YMMV / A Clash of Kings

• Anticlimax Boss: Renly plans on stealing the throne from Stannis and has put together the largest army in Westeros, but he's assassinated on the night before the battle without putting up a fight. Stannis takes the bulk of his forces into his own campaign against the Lannisters.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Ygritte became one of the more popular characters introduced in this book, with many readers relishing that there was finally a female who wasn't bound by the restrictions of Westerosi society; she's an outspoken Action Girl who shows us how different things are for wildling women.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Theon remarks that he wishes Sansa were still at Winterfell so he could force her to marry him. In the TV series, when Sansa returns to Winterfell, she's forced into a marriage with Ramsay and Theon is Forced to Watch as she's raped on her wedding night.
• It Was His Sled: Winterfell was sacked.
• Narm: Theon names his ship Sea Bitch. Considering this is Theon we're talking about, it was probably intended to sound ridiculous rather than badass.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Maester Cressen, who only gets a single Death in the Limelight POV chapter, an attempted Taking You with Me to protect Stannis from Melisandre's influence. Gets a lot of love for someone who effectively just killed himself without actually achieving anything.
  • Ser Cortnay Penrose, castellan of Storm's End.
  "Very well, ser. Bring on your storm. And remember, if you will, the name of this castle."
• Squick: Aboard his pleasure barge, Xaro Xhoan Daxos has "flutists who will soothe your troubled soul with sweet music, and a small girl whose tongue will make you sigh and melt."
• Trapped by Mountain Lions: Daenerys' plot in this book is generally regarded as the weakest in the series, since it mostly consists of her aimlessly milling about Qarth until its (to be fair, very dense) penultimate chapter. Some of Daenerys' visions in the House of the Undying do provide foreshadowing for later important events, in particular the Red Wedding, but we either don't get the pay-off for it until the sequels or they still remain vague.

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