Examples of My God, What Have I Done? in George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire franchise.
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Literature
A Song of Ice and Fire
- Ned Stark has this reaction when hearing Bran's life was saved by his direwolf, as he realises the direwolves were sent by the Old Gods to protect his children, only now one's been killed by his own hand and the other driven away. Sure enough the fate of his daughters mirror that of their direwolves; Sansa is at the mercy of the queen, while Arya becomes a fugitive in the Riverlands.
HBO Series
Game of Thrones
Tropes A | Tropes B | Tropes C to D | Tropes E to F | Tropes G to K | Tropes L to O | Tropes P to S | Tropes T to Z
- Theon Greyjoy silently has this reaction after looking back at everything he has done, taking Winterfell, killing two orphan boys, then passing off their burnt corpses as those of Bran and Rickon. All because he wanted his father's approval, but for him, he already died in King's Landing.
- This is written all over Ser Loras Tyrell's face as he sits near the corpse of King Renly Baratheon. He feels extremely guilty for convincing his lover to make a bid for the Iron Throne, as this path led to Renly becoming a target for assassination.
- Catelyn admits that she regrets having refused to love Jon Snow and treat him like a son and believes that the misfortunes of her family are the gods' way of punishing her.
- Although she blames Joffrey and Cersei for it later, Arya is horrified when Cersei demands Sansa's direwolf Lady is killed in Nymeria's place.
- Bran has this reaction when he realized that he unintentionally destroyed Hodor's mind.
- Hodor's reaction upon realizing that Bran used him to kill somebody.
- As Joffrey rises to ever new heights of cruelty and perversion, Cersei finally acknowledges that having three inbred children with her twin brother wasn't such a great idea — considering what it did to the Targaryens — to say nothing of putting the most unstable of them on the Iron Throne itself. She breaks down in tears from the sheer knowledge that the son she loves (despite everything) is a psychopath. Nevertheless, in later episodes, she undergoes a mild Selective Obliviousness.
- The Hound has this reaction when returning to the farm from Season 4 only to find that the old peasant and his daughter killed themselves so they wouldn't starve to death. He is immediately broken with guilt for having stolen from them and proceeds to bury their remains.
- Daenerys Targaryen:
- In "The Laws of Gods and Men", after being confronted by the devastated son of one of the Meereenese nobles whose crucifixions she ordered, whose tirade against Daenerys verges on a Breaking Speech for her. Afterward, for all of Dany's slave-freeing, vigilante queen bravado, she looks and sounds utterly disgusted with herself.Hizdahr zo Loraq: My father, one of Meereen's most respected and beloved citizens, oversaw the restoration and maintenance of its greatest landmarks. This pyramid included.
Daenerys: For that, he has my gratitude. I should be honored to meet him.
Hizdahr: You have, your Grace. You crucified him. I pray you'll never live to see a member of your family treated so cruelly.
Daenerys: Your father crucified innocent children.
Hizdahr: My father spoke out against crucifying those children. He decried it as a criminal act but was overruled. Is it justice to answer one crime with another? - She feels a million times worse when a goat-herder cries as he presents her with the charred skeleton of his daughter who was burnt alive by Drogon.
- In "The Laws of Gods and Men", after being confronted by the devastated son of one of the Meereenese nobles whose crucifixions she ordered, whose tirade against Daenerys verges on a Breaking Speech for her. Afterward, for all of Dany's slave-freeing, vigilante queen bravado, she looks and sounds utterly disgusted with herself.
- Tyrion Lannister:
- He immediately feels remorse for killing Shae, and he is clearly upset while he's strangling her.
- In Spoils of War, Tyrion reacts with horror upon seeing Lannister soldiers being burned alive by Drogon and slaughtered by the Dothraki all as a result of Dany following his advice to lay siege and encircle the capital with her army rather than using her dragons to take over.
- Stannis Baratheon:
- After being repelled at Blackwater Bay, he has a brief Crisis of Faith during which he exhibits sudden regret for leading men to a horrible death and for having killed his own brother. Whereas before he considered Renly collateral damage for opposing him, he now considers it straight-up murder.
- Stannis: I fought for your god in Blackwater Bay. I led my men to the gates of the Seventh Hell as their brothers burned alive and for what?! [...] I murdered my brother!
Melisandre: We murdered him. Share the weight with me.
Stannis: He wasn't your brother.
- He falls into this again after Shireen's sacrifice. By the end, his typical stoic glare becomes a Thousand-Yard Stare and he looks dead inside.
- After being repelled at Blackwater Bay, he has a brief Crisis of Faith during which he exhibits sudden regret for leading men to a horrible death and for having killed his own brother. Whereas before he considered Renly collateral damage for opposing him, he now considers it straight-up murder.
- Selyse breaks down out of guilt at the sight of Shireen being burned and commits suicide soon afterward.
House of the Dragon
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- When she's presented with suitors, Rhaenyra Targaryen is shaken when she sees that Lord Blackwood has mortally wounded the Bracken knight, since she may have set off the duel by finding the latter's insults against the former amusing. Blackwood, meanwhile, looks like he's about to be sick as his opponent vomits blood.
- After his gigantic dragon Vhagar kills both Lucerys Velaryon (Rhaenyra's second son) and his dragon Arrax, Aemond Targaryen has a visibly distraught expression on his face. He only intended to toy with Lucerys and not kill him, not being able to fully control Vhagar, and this move has now triggered a war.
