YMMV / A Feast for Crows

• Ass Pull: The secret marriage pact promising Arianne to Viserys likely wasn't planned until this book. Viserys later status as the Begger King was well-known, Doran's plan rested on a destitute prince discovering a patron to grant him an army without him possessing any clear means of doing so. Also, no one in prior books mentioned the Prince of Dorne offering his heir to the poorest possible suitors (including Walder Frey), the exact sort of behavior other nobles would mockingly comment on, assuming much the same as Arianne did. Also, given Tyrion used the offer of Tommen to House Martell (and Arianne would have been the only possible match) as part of his plan to weed out spies in A Clash of Kings and no one commented on the vast age difference between him and Arianne (roughly sixteen years), it's likely Arianne being the same age as Viserys wasn't planned at that point.
• Broken Base: The Broken Man speech: is it an amazing and heartfelt exploration on what war does to the mind, and a great example of Grey-and-Grey Morality developing even the most depraved villains of the series, and thus one of the highlights of the series? Or is it a hamfisted "war is bad" message that isn't reflected in the actual narrative, given how we hardly ever actually see these broken men or have any significant characters become one; Brienne's main antagonist throughout Feast being the Always Chaotic Evil Brave Companions doesn't help matters. Or is it just a fairly good speech that the fanbase praised far too much?
• Catharsis Factor: The High Septon imposing a Karma Houdini Warranty on Cersei when he gets the evidence that she committed adultery and was using him to get rid of Margaery. He lures her into a trap, confronts her with the evidence, and has her locked up with the help of several strong nuns. Cersei realizes belatedly that she can't get out of this one after Tantrum Throwing her chamber pot and being naked, especially since Tommen legitimized the Septon.
• Contested Sequel: A Feast for Crows features only half the usual characters and places a lot of emphasis on new characters, giving the reader more of a commoner's perspective of Westeros than before. Many readers rejected the shift in emphasis, preferring the focus stay on the main plotlines and characters. Adding to the frustration is that the book came five years after A Storm of Swords and was followed by a six-year wait until A Dance With Dragons.
• Genius Bonus: Lady Genna tells Jaime that Lord Tywin referred to his successor as Hand of the King as "The Chuckler" because the only thing he was good for was chuckling at King Aerys' witticisms. A similar derogatory nickname was given to Wilhelm Keitel, the formal leader of the German Army in World War II, as his main qualification for the job was his ability to chuckle at the wit of another insane dictator.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: In one of her chapters, Cersei is mentally complaining about Pycelle and describes him as being "as useless as nipples on a breastplate." Ten years later, when Season 5 of the TV adaptation Game of Thrones aired lots of viewers were left questioning why the Sand Snakes' breastplates included nipples.
• Moral Event Horizon: If Cersei had not long since passed the MEH, her treatment of Falyse Stokeworth would see her leaping across it. She tells Falyse and her husband to get rid of Bronn, and when the plan fails she condemns Falyse to be tortured to death by Qyburn without a second thought simply because her presence at court would inconvenience Cersei.
• Narm: While Cersei's POV arc in this book is filled with generally restrained Bathos, owing to the premise of an increasingly irrational paranoiac trying to govern a fractious government in wartime, the passage wherein Cersei describes how she views swallowing Robert's semen as eating his heirs is so absurdly juvenile as to be hilarious.
  Ten thousand of your children perished in my palm, Your Grace, she thought, slipping a third finger into Myr. Whilst you snored, I would lick your sons off my face and fingers one by one, all those pale sticky princes. You claimed your rights, my lord, but in the darkness I would eat your heirs.
• Never Live It Down: Tommen mentions hating beets once, which was enough for the fandom to dub him "Tommen Beetsbane" and "King Tommen, Slayer of Beets".
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Archmaester Marwyn, called "The Mage" by the other archmaesters for his interest in the occult and jumping at the call to put his knowledge to work.
  • Septon Meribald and the Elder Brother are bit characters and appear briefly but many consider their sections to be one of the emotional high points of the entire series, with Word of God himself saying that Septon Meribald's "Broken Man" speech is one of his favorite moments.
• Replacement Scrappy: Darkstar was an admitted attempt to replace Oberyn Martell with a badass mercenary. However, his big talk about being dark and awesome combined with his ineffectual attack on Myrcella make him come across more as a Small Name, Big Ego Harmless Villain.
• Rooting for the Empire: The High Septon is no hero, given how he arrests Margaery on flimsy charges to use her as a pawn in his power grab. On the other hand, he has the sense to torture the knight who accused her because he suspects it's Too Good to Be True that someone would willingly submit to his version of morality. As a result, he locks up Cersei on charges of adultery and has a prime witness too tortured to deny the truth. This means he has two queens in his grasp with which to use as leverage with Tommen. The Septon also has all the time to torture Cersei into confessing. It's hard not to root for him.
• Squick: Cersei describes how she got a kick out of eating Robert's semen as a figurative consumption of tens of thousands of his potential children out of spite. Weird.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Arianne's "Queenmaker" story would have been an interesting arc if it wasn't foiled so abruptly.
• Trapped by Mountain Lions: Brienne's storyline battling against the Brave Companions provides some awesome moments for her and Pod, but ultimately it doesn't add to the plot that much, at least until Lady Stoneheart and the Brotherhood show up. Though ultimately it gives insight into her character growth and gives us a real look at post-War Westeros from the ground-up.
• Vindicated by History: While still probably considered the least-liked book in the series by most fans, the release of subsequent material showing how the plots started in this book thread into the main series along with the fact that the tv show cut about 90% of the plot from this book which resulted in controversial later seasons has increased the appreciation for this story in the years after its release. The fact that new readers don't have to deal with the long wait times before AND after this book also help its reception.
• Wangst: Jaime Lannister spends much of the book obsessing on the revelations about Cersei. While this might be understandable at first, he angsts at such wearying length that it becomes half of everything he thinks about. His obsession extends to the exact wording as well ("Moon Boy for all I know") to the point where he starts considering absolute nonsense: Jaime begins question whether his sister had slept with a person that he well knows Cersei wouldn't touch with a twenty-foot pole.