Heartwarming / A Clash of Kings

• After Sansa is ordered to strip her clothes in court by Joffrey, Tyrion arrives on the scene, orders someone to cover her, and puts her up in the Hand's quarters, in Arya's old bedchamber. Tyrion orders his own people to guard Sansa from Joffrey, and even offers to assign a female guard if that would make Sansa feel more comfortable.
• Sansa basically melts the heart of a drunken, scared, merciless and desperate (at that point) killer by singing a song to him.
  • And earlier, she gathers with other scared women, children, and elderly people to sing and pray before and during the Battle of Blackwater. Sansa prays for her family and friends, for Tyrion Lannister and Sandor Clegane, for all the soldiers fighting, for their loved ones, and even for people who have already died or who she's never met. This really shows her inherent compassion and empathy for others, even those who haven't deserved it.
    She sang for mercy, for the living and the dead alike, for Bran and Rickon and Robb, for her sister Arya and her bastard brother Jon Snow, away off on the Wall. She sang for her mother and her father, for her grandfather Lord Hoster and her uncle Edmure Tully, for her friend Jeyne Poole, for old drunken King Robert, for Septa Mordane and Ser Dontos and Jory Cassel and Maester Luwin, for all the brave knights and soldiers who would die today, and for the children and the wives who would mourn them, and finally, toward the end, she even sang for Tyrion the Imp and for the Hound. He is no true knight but he saved me all the same, she told the Mother. Save him if you can, and gentle the rage inside him.
  • Even if he's scaring Sansa and approaching her in a very disturbing way, Sandor shows the depth of his twisted affection for Sansa by offering her a way out — to leave with him — and this is the closest thing to a Declaration of Protection you'd get from a Tsundere like him:
    Sandor: I could keep you safe. They're all afraid of me. No one would hurt you again, or I'd kill them.
• Tyrion getting truly appreciated by a group of his peers for the first time in his life, as his troops use him as a battle cry in the Battle of the Blackwater.
  HALFMAN! HALFMAN! HALFMAN!
• The scene where Pod rescues Tyrion from Ser Mandon Moore. First because of Tyrion automatically assuming that it was Jaime, thus reminding us that only Jaime, Jaime, has ever treated him with kindness, and then for the subsequent revelation that it was plucky young Pod, the previously useless, timid squire, rescuing his liege.
• Book 2 has the one where Stannis tells Davos that he is right for wrongfully putting his trust in his fickle lords bannermen.
  Stannis: Davos, I have missed you.
• Stannis again of all people, when he tells his tale of Proudwing, the injured goshawk he nursed back to health when he was a boy. Even though he's very rigid, Stannis is very bad at hiding his feelings for certain people in general. Comments about Robert, Renly, his parents, Maester Cressen and Shireen all could count as him having a heartwarming moment. Or, at least, as much as Stannis can express it.
• When Thorne arrives in King's Landing, Tyrion sends him back to the Wall and asks him to say hello from him to Lord Commander Mormont and Jon Snow.
• The entirety Gendry and Arya's burgeoning friendship, with bonus points for them unknowingly mirroring their father's friendship a generation before. And that they quickly develop a mutual Chronic Hero Syndrome in their travels.
  • Gendry's reintroduction defending Arya from Hot Pie and Lommy's bullying.
  • During the attack on the Nights Watch recruits, Arya falls behind to save a little girl - the other boys rush ahead but Gendry comes back to help her. And then when they're trying to escape through a tunnel, Gendry tries to get her to go first but Arya stays back again to free the prisoners.
  • Later when Gendry's captured, Arya doesn't hesitate to go back to get him, even though she'll has to get through at least twenty soldiers - by her estimate - to save him.
    It didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was that they had Gendry. Even if he was stubborn and stupid, she had to get him out.
  • Gendry tells Arya that he's figured out she's a girl but promises that he won't tell anyone. His promise prompts Arya to trust him with who she really is, the only time - before or since - she's confided her true identity to someone. (Rather than them knowing or figuring it out themselves).
• Willful, somewhat simpleminded, and lecherous Edmure Tully when his sister angrily demands to know why he let a bunch of useless people into a castle just about to be besieged:
  Catelyn: Who are all these folk?
  Edmure: My people. They were afraid.
• Bran's thoughts about Winterfell as he and his companions are escaping.
  At the edge of the wolfswood, Bran turned in his basket for one last glimpse of the castle that had been his life. Wisps of smoke still rose into the grey sky, but no more than might have risen from Winterfell's chimneys on a cold autumn afternoon. Soot stains marked some of the arrow loops, and here and there a crack or a missing merlon could be seen in the curtain wall, but it seemed little enough from this distance. Beyond, the tops of the keeps and towers still stood as they had for hundreds of years, and it was hard to tell that the castle had been sacked and burned at all. The stone is strong, Bran told himself, the roots of the trees go deep, and under the ground the Kings of Winter sit their thrones. So long as those remained, Winterfell remained. It was not dead, just broken. Like me, he thought. I'm not dead either.
• The fact the Maester at Dragonstone is one of few people who truly love Stannis for what he is and died in his futile attempt to kill Melisandre is both CMOH and a factor that make his death more tragic.
• While on a Night's Watch ranging beyond the Wall and even in the harsh conditions, Jon fondly thinks of his sisters when he observes a beautiful winter morning beyond the Wall and knows so well how each of his sisters would regard it:
  Jon: So there is magic beyond the Wall after all. He found himself thinking of his sisters, perhaps because he’d dreamed of them last night. Sansa would call this an enchantment, and tears would fill her eyes at the wonder of it, and Arya would run out laughing and shouting, wanting to touch it all.
• While praying in Baelor's Sept, Tyrion lights a candle to the Warrior asking him to bring Jaime home safely.
  Tyrion: Watch over my brother, you bloody bastard, he's one of yours.
• Catelyn describing both of her daughters to Brienne. It's touching how despite being an incredibly busy woman as Lady of Winterfell that she always made time to personally brush Sansa's hair. And while her relationship with Arya is somewhat strained, it's clear she understands her little ragamuffin even better than Ned did and absolutely dreads the idea that she may not be alive.
  • The entire relationship between Brienne and Catelyn is heartwarming. Cat is one of the very few people who treat Brienne with any sort of respect, even admiration. She vouches for Brienne and saves her from being killed for a crime she didn't commit, and it's very evident Brienne takes it all to heart when she vows to rescue Catelyn's daughter, and is distraught to see her become Lady Stoneheart.
    "The queen... she has a little girl of her own," Brienne said awkwardly. "And sons too, of an age with yours. When she hears, perhaps she . . . she may take pity, and..."
    "Send my daughters back unharmed?" Catelyn smiled sadly. "There is a sweet innocence about you, child."
• Jaqen H'ghar watching Arya train in the godswood at Harrenhal, only interjecting when she begins to curse the gods.
• Ser Cortnay Penrose flatly refusing to believe that Brienne murdered Renly.
  Cortnay Penrose: I knew Brienne when she was no more than a girl playing at her father's feet in Evenfall Hall, and I knew her still better when the Evenstar sent her here to Storm’s End. She loved Renly Baratheon from the first moment she laid eyes on him, a blind man could see it.