratheon's forces on Dragonstone; as a result, almost a thousand loyalists are killed, and Ser Loras is gravely injured. A scheme to falsely have the Faith put Margaery on trial for adultery backfires when the religious leadership imprisons Cersei herself on similar (correct) charges.
Riverlands[edit]
After a series of disagreements, Cersei dispatches Jaime to the Riverlands to re-establish control. He negotiates with Brynden "the Blackfish" Tully to surrender Riverrun in exchange for Edmure Tully's life, Riverrun having been granted to Walder Frey's second son Emmon, who is married to Tywin's sister Genna Lannister. Though the siege ends bloodlessly, Brynden escapes, to Jaime's fury. Jaime also finds that Walder Frey's grandson and heir, Ryman Frey, was hanged by the Brotherhood without Banners. He then receives word that Cersei, who has been imprisoned, wants him to defend her in a trial by combat; but learns that Tyrion's accusation of Lancel Lannister and Cersei was true (Lancel having been King Robert's true killer). Disgusted by the excessive loss of life and Cersei's paranoia, Jaime abandons her to her fate.
Brienne of Tarth's quest for Sansa leads her all over the Riverlands, where she observes the destruction caused by the war, and acquires Podrick Payne, former squire to Tyrion Lannister. She meets Ser Hyle, a knight whom she has met before, and Lord Randyll Tarly (Samwell's father), who insults her despite Ser Hyle's praise of her. Eventually she is captured by the Brotherhood Without Banners and sentenced to death by Catelyn Stark, who was resurrected three days after death by Beric Dondarrion, though at the cost of Dondarrion's life, and who has now assumed the name Lady Stoneheart. Catelyn offers to let her live if she agrees to kill Jaime Lannister (whom she believes played a role in Robb's death). When Brienne refuses to decide, she and some of her companions are sentenced to be hanged, at which she screams an undisclosed word. The author later revealed that the word was "sword", in response to Catelyn's ultimatum of "Sword or noose", which offered either Brienne's continued service to Catelyn herself, or hanging.
The Vale[edit]
In the Eyrie, Sansa poses as Petyr's daughter Alayne: befriending young Robert Arryn, managing the household, and receiving informal training in royal politics. During this time, Petyr appears to be carefully manipulating his murdered wife's former bannermen and securing control of the Protectorship of the Vale. He eventually reveals that he has betrothed Sansa to Harrold Hardyng, the next in line to Robert's title; when the sickly Robert dies, Petyr intends to reveal Sansa's identity and claim her family stronghold of Winterfell in her name.
Iron Islands[edit]
On the Iron Islands, Aeron Damphair hears of Balon's death and that Balon's eldest surviving brother, Euron Greyjoy, has returned from exile and claimed the Seastone Chair. To prevent this Aeron calls a Kingsmoot to identify Balon Greyjoy's successor as king of the Iron Islands. Hotly contested by Balon's brother Victarion Greyjoy and daughter Asha Greyjoy, eventually Euron is chosen as king for his promise to control dragons with an enchanted horn he possesses. The fleet of the Iron Men captures the Shield Islands at the mouth of the river Mander, threatening House Tyrell's seat at Highgarden. Victarion estimates that when the Redwyne fleet returns from the siege at Dragonstone it will retake the islands; and when Euron sends him east to woo Daenerys Targaryen on his behalf, to thus gain a claim to the Iron Throne, Victarion decides to woo her for himself instead.
Dorne[edit]
In Dorne, Doran Martell is confronted by three of his brother Oberyn's bastard daughters, who want vengeance for their father's death. Because they are inciting the commonfolk, Doran has them imprisoned in the palace.
A bold attempt by Doran's daughter Arianne Martell and her lover, Ser Arys Oakheart of the Kingsguard, to crown Doran's ward Myrcella Baratheon as queen of Westeros under Dornish law, by which the eldest child succeeds regardless of gender, is thwarted by Doran. In the confusion, one of Arianne's co-conspirators, the knight Gerold "Darkstar" Dayne, attempts to kill Myrcella; she survives but her face is scarred, and Ser Arys is killed. This strains the new Dornish alliance with House Lannister and the Iron Throne. To his daughter, Doran reveals that her brother Quentyn has gone east to bring back "Fire and Blood".
Across the Narrow Sea[edit]
Arriving in Braavos, Arya Stark finds her way to the House of Black and White, a temple associated with the assassins known as the Faceless Men. As a novice there, Arya attempts to master their belief that Faceless Men have no true identity by throwing all her treasures into the water (secretly keeping her sword, Needle) and posing as a girl called "Cat of the Canals". Her former identity asserts itself in the form of wolf dreams, and also when she kills Dareon, sworn brother of Samwell Tarly, for abandoning the Night's Watch. Having confessed this death, she is given a glass of warm milk as punishment. She wakes up the following morning blind.
Jon Snow has ordered Samwell Tarly to sail to the Citadel in Oldtown (via Braavos), to research the Others and become a Maester. Sam is accompanied by aging Maester Aemon, the wildling mother Gilly, her newborn baby, and sworn brother Dareon. The voyage across the Narrow Sea is underway before Sam realizes Jon swapped the sons of Gilly and Mance Rayder, to protect the Wildling "prince" from sacrifice by the priestess Melisandre. Aemon becomes sick and the party wait in Braavos for his health to improve. After a Summer Islander tells Aemon about the Targaryen dragons, Aemon decides that Daenerys has come to fulfill a prophecy. He dies at the age of 102 shortly after they leave Braavos.
At the end of the novel, Samwell arrives at the Citadel to begin his training. He meets the archmaester Marwyn, who tells him the Citadel have a plan against magic, and leaves to find Daenerys. Samwell also encounters a fellow apprentice who introduces himself as Pate, connecting the prologue to the narrative.
Characters[edit]
The story is narrated from the point of view of 12 characters and a one-off prologue point of view. Unlike its predecessors, the fourth novel follows numerous minor characters as well.
Prologue: Pate, a novice of the Citadel in Oldtown
Cersei Lannister, The Queen Regent
Ser Jaime Lannister, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard
Brienne, Maid of Tarth, a young warrior woman searching for Sansa and Arya Stark
Sansa Stark, pretending to be Petyr Baelish's daughter "Alayne Stone" (her later chapters are titled as such)
Arya Stark, later referred to as "Cat of the Canals", beginning her training at the Temple of Him of Many Faces in the free city of Braavos
Samwell Tarly, a sworn brother of the Night's Watch
In the Iron Islands:
The Prophet, The Drowned Man: Aeron "Damphair" Greyjoy, Self-proclaimed servant of the Drowned god, youngest of Late King Balon's three surviving brothers
The Kraken's Daughter: Princess Asha Greyjoy, daughter of Late King Balon of the Iron Islands
The Iron Captain, The Reaver: Prince Victarion Greyjoy, Captain of the Iron fleet, one of Late King Balon's three surviving brothers
In Dorne:
The Captain of Guards: Areo Hotah, Captain of the Guards to Prince Doran Martell of Dorne
The Soiled Knight: Ser Arys Oakheart of the Kingsguard
The Queenmaker, The Princess in the Tower: Arianne Martell, daughter of Prince Doran and heir to Dorne
Editions[edit]
Foreign-language editions
Bulgarian: Бард: "Пир за Врани"
Catalan: Alfaguara: "Festí de corbs" ("Feast of crows")
Chinese (Simplified): 重庆出版社(2008): "群鸦的盛宴" ("Feast for Crows").
Chinese (Traditional): 高寶國際(2006): "群鴉盛宴" ("Feast for Crows").
Croatian: "Gozba vrana" ("Crows' Feast")
Czech: Talpress; "Hostina pro vrány" ("Feast for Crows")
Danish: Kragernes rige ("The Kingdom of the Crows")
Dutch: Luitingh-Sijthoff: "Een feestmaal voor kraaien" ("A Feast for Crows")
Estonian: Two volumes, hardcover : Varrak "Vareste pidusöök" ("Feast of Crows") book 1 & book 2
Finnish: "Korppien kestit" ("Feast of Crows")
French: Three Volumes, Hardcover: Pygmalion (2006-...): "Le chaos", "Les sables de Dorne", "Un Festin pour les Corbeaux" ("Chaos", "The Sands of Dorne", "A Feast For Crows").
German: Single volume, Fantasy Productions (2006): "Krähenfest" ("Crow's Feast", to be released). Two volumes, Blanvalet (2006): "Zeit der Krähen", "Die dunkle Königin" ("Time of the Crows", "The Dark Queen").
Greek: Anubis: "Βορά Ορνίων" ("Prey of Vultures")
Hebrew: "משתה לעורבים א\ב" ("Feast for Crows pts. A/B")
Hungarian: Alexandra Könyvkiadó: "Varjak lakomája" ("Feast of Crows")
Italian: Two volumes, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore (Hardcover 2006, 2007 - Paperback 2007, 2008): "Il dominio della regina", "L'ombra della profezia" ("The Rule of the Queen", "The Shadow of the Prophecy").
Japanese: Two volumes, hardcover : Hayakawa (2008), paperback : Hayakawa (2013): "乱鴉の饗宴" ("Feast of the War Crows") I and II
Korean: Eun Haeng Namu Publishing Co. :"까마귀의 향연" ("Feast for Crows")
Lithuanian: Alma Littera "Varnų puota" ("Crows' Feast")
Norwegian: Two volumes, "Kråkenes gilde" (The Crows' Feast), "Jern og sand" (Iron and Sand)
Polish: Two volumes, Zysk i S-ka: "Uczta dla wron: Cienie Śmierci", "Uczta dla wron: Sieć Spisków" ("A Feast for Crows: Shadows of Death", "A Feast for Crows: Web of Intrigues")
Brazilian Portuguese: Leya: "O Festim dos Corvos" ("The Crows Feast")
European Portuguese: Two volumes, Saída de Emergência: "O Festim de Corvos" ("A Feast of Crows"), "O Mar de Ferro" ("The Iron Sea")
Romanian: Paperback 2009, Harcover 2011: "Festinul ciorilor" ("The Crows' Feast")
Russian: AST: "Пир стервятников" ("Vultures' Feast").
Serbian: Two Volumes, Лагуна: "Гозба за вране Део први", "Гозба за вране Део други" ("A Feast for Crows")
Slovenian: Vranja gostija ("A Feast for Crows")
Spanish: Gigamesh (2007): "Festín de Cuervos" ("Feast of Crows")
Swedish: Forum bokförlag: "Kråkornas fest" ("The Crows' Feast")
Turkish: Two volumes, Epsilon Yayınevi: "Buz ve Ateşin Şarkısı IV: Kargaların Ziyafeti - Kısım I & Kargaların Ziyafeti - Kısım II" ("A Feast for Crows")
Ukrainian: KM Publishing (2016): "Бенкет круків" ("The Feast of Crows")
Vietnamese: Two Volumes: "Trò Chơi Vương Quyền 4A: Tiệc Quạ đen", "Trò Chơi Vương Quyền 4B: Lời Tiền tri". ("Game of Thrones 4A: A Feast of Crows", "Game of Thrones 4B: The Prophecy")
Publication[edit]
Martin released the first four "Iron Islands" chapters of A Feast for Crows as a novella called Arms of the Kraken, published in the 305th edition of Dragon magazine, published in May 2003.[13] Another chapbook featuring three Daenerys chapters was published for BookExpo 2005 although, following the geographical division of the book, these chapters were subsequently moved into the fifth volume in the series, A Dance with Dragons.
Martin originally planned for the fourth book to be called A Dance with Dragons with the story picking up five years after the events of A Storm of Swords (primarily to advance the ages of the younger characters). However, during the writing process it was discovered that this was leading to an overreliance on flashbacks to fill in the gap. After twelve months or so of working on the book, Martin decided to abandon much of what had previously been written and start again, this time picking up immediately after the end of A Storm of Swords. He announced this decision, along with the new title A Feast for Crows, at Worldcon in Philadelphia on September 1, 2001. He also announced that A Dance with Dragons would now be the fifth book in the sequence.[14]
In May 2005 Martin announced that his manuscript for A Feast for Crows had hit 1527 completed pages but still remained unfinished, with "another hundred or so pages of roughs and incomplete chapters, as well as other chapters sketched out but entirely unwritten."[3] As the size of the manuscript for 2000's A Storm of Swords, his previous novel, had been a problem for publishers around the world at 1521 pages, Martin and his publishers had decided to split the narrative planned for A Feast for Crows into two books.[3] Rather than divide the text in half chronologically, Martin opted to instead split the material by character and location:
It was my feeling ... that we were better off telling all the story for half the characters, rather than half the story for all the characters. Cutting the novel in half would have produced two half-novels; our approach will produce two novels taking place simultaneously, but set hundreds or even thousands of miles apart, and involving different casts of characters (with some overlap).[3]
Martin noted that A Feast for Crows would focus on "Westeros, King's Landing, the riverlands, Dorne, and the Iron Islands," and that the next novel, A Dance with Dragons, would cover "events in the east and north."[3] Martin also added that the A Song of Ice and Fire series would now likely total seven novels.[3] A Feast for Crows was published months later on October 17, 2005,[1] over five years after the previous volume in the series, A Storm of Swords.[15] The parallel novel A Dance with Dragons was released on July 12, 2011.[4]
Release details[edit]
2005, UK, Voyager ISBN 0-00-224743-7, Pub date 17 October 2005, hardback
2005, UK, Voyager ISBN 0-00-722463-X, Pub date ? ? 2005, hardback (presentation edition)
2005, US, Spectra Books ISBN 0-553-80150-3, Pub date 8 November 2005, hardback
2006, UK, Voyager ISBN 0-00-224742-9, Pub date 25 April 2006, paperback
Reception[edit]
Though A Feast for Crows was the first novel in the sequence to debut at number one on The New York Times Best Seller list,[5] it received more negative reviews in comparison with the previous novels in the series. Martin's decision to halve the plot in terms of character and location was highly controversial; many critics felt that this novel consisted of characters that people were less interested in. Publishers Weekly said, "Long-awaited doesn't begin to describe this fourth installment in bestseller Martin's staggeringly epic Song of Ice and Fire. [...]. This is not Act I Scene 4 but Act II Scene 1, laying groundwork more than advancing the plot, and it sorely misses its other half. The slim pickings here are tasty, but in no way satisfying."[16] Salon.com's Andrew Leonard said in 2011, "I don't care how good a writer you are: If you subtract your three strongest characters from your tale, you severely undermine the basis for why readers fell under your spell in the first place. It didn't work. But there was also a sense in A Feast of Crows that Martin had lost his way. The characters whose stories he did tell wandered back and forth across a landscape devastated by war and oncoming winter, but didn't seem to be headed anywhere in particular."[17] Remy Verhoeve of The Huffington Post noted in their 2011 A Dance with Dragons review that the fifth volume had to "repair some of the damage done by A Feast for Crows, which frankly felt as if it was written by a ghost writer at times." Both books had "the same structural problems", being "sprawling and incoherent", and in her opinion Feast has the less interesting characters.[18] The Atlantic's Rachael Brown said in their A Dance With Dragons review that Feast was "bleak and plodding" and "sorely missed" Daenerys Targaryen, Tyrion Lannister, and Jon Snow.[19]
Awards and nominations[edit]
Hugo Award – Best Novel (nominated) – (2006)[12]
Locus Award for Fantasy – Best Novel (nominated) – (2006)[12]
British Fantasy Award – Best Novel (nominated) – (2006)[12]
Quill Award – Best Novel (Science Fiction & Fantasy) (nominated) – (2006)
References[edit]
^ Jump up to: a b A Feast for Crows: Product Details (UK). Amazon.com. October 17, 2005. ISBN 0002247437.
Jump up ^ A Feast for Crows: Product Details (US). Amazon.com. November 8, 2005. ISBN 0553801503.
^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h Martin, George R. R. (May 29, 2005). "Done.". GeorgeRRMartin.com (Author's official website). Archived from the original on December 31, 2005. Retrieved March 6, 2010.
^ Jump up to: a b Hibberd, James (March 3, 2011). "Huge Game of Thrones news: Dance With Dragons publication date revealed! -- EXCLUSIVE". Retrieved March 3, 2011.
^ Jump up to: a b "Best-Seller Lists: Hardcover Fiction". The New York Times. NYTimes.com. November 27, 2005. Retrieved March 5, 2010.
Jump up ^ "The New York Times Best Seller list: November 8, 1998" (PDF). Hawes.com. Retrieved March 6, 2010.
Jump up ^ "The New York Times Best Seller list: November 26, 2000" (PDF). Hawes.com. Retrieved March 6, 2010.
Jump up ^ "The New York Times Best Seller list: January 26, 2003" (PDF). Hawes.com. Retrieved March 6, 2010.
Jump up ^ "The New York Times Best Seller list: October 30, 2005" (PDF). Hawes.com. Retrieved March 6, 2010.
Jump up ^ "The New York Times Best Seller list: November 15, 2009" (PDF). Hawes.com. Retrieved March 6, 2010.
Jump up ^ "Best-Seller Lists: Hardcover Fiction". The New York Times. NYTimes.com. October 9, 2005. Retrieved March 6, 2010.
^ Jump up to: a b c d "Science Fiction & Fantasy Books: 2006 Award Winners & Nominees". WorldsWithoutEnd.com. Retrieved July 25, 2009.
Jump up ^ "Dragon #305; Urban Adventures". rpg.net. Retrieved 10 August 2015.
Jump up ^ "The Citadel: So Spake Martin". Westeros.org. September 1, 2001. Retrieved March 12, 2010.
Jump up ^ Miller, Faren (November 2000). "Locu Online Reviews: A Storm of Swords (August 2000)". Locus. LocusMag.com. Retrieved March 7, 2010.
Jump up ^ "Fiction review: A Feast for Crows: Book Four of A Song of Ice and Fire". publishersweekly.com. October 3, 2005. Retrieved 2012-02-13.
Jump up ^ Leonard, Andrew (July 10, 2011). "Return of the new fantasy king: "A Dance With Dragons"". salon.com. Retrieved 2012-02-02.
Jump up ^ Verhoeve, Remy (July 7, 2011). "My Love/Hate Relationship with A Dance with Dragons". huffingtonpost.com. Retrieved 2012-02-16.
Jump up ^ Brown, Rachael (July 11, 2011). "George R.R. Martin on Sex, Fantasy, and A Dance With Dragons". theatlantic.com. Retrieved 2012-02-02.
Zimmerman, W. Frederick (December 15, 2005). Unauthorized A Feast for Crows Analysis (Paperback). Nimble Books. ISBN 0-9765406-1-4.
External links[edit]
Official website of author George R. R. Martin
A Feast for Crows title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
A Feast for Crows at the Internet Book List
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