In a series praised for astounding amounts of gore and violence there are still little islands of heartwarming scenes amongst the literal oceans of blood.
- While the story of how the Greek born commander of the Persian Navy, Artemisia, watched as her family were raped and murdered, their town burnt to the ground, and how she was sold into a decade of misery as a child sex slave aboard a Greek ship, finally to be dumped on the side of a road and ignored by her fellow countrymen was horrible, what came after was one of the few truly touching moments in the movies. The only person that noticed, and cared enough to pick her up off the street, take her in, feed and clothe her, and to train her as a warrior was none other than a Persian Emissary, specifically the one who Leonidas killed in Sparta.
- Adding to this is the look of near paternal pride on the emissary's face when a teenage Artemisia bests him in her combat training and when she proves her skill and loyalty to King Darius as a young woman by presenting him with the severed heads of numerous defeated kings.
- When Themistocles tells Calisto that his father's last words were that he had gained the right to sit with them. As seen in his eyes, it's not easy to describe how proud and moved the young warrior feels.
