History DeconstructedTrope / ASongOfIceAndFire

** There's a lot of emphasis placed on the ways in which people can't handle magic being back. It's causing major political upheavals (the assassination of [[spoiler:Renly Baratheon]] via shadow demon, multiple factions trying to marry/control Daenerys so they can use her dragons to achieve political goals, etc.), as well as social ones (the return of dragons is leading to increased religious fundamentalism among followers of the Red God, causing unrest in cities like Volantis). And most concerning, the Night's Watch is completely unprepared for dealing with [[GreaterScopeVillain the Others]] and [[ZombieApocalypse their wight army]].

* TrueNeutral: The Night's Watch try so hard to be this despite the realm falling to pieces all around them, men like Yoren getting killed in the crossfire and the abundance of people like Ramsay Bolton who don't respect the Watch's vow of neutrality. When Jon Snow finally decides to mobilize it to save the realm from itself before it can save it from the Others [[spoiler:he gets stabbed.]]
** Also it's shown that neutrality is actually an impossible concept since the Watch find it hard to "take no part" in the politics of Westeros when the only King that actually responded to their cries for aid is the rebel lord Stannis Baratheon who also believes in their struggle against the Others. Some of the Night's Watch, especially Bowen Marsh, regret Stannis' rescue and would prefer a Lannister toady like Janos Slynt, who is completely in league with the Lannisters, be Lord Commander so as to appease the Iron Throne and their Bolton collaborators. Neutrality for them is not be seen as supporting the side most likely to lose.
** Similarly, Jon Snow gives Stannis a lot of military advice for his campaign to win control of the North, even though he cannot directly help them.
** [[spoiler: The Order of Maesters end up subverting this too, as the majority are doing their damnedest to scrub any and all knowledge of magic, and censure any maester who wishes to do otherwise, making them indirectly responsible for how woefully unprepared Westeros is for when TheMagicComesBack, and the invasion of the Others. Other conspiracies have also taken place in the past, as evidence suggest that many maesters, influenced by the Hightowers, tried to push their lords to support the Greens during the Dance of Dragons. But these conspiracies have never been proven or exposed, nor have the Order been taken to task for violating neutrality, because their image of being TrueNeutral makes them BeneathNotice in the eyes of Westerosi.]]

* ThinksLikeARomanceNovel: Sansa was raised on idealistic songs and stories, all of which she took at face value. But when [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome she entered the real world]], many traditional FairyTale tropes were thrown back in her face in the worst way. Believing that things would work out like they did in the stories only made things worse and further crushed her spirit when her hopes fell through.

* FullCircleRevolution: The series illustrates how such a regime change could take place through Robert's Rebellion. Among other factors:
** The rebellion was in no way planned, being a spur of the moment event after Aerys responded to Richard and Brandon Stark demanding the return of Lyanna (and Justice against Prince Rhaegsr) by executing both of them and demanding that Jon Arryn hand over both of his wards for similar punishment.
** Robert Baratheon never wanted to be king, so when he did end up in charge, he tended to avoid directly ruling, instead delegating tasks to those of questionable loyalty.
** Due to either invaluable contributions to the Rebellion, lack of adequate replacements, or both, several key members of the former regime, including DragonInChief Tywin Lannister, were allowed to join the new order virtually unpunished. This allows them to exert their influence into Robert's rule, and makes the overall change in rule a lateral one at best.

* HappinessInSlavery: Depending on how kindly your master treats you, and how limited alternate possibilities are and how distant some better world is to where you are from, slavery can become quite convenient.
** After suffering a long voyage on a ship and suffering the humiliation of a slave auction where several dubious slavers want to capture him, [[spoiler: Tyrion, Jorah and Penny]] end up being bought by Yezzan, a Yunkish slaver who is relatively lenient and treats his captives, in [[spoiler:Tyrion]]'s experience, better than most smallfolk in Westeros. During his captivity, [[spoiler:Tyrion]] finds himself becoming adjusted to the conditions to his own distaste, since the alternatives for [[spoiler:a dwarf in Slavery's Bay, wanted for murder and deprived of funds, are deadly.]]
--> There was never a slave who did not [[SadisticChoice choose to be a slave]]. Their choice [[MortonsFork may be between bondage and death]], but the choice is always there.
** Dany finds that some of the slaves, especially the ones who were quasi-professionals (scribes, healers, teachers), miss the job security and relative comfort of their earlier lives over her "liberation" and beg to be allowed to sell themselves back into slavery, where they at least had enough to eat and somewhere to sleep. Many former slaves are much worse off and having trouble surviving now they are free. Daenerys finds herself handicapped in her attempts to rebuild Slaver's Bay to a slave-free society, especially since she underestimates the complexity of the situation and society at large.

** Same can be said about Eddard Stark [[spoiler:and his doomed mission to put Stannis on the throne even though it is a bad idea]]. Varys points out to Ned that the court is like a stage and they are all actors and they must all play their parts if they are to survive. Ned puts himself and his loved ones in danger for the sake of doing what is right.

* MagicalSociety: In this world, magic isn't regarded with whimsy and childlike awe. Instead witches and sorcerers are ''widely'' feared and hated by by pretty much everyone, including those who don't claim to believe in the supernatural. The closest thing to a country full of magic users are the [[{{Mordor}} Shadowlands]] and the closest thing to a WizardingSchool is [[EldritchLocation Asshai]]. The Shadowlands are a place tucked away in the far corner of the world full of strange creatures and fauna and, allegedly, are where you can find surviving dragons and demons. Asshai is an ancient city built by ''someone'' where the sun doesn't come up and everyone walks around hooded and veiled. It's one of the only places in the world that produces witches and wizards such as Melissandre and Quaithe following years of studying some pretty scary shit. It goes without saying but basically everyone is afraid of this place and the people who come from there and avoids like the plague if they even survive the trip over. So new students aren't exactly lining up to learn what the Shadowbinders have to teach.

* MosesInTheBulrushes: [[spoiler:Aegon VI Targaryen, believed to have been killed as a baby, is alive and was raised abroad by allies of his family. In an attempt to [[InvokedTrope invoke]] how this trope usually plays out, Aegon is given a broad range of education and experiences so that he will be ideally suited for ultimately reclaiming the throne a la The Once And Future King. There are hints that Aegon [[RoyalBrat may not be the perfect hidden prince his protectors hoped for]], and he may not even be the real Aegon at all (even if he himself doesn't know that).]]

* ForWantOfANail: It's remarked several times how certain characters were brought to ruin by a single event or decision, and how things could have been better. Except reading between the lines suggest that, even if different choices were made, [[MortonsFork the events would all too often have stayed the same]] because of unseen factors being more critical.
** It's noted that Tywin upped his ruthlessness after the death of his beloved wife Joanna. While Tyrion is defintely feeling the fallout of her death, Tywin wasn't particularly nice before she passed: this is the man that brought two rebellious houses to extinction, babes and all in a gruesome manner, to send a message to any other faction. [[spoiler: His enactment of the Red Wedding is done for much the same reason. And his love for his dead wife doesn't particularly stop him from using whores either, despite shitting on Tyrion for doing so.]] He may have become colder, but his methods have largely remained the same.
** Lyanna Stark's death is largely blamed as to why Robert became a poor husband and a poor king. Thing was, Robert was quite the ladies man - and by quite, this means he had a bastard while he was being raised alongside Ned Stark under Jon Arryn - so Lyanna questioned whether he genuinely loved her. Robert himself acknowledges that he never really knew Lyanna as a person, and it is implied he may have been as unhappily married to her as he is to Cersei. Even if they were HappilyMarried, Robert was still a man who lived to fight: it's questionable if a stable marriage would legitimately interest him in actually ruling well.
** [[spoiler: Ned Stark's commitment to honour is held responsible for his death, and the subsequent civil war that leaves everyone worse off, especially his own family. But this ignores two things: Petyr Baelish, and Varys. For it is revealed that Baelish wanted to not only create chaos in the realm for himself to move up, but also to remove Ned by any means necessary so as to get closer to Catelyn Tully, Ned's wife. As for Varys, he's trying to return the Targaryens to the throne in the form of Aegon, Rhaegar's son, and as such, he had a vested interest in keeping the realm unstable and weakened so that Aegon could easily step in. [[NoKillLikeOverkill Giving what he ends up doing to Kevan Lannister,]] who's shown to be similar in temperament and goals to Ned, it is implied that Ned would have eventually ended up like Kevan if he had survived and managed to have some impact in King's Landing. Between the two, it's implied that civil war was ultimately inevitable, and that one way or another, Ned Stark would die, honour or not.]]
** [[spoiler:In that same vein, how much longer Tywin would have lived can be seen in a similar way, and for much the same reasons as Ned's death. While he definitely brought it upon himself after years of treating Tyrion like shit, and callously provoking his son into shooting him; with Littlfinger and Varys still around, and still wanting to undermine things, Tywin would have been an obstacle just as Ned and Kevin were. Indeed, Tyrion only manages to find Tywin in the exact situation he did (taking a dump after sex with a whore), thanks to Varys. So it's genuinely debatable whether Tywin would have lived much longer had Tyrion not killed him, simply because he was the one man keeping House Lannister in power on the Iron Throne, or if Varys or Baelish would arrange for him to die some other way to trigger the chaos and instability we see that results from Tywin's death.]]

** Duebto driers invaluable contributions to the Rebellion, lack of adequate replacements, or both, several key members of the former regime, including DragonInChief Tywin Lannister, were allowed to join the new order virtually unpunished. This allows them to exert their influence into Robert's rule, and makes the overall change in rule a lateral one at best.

* KickTheSonOfABitch:
** Oberyn Martell not only wanted to kill Gregor Clegane, he wanted to humiliate and get a confession out of him too. He succeeds [[spoiler:but not before getting killed first for excessive showboating]].
** [[spoiler: Viserys Targaryen]] was killed by [[spoiler:the Dothraki]] for being an asshole, but [[spoiler:Daenerys]] does feel sorry for his death, as he did take care of her when she was still a baby.
** Theon Greyjoy [[spoiler:allowed Ramsay to kill two children but was tortured in such excruciating methods by the same BastardBastard, who is an even bigger monster than Joffrey,]] that he becomes utterly pitiful and you feel sorry for him.

* HundredPercentAdorationRating: Making sure everyone likes you is really hard, dirty work, and being liked isn't the same thing as being a good ruler.
** The Tyrells demonstrate that aiming for widespread, positive publicity on this scale is a constant battle of time, energy, resources and some exceedingly calculated and, occasionally, very dirty dealing behind the scenes; from cheating while dressed ''spectacularly'' at tourneys, to being able to manipulate food supplies for "fortuitous" timing, to murdering bumps in the road undetected, to calculating when to walk away from people who could be too damaging to associate with. And there's the risk of a misstep the whole time.
** Baelor the Blessed is fondly remembered by the faithful and has been put on an enormous pedestal for decades. At the same time, it's rather easy for readers (and Tyrion, as well as other characters in-universe) to come to the alternate conclusion that he might just have been taking the Targaryen family nuttiness to new, religious places when reading of his exploits. [[TheManBehindTheMan His uncle]], Viserys, may have had a large part to do with the positive spin and damage limitation placed on Baelor's actions at the time, to boot, as one of the more successful Hands before taking the throne himself. And, he's considered pretty much an EvilChancellor in folklore for his pains.
** By not working to maintain and consolidate what she had pragmatically and politically, Daenerys lost quite a bit of the adoration she started out with among her freed "children" whose lives have been turned upside down. Having said that, her positive legend is still alive in parts of Essos she hasn't yet been to. For example, in Volantis, a city filled with slaves, she's regarded as TheMessiah with even cynics like Vogarro's Whore praying for her arrival. But, little is said about how the nobles there feel, although the next election is likely to be interestingly deadly. There is already factional troop build-up.
** Aegon V Targaryen has gone down in history as one of the honestly and straightforwardly [[TheGoodKing good kings]], particularly among the smallfolk. His reign is seen as the trend-bucking, shining highlight of about 200 years worth of dismal lowlights and strife, which even the nobility admit--despite his attempts to erode "rights" aka "unequal treatment". However, all this packaged goodness wouldn't have happened without Bloodraven cutting down errant family members left and right while gaining a much-deserved reputation as a Kinslayer, [[TheSpymaster Spymaster]] and (perhaps less-deservedly) EvilChancellor. Without him thinning the Blackfyre threat considerably beforehand and setting the stall up for more peaceful times in other ways using some ''very'' pragmatic means, Aegon's reign would have been plagued with many more problems than it was. He even shuffled off the scene quite openly by getting banished to the Wall for his supposed wrongdoings by Aegon. Which, ''could'' even have been by his own suggestion, in part to make sure that none of the taint of previous issues would bleed into Aegon's Small Council by his remaining an obvious mover and shaker. [[spoiler: Not that it's ever exactly stopped him from keeping his eye on the realm via the tree-network and raven-post, of course. Or trying to interact with it in various ways.]] Yet again, we have the GoodCopBadCop thing going on.
** Renly cultivates a good image and uses this to justify his attempt to usurp the Iron Throne. However, he is in reality a greedy and vain figure who is willing to murder his brother and starve hundreds of thousands of people to seize power. The Tyrells are more than happy to lend him their political, martial and financial backing, as well as their PR know-how, simply ''because'' he's good enough at the game of appearances (and venal enough) to work with. The fact he is trying to be king in spite of the rules of succession means that he also handicaps himself and divides the Stormlands people between him and his brother Stannis, and he loses a potential ally in Robb Stark because of this.
** Directly contrast with Stannis Baratheon, who is denied his rightful claim to the throne because of the disdain the nobility and commoners have for him. He's disliked and rejected because his unforgiving and hard nature, the same nature that would make the survival of schemers--such as Petyr Baelish, the Lannisters, or the Tyrells--an impossibility in the long term if he were to rule. All of the above suggests that if everyone, particularly [[FalseFriend including the ambitious, amoral chessmasters]] within society, would ''love'' to have you as their ruler, maybe that's an important sign that you aren't actually suited to rule.

* VillainousLegacy: [[spoiler: Tywin inspired fear and dread wherever he went, and is oft-remembered as a brutal tyrant and statesmen. However, the sheer power and influence he held prevented anyone from taking a stab at him... except for his own son. With Tywin dead, things start going belly-up for the Lannisters as Cersei and Jaime bear the brunt of his victim's wrath. As it turns out, people remember the awful things done to them by those who are truly evil, so if you entice a lot of people into hating you and your family, your enemies will jump at any chance they get to take revenge. Villains don't leave legacies that people like to follow.]]

** Daenerys tries to stop the Dothraki warriors from raping the women of defeated tribes. Since they view those women as spoils of war, she's seen as simply being ''greedy'' by claiming them for herself, so she only succeeds in protecting a handful. Later, one of those women rebukes Daenerys for seeing herself as a hero who "saved" her, when she'd already seen her temple burned, her people murdered, and indeed been raped several times already. Additionally, a girl that Daenerys saves, Eroeh, is ultimately gang raped ''and'' has her throat slit. It's arguable that she would have at least managed to keep her life if Daenerys hadn't intervened. Safety can't really be defined as protection from rape when that protection makes women targets for addition violence.

* KickTheDog: Tywin Lannister's brutality is calculated to leave a lasting impression. [[spoiler:He is killed by his own son for an act of unbelievable cruelty years ago instead of an enemy looking to avenge his more well known atrocities]].

* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: As noted by the Night's Watch, the only reason highborn lords and knights tend to be better swordsmen is because they've had formal training in it. Skill and training with a blade is much more important than raw strength.
* AssholeVictim: The series is fond of giving its [[HateSink wretched, depraved villains]] absolutely deserved karmic deaths...that are so [[AlasPoorVillain horrific and pitiful]] that any satisfaction the reader gets is lessened considerably.

--> Daenerys (in narration): That was the saddest thing, the thing that tore at her afterward...the way he smiled.

* AsskickingEqualsAuthority:

''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' deconstructs so many tropes it needed its own page. '''Be warned, for the night is dark and full of spoilers.'''''

''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' deconstructs so many tropes it needed its own page. '''Be warned, for the night is dark and full of, you guessed it,''' '''''Administrivia/{{SPOILERS|OFF}}.'''''

''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' deconstructs so many tropes it needed its own page. '''Be warned, for the night is dark and full of SPOILERS.'''

** Viserys Targaryen is a nasty piece of work, an unstable idiot who abused Daenerys for nearly her whole life. When he drunkenly threatens Daenerys and her unborn child [[WhatAnIdiot (in a sacred Dothraki city where shedding blood is forbidden)]], he's practically signed his own death warrant. Despite everything, the way he almost immediately reverts to childlike excitement when Khal Drogo promises him his [[FalseReassurance "golden crown"]] is difficult to read, as is him pitifully begging Daenerys for his life. Daenerys herself mourns him, despite her own complicated feelings.