sawyl | Fantasy and characterisation

Had an interesting discussion with someone the characterisation of the protagonists in GRRM's A Song of Ice and Fire. Surprisingly, given that Martin's ability to draw convincing characters is one of his great strengths, my interlocutor announced themselves not at all impressed with the later books. The conversation went roughly as follows:

Them:	I don't think much of A Feast for Crows. I don't think I like what he's doing with the characters. He's totally changed them. They're completely inconsistant.
Me:	[ surprised ] Really?
Them:	Jaime Lannister isn't the the same person. He was this monsterous warrior. A psychopath who pushed Bran out of the window. And now he has all these doubts. He's completely different. And his sister. She seems OK in the early books and now she's totally stupid.
Me:	You need to think about why they're different. In the first books Jaime's only ever shown from the outside, so we don't know what he's thinking or why he does what he does. But once you see things from his perspective you realise that all he really wants is to be the the perfect knight. So when he loses his hand, he thinks he's lost everything that makes him who he is and he starts to reconsider his position on everything.
Them:	[ dubiously ] Um, yes...
Me:	It's the same with Circe. Initially she pretty powerless as Robert's queen and we only get to see her from the outside. It's only when we see things from her perspective that we realise that she's not very clever.
Them:	I suppose so...
Me:	[ pointedly ] It's called character development. It's generally considered a sign of literary quality...

It's since occurred to me that I could also have pointed out that our initial views of the Lannisters come from unreliable sources: Eddard Stark and, in the case of Circe, the hopelessly star-struck Sansa (who also gradually shifts from navity to something like cynicism as she gradually allows herself to turn into Alayne Stone).

Actually, now that I think about it, change is everywhere in the world of ASoIF and the motto thus far might well be said to be: adapt or die.