History ASongOfIceAndFire / TropesAToD

--->A Bear, ''a bear'', all black and brown and covered in hair!

* BeastlyBloodsports: The people of Slavers' Bay really like these kind of sports. When Dany goes there to buy slave soldiers, their owner invites her to go see a game that night where three children are slathered in different condiments and thrown into a bear pit, with wagers placed on which one lasts longest.

* BawdySong: "The Bear and the Maiden Fair" is the one most often mentioned, and the only one we get the full lyrics to.
---> A Bear, ''A Bear'', all black and brown and covered in hair!

** His younger brother Sandor Clegane.

** Vargo Hoat and the Brave Companions.

** The Others are this to all the Free Folk and the Night's Watch.
** Daenerys' dragons to the Yunkish army.
** Aegon's largest dragon was called Balerion the Black Dread.
** The Faceless Men.
** The Crannogmen.
** The island of Skagos, inhabited by cannibals.

* DrillSergeantNasty: Alliser Thorne.

* ArmyOfThievesAndWhores:

-->Ser Dunk The Tall: Oak and iron guard me well, or else I'm dead, and doomed to hell.
* ArmyOfThievesAndWhores: While once considered a noble calling by all and still seen as this by some in the North, The Night's Watch has fallen into disrepair nowadays. Also, the Brotherhood Without Banners which is, in essence, an extremely unromantic version of Robin Hood's Merry Men

* ArtifactTitle: InUniverse, "the Seven Kingdoms" is a reference to the political composition of Westeros before Aegon the Conqueror showed up. At that time Westeros was divided into Kingdoms of the North, the West, the Reach, Dorne, the Stormlands, the Vale, and the united Kingdom of the Iron Islands and the Riverlands. But even then, Aegon I only conquered six of the kingdoms with Dorne resisting the Targaryens for more than a hundred and fifty years. They never actually united all Seven Kingdoms, but claimed to do so, and by the time of the present there is a Westeros divided into nine separate regions.
** The Lannisters' castle, Casterly Rock, takes its name from the family that built it.

* ArcherArchetype: Anguy "the Archer" of the Brotherhood Without Banners, and Alleras "the Sphinx" at the Citadel are both cool and collected.

** Azor Azai may be one of these. He apparently killed (and will kill) his true love (though in the story, with her consent) for power, and the R'hllor religion already has a lot of moral ambiguity.

* BewareTheLiving: when you are beyond the Wall, wights aren't the only things you should fear. And we do not mean grumpkins and snarks. Many [[BarbarianTribe Wildlings]] can be outright nasty, and don't feel safe around the some members of the [[ArmyOfThievesAndWhores Night's Watch]] either (especially if they are deserters, mutineers or something like that).

* CultureClash: Part of Jon Snow's frustration with the members of Stannis' court who remain at the Wall is their complete refusal to understand that wildling society does not function like Westerosi society, particularly where it comes to inherited nobility. A wildling chief is a chief because he has proven himself to be mighty, not because his father -- or his ancestor -- was chief, and being a relative of a great chief means nothing at all.

--->'''Stannis''': They call it dragonglass. I call it useless.

* CruelAndUnusualDeath: See [[CruelAndUnusualDeath&title/ASongOfIceAndFire here]]

** The Faith of the Seven, the predominant religion on Westeros, is similar to Roman Catholicism, centering around an analog of the Trinity, that has seven gods in one rather than three (the [[GrandpaGod Father]], [[WarGod Warrior]], [[UltimateBlacksmith Smith]], [[TheHecateSisters Maid, Mother, Crone]], and [[TheGrimReaper Stranger]] ), and complete with monastic orders, [[ChurchMilitant dormant military orders]], and a Pope (the High Septon). It isn't quite as intolerant as medieval Christianity, however, and more-or-less peacefully coexists with the quasi-Druidic worship of the "old gods" in the North as well as the Drowned God of the Iron Islands, at least until the revival of [[ChurchMilitant the Swords and Stars]].

* CastFullOfRichPeople: Most of the major characters are high-ranking lords and ladies of Westeros. With this status comes old estates, intricate costumes, jockeying for power in the DecadentCourt, the works. There are some less well-off point of view characters (eg. Davos Seaworth, Areo Hotah), but they tend to serve the nobility and provide insight on their lives. There are also those who ''become'' rich and powerful throughout the series (eg. Daenerys, who was born a princess, raised in exile, and later becomes a powerful figure in Essos). There are also some commoner [=POVs=] (usually one-offs for the prologue and epilogues) and supporting characters (such as those in Jon's and Arya's storylines), but these are the minority.

** How being on the extremes of ruling will effect your reign-- fire may be deadly, but ice will kill you just as easily. It isn't enough to be a good man to be TheGoodKing and TheGoodChancellor, but pure ruthlessness and unchallenged evil has problems too.
** The hiccups and hang ups of The Medieval Political System where you inherit the state. While the oldest form of rule in many cases, the legacy of TheGoodKing can be undone by one AxCrazy BlackSheep or any UnfitForGreatness heir. And where legitimacy comes from might not be as clear as some believe.

* CentralTheme: The theming is as broad as the story, but there are severa key ideas being explored so far:

* BloodCountess: A very rare gender-flipped example. Roose Bolton is the second most important lord in the North, and [[spoiler: after Ned and Robb were murdered, and the Boltons seizing the power]] the most important. Roose's seat is called Dreadfort, [[spoiler: he's undeniably evil, perhaps even terrifying]], and he likes leeching, as in sticking worms on his body for them to suck his blood, in order to be healthier, to the point where he has been dubbed "The Leech Lord" in-universe. Even some fans believe he's an actual vampire.

* AnAesop:
** The best may be the lines '"Bread!" boomed a man behind her. "We want bread, bastard!" In a heartbeat, a thousand voices took up the chant. King Joffrey and King Robb and King Stannis were forgotten, and King Bread ruled alone.'
** Whether it's the [[ShellShockedVeteran broken men]] in ''A Feast for Crows'' or Arya Stark's arc in ''A Clash of Kings,'' Martin wants to make it clear that WarIsHell and to say TakeThat to people who romanticize the Middle Ages and aristocratic rule without considering how much such a society can suck for the 90% of the population who are poor. As Ser Jorah Mormont says in this TitleDrop quote:
--->'''Ser Jorah:''' The common people pray for rain, healthy children, and a summer that never ends. It is no matter to them if the high lords play their game of thrones, so long as they are left in peace. They never are.
** After Tyrion learns about how his siblings were almost married into the Martell family [[spoiler:and how King Aerys spurned friend/hand Tywin Lannister by not marrying Cersei to Rhaegar]]. At that moment, Martin makes explicit just how much of the strife and trauma our current characters are going through is due to the actions of those generations before and often long dead.:
--->''"It all goes back and back, to our mothers and fathers and theirs before them. We are puppets dancing on the strings of those who came before us, and one day our own children will take up our strings and dance in our steads."''
** Another anvil that gets viewed in several ways is "don't try swooping in with overwhelming martial force and/or power unless you also have a detailed game plan on what to do about the inevitable clean up events afterwards". Dragons may not plant trees, but Aegon I, Viseneya and Rhaenys had long-thought-out ''plans'' about planting more than trees on the resulting ash-fields when they eventually launched their invasion from Dragonstone after decades of the family brainstorming the whole thing. Daenarys certainly shows what happens when you don't know enough about how to plan around the nukes -- or, just governing in general. Other, more mundane conquests also have a habit of going just as sideways when the question "AndThenWhat" doesn't get addressed before the conquest -- like with Robert's Rebellion (the consequences of the whole [[IndyPloy seat-of-our-pants]] aspect of it = the whole damned series), the Sack of Winterfell or the Shield Islands, among others (each and every time people have taken King's Landing by force has sprouted whole mushroom fields of clean-up problems). [[spoiler: And, then there's the Golden Company (and whoever is working with them) and how that's playing out: long, drawn-out plans constructed over years that maybe don't take the full reality of the place you're trying to retake totally in mind and is primarily so you can score "ha ha: beat you!" points? Maybe not so good for the long term, yeah?]] Yeah: proper reconstruction is harder than bulldozers.

* BigGuy: There are several characters (Ser Gregor, Hodor, the Greatjon, etc.), but the most notable is probably Archibald Yronwood, who is more often called the Big Man than his proper name.

** Subverted in ''A Dance with Dragons'' with Ser Archibald Yronwood. He is a BigGuy (described as 6'5" of pure muscle) but often acts as the voice of reason to his companions.

* DropTheHammer:
** King Robert's weapon of choice.
** In ''A Dance with Dragons'', BigGuy Archibald Yronwood wields a great warhammer.

* TheBeard: Margaery was in a FakeRelationship to the gay King Renly, in addition to being a strong political match. It may be that the Merryweathers, Taena and Orton, are this for each other.

* TheBeard: Margaery was this to the gay King Renly, in addition to being a strong political match. It may be that the Merryweathers, Taena and Orton, are this for each other.

** The Targaryen family practiced incest. Marriages between siblings or close cousins were arranged to keep “purity of the bloodline” (specifically silver-gold hair and purple eyes, trademarks of Old Valyria) and to prove that Targaryens were "above the laws of gods and men." As history proved, they weren't above the laws of genetics.

* CentralTheme: It's hard to boil it down to one key theme
** Extremism is dangerous -- fire may be deadly, but ice will kill you just as dead. It isn't enough to be a good man to be TheGoodKing and TheGoodChancellor while pure ruthlessness and unchallenged evil will enjoy, at best, short-term victories but produce nothing long-lasting.
** A political system based on inheriting the state is inherently unstable, the legacy of TheGoodKing can be undone by one AxCrazy BlackSheep or any UnfitForGreatness heir. While royalty has the support of feudal and religious classes, the only opinion that really matters is that of the common folk who don't care for titles at all. For them, a king who doesn't protect his people is no true king at all.
** Nobody is what they seem, everyone has HiddenDepths and even your close family members will have secrets that you probably won't find out. Most of the really heroic actions are TheGreatestStoryNeverTold and history is WrittenByTheWinners.

* CatchPhrase: A number of characters have them.
** Each noble house has its own motto, often describing the [[GangOfHats hat]] of the family and serving as its collective catchphrase.
** "A Lannister always pays his debts," said by all Lannisters as a threat (or, more rarely, a reassurance). It's even more strongly associated with the family than their official motto, "Hear me roar!"
** "I will cut off his manhood and feed it to the goats," is said by Shagga as a RunningGag. Tyrion adopts the phrase himself.
** "You know nothing, Jon Snow," is Ygritte's, and it also doubles as ArcWords. It becomes a CatchPhrase for Jon himself that he repeats in his inner monologues whenever dealing with wildlings.
** Daenerys' "I am the blood of the dragon," and when she feels a bit sarcastic, "I am only a young girl and know nothing of war, ''but...''" She also has "If I look back, I am lost" in her internal monologues.
** "It is known", said as a RunningGag by Dany's Dothraki handmaidens.
** "Just so," said by anyone from Braavos, notably Syrio Forel.
** Jeor Mormont's pet raven has one, too. "Corn!"
** In the Dunk and Egg stories, Egg's is, "Get him! Get him! He's ''right there!''" Said whenever he's watching a fight or joust. Dunk himself has, "Dunk the lunk, thick as a castle wall."

* AlmightyJanitor: The Order of Maesters, each castle has at least one maester who fulfill the duties of physician, postmaster, scribe, lawyer, historian, tutor, meteorologist, and whatever else their lords require of them, the sheer breadth of a castle maester's knowledge is enough for them to wield enormous influence if their particular lord is willing to listen.

** Mance Rayder, who the wildlings choose and their King-Beyond-the-Wall.

** The Night's Watch.

** [[spoiler:Ramsay Snow switches clothes with his servant Reek, faking his own death for a time before revealing himself.]]
** [[spoiler:Theon is forced to pretend to be Reek for fear of having his fingers flayed.]]
** [[spoiler: Jeyne Poole is similarly forced to pretend to be Arya, on pain of a punishment that even George R.R. Martin won't put down on the page.]]

* DeathByChildbirth: Joanna Lannister died giving birth to Tyrion. Also Daenerys, whose mother's death by childbirth is the reason for her abuse by her older brother. Any number of other characters in the background as well, such as Minisa Tully, wife of Hoster Tully and mother of Edmure Tully, Lysa Arryn, and Catelyn Stark.

* CruelAndUnusualDeath: Common in the series.
** [[spoiler:Viserys]] is killed by having molten gold poured over his head.
** [[spoiler:Quentyn Martell]] was burned alive by dragon fire and spent days dying.
** [[spoiler:Vargo Hoat]] had part of his face bitten off, this wound festered making him delirious, then had his limbs chopped off and fed to him by Gregor Clegane.
** [[spoiler:Gregor himself]] also meets a nasty death from being stabbed with a poisoned spear that ensured its victim would die slowly and painfully as the poison ate away at his insides. He lived in agony for days until [[MadScientist Maester Qyburn]] decided to experiment on him to find out the nature of the poison -- even this he survived for a while before finally dying.
** When the Great Masters of Meereen try to warn Daenerys off from her emancipating crusade by having 163 slave children crucified and disembowelled along the road to the city, [[spoiler:she retaliates after taking the city by having the same fate visited on 163 of the nobles.]]
** The Boltons [[FlayingAlive flay]] their prisoners.

-->“He cannot stay here,” Catelyn said, cutting him off. “He is your son, not mine. I will not
-->have him.”

** Brynden Tully. Catelyn says of Brynden, "He has not wed. You know that, Father. Nor will he ever." It's never made clear whether he's gay, UsefulNotes/{{asexual|ity}}, or opposed to marriage for some other reason.

** Victarion murdered his wife with his bare hands, causing some readers to see it as a MoralEventHorizon. The culture of the ironborn is RatedMForManly; AsskickingLeadsToLeadership all the way. Victarion considers his actions perfectly moral, and places the blame totally on Euron for [[DefiledForever defiling]] his wife.