Cersei was firstborn. She mentions at one point that when she came out of the womb, Jaime was holding her foot, and goes on to complain that as the firstborn she should’ve been their father’s heir, not Jaime.
So, assuming valonqar applies to a younger brother of Cersei, it could be either Tyrion OR Jaime. Significantly, it never seems to occur to Cersei that the killing blow might come from Jaime.
Thanks, Mississippienne. I remembered the part about one holding on to the other’s heel, but didn’t remember who was first.
About Lady Westerling’s ancestry: [spoiler]Jaime remembers that her grandmother (maybe great-grandmother) is (approximate quote) “some half-mad witch woman from the east”.
About Jeyne Westerling:Do people think she’ll be involved in the story after this, or is she done? She’s still very much in love with Robb, and she has to realize that her mother’s been plotting with the Lannisters. (Her mom’s not very secretive about it when she and Jeyne are talking with Jaime, after all.) She didn’t have any opportunity to escape while Riverrun was beseiged, but now…? I can see her trying to run off to Robb’s former allies, and [del]Catelyn[/del]Lady Stoneheart would probably welcome her. … or maybe not, given Jeyne’s inadvertent role in the Red Wedding. Zombies are hard to predict.
Before I get into specifics, I will say that I liked the book, but in a way it sort of felt like Martin pulled a bit of a Jordan with this one. Yes, some of the plots advanced, but many got more complex while others got added. I’m not really complaining yet, but take that along with the time Martin took to write this book and it makes me wonder if we will ever see a conclusion.
Lady Stoneheart:
I didn’t like Catelyn by the end of the last book. Although she wasn’t as bad as Cersei for example, I was not sad when she got caught up in the Red Wedding. From what little we see of Lady Stoneheart, she has lost whatever redeeming values Catelyn had left. She now seems to be an undead monster seeking revenge on the living. Don’t expect noble things from her now. She botched those even when she was alive. Certainly don’t expect a warm welcome for Jeyne Westerling if Lady Stoneheart ever gets her hands on her.
Arya:
I can’t imagine that the blindness is anything more than the next step of her training. She made a decision that she was no longer Cat. It was time to move on to the next phase.
The Cleganes:
I’ll have to reread the part about the man with a limp. My thought was that Sandor is dead. Gregor is certainly dead, but I’m betting his body isn’t resting peacefully.
Cersei:
[spoiler]How did she live this long? How did she manage to snare Ned? Seriously. Apparently Tywin must have been giving her a lot of help behind the scenes. Looking back, I guess Tyrion had her pretty well in check until he was injured and lost power. Arming the church? When has anything good ever come of religious zealots being armed? :smack:
Pregnant? I considered that too, but I can’t believe that she wouldn’t realise it long before she had problems fitting into clothing. I thought they those comments were more her feeling age creeping up on her, which was making her even more jealous of Margaery.[/spoiler]
The Queens:
Regarding the younger queen replacing Cersei, it looks like the obvious choices are now Margaery, Dany, Arianne, and Sansa. Margaery doesn’t seem to have much chance unless it’s revealed that she was actually working Cersei. That seems somewhat unlikely considering what happened to Loras and the fact that she is now in the hands of the church herself. Still, her grandmother seems to be a force to be reckoned with. Dany is in the position of most power. I wouldn’t count out Sansa though. That Littlefinger is pretty tricksy.
Jaime:
He has certainly changed. Sad that it looks like he will end up paying for the sins of his past (as well as the sins of others) after he has become one of the few noble characters. Still, the foreshadowing seems to indicate that he will add Kinslayer to his Kingslayer title. His best chance of an extended life might be finding Tyrion, reconciling, and getting some help with the politics.
I felt similar RogueRacer. Its a consolidation book, and I guess you can either see that as a positive thing, deeper and stronger story etc or take a more negative look at it and question the lack of drama and direction. I enjoyed reading it regardless, but it is worrying that GRRM takes five years to produce such a static work as ‘A feast for Crows’. Does he know the story he ultimately wants to tell? Playing the negative for a minute; When the author himself prints an apology at the end of the book - ‘sorry for not including all of the good stuff, it’ll be back in the next one!’ you know all is not well. OTOH there were some superb POVs and stories in the book. I’d say he’s still, just about, on track to write the best ‘classic’ fantasy ever, but he’s hit a definite plateau here. Bring on ‘A dance with dragons’ 
Don’t forget that GRRM got a good way into writing the original A Dance with Dragons before starting Feast. That contributed to the delay.
Yeah, I’m getting pretty fond of Jaime, actually. All of the bad things he’s done, with the exception of throwing Bran out the window, have had really good reasons behind them. He tries to be honorable and keep his word whenever possible lately, but he doesn’t let that completely control him like Ned did.
Unfortunately, Dany’s probably going to want to set him on fire or something. And unless she changes a lot before she gets the chance, I don’t think it’ll be easy for anyone to talk her out of it.
Well, that and killing Jory in the first book, and in Feast he admits that
He would have cut Arya’s hand off had he caught her following the Nymeria incident
Oh yeah… those things. Oops! Ok, beyond that…
Can’t remember exactly where, but Twyin mentions this after Robb has married Jeyne. Tyrion wonders aloud why the Westerlings would do something so stupid (ie, tie themselves to Robb) and Tywin says something like “believe me, the Westerlings are very aware of Castamere.”
I was wondering if this has anything to do with the dwarf woman who sometimes makes prophecies for the Brotherhood without Banners? Who the hell is she, anyway?