As an extremely well-built and well written SI, there are some moments that out more than others...
- Ned pulled one over on Jaime when the latter confronted him outside Littlefinger's brothel. Jaime shows up with an armed party of Lannister men. Ned snaps his fingers and several of his guards immediately target Jaime with their rifles while another pair aim shotguns at the packed mob of Red Cloaks. And he forces Jaime to back down with a simple line:Ned Stark: Aye, you're fast with that Sword Ser Jamie … but I've yet to see a man who can outrun a bullet.
- An overarching theme: Theon is so well respected in the North and the Riverlands (and increasingly elsewhere) that, when he speaks, every lord listens, and his word's worth is incalculable.
- Theon distracting the Mountain into a running battle across the Golden Tooth castle, and Robb doing his Big Damn Heroes thing to kill him.
- The Calling the Old Man Out speech that truly cemented a place for SI Theon in the hall of heroes for this trooper:Balon Greyjoy: Well boy ...? What have you to say? Some pitiful excuse about salt and iron still flowing through your veins?
SI!Theon: From a technical point of view, it is. Blood's chock full of iron and salt. So congratulations, you got that dead on.
SI!Theon: (cont.) Problem is ...that's all you got right.
Balon Greyjoy: So you are a Greenlander... My own blood-!
SI!Theon: Your own blood? Since when have you cared about your own blood? [Theon is now getting angry] I was a spare! My older brothers, you sent them off to die pointlessly!
Balon Greyjoy: It was not pointless! It is the Iron Way! The way of the Drowned God, the way of-
SI!Theon: Of a pitiful, pathetic old man who tries to revive glories that only existed in your mind! Your reaving and pillaging and raping, what has it accomplished?! Nothing!
SI!Theon: (cont.) The last time you tried this, you bent the knee and thousands of innocent people, including my two brothers, died! Now, you tried it again... And what happened? You've been defeated! And now, you try to bring back the son you abandoned to the Starks to get me to help you?
Balon Greyjoy: What good is your help?! I wouldn't want your help anymore, you worthless whore! You tinker and fiddle and have those coward's weapons to hide behind-
SI!Theon: Says the coward who wants those coward's weapons to slaughter innocent men, women and children for stupid reasons!
Asha Greyjoy: It... It's how our family does things, how it's always done things-
SI!Theon: SHUT! UP!For the rest of this delightful encounter, click here.
- Daenerys realizes that she cannot expect to swarm into Westeros and be welcomed with open arms... so she resolves to ensure that she can prove to Westeros that she can be the Queen they need and want. She begins by taking over Astapor... and staying for several months until she establishes an apparatus of state that can truly hold, instead of the haphazard council of canon.
- The "Steel Wedding". Words can barely describe the awesomeness of the fight. Highlights are Robb covering Oberyn Martell as he gets Ellaria out of the gunfight, Margaery saving her husband by shooting the man trying to kill him, Ramsay Dual Wielding Viper shotguns and Theon getting the last of the surviving attackers to give up while he held a lit dynamite stick (well, Theon initially thought it was a flare, but it still counts).
- "The Man Who Did Once Sell The Lion's Skin, Part 4": Arya steals Littlefinger's dagger without him noticing, jumps on Tywin Lannister's back, slits his throat, reveals herself to him and pushes him out of the balcony. And then, the Hound helps her get away with it.
- Jon's description of the fighting retreat executed by the Night's Watch and the Wildlings in the face of the incoming White Walkers and wights. The high points are the Heroic Sacrifice by a Night's Watch-Thenn combined force led by Qhorin Half-Hand and the battle beside the river - particularly Mormont breaking out the flamethrower (which is so awesome the wildlings cheer for "Lord Crow") and Jon sniping a White Walker at 400 yards.
- The "sequel" that is the Battle of Craster's Keep. The main highlight is when Jon, after having a Vision Quest where Ned Stark encourages him not to give up and to accept both the good and the bad of being alive (something the wights and White Walkers cannot do), shoots a White Walker with his revolver to stop him from killing Ygritte and then becomes the first man in millenia to kill a White Walker, thanks to his Valyrian Steel sword. In plain sight of the Night's Watch and Wildlings that were also in the fight.
- Robb Stark's Rousing Speech / New Era Speech over radio to people of Westeros.
- In Chapter LXI: Songbird, A very drunk and very furious Cersei faces Sansa and calls her a whore, wondering aloud whether her and Arya had sex with Robb, Jon or Theon. Sansa remains impassive through it all (which only angers Cersei more) and her only answer is a polite request for why the Queen is in her room (knowing that she could be killed on Cersei's or Joffrey's orders at any moment).
- Theon is horrified when he finds out Cersei has stocked all the wildfire available under the Red Keep, ironically planning to do the same thing as Aerys the Mad. What does he do? Bring down the Red Keep to snuff the fire out!
- If there's something to show how different things are, it is Ramsay saving Theon's life by grabbing him by the ankle, while his other hand is grabbing a rope, and this as he is in obvious pain from being injured by a spark of wildfire.
- Eddard Karstark's airships.
- The Battle of Crossroads, full stop. It is the last large-scale battle of the War of the Five Kings, and it shows.
- The first part of the battle has the Northern army hold off a large force made of Unsullied and war elephants using their guns and artillery, then calmly retreat while they are bombarded with wildfire-tipped hwachas, dealing a lot of damage to the attackers, while every injured soldier and townsfolk is evacuated, and attracting the army into a trap.
- Grey Wind has his own Awesome Moment when he grabs a flaming stick and sets one war elephant on fire.
- To give his army time to put things into place, Robb runs with Grey Wind, Nymeria and their huge pack of wolves, keeping up with them - more or less - and then riding Grey Wind into battle, shooting his revolvers while the wolves smash through the Lannisters and Shoot To Thrill sounds in the background!
- The sudden appearance of the Karstark airships, just in time to help Robb reach Joffrey before he escapes.
- One for Joffrey, who hits the airship's engines with a revolver. Granted, he was trying to hit Robb, but kudos for that hit. And his lack of knowledge about revolvers (namely, their proper care) gets him a set of very nasty burns in his hands: as some fans commented, Ned got his revenge from the other side.
- Sandor Clegane knows when to give up and knocks Joffrey out, swearing loyalty to Robb.
- Stannis decides to give his claim up, knowing that continuing claiming the crown will only divide the people at a time when they must be together.
- Theon seeing through Maester Pycelle’s Obfuscating Disability fake limp (by throwing an apple at Maester and Pycelle catching it) and having compromising photos of Pycelle with girls. Then offering Pycelle to either serve new Lord of Casterly Rock and Hand of the King Tyrion Lannister or to be prosecuted by The Citadel for breaking celibate vow.
- By serving Lord Tyrion = shoveling manure from Casterly Rock's stables!!!
- The Northern people sold into slavery by Tywin Lannister make their way out of that situation as Daenerys reaches Meereen, exemplified by one of them, who takes advantage of her knowledge of chemistry and access to what she needs to make formaldehyde and force the Master that bought her and her friends to breathe it in.
- An omake (confirmed to be canon by the author) reveals that, during Joffrey's mad flight across the Crownlands, he would have his knights go to nearby villages and slaughter their people for not sending all of their men to fight and die for him. When Joffrey sent Lancel... the poor boy, having passed the Despair Event Horizon and becoming a Death Seeker, sent a scout well ahead of him and his men, so that the villagers would leave town before he arrived - thus risking Joffrey's wrath. This, in effect, led to the survival of several towns, as people warned each other and escaped toward Robb's army for protection.
- Robb and Theon tell the various Lords of the Westeros Commonwealth that the White Walkers are coming to attack the Wall and kill them all. Everybody is naturally horrified - the last time the Others attacked, they nearly killed all of humanity, and only the alliance with the Children of the Forest prevented that. Greatjon Umber stands up, calls up all the Lords and spits on the floor, pointing out that, yes, they may not have the Children, but the First Men back then only had sticks and obsidian stones to fight with, but now they have the Wall, the Night's Watch, the support of the Andals and the Rhoynar and all they brought - and, of course, Theon Greyjoy. This speech, while tempered by Theon pointing out they know little about the magic the White Walkers use, helps restore hope that they can, in fact, win the war.
