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This is a really frustrating comment because I don't feel like it engages with what I wrote nor, nor with the comment above, nor even in good faith with the author's work. You are doing the exact same thing that I come down on the Brother's Krynn for: engaging in bombastic, exagerrated critiques of the book that have much more basis in your reactions and emotions to the book rather than what is actually in the text. Now unfortunately I have quite the large rhetorical advantage here because I've read these books many times and love them, and so have many more resources to draw upon to contradict your rather juvenile interpretations of A Feast for Crows in Particular.
Let's start with the first point.
I'm not sure how you can say this given millions of people have gotten so much out of these books, but I disgress. A Feast for Crows is certainly the easiest of the books to pick a fight with in this regard, but again I think it's pretty easy to prove you wrong. Let's go through the major plot points of AFFC and see if anything "happens"
Cersei in King's Landing: Without Tywin/Jaime/Tyrion to keep her in line, Cersei descends further and futher into an egoistic spiral where she becomes increasingly paranoid, easily manipulable (and fatter), and begins to take on all the characteristics of her dead husband who she hated. This culminates in her misplaying her hand and being arrested by the faith militant Themes/messages: corrupting nature of power (even for someone already clearly corrupt), complicated relationship between love and hatred (Cersei sure spends a lot of time thinking about Robert), fear of declining sexual attractiviting when one's power is derived from appearances.
Sansa in the Eeyrie: Sansa sinks deeper into her identity as Peter Baelish's stepdaughter. There's some minor politicing in the Vale of Arryn, but I found most of Sansa's sections to be focused on her struggles with her own identity and her own ideals. So much of Sansa's story is about her obsession with some knight or hero coming to save her from the trials and tribulations she's been put through, and this part of her arc is about her slow realization that hero has to be her herself. She has to be the one who plays the game and embody the ideals of her father. How is this not a powerful message.
Dorne. Arianne and Ser Arys plan to crown Myrcella Baratheon queen and rebel against the Iron Throne after the death of her uncle. This goes horribly wrong when her father finds out, and Myrcella is maimed, Arys dies and one of her co-conspirators escapes. Her father confesses his own long-planned moves against the Lannsiter regime. Themes/messages: the innocent are always those who suffer most in war, vendetta's never solve anything, thinking carefully about a plan doesn't necessarily make it so it's going to work out. Adam Feldman has some great essays on this plotline at the Mereenese Blot
Iron Islands. Balon Greyjoy is dead so there's an election for a new King. Balon's brother Euron wins the election through the promise of even greater booty through the continuation of raiding/reaving, this time in the south. Asha is unable to articulate her reasons for peace, and Victarion is unable to effectively form a coalition with her because of his views on gender/general dimwittedness. There's some more reaving in the Shield Islands off the coast of the Reach where it becomes increasingly clear that Euron merely views the ironborne as a tool for his lovecraftian plans. Themes/messages: The seductive appeal of war, manipulabiliity of democratic institutions, problems with holding to tradition when tradition clearly no longer works.
Arya. Arya trainsto become an assasin in Bravos. At the end of the book she has to give up Needle, which is her last real memory of home. Like Sansa this section is very much about identity. Arya has worn so many faces throughout the series and been forced to do some pretty horrible things (remember she's an 8 year old when the series starts). These sections made me think about how we shape and form our own identities: is there some deep core of who we are, or is it more dependent on our environment.
Brienne. Brienne wanders the Riverlands looking for Sansa, which we know is a futile quest. That is not to say nothing happens: each chapter is a little adventure in of itself, and serves as a vehicle to explore the questions of knighthood and chivalry. Does Brienne still embody Knightly ideals even though she doesn't have the actual blessing of the institution of knighthood? Even though her quest is pointless? Yes, yes she does. She kills outlaws, she protects the innocent from violence (which I quote from the text above), and she trains a squire in this image. Martin is trying to tell us her that you don't need a grand quest or instititutional approval to be heroic and to live up to your ideals.
Jaime. Jaime has a lot of parallels to Brienne's story. He spends all of this book mopping up the last bits of Stark resistance in the Riverlands. Knighthood is also central to this arc. Jaime spends most of his life scoffing at the institution because of its apparent contradictions. Yet in this book Jaime realizes that those contradictions mainly involve other's perceptions of you: you always have a choice to do what you personally believe is right and thread the narrow needle of all your conflicting vows.
Sam. Sam only has three chapters in this book, so his arc is rather short. Sam and Maester Aemon are sailing to Oldtown but get stuck in Braavos. Maester Aemon ends up dying, and Sam comes into conflict with the other brother of the night's watch who is shirking his vows. Sam finally ends up standing up for himself and his beliefs and ends up finding passage on a ship because of it. In contrast to your point, this is an arc about gaining agency by standing up for one's beliefs, even in the most desperate of times.
I just gave you eight character arcs with various levels of plot and character development. It's okay to not have enjoyed these arcs, to think the book as a whole is too slow, or to think that some of these arcs were poorly done. What is not okay is to claim that it all means nothing, that there's no message here, that the character's lack agency in their own stories. That is just so clearly false. Just because the stakes aren't world shaking, doesn't mean that the character's lives and actions don't have meaning. Brienne might not find Sansa, but she saves Willow and her siblings from being murdered and raped. Jaime might not be able to turn back the clock on the whole of the war of the Five Kings, but he does use diplomacy to prevent a bloody battle over Riverrun.
You and all the other people in this thread need to be better readers. Not only does Martin's work clearly not support a nihilistic world view, but my own essay very clearly argues against that. All you all have to offer in return are word salads about your emotions reading the book, rather than actual textual evidence.
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