Harsher In Hindsight / Game of Thrones

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• Theon's Male Frontal Nudity scene in Season 1 almost looks like sinister foreshadowing about him being castrated in Season 3.
• The final scene in "The Laws of Gods and Men" renders romance between Tyrion and Shae into an example. During Shae's betrayal, she actively picks out the sweetest moments from their romance to twist into mockery.
• Several times through Seasons 2 and 3, Robb is talking to Roose Bolton about the war, only to be interrupted by Talisa. A regular but very unremarkable occurrence until the Red Wedding. Robb constantly breaking war councils to talk to a pretty girl in the camp probably contributed to Roose's belief that Robb was a boy with no hope to win the war.
• The show's most overtly villainous family having the lion as their sigil became pretty nasty when Katherine Chappell, one of its visual effects editors, was killed by a lion in South Africa.
• Doran Martell saying "We don't kill little girls" sounds like a general statement of being a civil ruler... then Stannis kills his own little girl. Even more relevantly, at the end of Season 5, Ellaria does in fact kill a little girl.
• It seems that Renly's entire claim to the Throne is that he's a more likable person than Stannis, and from what we see of Stannis, he isn't exactly wrong. Then came the real life 2016 Presidential Election, where almost all the candidates used that exact same strategy, and with those kinds of personal attacks no longer being considered funny or cool, Renly is just being stupid and childish. Interestingly enough, this was already the case in the book where Renly was more clearly a Sleazy Politician, but the writers gave him a Draco in Leather Pants treatment.
• The scene where Barristan Selmy takes offense when Joffrey discards tradition and dismisses him from service becomes a little harsher considering the way the actor eventually left the show. He was reportedly upset about the show changing the books' plot to kill off his character.
• Back in Season 2 the Spice King said that he would rather have Daenerys's baby dragons killed, stating that they will bring the world untold misery. Later in the series, one of them becomes an undead dragon and is used by the Night King to herald The End of the World as We Know It, and the other is used to massacre thousands of innocent men, women, and children
• Jaime and Ned's conversation in the Throne Room in Season 1 mostly just seems like a prime example of Stark vs. Lannister Passive-Aggressive Kombat. Come Season 3 and we realize that Jaime's hatred of Ned and his Honor Before Reason mentality is both very, very personal and also very understandable, with the face that Ned made as he found Aerys dead by Jaime's hand still haunting him.
• In the Season 2 episode "The Old Gods and the New", Sansa is attacked and nearly raped by four men, one of whom lecherously asks, "You ever been fucked, little girl?" Cue "Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken" when Sansa is raped by Ramsay Bolton on their wedding night.
• In relation to Sansa being raped by Ramsay, Littlefinger's lines in "Valar Morghulis" become very uncomfortable upon rewatch. Specifically Littlefinger saying that "now that you're a woman, he'll be able to enjoy you in other ways as well" and "I'll help get you home". Considering that he's the one who arranged Sansa's marriage to Ramsay, the very thing he wanted to save Sansa from happened anyway and it is all his fault.
• Many characters lambast Ned's Honor Before Reason approach to Cersei in Season 1: giving her a Mercy Lead to flee with her children before Robert returned and Ned would tell him that the three heirs are actually Jaime's kids. Then we learn that Ned was in a similar situation; he lied to everyone that Jon was his son and not his nephew to spare him from Robert Baratheon's wrath. He had assumed that Cersei was a reasonable woman acting out of love, not out of stupid ambition and lust.
• In the real world, some parents who had named their children after Daenerys were not happy when Season 8 revealed that they ultimately named their children after a war criminal and one of the worst tyrants in the history of the Seven Kingdoms.
• Daario Naharis's line in Season 6 about how he "want[s] to see what the world looks like when she's done conquering it", referring to Daenerys. Given the events of Season 8's "The Bells" it would probably look like an apocalyptic wasteland of ash and burnt corpses should anyone dare oppose her.
• Daenerys's nude scenes since Emilia Clarke appeared on the podcast "Armchair Expert" and talked about how much she hated doing them.
• Daenerys's two romantic relationships before she meets Jon Snow are with Khal Drogo and Daario Naharis. She was sold to Drogo by her brother into a marriage against her will and this marriage didn't start out very happily (she later admits that he raped her). With Daario, their relationship was consensual but had no real emotional connection. Jon Snow is the first man she fell in love with and had a relationship with that was mutually consensual and equal. Yet, even this one also experiences its own issues when they find out about their Surprise Incest, which has rippling effects: it causes Daenerys to fear others will pit Jon's claim against hers, regardless of Jon's abdication in favour of Daenerys, and Jon to halt their romantic intimacy due to his discomfort with their incest. Along with other factors, this contributes to Daenerys's Sanity Slippage, triggering her Face–Heel Turn at the end of Season 8, whereupon she burns the populace of a surrendered King's Landing. When she refuses Jon's pleas to opt for mercy instead of continued killing, Daenerys believing the latter is how they get to a better world, he ultimately betrays her by reluctantly assassinating her. Turns out all of Daenerys's romantic relationships experience significant issues. It gets even worse when one recalls she grew up abused by her older brother, Viserys — who she was once expected to marry — and that her mother was a victim of domestic abuse as well.
• Meryn Trant turning out to be a pedophile and sexual sadist paints Bronn's comment about him being "better at beating little girls than fighting men" in a new light. The same holds true for Trant's beating of Sansa in Season 2.
• Ros's physical and emotional torture by Joffrey, culminating in her eventual murder, is now even more uncomfortable in light of Ros's actress, Esme Bianco, revealing in 2021 she was physically, psychologically, and sexually abused at the hands of her ex-boyfriend, Marilyn Manson.
• Hodor is a mentally challenged stableboy for House Stark capable of only saying his own name. This quirk made him very endearing to fans and easily popular. Come Season 6, and it's revealed his handicap was caused by Bran accidentally mind-raping him when he was just a young teen and ordered him to "hold the door" so he and his friends could escape from an undead horde. The process destroyed his mind and all he could say was Hodor. Therefore, the whole point of his existence was to serve as meatshield and sacrifice himself for others.

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