Tear Jerker / A Clash of Kings

• The prologue with Maester Cressen. As a long-time maester of House Baratheon, Cressen helped raise Robert, Stannis, and Renly after their parents died. When Cressen sees that Melisandre is giving Stannis the notion of murdering Renly, he tries to kill her to stop her from pursuing that goal. He dies trying to stop Melisandre, and Stannis later goes through with assassinating Renly. Cressen tries to stop the assassination because he loved all three of the Baratheons like sons, and was heartbroken at the prospect of them killing each other. The fact that he ultimately fails makes this prologue even more tragic in hindsight.
  • Cressen spends much of the prologue lamenting that now, he's old and dying, with a bad hip making it hard for him to move. Stannis already has another maester ready for when Cressen dies — adding this to the fact that Cressen all but raised Stannis, that has to hurt. Stannis no longer seeks his council, and doesn't invite him to an important feast with the lord bannermen... but not because Stannis was tossing Cressen aside. As he tells Davos later, Stannis did care for the old man, and he didn't mean to ignore him — he wanted Cressen to live the rest of his years in peace. He genuinely wanted him to get some rest instead of coming to the feast where he died.
• When Catelyn receives her husband's corpse.
  Bones, Catelyn thought. This is not Ned, this is not the man I loved, the father of my children. His hands were clasped together over his chest, skeletal fingers curled about the hilt of some longsword, but they were not Ned's hands, so strong and full of life. They had dressed the bones in Ned's surcoat, the fine white velvet with the direwolf badge over the heart, but nothing remained of the warm flesh that had pillowed her head so many nights, the arms that had held her. The head had been rejoined to the body with fine silver wire, but one skull looks much like another, and in those empty hollows she found no trace of her lord's dark grey eyes, eyes that could be soft as a fog or hard as stone. They gave his eyes to crows, she remembered.
• For all of Stannis' talk of how he never loved either of his brothers, he has an epiphany too late, after having Renly assassinated.
  Stannis: Renly offered me a peach. At our parley. Mocked me, defied me, threatened me, and offered me a peach. I thought he was drawing a blade and went for mine own. Was that his purpose, to make me show fear? Or was it one of his pointless jests? When he spoke of how sweet the peach was, did his words have some hidden meaning? Only Renly could vex me with a piece of fruit. He brought his doom on himself with his treason, but I did love him, Davos. I know that now. I swear, I will go to my grave thinking of my brother’s peach.
  • It is implied Stannis doesn't actually know how Renly died. However due to the shadow assassin being created from his lifeforce he dreams of Renly's death as it occurs and feels responsible, even though he knows he was asleep when it happened. Yet even though he would be quite justified in hating Renly, who was always better-liked then Stannis and given Storm's End for doing basically nothing while Stannis for doing more receives almost no appreciation, plotted to steal Stannis' throne out of greed and vanity, sneeringly mocks Stannis for not being as charismatic, and made it clear he intended to kill his brother despite Stannis' very generous offer, Stannis still felt love for Renly and was upset at his death.
• The way Theon is goaded into betraying Robb. He is received at Pyke by his uncle Aeron in the most unceremonious way possible; he is humiliated by both Balon and Asha while, the whole time, Theon has to debate within himself on whether he'll choose Robb or whether he will stand for his family.
  • Theon, in his last moments of Face–Heel Turn, decides against 'paying the iron price' for a piece of jewelry, reminding himself that Ned would not have approved.
• Theon's backstory as a hostage to House Stark and the realization that he's been a prisoner to the Starks for half his life. Not only did Theon not fit in with the Starks, but when he returns to the Iron Islands, he's treated like an outsider there as well.
  "As if ten years in Winterfell could make a Stark. Lord Eddard had raised him among his own children, but Theon had never been one of them. The whole castle, from Lady Stark to the lowliest kitchen scullion, knew he was hostage to his father’s good behavior, and treated him accordingly. Even the bastard Jon Snow had been accorded more honor than he had. Lord Eddard had tried to play the father from time to time, but to Theon he had always remained the man who’d brought blood and fire to Pyke and taken him from his home. As a boy, he had lived in fear of Stark’s stern face and great dark sword."
• When Mandon Moore tries to kill Tyrion and he is saved by Pod. Tyrion immediately thinks that it must have been Jaime, because, in his whole life, only Jaime has ever spared him from anything. Really hits hard how downtrodden the poor man is when the only person in his immediate family he associates with unconditional kindness is an amoral Blood Knight.
• Tyrion doing an excellent job as Hand of the King. He makes allies out of two powerful enemy Houses, saves the capital from Stannis, and shows uncommon valor in combat, dreaming that his family will finally recognise his talents — only to find that his father has always viewed Tyrion as a deformed, lecherous, ungrateful, scheming monster responsible for the death of his own mother in childbirth, and Tyrion's recent accomplishments have done precisely nothing to change Tywin's mind.
• One of Davos's last thoughts before most of Stannis's men burn to death on the Blackwater, "My sons..." And he loses all of his sons who were in the battle.
• When Theon presents the bodies of "Bran" and "Rickon" in front of Winterfell's denizens. If any single scene had to be chosen to demonstrate just how much the Starks were loved, this would be a contender for that honor.
  Old Nan stood with her soft toothless mouth opening and closing soundlessly, and Farlen threw himself at Theon, snarling like one of his hounds. Urzen and Cadwyl had to beat him senseless with the butts of their spears.
• The desperate measures Theon resorts to when trying to hold Winterfell against Rodrik Cassel and his army. When he uses Beth Cassel as leverage against them, they treat him as a lowly traitor, despite how this is essentially the same thing the Starks had used him for against his father.
  "This is craven," Ser Rodrick said. "To use a child so... this is despicable."
  "Oh, I know," said Theon. "It's a dish I tasted myself, or have you forgotten? I was ten when I was taken from my father's house, to make certain he would raise no more rebellions."
  "It is not the same!"
  Theon’s face was impassive. "The noose I wore was not made of hempen rope, that's true enough, but I felt it all the same. And it chafed, Ser Rodrick. It chafed me raw." He had never quite realized that until now, but as the words came spilling out he saw the truth of them.
• Stannis recalls the deaths of his parents and says the day they drowned was the day he lost his faith in the Seven.
  Stannis: I stopped believing in gods the day I saw the Windproud break up across the bay. Any gods so monstrous as to drown my mother and father would never have my worship, I vowed. In King’s Landing, the High Septon would prattle at me of how all justice and goodness flowed from the Seven, but all I ever saw of either was made by men.
• The tale of Bael the Bard, which Ygritte tells Jon is quite sad. For a feud with Lord Brandon Stark, the wildling hero Bael the Bard sneaks in Winterfell and decides to steal Lord Stark's daughter, leaving a blue winter rose in her place. Lord Brandon spent years searching for her and almost died of despair nearly ending House Stark. Turns out Bael and Lady Stark were hiding in Winterfell all this time and the girl had bore Bael a son, who becomes the next Lord of Winterfell. However, when they meet on the battlefield Bael refuses to kill his son and is slain by him. When Lord Stark's mother finds out he unknowingly killed his father, she throws herself to her death. It takes a whole new level of sadness with the personal meaning it could have to a clueless Jon Snow.
• Bran leaving the crypt and turning back to look at his father's statue:
  As they set off, he turned to give his father one last look, and it seemed to Bran that there was a sadness in Lord Eddard's eyes, as if he did not want them to go. We have to, he thought. It's time.
• Catelyn has thoughts about not being so different from Jon Snow's mother despite the harsh words she told him in A Game of Thrones and the resentment she has always harbored for a woman she thinks Ned could have loved more than her:
  [Catelyn] found herself thinking of Jon’s mother, that shadowy secret love her husband would never speak of. Does she grieve for Ned as I do? Or did she hate him for leaving her bed for mine? Does she pray for her son as I have prayed for mine?
• Catelyn learning that Bran and Rickon are- apparently- dead.
  I keep remembering the Stark words. Winter has come, Father. For me. Robb must fight the Greyjoys now as well as the Lannisters, and for what? For a gold hat and an iron chair? Surely the land has bled enough. I want my girls back, I want Robb to lay down his sword and pick some homely daughter of Walder Frey to make him happy and give him sons. I want Bran and Rickon back, I want... I want...
• Jorah telling Dany the story of his old wife, Lynesse. The two were genuinely in love for all of a week — afterward, Lynesse realized that Jorah really wasn't a splendidly rich tourney champion. He was just a simple knight from Bear Island, a drab, boring place that was nothing like the flashy home she was used to. She left him to become a merchant prince's concubine. Afterward, when asked, Jorah tells Dany that Lynesse looked a lot like her. This is where Dany realizes that Jorah loves her romantically, and imagines being with him... and fails. Jorah is hopelessly in love with Dany, but emphasis on 'hopeless' — Dany does not return his affections, especially when she is still grieving the death of her husband, Khal Drogo.
• The death of Smiler, Theon's warhorse. The last thing he sees is the poor horse set ablaze, running away while screaming in agony. Osha later finds the horse covered in arrows. The horse's almost human screams would later haunt Theon in Moat Cailin.

---