Tear Jerker / A Feast for Crows

• Podrick Payne, at the end of the chapter when he meets Brienne. "I'm his squire, but he left me."
• Jaime's (implied true) dream of his mother, where she asks him if he will forget his father as he has forgotten her. Then she tells him that Tywin hated to be laughed at, wished for his son to be "a great knight", his daughter to be a queen, and for them to be "so strong and brave and beautiful that no one would ever laugh at them." Jaime responds:
  ''"I am a knight," he told her, "and Cersei is a queen."
  A tear rolled down her cheek. The woman raised her hood again and turned her back on him. Jaime called after her, but already she was moving away, her skirt whispering lullabies as it brushed across the floor. Don't leave me, he wanted to call, but of course she'd left them long ago.
• The Elder Brother's description of Sandor Clegane.
  He was Prince Joffrey's sworn shield for many a year, and even here [on the Quiet Isle] we would hear tell of his deeds, both good and ill. If even half of what we heard was true, this was a bitter, tormented soul, a sinner who mocked both gods and men. He served, but found no pride in service. He fought, but took no joy in victory. He drank, to drown his pain in a sea of wine. He did not love, nor was he loved himself. It was hate that drove him. Though he committed many sins, he never sought forgiveness. Where other men dream of love, or wealth or glory, this man Sandor Clegane dreamed of slaying his own brother, a sin so terrible it makes me shudder just to speak of it. Yet it was the bread that nourished him, the fuel that kept his fires burning. Ignoble as it was, the hope of seeing his brother's blood upon his blade was all this sad and angry creature lived for, and even that was taken from him, when Prince Oberyn of Dorne stabbed Ser Gregor with a poisoned spear.
• Cersei's POV chapters don't do much to show her in a sympathetic light, with one exception: during Tommen's wedding to Margaery. When Tommen drinks his wine too quickly and starts choking on it, Cersei — who's already had one son choke to death on his wedding day right in front of her — becomes so overwhelmed with terror and panic that she ends up knocking a server down in her haste to reach him. Of course, it's a false alarm, but even so, she can't keep herself from bursting into tears and has to rush out of the room to prevent people from seeing her like this. It really hammers home the fact that, bitch though she may be, Cersei's still a mother who's already lost one child, and now lives in constant fear (not entirely without reason) that the other two may be next. In that one moment, it's pretty hard not to feel sorry for her.
  • YMMV but something that Cersei thinks as she leaves the room, that a woman may weep but not a Queen, can cause a few tears when you remember that her Aunt Genna told her that she shouldn't weep after being told she wasn't going to be wed to Rhaegar, that lions didn't weep. Considering the sort of parent Tywin was, you have to wonder if Cersei was ever able to truly cry.
• Doran's realization of Oberyn's death.
  "I was the oldest," the Prince said, "and yet I am the last. After Mors and Olyvar died in their cradles, I gave up hope of brothers. I was nine when Elia came, a squire in service at Salt Shore. When the raven arrived with word that my mother had been brought to bed a month too soon, I was old enough to understand that meant the child would not live. Even when Lord Gargalen told me that I had a sister, I assured him that she must shortly die. Yet she lived, by the Mother’s mercy. And a year later Oberyn arrived, squalling and kicking. I was a man grown when they were playing in these pools. Yet here I sit, and they are gone."
• Myrcella's face getting maimed by the Darkstar. Her Martell betrothed cannot help but cry at the sight of her.
  • Arianne's horrible guilt about her role in it. She's a decent person who didn't want any innocent people get hurt; now, because of her recklessness, Arys, a man so in love that he broke his vows for her, lost his head and Myrcella, a child under her protection, was slashed in the face and disfigured. And she's gonna have to live with that for the rest of her life.
• Brienne's response to the Elder Brother telling her to give up on her quest and go home because her father will be heartbroken if she dies. She can’t bring herself to give up because fulfilling her knightly vows and her oath to Catelyn are the only thing keeping her going. Being ostracized her whole life for not being beautiful and wanting to be a female knight in the patriarchal society of Westeros has hurt her so much. From a young age, her septa told her she was ugly ("freakish big and mannish"), Ronnet Connington cruelly rejected her when she was twelve, and even after she was accepted as a member of Renly's Rainbow Guard, his lords and soldiers started a wager on who could seduce her first as a Prank Date. It gives the impression that she's trying so hard to be a brave and honorable knight not just because it's her dream, but because she feels it's the only thing that gives her worth.
  "Go home, child. You have a home, which is more than many can say in these dark days. You have a noble father who must surely love you. Consider his grief if you should never return. Perhaps they will bring your sword and shield to him, after you have fallen. Perhaps he will even hang them in his hall and look on them with pride...but if you were to ask him, I know he would tell you that he would sooner have a living daughter than a shattered shield.”
  
  "A daughter." Brienne's eyes filled with tears. "He deserves that. A daughter who could sing to him and grace his hall and bear him grandsons. He deserves a son too, a strong and gallant son to bring honor to his name. Galladon drowned when I was four and he was eight, though, and Alysanne and Arianne died still in the cradle. I am the only child the gods let him keep. The freakish one, not fit to be son or daughter."
• More quiet than other cases, but Septon Meribald's description of 'broken men' and all the horrors of warfare for the common folk — even those serving in the armies — hits hard, reminding the reader yet again that this is now the reality for so many peasants in Westeros because of the arrogance, pride and ruthlessness of the Five Kings and the lords they commanded. And what makes it worse is that Meribald is still affected by his own experiences and loss of friends and kin, after nearly forty years.
  The quiet stretched and stretched, until finally [Brienne] said, "How old were you when they marched you off to war?"
  "Why, no older than your boy," Meribald replied. "Too young for such, in truth, but my brothers were all going, and I would not be left behind. Willam said I could be his squire, though Will was no knight, only a pot boy armed with a kitchen knife he'd stolen from the inn. He died upon the Stepstones, and never struck a blow. It was fever did for him, and for my brother Robin. Owen died from a mace that split his head apart, and his friend Jon Pox was hanged for rape."
  "The War of the Ninepenny Kings?" asked Hyle Hunt.
  "So they called it, though I never saw a king, nor earned a penny. It was a war, though. That it was."
• Tywin's sister telling Jaime about their relationship. It's sad, and it's twisted, and we see a human side to Tywin that's almost always buried.
• After the two of them make love on the Cinnamon Wind, Sam having to tell Gilly that they can't be together even though he loves her because of the vow he swore to the Night's Watch:
  Sam: What we did... if I could take a wife, I would sooner have you than any princess or highborn maiden... but I can't. I am still a crow. I said the words, Gilly.
  • The reveal that Gilly was depressed because Jon forced her to leave her baby behind and take Mance's son with her instead as part of Jon's plan to save a kid from being sacrificed for his king's blood and to help give both babies the chance to live (revealed in A Dance With Dragons). In Dance, before she leaves, Jon promises Gilly that her son will be safe because he has no king's blood as Stannis would not burn an innocent without cause, and that her son will be provided for, educated, and raised under (Jon's) protection. Gilly holds Jon to his promise that he'll ensure her son will grow up strong and makes him vow that he won't name her child until he reaches two years for the sake of her child's well-being.^note Because of the harsh environment beyond the Wall, infant mortality for wildling babies is higher. Because of this, the free folk believe it is bad luck to name a child before they reach two years old and give the child a milk name in the interim. As Gilly tells Jon before she departs, "Don’t you name him. Don’t you do that, till he's past two years. It's ill luck to name them when they’re still on the breast. You crows may not know that, but it's true." Though Gilly loves Mance's son as her own, she naturally can't help being absolutely miserable over the separation from her own son.
• The story of Oberyn taking Obara Sand away from her birth mother, especially when we found out that her heartbroken mother drank herself to death a year later.
• Asha describing her mother Alannys' depression after losing all three of her sons. She would wander Pyke in the middle of the night looking for them, even though the two eldest were dead and the youngest, Theon, was away at Winterfell.
• Jaime's guilt over not protecting Queen Rhaella from her abusive husband. For him, hearing her scream as King Aerys brutally raped her was worse than the screams of men the king had burned alive. The fact that the Kingsguard did nothing for this poor woman is also one of the reasons Jaime ended up so cynical and disillusioned.
  • Making it worse is the fact that Jaime did try to speak up in her defense, only to basically be shushed by Jonothor Darry — yet he's probably still remembered in Westeros as a heroic knight of the Kingsguard while Jaime is scorned as The Kingslayer:
    Jaime: We are sworn to protect her as well.
    Jonothor: We are, but not from him.
  • And it's possible Daenerys was conceived during one of these rapes.
• Loras being horribly injured during his attack on Dragonstone, to such an extent that the maesters are certain he's going to die. Well, probably. We get to see his sister's reaction:
  Margaery: Dying is not dead!
• Arya begins her training-slash-apprenticeship in the House of Black and White, where she is told that she has to give up her identity. This means throwing away any keepsakes and trinkets she has, which, though she is mildly disappointed, she does. She dumps it all in the river, until she gets to Needle. Arya decides that she just can't do it. She can give up being Arya Stark, but she can't get rid of the memories that come with her. And one of the things that Needle reminds her is her family, especially Jon Snow.
  [Arya] stood on the end of the dock, pale and goosefleshed and shivering in the fog. In her hand, Needle seemed to whisper to her. Stick them with the pointy end, it said, and, don't tell Sansa! Mikken's mark was on the blade. It's just a sword. If she needed a sword, there were a hundred under the temple. Needle was too small to be a proper sword, it was hardly more than a toy. She'd been a stupid little girl when Jon had it made for her. “It's just a sword,” she said, aloud this time...
  ...but it wasn't.
  Needle was Robb and Bran and Rickon, her mother and her father, even Sansa. Needle was Winterfell's grey walls, and the laughter of its people. Needle was the summer snows, Old Nan's stories, the heart tree with its red leaves and scary face, the warm earthy smell of the glass gardens, the sound of the north wind rattling the shutters of her room. Needle was Jon Snow's smile. He used to mess my hair and call me "little sister," she remembered, and suddenly there were tears in her eyes.
• Maester Aemon dying aboard the Cinnamon Wind on the journey to Oldtown. Maester Aemon and Jon realize he must leave Castle Black when Aemon learns Melisandre is seeking king's blood and Jon sends him to Oldtown to save him from Stannis and Melisandre, but the voyage on the Blackbird takes its toll and a man of 102 years old simply couldn't make the journey. Aemon asks Sam to bring him on deck, where he prefers to spend his time — even in the rain — and is lost in memory. And when he dies, Maester Aemon doesn't go quickly, either. He spends his last days slipping in and out of his wits, more senile by the day, mistaking Sam for his long-deceased brother Egg (Aegon V), too weak to eat and barely moves. Perhaps most tragic is how lackluster of an end this is for the old man — he was a Targaryen, and could have been king, but gave it up, and spent the last years of his life counseling the Lord Commanders of the Night's Watch. In the end, when Aemon's moment finally comes, his last words are for his long deceased brother.
  Aemon's blind white eyes came open. "Egg?" he said, as the rain streamed down his cheeks. "Egg, I dreamed that I was old."
  • Sam's eulogy for the wise old man when he passes away of old age. Sam is the only one aboard the Cinnamon Wind who fully grasps just how great Maester Aemon was, and he barely makes it through the eulogy before breaking into tears:
    "He was a good man... No. He was a great man. A maester of the Citadel, chained and sworn, and Sworn Brother of the Night's Watch, ever faithful. When he was born they named him for a hero who had died too young, but though he lived a long long time, his own life was no less heroic. No man was wiser, or gentler, or kinder. At the Wall, a dozen lords commander came and went during his years of service, but he was always there to counsel them. He counseled kings as well. He could have been a king himself, but when they offered him the crown he told them they should give it to his younger brother. How many men would do that? He was the blood of the dragon, but now his fire has gone out. He was Aemon Targaryen. And now his watch is ended."
  • Just as Aemon is haunted by his family's destruction and how he was unable to anything to save them because he was bound to the Watch by that time, he curses the fact that he is now too old to meet his grandniece Daenerys Targaryen and counsel her. He learned about her existence only shortly before dying. Aemon realizes the prophecy of The Prince That Was Promised is gender neutral and Daenerys (born amidst salt and smoke and the one who brought dragons back into the world) might be the prophesized prince and he is determined to reach her. However, Aemon realizes he is too old to reach her and urges Sam to go to the Citadel in his place and tell the archmaesters about Daenerys.
    Aemon: I must go to [Daenerys]. I must. Would that I was even ten years younger.
    
    Aemon: [later, to Sam] It must be you. Tell them. The prophecy... my brother's dream... Lady Melisandre has misread the signs. Stannis... Stannis has some of the dragon blood in him, yes. His brothers did as well. Rhaelle, Egg's little girl, she was how they came by it... their father's mother... she used to call me Uncle Maester when she was a little girl. I remembered that, so I allowed myself to hope... perhaps I wanted to... we all deceive ourselves, when we want to believe. Melisandre most of all, I think. The sword is wrong, she has to know that... light without heat... an empty glamor... the sword is wrong, and the false light can only lead us deeper into darkness, Sam. Daenerys is our hope. Tell them that, at the Citadel. Make them listen. They must send her a maester. Daenerys must be counseled, taught, protected. For all these years I've lingered, waiting, watching, and now that the day has dawned I am too old. I am dying, Sam.
• Asha Greyjoy getting her uncle Victarion to tell her how his last wife died; his older brother Euron impregnated her, forcing Victarion to kill her himself. He would have killed Euron as well for it, but their eldest brother Balon forbade any kinslaying and banished Euron instead.
  Asha: I am sorry for you, and sorrier for her.
• Mya Stone recounting her distant childhood memory of her father, who she doesn't know was Robert Baratheon. He would throw her high in the air, so high it felt like she was flying. They were both laughing, and she always felt safe because she knew he would catch her. Eventually he stopped visiting her, and Mya, not without reason, assumed that he didn't care about her any more. But Robert didn't stop visiting her because he wanted to; in fact, he wanted to bring her to court, but Cersei insinuated she would have Mya killed if he did. With Robert's death, Mya will almost certainly never know that her father never stopped loving her.
  • Mya also seems to be the only child of Robert that the man himself actually loved. Even more tearjerking, it is because it was the only child he got to actually meet and spend any time with. Even Edric Storm only got presents for his namedays but when Robert wanted to bring him to court, Cersei threatened she'll kill him, his highborn blood from both sides be damned.