History ASongOfIceAndFire / TropesSToZ

* SignificantNameShift: Jaime and Brienne initially they refer to each other with derogatory nicknames ("wench"/"Kingslayer"), but as they travel together they begin to develop respect for each other as knights and begin to use formal honorifics honorifics ("ser"/"my lady") and eventually actual names, though Jaime reserves "wench" as an InsultOfEndearment when Brienne is being particularly [[HonorBeforeReason honourable]].

** [[spoiler:Lannisters]] won The War Of Five Kings but it's PyrrhicVictory as they: 1) Won it with extremely dishonorable method, so everyone has more reason to hate them; 2) Lost some important members of their family; 3) They devolve into infighting; 4) Their allies are pissed by them and distancing themselves from them; 5) The bannermen of the defeated rival formed LaResistance and secretly tries to undermine them and their allies; 6) The realm is in chaos as a result of the recent CivilWar.

** Brienne, at first, very much believes in honor and chivalry, and that the other people believe in it too. She is possibly getting smarter.
** Melisandre. She considers R'hllor the one true god and the one benevolent supernatural force when it's indicated the Red God is not really any better than the other gods and demons we've seen so far, and other gods have been demonstrating real power recently. She believes the world works by BlackAndWhiteMorality in a series ''full'' of GrayAndGreyMorality. She believes Stannis is the ChosenOne to lead the fight against the Other, [[spoiler: but everything indicates she's misinterpreting her visions, and Dany and possibly Jon Snow are better candidates]].
** Generally everyone in Westeros south of Neck. They tend to ignore and dismiss the stories of walking dead and dragons filtering in; among many other things they no longer take the Night's Watch seriously and use it as a criminal dump. Not good when your political squabbling is hurtling head-long towards a DisasterMovie you know about (winter) and a ZombieApocalypse you should.

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: [[RealityEnsues/ASongOfIceAndFire Has its own page]].

* SuccessionCrisis: Starts the War of the Five Kings. Joffrey is disputed as if he is really King Robert's son, Stannis considers himself the rightful heir, Daenerys wants the throne Robert stole when he killed her father, Robb wants revenge for [[spoiler:his father's death]] and independence for the North, Renly just wants power and glory and thinks he'd make a better ruler than Stannis, and Balon decides this is the perfect time to attempt another rebellion. [[spoiler:Later Aegon VI claims he is the son of the Mad King's heir so is the rightful king.]]

** In the second book, the High Septon is torn about by the angry mob that is rioting over the lack of food. Preston Greenfield attempts to rescue him, but gets hacked to pieces and his body was barely identifiable.

** A young Catelyn Tully saved her friend and admirer Paetyr Baelish from being killed by Brandon Stark in a duel for her hand. Years later, he would repay her by betraying her husband Ned Stark and cause his death as well as her own. However, it is implied that Catelyn's plea for Paetyr's life came off as belittling to his character.

* TheUnifier:
** Queen Nymeria, the legendary warrior queen who united the Rhoynar people during the Valyrian conquests and led them across the sea to Dorne. Upon arriving, she married Mors Martell and they conquered the rest of Dorne, unifying it as one of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros.
** Aegon I Targaryen, known as Aegon the Conqueror, was this for the Seven Kingdoms. While the current administration has [[WrittenByTheWinners attempted to downplay his accomplishment a bit]], he is still commonly held by the people of Westeros to have unified the kingdoms on the back of his dragon. Despite conventional wisdom, however, he never actually conquered all seven kingdoms; Dorne remained independent for generations after his death, and the North and the Vale both submitted to his rule willingly.
** Mance Rayder, the King Beyond the Wall, has managed to unify the many different tribes of the Free Folk in the Land of Always Winter, and this has the Night's Watch terrified, due to being their enemy for hundreds of years. After a ranging party north goes awry, Jon Snow finds himself with an opportunity to infiltrate and find out exactly why the Free Folk all decided to follow Mance, and when Jon eventually meets Mance, he discovers that the answer is quite simple: [[ArcWords Winter is coming]], and with it, the Others. Mance united the Free Folk entirely with diplomacy, because he wanted to get them all south of the wall so they could survive, and they proclaimed him the King Beyond the Wall. Later on,
** Following Mance's apparent death, Jon fills this role, having been elected Lord Commander of the Night's Watch and having seen the threat posed by the Others. While there is some initial distrust, the Free Folk are more than willing to serve faithfully if it means fighting the Others and saving themselves, and Jon sends emissaries to Free Folk faction leaders such as Tormund Giantsbane offering safe passage south of the Wall. The Night's Watch, however, do not take kindly to this and there are several small clashes between the former enemies.

* UnfortunateNames:
** George R.R. Martin ''had'' to have been giggling when he named a very minor character ''Dickon Manwoody''. There is also a Dick Crabb.
** The Targaryen name "Aenys." Say it out loud.
** And Tyrion remarks that although it isn't a double entendre, Podrick Payne has a rather unfortunate name.

--> '''Septon Meribald''': [[WarIsGlorious War seems a fine adventure, the greatest most of them will ever know.]] [[RealityEnsues Then they get a taste of battle.]] For some, that one taste is enough to break them. Others go on for years, until they lose count of all the battles they have fought in, but even a man who has survived a hundred fights can break in his hundred-and-first.

** [[spoiler:Oberyn Martell]] for trying to give a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech [[RealityEnsues in the middle of combat]].

** Littlefinger aka Petyr Baelish used to be this. He challenged seasoned knight because he believed that UnderDogsNeverLose will win the maiden's hand from the evil knight. RealityEnsues; he lost and almost dying also ashamed because his maiden begged the knight to spare him made him the Littlefinger we know today.

** House Frey is utterly despised by other noble houses for violating the cardinal rule of hospitality in Westerosi culture. The only crime higher than kingslaying, the septons say, is kinslaying, but guest right seems to be held by many to be above even that.
** The Boltons are also hated by everyone in the North for their betrayal, and the Northern Houses ally themselves with Stannis to bring them down.

** House Codd embodies this trope so much that they make it their house words: "Though All Men Do Despise Us."

* ZeroPercentApprovalRating:
** House Frey is utterly despised by other noble houses for violating the cardinal rule of hospitality in Westerosi culture. The only crime higher than kingslaying, the septons say, is kinslaying, but guest right seems to be held by many to be above even that.
** The Boltons are also hated by everyone in the North for their betrayal, and the Northern Houses ally themselves with Stannis to bring them down.
** When Cersei and Joffrey take the Iron Throne, both of them become extremely unpopular. Joffrey is hated due to his petty cruelty and lack of concern for his subjects, and Cersei quickly alienates herself due to her inability to consolidate her power. Nevertheless, Joffrey gets a little sympathy and people believe he has ''evil counselors'': the eunuch Varys and the ''evil monkey demon'' Tyrion.
** House Codd embodies this trope so much that they make it their house words: "Though All Men Do Despise Us."
** Queen Rhaenyra during the Dance of Dragons. With her determination to root out and execute traitors, she alienates both the smallfolk (who eventually riot, killing her dragons) and her own consort Daemon (who defies her order to kill fellow DragonRider Nettles). [[spoiler:When King Aegon II feeds Rhaenyra to his dragon, no-one objects at the kinslaying.]]

* SameSurnameMeansRelated: Justified, where only the feudal nobility have surnames, and two identical surnames means at least some kind of relation. There are distant cadet branches which are no one remembers exactly how related to the main House (such as the Lannisters of Lannisport), but they still are distant relatives and not just guys with the same last name.
** Averted with any nobleborn bastards, who are given a surname based on the region they're born in rather than inheriting their parent's name. For example, [[HeroicBastard Jon]] and [[BastardBastard Ramsay]] Snow are unrelated; they just happen to both have grown up in the North.
* SamusIsAGirl: Brienne of Tarth wins a tournament before it's revealed that she's a woman (though an interesting case because everyone present ''other'' than Catelyn knows who she is and most disapprove of her winning because she's a woman). Also [[spoiler:Alleras is generally assumed to be Sarella Sand, one of Oberyn Martell's bastard daughters.]]

* SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale: While this ''is'' a fantasy world, we're dealing with a wall stretching the length of a South America sized continent, while also standing at 700 feet tall. There's a castle built into a mountain the size of San Francisco while also being taller than the Empire State Building. Also, two characters are capable of sailing the length of the continent in two months, with medieval technology.

* SecretLegacy: Where should we start? Gendry, Arya's companion in early books [[spoiler: is King Robert's bastard son]].

* TextileWorkIsFeminine: Sansa is good at embroidery; Arya avoids it.

* VowOfCelibacy: Required by several religious and military orders, including the Night's Watch, the Kingsguard, the septons/septas of the Faith of the Seven, and the maesters of the Citadel. Some take their vows more seriously than others; in the Night's Watch, it's an open secret that more brothers than not make regular visits to a nearby brothel.

** Though he was never married, Prince Oberyn Martell is very promiscuous and had eight bastard daughters from five women. Among the five women who bore his daughters, Ellaria Sand is his closest and most favorite lover and is also the mother of his four younger daughters. If ever Oberyn marries someone else for political reasons, Ellaria would be considered to be his mistress

** [[spoiler:Sandor Clegane, who is implied to be living anonymously as a monk on Quiet Isle. The Elder Brother states that the Hound is dead, and later that Sandor Clegane is "[[JediTruth at rest]]". This serves both as a cover and a reference to the man's new life]].

* StreisandEffect: Invoked and played with. When Stannis distributes a letter accusing Cersei and Jaime of fathering incestuous children, she tries to crush it to prevent the tale from spreading, but she's unsuccessful. Littlefinger attempts to sidestep the trope by trying a tit-for-tat strategy: inventing an equally lurid tale of the paternity of Stannis' daughter Shireen.