History ASongOfIceAndFire / TropesSToZ

** Tyrion is especially forthright and suspicious about this, noting how some kings like Baelor the Blessed are loved for their piety while ignoring the burdens he inflicted on the realm, while hard-working behind the scenes political figures like Viserys II are unjustly ignored.

** The Clegane family are very minor and recent nobility (House Lannister was founded by a houndsmaster saving a member of the Lannister family), and it shows. Ser Gregor Clegane is a PsychoForHire with gigantism who takes great joy in murdering and raping defenseless victims. His brother Sandor Clegane (also a violent brute, but with actual morals somewhere deep down) hates being called "Ser" even though he's entitled to it, precisely because he sees knights as thugs with swords (as exemplified by his brother).

* {{Yubitsume}}: When the smuggler Davos breaks the siege of Storm's End he gets a knighthood, but has the fingertips of one hand cut off. Stannis believes that good deeds don't make up for bad; if you do him a favour he'll reward your for it ''and'' punish you for your previous sins. Paradoxically, Davos sees his severed fingers as a token of Stannis' ''mercy'' and of his own loyalty.

** The Sand Snakes each have a favored weapon: [[BladeOnAStick spear]] (Obara), [[BladeEnthusiast knives]] (Nymeria), [[ArcherArchetype bow and arrow]] (Sarella) and [[MasterPoisoner poison]] (Tyene).

* SweetsOfTemptation: Sweetsleep is a medicine that can be used as a sleep aid and seizure treatment in tiny doses, but it's so strong that as little as three pinches is enough to kill a grown man. Because it smells and tastes sweet, it is easily hidden by assassins in sweet foods like cakes, pies and honeyed wines.

** Dany's bloodriders receive one each as a gift: "Jhogo, [[WhipItGood the whip]]; Aggo, [[ArcherArchetype the bow]]; Rakharo, [[CoolSword the arakh]]".

* WhipItGood:
** Jhogo, one of Daenerys' bloodriders, wields a whip as his signature weapon.
** Larraq, one of Barristan's most promising squires, favors the whip. When Barristan warns him that whips are useless against armored enemies, Larraq demonstrates how he can use it to pull them off their feet, then follow up with his trident.
** Dany uses a whip to [[spoiler:chastise Drogon and then steer him while in the air. She notes that dragons steer ''toward'' the lash rather than away from it like a horse]].

* TheWomanWearingTheQueenlyMask: Daenerys after some development. She is also quite aware of the fact, referring to the necessity of her queenly vestments by saying that "The Queen of Rabbits cannot be seen without her floppy ears".

* StockholmSyndrome: [[spoiler:Ramsay Bolton]] has perfected the art of instilling this in his captives. [[spoiler:Theon and Jeyne Poole both]] have classic cases of it after coming into his clutches.

** However idealism does win out very occasionally. Take the case of Ned Stark (idealist) vs. Tywin Lannister (deeply cynical): Ned [[spoiler:will be remembered as a wise and fair ruler, and his reputation ensured many of the lords fought for and protected his children in the years after his murder]]; meanwhile Tywin, for all his talk of "legacy", [[spoiler:is remembered as the king who was [[UndignifiedDeath shot on the privy by his crossbow-toting dwarf son]].]]

* SecretTestOfCharacter: After Jon and his fellow Night's Watch members capture a wildling woman in a battle, there is a debate about whether to kill her. Jon wants to free her but the other Watch members want her dead to ensure her silence. Jon's superior Qhorin Halfhand leaves him behind with the captive and tells him to "do what needs to be done". Jon frees her and defends this decision on the grounds that she wasn't a threat. As befits the moral ambiguity of the novels, the goal was to learn whether Jon could make a decision on his own, and what sort of decision he would make -- Qhorin Halfhand didn't care if the girl died or not, he just wanted to see what Jon would do.

* StrawMisogynist: Randyll Tarly. And the The High Sparrow, in spades.

* StockYuck: When [[spoiler:Tommen]] is king in his own right, he's going to ''[[ThereShouldBeALaw outlaw]]'' beets!

* WiseSerpent: Prince Oberyn Martell, aka "[[TheRedBaron The Red Viper]]", is a skilled warrior of much acclaim (to the point of even founding and leading his own Sellsword company until he grew bored) as well as likewise renown as a poet and scholar. He travels the world gaining much knowledge and appreciation of other cultures, trains at the citadel to the point of managing to forge six rings on his chain and nearly qualified to be Maester, and boasts to [[MasterPoisoner know more about poisons]] than anyone alive.

* {{Whodunnit}}: The first book is driven in large part by Ned and Catelyn Stark's investigations of, respectively, the death of Jon Arryn and the attempted murder of their son Bran. Subverted when [[spoiler:Ned's death, Tyrion's farce of a trial, and the onset of war put an end to the investigations]], making it something of a ([[ShaggyDogStory deliberately]]) AbortedArc. The reader does eventually find out the truth behind both crimes in later books; [[spoiler:the apparent motive of covering up Cersei's incest with Jaime turns out to have nothing to do with either of them, they were committed by Lysa Tully and Joffrey Baratheon, with Lysa, and possibly Joffrey too, being directed by Littlefinger.]]

** Sansa. Boy, does she pay the price...
** Eddard Stark is wise to the ways of war, but is totally surprised by the amount of intrigue and corruption infecting capital politics.

* WizardingSchool: The Citadel has elements of this trope. Along with medicine, alchemy and other topics, some Maesters choose to study "magic," though the most they learn is that it doesn't work, effectively making the study of magic a Westerosi equivalent of ADegreeInUseless. We later learn that [[spoiler:a faction of the Citadel is strongly ''against'' magic and is trying to eradicate it. They might have been partially responsible for the extinction of Targaryen dragons, which caused magic to fade from the world for a while]].

* WeaponOfChoice:

** Gregor Clegane favours a two-handed greatsword that he wields [[OneHandedZweihander like a longsword]] because he's the WorldsStrongestMan

** Areo Hotah, like all the boys trained by the Bearded Monks, is ceremonially ''[[CompanionCube wedded]]'' to his [[AnAxeToGrind six-foot longaxe]]; part military oath, part vow of chastity.

** His son and heir, Robb Stark, gets betrayed by one of his bannermen - shot with bolts, stabbed through the heart, beheaded, and ultimately gets his pet's head sown to his neck.

* {{Yandere}}: Lysa Arryn for Littlefinger who is yandere for Catelyn. Heck, Littlefinger just takes Yandere to a [[UpToEleven whole new]] [[DisproportionateRetribution level]] of crazy.

--> '''Septon Meribald''': [[WarIsGlorious War seems a fine adventure, the greatest most of them will ever know.]] [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome 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.

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

** 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. SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome; he lost and almost dying also ashamed because his maiden begged the knight to spare him made him the Littlefinger we know today.

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[[folder: W]]

** The Sand Snakes each have a favored weapon: [[BladeOnAStick spear]] (Obara), [[KnifeNut knives]] (Nymeria), [[ArcherArchetype bow and arrow]] (Sarella) and [[MasterPoisoner poison]] (Tyene).