When considering the Crapsack World of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire and its adaptations, it's no surprise that there are a lot of Oh, Crap! moments.
open/close all folders
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
- Varys's reaction when Littlefinger reveals that he is aware of Varys's secret meeting with Illyrio.
- Jaime and Cersei's reactions to learning Bran may live, as Bran witnessed Jaime and Cersei's Twincest make-out session before Jaime pushed him out a window.
- Tyrion's reaction to Catelyn talking a whole tavern into arresting him.
- Loras when he realizes that the Mountain is about to attack him with a sword at the Tourney of the Hand. Loras doesn't have a weapon at this point, only a shield to protect himself.
- Viserys, once he realizes just what is meant by giving him a "golden crown".
- Jaime when he realizes Ned Stark just rope-a-doped him.
- Bronn when Tyrion tells him that Lord Tywin is placing them in the vanguard in the next day's battle.
- Sansa when she wakes up in "A Man Without Honor" and realizes she's started menstruating.
- Tyrion upon seeing Stannis's charging forces at the Battle of Blackwater.
- Arya in disguise as Tywin Lannister's cupbearer at Harrenhal when it's announced that Littlefinger has arrived.
- A similar scene occurs when the Hound is found by "The Brotherhood Without Banners" and she does get recognized as a Stark.
- Davos when he realises that the single Lannister ship in the mouth of Blackwater Rush is empty and has been filled with wildfire, which is pouring into the water.
- When Brienne curbstomps the three Northmen, Jaime is open-mouthed, having twigged that, yeah, she probably could beat him. A suspicion that's confirmed when he actually does fight her and she damn near ruins him.
- The Season 2 finale.
- When Locke presses his knife right into Jaime's eyeball, Jaime starts crying. Then, after a second or two of pure shock, he screams his guts out when Locke cuts off his hand with a giant "OH FUCK!" look on his face.
- "And Now His Watch Is Ended":
- Kraznys when he learns that Dany can speak Valyrian. Doubly so when he hears her order the Unsullied to kill him.
- Missandei is a bit quicker on the uptake, getting her Oh, Crap! shot the moment Dany addresses her new troops.
- The Hound's expression when Beric lights his sword on fire.
- Catelyn when the Frey musicians start playing "The Rains of Castamere", and again when she realizes that Roose Bolton is wearing armor to a wedding.
- Joffrey gets this in "Mhysa" when he calls Tywin a coward and remembers too late who the most powerful man in Westeros actually is.
- Already a touch panicky upon seeing Arya looming over him with Needle in hand, upon hearing his own words thrown back in his face, Polliver delivers a magnificent look of horror as he realizes what's about to happen to him next... right before Arya stabs him through the throat.
- Lysa when Littlefinger tells her that the only woman he ever loved is Catelyn, shortly before he pushes her out of the Moon Door to her death.
- "The Mountain and the Viper":
- Tywin has one when Oberyn tries to get Ser Gregor to confess who gave the order to murder Elia.
- Tyrion and Jaime join in after Gregor crushes Oberyn's head.
- The Night's Watch gets very pale and Alliser stops being so sure of himself when Jon declares that the Wildlings have got Giants on their side.
- "High Sparrow"
- Janos Slynt gets a few in rapid succession after he insults Jon Snow and ignores his orders as Lord Commander. First when Alliser Thorne steps aside instead of defending him, then when he sees brothers place the execution block, finally when Jon stands next to him and asks for last words. Followed by Inelegant Blubbering and Off with His Head!.
- Many characters react in shock and fear when the Stark direwolves make their presence known. Several Starks deliberately use their wolves to intimidate others. When Robb interrogates Jaime and brings out Grey Wind, he literally seems as if he's about to piss himself. So much for 'not fearing death'.
- The two Night's Watch brothers who try to rape Gilly get a two-parter:
- First, after giving a beating to Sam, Sam stands up and warns them to back off, without even raising his voice.
- Just as it sinks in that they are in for more trouble than they bargained for, a very angry Direwolf stalks from the shadows. Cue looks of absolute terror.
- "Hardhome":
- We get a surprising one from a White Walker when Jon Snow parries his ice blade using Longclaw, his Valyrian steel sword. For reference, White Walkers are able to shatter normal steel weapons with their bare hands, and their ice blades have the same effect. However, Valyrian steel can not only resist the shattering effect of the ice blades, but they can also completely obliterate White Walkers on impact, while other weapons are worthless. Cue the White Walker's Oh, Crap! expression when he realizes what he's up against.
- The Night King also seems to have one looking on, realizing that the humans still have the weapons that were used to defeat them the first time.note
- Edd gets to showcase his impressive ability to express concern after witnessing the avalanche of wights spill over the cliffside, piling below. At first shocked into silence by the sight, he releases an extended "OH FUUUUUUCCKK!!!" when the undead jump up to continue their pursuit.
- Jon (and the viewers) gets one of his own when the Night's King raises the undead army at the end of the episode.
- We get a surprising one from a White Walker when Jon Snow parries his ice blade using Longclaw, his Valyrian steel sword. For reference, White Walkers are able to shatter normal steel weapons with their bare hands, and their ice blades have the same effect. However, Valyrian steel can not only resist the shattering effect of the ice blades, but they can also completely obliterate White Walkers on impact, while other weapons are worthless. Cue the White Walker's Oh, Crap! expression when he realizes what he's up against.
- Melisandre, when she realizes that while Shireen's sacrifice has cleared the blizzard, most of Stannis's army has deserted in disgust, and Stannis is therefore doomed. She follows up with her own Screw This, I'm Outta Here moment.
- Stannis himself when, while giving orders for how the Winterfell siege is to be laid, a subordinate tells him there isn't going to be a siege, and he looks behind him to see the vastly superior numbers of the Bolton cavalry coming over the rise.Baratheon General: There's not going to be a siege, Your Grace.
- Brother Lancel and the Faith Militant, when they try to take Cersei into custody, and the Mountain steps in. When he doesn't even react to a war pick to the chest and then decapitates the attacker, the others flee in terror.
- Cersei, when she hears that her trial will not permit trial by combat. She lost her trump and knows all too well that there's no way she'll be acquitted.
- "The Battle of the Bastards":
- The three Masters have this reaction when they realize that Daenerys wants them to surrender and not the other way round and that she has the means to force them to do so (her three fully-grown dragons).
- The Sons of the Harpy stare in shock as a horde of Dothraki screamers loyal to Daenerys are bearing down on them.
- The combined Stark and Wildling army has this reaction when they see that Ramsay's men have surrounded them in a pincer move and are slowly advancing with spears and large shields to skewer them.
- Ramsay has three major moments of this:
- When the Knights of the Vale rout his army at the Battle of Winterfell just as he is on the verge of claiming victory.
- When he sees a very angry Jon advancing towards him very quickly, blocking all of Ramsay's arrows using his shield.
- When Sansa sics the hounds (that he starved for a week in preparation for feeding Jon to them) and he realises that they are going to have him for dinner.
- Lancel, with a deep stab wound, cannot even stand, and he suddenly realizes that he's in a room lined with casks of wildfire. Then he notices a puddle of the stuff at the end of the room, with three candles standing in it, all burnt nearly completely down. The look on his face is self-explanatory.
- Bran witnessing his aunt Lyanna's Death by Childbirth and his father promising her that he would hide her son. Bran stares in astonishment as he realizes who the baby is.
- Roose has a subtle one after Ramsay reveals that Bran and Rickon are still alive, which could cause the Northern houses to rally to the Starks banner and place the Boltons' control of the North in jeopardy.
- It finally happens to Ramsay when Roose announces that Walda is pregnant with a boy, as his father has made it very clear how displeased he is with some of Ramsey's recent actions, and having a trueborn heir means he wouldn't need Ramsay anymore.
- "The Queen's Justice": Though she's Bound and Gagged, Ellaria Sand's face screams this reaction when Cersei ungags her daughter Tyene and kisses her. She knows full well what's going to happen, and she falls to her knees in despair.
- "The Spoils of War": The Field of Fire is a long sequence of Oh, Crap! moments for everyone, including the audience:
- Jaime, Bronn, and the entire Lannister army have their first when a forty-thousand strong horde of Dothraki screamers crest the hill and bear down on them, forcing them to scramble into formation.
- Despite that, Jaime still believes they have a chance to repel them; after all, they've got armor and discipline, and the Dothraki are just a bunch of savage unarmored horsemen... and then the first dragon to set foot in Westeros in centuries flies into view, and on his back is the pissed-off Mother of Dragons herself. Dany's not fucking around anymore, and Jaime has just enough time to register that before it all goes to hell.
- A brief bit of turnabout in this battle: Bronn flees from a Dothraki rider, and climbs inside a Lannister carriage. The rider dismounts and climbs into the wagon to finish him off... and is greeted with the sight of a loaded BFG Scorpion, with a seven-foot, razor-sharp bolt pointed directly at his chest. Bronn gives the poor schmuck just a second to realize what's about to happen and then pulls the trigger. The Dothraki is blasted out of the wagon and stapled to another overturned carriage twenty feet away, killing him gruesomely.
- Tyrion gets one when Bronn launched his first missed shot from the Scorpion. You can actually see him do a double-take when he realized what just happened, and what that means.
- Bronn when he sees that his scorpion shot to Drogon's wing has done nothing more to the dragon other than to piss it off
- Jaime when, while trying to kill Daenerys in a last-ditch attempt to decapitate the enemy army's command structure, finds his path to her blocked by the head of a fire-breathing reptile over 200 ft in length protecting her...and then he sees the glow at the back of Drogon's throat...
- Also "The Spoils of War": For once, Littlefinger has an incredible one, when Bran cuts off his speech with the comment "Chaos is a ladder". As far as Littlefinger is aware, Bran has never heard him say that, and it clearly makes his blood run cold.
- "Beyond the Wall": The Hound tosses a stone with the intention to hit a wight but misses. Then, this wight sees that the ice is solid enough to walk on, and starts running towards the party, quickly joined by the other wights as well. Sandor's only words are quiet "Oh... fuck."
- "Do bears have blue eyes....??"
- "The Dragon and The Wolf" has a lot of these:
- The regal, refined, composed, and stoic image that Cersei Lannister presents crumbles quickly when she sees a shambling, hideous, and ravenous wight bolting directly towards her.
- Jaime had two: the first when he notes how extremely nervous The Hound is when he's opening the crate with the wight, the second when Daenerys tells him that there are over a hundred thousand wights in the Army of the Dead.
- Tyrion, when he sees that Jon Snow's Honor Before Reason is making the parley with Cersei go south in a hurry... after it was going surprisingly well.
- Jon, when his Honor Before Reason results in Cersei walking out of the parley.
- Littlefinger gets a quadruple decker:
- The first is when Sansa reveals that HE is the one being charged with treason, not Arya.
- The second is when he discovers that leaving no witnesses doesn't matter if a greensighting warg can be an eyewitness, despite being physically absent at the time.
- Third, he sees that Sansa and Arya are on to him and his ploy to drive the sisters against each other, and Sansa is definitely not about to spare him.
- Finally, Lord Royce is not going to save his ass and get him back to the Eyrie. He is utterly, totally fucked.
- Tormund, Beric, the other men at Eastwatch, and the audience experience one of the biggest — if not THE biggest — Oh, Crap! moments of the series. First, they see the gigantic wight army of the White Walkers gather at the Wall. Then a Dracolich undead Viserion screeches, swoops in and destroys a whole portion of the Wall with his now-blue flames, with the Night King riding him. Then the army of the dead starts marching South through the big hole, now free to invade the Seven Kingdoms.
- Plenty during The Long Night:
- The Dothraki flames going out and their famous war shrieks going silent. It soon becomes horrifyingly apparent that 10,000 horsemen got almost completely eradicated in seconds.
- A particularly unfortunate Dothraki in front sees the mist part just to behold the towering wight giant that's just about to smash him and his horse into goo. The rider's face says it all.
- Sam, pretty much the entire battle.
- Sandor's fear of fire hits him in a crippling way. Arya and Beric do inspire him to overcome it.
- When the wights bypass the trench by massing themselves on one area.
- Dany when she sees dragonfire does not hurt the Night King at ALL AND that he's readying another dragon-slaying ice spear.
- Lyanna Mormont when she sees that giant wight bearing down on her. She takes him down, albeit at the cost of her own life.
- Jon, when he sees the Night King is about to use his Raise Dead trick, and there's not a thing he can do to stop it.
- The result doesn't make things too fun down in the crypts, either
- Jon again when Viserion has him cornered, and Jon lost Longclaw. All he can do is just yell at the dragon in utter despair and wait for that terrible blast of frost
- A subtle one from the Night King himself when Arya performs a version of her dagger-drop trick from her sparring with Brienne to stab him in the gut and kill him once and for all.
- The Dothraki flames going out and their famous war shrieks going silent. It soon becomes horrifyingly apparent that 10,000 horsemen got almost completely eradicated in seconds.
- "The Bells"
- Lannister forces when they realize no quarter will be given; no surrender will be accepted.
- Tyrion when he realizes that Daenerys is going to burn King's Landing to the ground despite their surrender.
House of the Dragon
- Queen Aemma is initially happy when King Viserys tells her they're going to get the baby out soon, but when the midwives hold her down and she sees the maester holding a knife, she realizes how they intend to do that and begins panicking, pleading with Viserys not to do it. She doesn't survive the procedure.
