Everything you ever wanted to know about the combined edition of A Feast For Crows & A Dance With Dragons

Fergus Halliday is a freelance PC, tech & pop culture writer.

2015 marks the fourth year since the last volume of A Song of Ice & Fire was released as well as Season 5 of the Game of Thrones TV series, which will be based mostly on the latest two novels. More than a few from the series’ ever-growing legion of fans will find themselves mining A Feast For Crows and A Dance With Dragons for any hints they may have missed the first, second or third time around. For these fans–as well as more casual readers–the fan-produced combined-edition of these two books is an alluring (and, I would argue, superior) route to take on their re-reads.

What is the combined volume, why is it better, and what does it mean?

What is it?

A Feast For Crows (released 2005) and A Dance With Dragons (2011) cover roughly the same chronological period in Westeros but focus on different geographical regions–Feast is primarily in the Southlands, Dance, the North and Essos. Fans have taken it upon themselves to combine the two into single volumes.

Though legally-questionable (unless you take Boiled Leather’s DIY-approach), this version strips away the arbitrary geographical and chronological divisions between Feast and Dance and fuses them together into a cohesive–albeit sprawling–volume. Perhaps most importantly, it represents a fascinating evolution of the relationship between George R.R. Martin and his readers.

There are many different names for this combined edition (A Feast For Dragons, A Dance With Crows, A Ball of Beasts…) but they share many of the same intentions in their pursuit of meeting the standard they felt Martin’s efforts fell short of. Each volume of ASOIAF has tended to move the story from a clear point A to point B, and, while the players of Dance end up in a different place to where they started, it falls short of the series’ transformative precedents. Above all, fans felt unsatisfied by the lack of real climax to either book, and, taking a page from showrunners of Game of Thrones, set out to combine them.

What does it change?

The most immediate purpose that the merged edition serves is to provide a more ‘complete’ narrative arc for its cast and enable its thematic concerns to emerge more cohesively.

Warning: SPOILERS abound

The realities of rulership have been a point of constant interest in A Song of Ice & Fire since the beginning, but Feast and Dance really see these concepts take center stage by putting the point-of-view characters in charge. Dany’s struggles enforcing peace in Meereen, Jon’s suffering under the duties of being Lord Commander, Cersei’s fall from grace, and the political machinations of the Ironborn and Dornish plotlines help to form a thematically rich narrative spine built on rulership that runs through both books. By merging AFFC and ADWD, this theme becomes greater in scope, detail and effectiveness.

Earlier installments of the series largely avoided scenes from the perspective of the rulers, preventing readers from seeing inside the heads of rulers like Joffrey and Robert Baratheon or Robb Stark. By changing his own convention, Martin is able to more deftly approach the idea that the men and women at the top of a medieval hierarchy aren’t all that different from those at the bottom. I would even go so far as to say that Martin’s critique of each ruler’s style and approach forms a sort of commentary on similar contemporary figures of power. It’s a compelling aspect of the two books that I feel is lent more credence through their consolidation.

In comparison to how the second and third volumes of the series integrated now-beloved point-of-view characters like Davos Seaworth and Jaime Lannister, Feast is often criticized for being too heavy-handed in this regard. AFFC’s new character perspectives aren’t nearly as bad as some say, but they were introduced at a time where the level of emotional investment by fans in the already existing cast was at its absolute highest. Consequently, many readers were disappointed to discover A Feast For Crows was much more interested in setting up dominoes than it was escalating the bloody drama of its immediate predecessor.

Some fans saw this as a shortcoming but others saw it as a challenge–a chance to step up and mould the fourth chapter of Martin’s saga into a new form that made the most of its literary and dramatic potential.

Where did it come from and why does it matter?

To understand why AFFC and ADWD have made such ripe targets for fan-editors, it helps to understand the how the scope of Martin’s series evolved over time. Martin originally planned to set the fourth book several years after A Storm of Swords. This idea was later abandoned, with Martin restructuring and expanding the book–eventually breaking it apart geographically into the two volumes we know today. Nonetheless, comments made in interviews and blog posts would plant the seeds for fans to act on the idea that the two books could be merged to form a superior work.

However, not everyone agrees. The counter argument here is that if Martin had wanted readers to experience AFFC and ADWD as one book, they would have been released as one. I think that’s a fair albeit purist take on the matter, but it does raise some interesting questions about the way we consume stories.

Though a long-standing practice, fan-edits of popular works recently made the news again after an anonymous Tolkien fan released their cut of Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy. Like the merged-edition of AFFC/ADWD, this fan-cut also exists in a very legally-grey area and helps illustrate a scenario where fans have stepped up to shape the way they experience stories–regardless of the original creator’s wishes.

Readers have had years to analyse and critique the series and while they don’t have the foreknowledge that Martin does, they do have passion and numbers on their side. Their hard work enables the merged edition to be iterative and responsive in a way the published novels weren’t – and in a way that ensures it will be able to restructure itself come the release of The Winds of Winter.

These fans are taking charge of the way they experience the series they love and I think this isn’t just an endeavor that’s fascinating to watch unfold but also one that does wonders for the community that’s grown around the series.

Fergus is an ASOIAF enthusiast and games/pop-culture writer. He’s written for Gameranx, Leviathyn, Pixel Hunt, Resident Entertainment, Press Start, CRN, PopMatters & The BRAG Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter at @Cvamped.

• Published on 02/12/2015 at 8:00 AM CDT
• Last updated on 10/21/2016 at 1:06 PM CDT