Tear Jerker / A Storm of Swords

• The Red Wedding. Outside the castle, Robb Stark's loyal men, victors, and survivors of so many battles die horrific deaths, gutted by their former drinking mates, burned alive, or hunted down like mad dogs by Frey heavy cavalry. Inside the castle, their lords, and commanders desperately try to put up a resistance against almost inevitable death with cutlery, crockery or (in the case of the Greatjon) their own teeth. George R. R. Martin just loves to kill off nice characters, doesn't he?
  • Catelyn's final thoughts and watching Robb die through her eyes.
    It hurts so much, she thought. Our children, Ned, all our sweet babes. Rickon, Bran, Arya, Sansa, Robb... Robb... please, Ned, please, make it stop, make it stop hurting [...] No, don't, don't cut my hair, Ned loves my hair... Then the steel was at her throat, and its bite was red and cold.
  • Even George R. R. Martin apparently hated writing that scene, calling it the hardest thing he ever wrote.
  • The death of Aegon "Jinglebell" Frey is also pretty sad. He's a grandson of Walder Frey who seems to be mentally disabled and is made the Fool of the Crossing and mocked by his relatives. When the Red Wedding happens, Aegon doesn't even seem to know what's going on and is held hostage by Catelyn in an attempt to bargain for her son's life. Walder Frey's reaction is basically that Aegon Frey isn't useful and thus expendable, meaning when Robb is murdered, Aegon is likewise murdered, even though he is not at all responsible for the Red Wedding. It shows that despite Walder Frey's talk of caring for his family, he doesn't really care for them as people and just sees them as pawns to further the power of House Frey.
  • In Jon VIII after the Red Wedding, Jon does not yet know Robb is dead but has a strange dream. He wanders through Winterfell's crypts with the statues of the old Stark kings, calling out to dead members of his family and those he fears are dead: his father, his uncle Benjen, and his little brothers Bran and Rickon. He can hear drums overheard (possibly the same played at the Red Wedding), and believes people are feasting in the Great Hall without him. He then sees a bloodied grey direwolf with "sad" eyes and wakes up, and with news of the supposed murders of Bran and Rickon on his mind, fears afterwards that the wolf in his dream meant Bran had warged into Summer and died again, so he'd never see him again. While the reader knows Bran and Summer are still alive, this is likely the fate that befell Robb and Grey Wind, as it's implied Robb warged into Grey Wind on his death and was together with him when Grey Wind was killed, their heads hacked off, and Grey Wind's head sewn onto Robb's body. As Jaime Lannister will later also have an implied-true dream of his dead mother's spirit talking to him, Jon's dream was probably Robb's ghost trying to contact Jon, if only to say goodbye, but as boy king and wolf are fused even in death, he was trapped in the form of a wolf and couldn't even speak to his brother. To make matters worse, considering Dany had also had a vision of Robb's death where the dead wolf-headed king's eyes "followed Dany with mute appeal", it seems poor Robb is finding as little peace in death as his mother.
    The crypts were growing darker. A light has gone out somewhere.
    "Ygritte?" he whispered. "Forgive me. Please." But it was only a direwolf, grey and ghastly, spotted with blood, his golden eyes shining sadly through the dark...
• When Star-Crossed Lovers Jon and his First Love Ygritte go down into the cave to make love. "Let's never go back up." Especially when you're rereading this passage and you know what's in store for them.
  • Speaking of which, Ygritte's death in Jon's arms. His only consolation is that he wasn't the one who shot the arrow that killed her and even knowing this, it's not much comfort.
    "You know nothing, Jon Snow," she sighed, dying.
• The wedding of Tyrion and Sansa. Setting the very painful ceremony and worse wedding night aside for a second, let's just look at the marriage:
  • The bride is someone who has dreamed of her wedding for her whole life and sees it as the only thing she was really born for. Now, it's happening, and she's marrying a man she doesn't love and who doesn't love her... and is part of the family that is killing off her own. Her father isn't there to give her away, so the man who killed him does so instead. Her big brothers aren't there to tell the groom that he'll kick his ass if he hurts her. Her mother isn't there. Her siblings aren't there — because they've either been murdered (she believes), are missing, fighting a war against the family she's marrying into, or serving in the Night's Watch. All she wants is to go home, but once she marries her husband, she'll never be allowed to get away from his family. That's not even getting into the sexual issues.
  • The groom is someone whose biggest fear — the fear that's driven him his whole life — is that nobody will ever love him for anything but his family's money and power (which, among other things, is the only reason his first wife agreed to marry him or so he thinks). Now, he's marrying a beautiful highborn girl, one of the most eligible ladies on the continent, and despite having helped her in the past, she is clearly repulsed by him and will never, ever love him — but she is being forced to pretend that she does as long as she is a prisoner of war. It would be impossible to tailor a marriage better designed to be his worst nightmare.
    • What makes this better? Tyrion still thinks of her from the other side of the world, as she is arguably one of the few people on the whole planet that he still cares about. To him, she is still his wife, for better or for worse. What makes this worse? As they are married and he is still royalty, he can spoil Littlefinger's plans to arrange a marriage between Sansa and Harrold Hardyng (the heir to the Eyre).
    • Even when Tyrion (unaware that Sansa was used by Littlefinger and Olenna Tyrell) believes that Sansa was a willing conspirator in the plot to kill Joffrey and ran away, abandoning Tyrion in the aftermath, Tyrion still stands by his oaths to Sansa to protect her. While on trial, Tyrion refuses to implicate Sansa in Joffrey's death, because he's her husband. His internal paradox is heart-wrenching.
    • While fleeing from the capital, Sansa bursts into tears; she does not know if she's crying out of relief from the death of Joffrey, out of utter terror from the brutal manner of his demise, or out of guilt for abandoning Tyrion after unwittingly taking part into both the assassination of the former and letting her husband take the blame, when she thinks Tyrion is better than the rest of his family.
• When Sansa learns from her aunt Lysa that she is planning to marry her off to her sickly son, Sansa has lost every hope of finding someone good for her. It's rather sad since, like every girl of her age, she used to dream for a Princely Young Man to fall in love with and marry, and she has been cruelly denied — once and for all this time — by people who want to exploit her highborn heritage.
  Sansa: It is not me she wants her son to marry, it is my claim. No one will ever marry me for love.
• Sansa and her snow castle in the last chapter. It really drives home that Sansa is just a thirteen-year-old girl who has only ever tried to be what is expected of her and has been all but tortured for it. Add to that the fact that she thinks nearly everyone from her fond childhood memories is dead, missing, or is someplace she can't access, and you have an extremely touching scene.
  • Directly after this scene, although possibly funny in a dark way (Littlefinger thought so, anyway), it's also a bit sad to see Sansa stick the head of Sweetrobin's doll on a stick (like a head on a pike) down in front of her snow castle. Considering she undoubtedly had her father and brother Robb's endings in mind. A pretty dark action to do, considering she's only thirteen years old, and it goes to show that she's seen some pretty messed up crap in her life.
    • Given that she believed that her younger brothers' heads were on spikes above the gates of Winterfell, it makes her version of Winterfell particularly accurate. And horrifying.
  • This scene really does drive home that Sansa is a Woobie. She pretty much goes on a happy nostalgia trip and creates a bunch of perfect snowballs, remembering her childhood, during which she would get into snowball fights with her siblings. After making them, she realizes that she has no one to throw them at and play with. Soon after, Littlefinger comes along and, in a moment where Sansa lowers her guard and tries to play with him by throwing a snowball at him, he instead takes the opportunity to molest and forcefully kiss her, resulting in her almost getting killed by her aunt and being traumatized once again. The poor girl can't get a break and live out her childhood at all.
    Sansa: [pleading with Littlefinger as Lysa holds her by the hair] Tell her. Tell her we were just building a castle...
• Oberyn's death. Arrogant and cocky as he was, he really was only out to avenge the sister that he loved, and he almost won. Made worse by the fact that his paramour who was basically his wife had to watch the whole grisly ordeal.
• Pretty much everything Jaime goes through after losing his hand is pretty gutting, but something that really stands out is all of those moments when he's tied to a saddle with Brienne afterward, feverish, in pain and half-conscious, finding himself just leaning on Brienne's shoulder and taking a little bit of comfort in the fact that she's so warm.
  • Jaime's nightmare after leaving Harrenhal wherein he hallucinates the dead Rhaegar calling him out on the horrific fates of his wife and children:
    Rhaegar: I left my wife and children in your hands.
    Jaime: I never thought he'd [Tywin] hurt them.
  • Jaime thinking about himself and what he's become, when you realize that Jaime really did want to be one of the great knights that stories were told about, but couldn't because of the choices he made and the way the world made choices for him.
    That boy had wanted to be Ser Arthur Dayne, but someplace along the way he had become the Smiling Knight instead.
    Aerys, it always turns on Aerys.
• The epilogue, in which it is revealed that Catelyn was resurrected by Beric Dondarrion but since it had been so long since her death, she bears very little resemblance to the woman that she was in life — and she cannot even rest in peace.
• Jaime's recollection of the Kingsguard's former glory, and his dread at what it has become.
  He wondered what Ser Arthur Dayne would have to say of this lot. "How is it that the Kingsguard has fallen so low," most like. "It was my doing," I would have to answer. "I opened the door, and did nothing when the vermin began to crawl inside."
• Oberyn's recollections of his sister Elia hit hard, especially when he recalls her mothering/Cuteness Proximity toward baby Tyrion, given her horrific death and the equally horrible death of her children.
• When the Hound is captured by the Brotherhood Without Banners, they accuse him of being a murderer, and he responds: "Who did I murder?" The members of the Brotherhood reply with a long list of names of people who were slaughtered by the Lannister armies, illustrating how devastating the war is for the smallfolk.
  "Lord Lothar Mallery and Ser Gladden Wylde," said Harwin.
  "My brothers Lister and Lennocks," declared Jack-Be-Lucky.
  "Goodman Beck and Mudge the miller’s son, from Donnelwood," an old woman called from the shadows.
  "Merriman’s widow, who loved so sweet," added Greenbeard.
  "Them septons at Sludgy Pond."
  "Ser Andrey Charlton. His squire Lucas Roote. Every man, woman, and child in Fieldstone and Mousedown Mill."
  "Lord and Lady Deddings, that was so rich."
  Tom Sevenstrings took up the count. "Alyn of Winterfell, Joth Quickbow, Little Matt and his sister Randa, Anvil Ryn. Ser Ormond. Ser Dudley. Pate of Mory, Pate of Lancewood, Old Pate, and Pate of Shermer’s Grove. Blind Wyl the Whittler. Goodwife Maerie. Maerie the Whore. Becca the Baker. Ser Raymun Darry, Lord Darry, young Lord Darry. The Bastard of Bracken. Fletcher Will. Harsley. Goodwife Nolla-"
  "Enough." The Hound’s face was tight with anger. "You’re making noise. These names mean nothing. Who were they?"
  "People," said Lord Beric. "People great and small, young and old. Good people and bad people, who died on the points of Lannister spears or saw their bellies opened by Lannister swords."
• Arya asking Thoros if he could bring her father back to life. When he says no, he tries to soften his words, but Arya still starts to cry. And this after seeing the unenviable state Lord Beric is in.
  Beric: Can I dwell on what I scarce remember? I held a castle on the Marches once, and there was a woman I was pledged to marry, but I could not find that castle today, nor tell you the color of that woman's hair. Who knighted me, old friend? What were my favorite foods? It all fades. Sometimes I think I was born on the bloody grass in that grove of ash, with the taste of fire in my mouth and a hole in my chest. Are you my mother, Thoros?
• Despite Joffrey being such a sadistic shit and his mother Cersei a very unlikable woman, Joffrey dies in the arms of his helpless, grief-stricken mother — every parent's worst nightmare. Even Tyrion, who Joffrey was making fun of shortly before, pities him.
  Tyrion's thoughts: He has Jaime’s eyes. Only he had never seen Jaime look so scared. The boy’s only thirteen.
• Stannis reveals that, deep down, he really wanted for him and Renly to be Bash Brothers, to crush Lord Tywin and avenge all the people that Tywin and King Joffrey had wronged.
  Stannis: Renly and his peach. In my dreams I see the juice running from his mouth, the blood from his throat. If he had done his duty by his brother, we would have smashed Lord Tywin. A victory even Robert could be proud of.
• When Jaime reveals the truth about Tysha to Tyrion: she wasn't a whore and she truly loved him. Tyrion feels that the only person he thought he could trust betrayed him too, and their deep bond is forever shattered. When Jaime asks him whether he killed Joffrey, Tyrion lies that he did, just to hurt him.
  Tyrion: I am the monster they all say I am. Yes, I killed your vile son.
• Jon finding the bodies of Donal Noye and Mag the Mighty in the tunnel beneath the Wall.
• Amidst all the tragedy and heartbreak of a world gone mad, in a quietly sad moment, Jon has a vision of Catelyn:
  "She was looking at him the way she used to look at him at Winterfell, whenever he had bested Robb at swords or sums or most anything. Who are you? that look had always seemed to say. This is not your place. Why are you here?"