Tear Jerker / A Game of Thrones

• At the start of the book, Bran has "fallen" from the tower and is left crippled. An anguished Catelyn treats her husband's 14-year old illegitimate son Jon exceedingly poorly, even though he is grieving and is trying to say goodbye to his brother Bran for what may well be the last time in his life. Just as he turns to leave, she calls him back, addressing him by his name for the first time and in a mad moment of grief over her son's fall...
  Catelyn: Jon...
  Jon: Yes?
  Catelyn: It should have been you.
  • From Catelyn’s own perspective... one of your youngest children, the one you are closest bonded to, has suddenly fallen into a mysterious coma and is quite likely dying. You are in too much pain to eat or sleep and can't bring yourself to leave his side in case he dies. You don't even have your husband around to comfort you in your depression and grief.
• In a subtly tearjerking moment, Robert says to Ned:
  "My son. How could I have made a son like that, Ned?”
  • The King's pain is very much clear — to Ned and to the readers — and the reason for this becomes clearer when we see Joffrey's reign.
  • Robert might have been a drunkard, a lech, and a glutton, but he had good traits Joffrey never possesses: generous (a bit too much probably), merciful, brave, always ready to laugh and make friends. So it's understandable how uncomfortable a cat-disemboweling little psychopath like Joffrey would make him feel.
  • As we see later as well, Robert's bastard children who we get to know inherit a good deal of Robert's more positive traits and would be far more worthy of the position given to Joffrey, who is not his son.
• The execution of Sansa's direwolf Lady, who was always proper, gentle and sweet. She had done absolutely nothing wrong, but Cersei made Ned kill her anyway.
  Sansa: He doesn't mean Lady, does he? No. No, not Lady, Lady didn't bite anyone, she's good... Stop them, don't let them do it, please, please, it wasn't Lady, it was Nymeria, Arya did it, you can't, it wasn't Lady, don't let them hurt Lady, I'll make her be good, I promise, I promise...
  • When Lady's bones are brought back to Winterfell, her brothers began to howl before the carrier had even entered the castle and for days afterward, they roamed around her grave "like restless shadows". Also in a gesture both tearjerking and heartwarming, Lady was buried not in some dingy corner of the great castle but in the graveyard where the Kings of Winter laid their most faithful servants to rest.
  • The biggest kicker? Arya called out Cersei and demanded she leave Lady alone. She stood up for her older sister in defense of Lady while Sansa is blaming her and Nymeria for the attack; said attack being the guy she has the hots for is trying to cut her only sister to ribbons yet she still wants to marry him. Never mind the fact that if Sansa had only told the truth, then Lady would have still be alive, yet she still refused to backtrack the lie, even as Lady’s execution is carried out. Yet Sansa goes as low as to tell Arya that she and Nymeria should have died instead of Lady.
• Later on, Arya confides in her father over how she forced her beloved direwolf to run away.

  We had to throw rocks. I told her to run, to go be free, that I didn't want her anymore. There were other wolves for her to play with, we heard them howling, and Jory said the woods were full of game, so she'd have deer to hunt. Only she kept following and finally we had to throw rocks. I hit her twice. She whined and looked at me and I felt so 'shamed, but it was right, wasn't it? The queen would have killed her.''

• After Arya's friend Mycah is butchered by the Hound, Arya just can't forgive herself, and keeps on reminding herself that it's all her fault that the poor butcher's boy is dead.

  “I was trying to learn, but…” “Her eyes filled with tears. “I asked Mycah to practice with me." The grief came on her all at once. She turned away, shaking. "I asked him," she cried. "It was my fault, it was me…" Suddenly her father's arms were around her. He held her gently as she turned to him and sobbed against his chest. "No, sweet one," he murmured. "Grieve for your friend, but never blame yourself. You did not kill the butcher's boy. That murder lies at the Hound's door, him and the cruel woman he serves."

  • Sadder still, Arya is the only character who seems to mourn for him. While everyone else focuses on how Ned had to kill his daughter's pet wolf, no one, except Ned (and even then, it's very brief), pays a thought to an innocent boy who was killed, showing how low common people rank in Westerosi society.
    She hated the sounds of their voices now, the way they laughed, the stories they told. They'd been her friends, she'd felt safe around them, but now she knew that was a lie. They'd let the queen kill Lady, that was horrible enough, but then the Hound found Mycah. Jeyne Poole had told Arya that he'd cut him up in so many pieces that they'd given him back to the butcher in a bag, and at first the poor man had thought it was a pig they'd slaughtered. And no one had raised a voice or drawn a blade or anything, not Harwin who always talked so bold, or Alyn who was going to be a knight, or Jory who was captain of the guard. Not even her father.
• The death of King Robert is no less a tearjerker. Thought to be the harbinger of a new age after the Targaryen kings were vanquished, Robert was indeed a very charismatic figure, but a terrible king nonetheless. An example of Crippling Overspecialization, Robert was a good friend and a remarkable leader during the revolutionary war; the matters of the crown, however, went well above his head and he left them aside, unwittingly setting up his own downfall and the eventual setup of the War of the Five Kings in his absence. A very good man and friend for the entirely wrong task.
  • Not only that, but the very description of what he used to be before he became king shows how his power was slowly swept away by the weasels who picked up on his slack. He is effectively a mighty wall-of-a-man reduced to an amorphous blob of fat.
• Jon’s devastation when Lord Commander Mormont relays news of his father’s arrest. When Jon worries about his father and sisters, a sympathetic Mormont can only offer him empty comfort as he does not know more about the situation. When he picks up on Jon’s urge to help his family, he must remind Jon that there's nothing he can do as he has sworn to the Watch now. Jon is distraught and even the guards notice Jon’s devastation and try to comfort him.
  Jon did not remember standing or leaving the solar. The next he knew, he was descending the tower steps, thinking, This is my father, my sisters, how can it be none of my concern.
  • The realization that Sansa and Arya are alone without their wolves:
    The rest of the afternoon passed as if in a dream. Jon could not have said where he walked, what he did, who he spoke with. Ghost was with him, he knew that much. The silent presence of the direwolf gave him comfort. The girls do not even have that much, he thought. Their wolves might have kept them safe, but Lady is dead and Nymeria’s lost, they’re all alone.
  • When Jon asks for word about his father and sisters, he is devastated by news that his father has been executed. Like Maester Aemon, Mormont parallels his situation with Jon’s, understanding Jon loves his father but nothing he can do now will ever bring him back and he loves his own sister (who is currently fighting in Robb's army) as Jon loves his two sisters but they must withstand their own personal suffering to fight the true war coming for them from beyond the Wall. Things don’t get better for Jon in this area. He continues to receive news of his siblings' deaths and suffers from Conflicting Loyalty between the family he loves and the order he is sworn to.
• Maester Aemon's speech to Jon, revealing himself as Aemon Targaryen and he's been in the exact same situation as Jon is in now, telling Jon, "It hurts, boy. Oh, yes. Choosing... it has always hurt. And always will. I know.”
  Three times the gods saw fit to test my vows. Once when I was a boy, once in the fullness of my manhood, and once when I had grown old. By then my strength was fled, my eyes grown dim, yet that last choice was as cruel as the first. My ravens would bring the news from the south, words darker than their wings, the ruin of my House, the death of my kin, disgrace and desolation. What could I have done, old, blind, frail? I was helpless as a suckling babe, yet still it grieved me to sit forgotten as they cut down my brother’s poor grandson, and his son, and even the little children...
• Ned's thoughts near his end, especially when he yearns to see his illegitimate son Jon Snow and to talk with him: "The thought of Jon filled Ned with a sense of shame, and a sorrow too deep for words. If only he could see the boy again, sit and talk with him". No doubt he was thinking about how he couldn't tell Jon about his mother and it's safe to say that there was a lot to be said.
• Every single nightmare Ned has about his sister Lyanna's death. The mantra "Promise me!" pops up every time there's something that reminds him of keeping that promise, a burden he has carried on by himself for fourteen years, which has shaped his the man he has become. And if the most popular fan theory is true... ^note Game of Thrones showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff got Martin's approval to make the show in the first place by correctly guessing the identity of Jon's mother and, in the Season 6 finale, it is revealed Lyanna is Jon's mother.Ned promised to raise his nephew, Jon Snow, the son of his sister and Prince Rhaegar, and protect him by hiding his true origins. Made especially dramatic considering Ned had just fought alongside Robert in a war against the Targaryens and ended up being the one trusted with Rhaegar's son, the only child of Ned’s deceased sister. Robert had vowed to destroy anyone with Targaryen blood so Ned spends the rest of his life protecting his sister’s child, passing his nephew off as his illegitimate son to keep Jon safe from Robert's wrath. This would be a constant string to his relationship with his wife, not to mention that for keeping this secret he must lie to his best friend. However he brought Jon home with him, raised and loved the boy as his own, and took the greatest secret in Westeros to the grave, allowing the world to think he had broken his marriage vows — all to save his sister's only son. Also, Ned was the only one who could reveal to Jon his Targaryen heritage... but Joffrey put an end to it by having Ned's head chopped off. Not to mention that war was started to rescue this girl, Lyanna... and when Ned reached her, she was dying, and he couldn't do anything to save her and could only hear her last pleas to him.
• Robert's last speech (to Ned) — "The girl. Daenerys. Only a child, you were right". Robert has spent his life hating the Targaryens because of his hatred for Rhaegar and, only when he's dying, can he get rid of it and perhaps forgive.
  • "I will give Lyanna your love, Ned. Take care of my children for me." Robert is thinking of his lost love even in near death. Made even more heartbreaking by the fact that it's hinted that Lyanna didn't love him back. He has been Loving a Shadow for years.
• The arrival of the raven at Winterfell, bearing the news of Lord Eddard's death. The whole scene is a tearjerker, from Bran hugging his baby brother, to Osha trying to comfort Bran, to Maester Luwin's reaction...
  "My lords," he said to the sons, in a voice gone hoarse and shrunken, "we ... we shall need to find a stone carver who knew his likeness well ..."
• Sansa's reaction to seeing her father being beheaded right before her.
  "In the tower room at the heart of Maegor's Holdfast, Sansa gave herself to the darkness."
  • And when Sansa awakens from nightmares in which she sees her father's beheading all over again, this 11-year old girl — who months before, dreamed of fairy tales, songs, and being married to a prince — doesn't think her own death would be so terrible now. She even goes "so far as to cross the bedchamber and throw open the shutters... but then her courage left her, and she ran back to her bed, sobbing."
  • And even when she can escape into sleep, all Sansa has are nightmares of being trapped by whoever is coming for her:
    She woke murmuring, "Please, please, I'll be good, I'll be good, please don't," but there was no one to hear.
• Jon's reaction to learning about his father's execution. Distraught over his father's death, Jon desperately attempts to get to the battlefield where he can do something, anything, to avenge his father. He knows it's dangerous, knows that desertion from the Watch means death, is not even sure that his brother Robb — his best friend and constant companion in childhood — will be able to let him join the war since Jon, having joined the Watch, is bound to its laws, but...
  Jon: They murdered my father. It's war, my brother Robb is fighting in the riverlands—
• There's a moment where Robb takes crippled Bran to his room, tucks him in, and lets out a small cry as they hold hands in the dark.
  • Robb telling Bran that when he's up and about again, the two of them will take a trip up to the Wall to visit Jon. Harsher in Hindsight.
• Eddard Stark's death. He was the one of the few who cared about the good of the realm and one of the unmistakably good characters in this Crapsack World.
  • To make things worse, his two young daughters see it happen. Sansa pleaded for his life before the Iron Throne and was promised that he would be shown mercy. Arya is forced to flee into the slums before seeing his execution.
• When Daenerys must smother Khal Drogo because his mind and consciousness are dead.
  • And why is he in that state? He got a small wound, nothing but a scratch, but it got infected. One of the women Daenerys saved from the pillaging and raping, Mirri Maaz Duur was a healer/priestess, so Daenerys asks her for help. She puts a poultice on it but he says it hurts more than the good it does and he's dying. So Daenerys makes a deal with Mirri, to save his life. Daenerys loses her unborn child in the process and it still only keeps him alive. When Daenerys calls out Mirri about this saying she saved her life, Mirri scoffs saying that before Daenerys came, she was raped twice already and watched so many of her friends and fellow villagers be killed by the Dothraki which the mere fact that she, Mirri, is alive, did nothing to make better, so she wanted to teach Daenerys a lesson. Unclear is whether she sabotaged only the ceremony or the poultice as well.
• Pretty much any mention of the house with the red door. As a young girl, Daenerys and Viserys were both taken care of by a Targaryen loyalist, Willem Darry, who was possibly the closest thing Dany had to a father and his house was one of the only places she could truly call home. Eventually, Darry died of old age and his servants kicked the two out, leaving the house with the red door behind forever.
• Despite his obsessive hatred for Rhaegar, we get an insight into Robert's loneliness and disillusionment as he seems to know deep down that Lyanna may have chosen Rhaegar over Robert himself:
  Robert: Rhaegar... Rhaegar won, damn him. I killed him, Ned, I drove the spike right through that black armor into his black heart, and he died at my feet. They made up songs about it. Yet somehow he still won. He has Lyanna now, and I have her.
• When Varys recalls Princess Rhaenys's death, he mentions that she'd been hiding under her father's bed during the Sack of King's Landing... as if she believed her father's spirit would protect her. It didn't.
  • Varys' entire speech about Rhaenys, which doubles as a sad and poetic description of the series' morality as a whole.
    Varys: Rhaenys was a child too. Prince Rhaegar's daughter. A precious little thing, younger than your girls. She had a small black kitten she called Balerion, did you know? I always wondered what happened to him. Rhaenys liked to pretend he was the true Balerion, the Black Dread of old, but I imagine the Lannisters taught her the difference between a kitten and a dragon quick enough, the day they broke down her door... The High Septon once told me that as we sin, so do we suffer. If that's true, Lord Eddard, tell me... why is it always the innocents who suffer most, when you high lords play your game of thrones?
• After Ned's death, Bran dreams his father talked to him in the crypt. He has Maester Luwin and Osha take him down, where they find Shaggydog and Rickon. Rickon reveals he had the same dream in the most heartbreaking way possible:
  Rickon: He's coming home now, like he promised. He's coming home.
• The way Daenerys is treated in her first few chapters until she starts taking levels in badass. She's a thirteen year old girl who has spent most of her life on the run, living off charity or begging. Her entire family is dead save for her brother Viserys, who is very mentally unstable and switches between being affectionate to her and abusing her at the drop of a hat. When Viserys tells her he's marrying her off to a complete stranger to get an army, Dany is terrified and pleads with him that she doesn't want to be Drogo's queen; she just "wants to go home", merely meaning either Illyrio's manse or the house with the red door where she initially grew up. Viserys, though, only thinks of home as Westeros and tells Dany they can only go home with an army. He then drops his infamous line about how he'd let Drogo's entire army and their horses rape her if that's what it took and that she should be grateful it's only Drogo.
  • Dany's wedding day is hellish for her. She feels too queasy to eat anything and is horrified by the sight of men fighting and killing each other, and men having rough sex with women in public. Despite being the bride, she's pretty much ignored by most people, including her new husband (largely on account of the language barrier). And Viserys had ordered her to smile or else, so she sits there smiling and smiling until her face hurts and there are tears in her eyes. The one time she's happy during her wedding is when she gets to ride on her new horse, but Viserys immediately ruins it by pinching her and ordering her to make Drogo happy on their wedding night, or she'll 'wake the dragon'. When she and Drogo go off to consummate the marriage, she's so scared she's shaking and repeatedly tells herself that she's the 'blood of the dragon', then starts crying.
  • The first few weeks of her life with the Dothraki are utterly miserable. She finds it hard riding all day because she's not used to it, with her hands developing painful blisters. She has no friends or allies as of yet. Drogo ignores her except to come into her tent in the dead of night to have sex with her, which leaves her in pain and crying. Viserys is, of course, not remotely sympathetic. It gets so bad that she starts thinking that she'd rather die than keep going. Then she has an inspiring dragon dream and begins her journey to badassry.
• Eroeh's whole story. She's a timid Lhazareen girl whom Dany takes as a slave to protect her from being raped and abused. When she finds out Drogo is dying, Eroeh is terrified, because if he dies any power Dany has over the khalasar is gone. When Dany finally wakes up after giving birth and discovers she's pretty much lost everything, she asks about Eroeh. She's told that the girl was seized by Khal Jhaqo's bloodriders, who took it in turns gang-raping then slit her throat when they got bored of her. Despite all her efforts, all Dany did was delay Eroeh's suffering and she blames herself for failing to protect her. She still thinks of Eroeh for years afterwards; when she finds out what happened to Astapor and Yunkai, she even thinks bitterly that she has made "ten thousand Eroehs".