Game of Thrones/Tear Jerker

Season 1

• Ned, who deeply cares for his children and their well-being, nonetheless being forced by honor to kill Lady. The order itself is hard enough to stomach, but the fact that it has to be him makes it even sadder.
• Jory's death.
• The First Sword of Braavos does not run.
• The look on Septa Mordane's face as, having done all she can to protect Sansa, she walks towards what she knows will be her death; clearly frightened, but determined to Face Death with Dignity. And then we see the bloody swords...
• Ned Stark was forced to forsake his principles in order to save his and his daughter's life. Little did he know that Joffrey chose this moment to cross the Moral Event Horizon. The fact that the credits music was unutterably solemn didn't help.
  • Perhaps even worse than the death were the reactions. Arya's stricken face was awful to see, and Sansa's hysterical cries and screams, struggling against those trying to restrain her, were wrenching. You can just see all her dreams of a fairytale life with Joffrey come tumbling down.
  • Especially if you're a fan of the books. It has potentially been ten plus years since you read that chapter. You've put it behind you and moved on as you continued the series. Then the wizards who made this show brought all that back hard in two minutes. *sob*
  • Even worse is that Sansa had begged Joffrey, in front of his court, to be merciful to her father, and he promised her he'd spare Ned. She believed him, because she truly thought he was a decent person. And then she sees that happen.
• Yoren protecting Arya from seeing Ned's execution.
• Tyrion's story of his first love... *sniff*
  • Seconded, my god, how can you do that to your brother.
  • To your own son. Tywin, you monster.
• Aemon's reveal to Jon of the time when he was tempted to forsake his oath to the Night's Watch at the slaughter of his family, the Targaryens, despite already being old and blind.
• Catelyn Stark stoically walks through a gauntlet of Stark bannermen, nodding to acknowledge their sympathies if she reacts at all, before she collapses against a tree, having learned of her beloved husband's execution.
  • Similarly, Robb wrecking his sword in his grief and rage.
• Joffrey forcing Sansa to look at her father's impaled head to make a statement to her.
• Daenerys sobbing as she smothers Khal Drogo.
• Much of Fire and Blood is one after the other. To list: Drogo is a vegetable, and Daenerys mercy kills him. Ned is killed, meaning Sansa is a prisoner and Arya needs to stay hidden among the rapers and murderers Yoren took for the Wall. Catelyn and Robb are distraught over Ned being killed. Dany's new Khalasar is about twenty Dothraki (most old women and children), Ser Jorah, and three dragon hatchlings. Things look dismal for most of them.
  • Dude, they have dragons on their side.
    • While that is true, it doesn't make it any less a Tear Jerker that it cost Dany her husband, son, and most of her Khalasar to get them.
  • The scene with the dragon hatchlings was actually a moving Tear Jerker for some, as was the "KING IN THE NORTH!" scene.
• Robert, as he lay dying, begged Ned to help Joffrey to be a better man than him.
• Cersei Lannister gets a small Pet the Dog moment in the beginning of the series. When Bran is still in a coma, she goes to visit him and runs into Catelyn who is watching over her son. While there, she talks to Catelyn about her first child, a boy who died in childbirth. It is hinted that this child was actually Robert's rather than Jaime's, yet Cersei seems genuinely torn up when she talks about the loss and the grief she and Robert experienced and almost seems to be on the brink of tears while describing it. She actually sounds sincere when she tells Catelyn that she will pray for Bran's recovery, even though his waking up could mean the exposure of her and Jaime's affair. It was a moment that made Cersei, a character best known for being a Manipulative Bitch, very human.
• In the DVD Commentary, Maisie Williams talks about how devastated she was when Margaret John died, before Maisie even got to meet her.

Season 2

• That poor woman, screaming as her infant daughter is murdered on Joffrey's command...
• Dany's silver, Drogo's wedding gift to her, dying of thirst.
• After Tyrion makes a crack about the rumors of her affair with Jamie, Cersei responds that he's always been funny, starting with when their mother died giving birth to him. Tyrion's face after that is heartbreaking. Also the audience realizes she's hated him for that ever since.

Tyrion: She was my mother too.
Cersei: Mother gone. All for the sake of you. There's no bigger joke in the world than that.

• Dany comforting Irri after Rhakaro's death. Sad on a couple of levels; firstly because he was a genuinely likeable character and it was gutting to have him die so horribly, but also because Irri's reaction confirms what many viewers suspected but was never shown on screen - they were in love.
  • Irri sobbing that Rhakaro's soul has been killed because his body was not burned and Dany hugging her and promising to build him a funeral pyre had this troper choking back tears.
• Theon's outburst at Balon, calling him out for treating him as soft and corrupted by the Starks (for bringing up the more strategically sound Stark-Greyjoy alliance of all things), pointing out that it was Balon who gave him up in the first place. Countering Balon's demand that the Ironborn "are not subjects or slaves" and that they "take what is theirs" Theon brings up his father's submission to King Robert Baratheon and that he didn't "take what is his" then, which earns him a smack across the face so hard it sends him across the room. Theon (tears in his eyes) recovers enough to remind his father that it was Balon who gave the last of the Greyjoy sons away like "some dog that he didn't want anymore" and yet he has the nerve to curse him when he returns home. This noticeably stuns even Balon momentarily before he marches out of the room, face frozen with what could be described as regret from someone who has never shown regret in his life. Masterful acting on both sides.
• Poor Brienne; having just earned her place on Renly's Kingsguard, she's dismissed by him almost immediately - to take Catelyn to her tent. The worst bit is, she seems almost resigned to this sort of treatment and is quite willing to die for Renly anyway; it speaks whole volumes about what her life must have been like before now. And the flatness in her voice when she tells Catelyn 'Brienne's enough - I'm no lady' is heart wrenching.
• Sansa telling Shae to stay and brush her hair becomes one when you realize her reasons for it. Even though Shae clearly has no idea how to be a handmaiden, Sansa asks her to stay with her because she literally has no one else to talk to who isn't trying to harm or manipulate her in some way. Poor Sansa is completely alone and surrounded by people who would have no qualms about killing her to achieve their own ends. And she's just a kid.
  • Also before she left Winterfell it was her mother that usually brushed Sansa's hair.
• Arya's cry when Needle , Jon's last present, is taken from her.
• Catelyn crying over Ned's bones.
• Arya, alone and afraid and lying in mud while the rain pours down and the prisoners around her are depleted, can only whisper the names of the people she wants dead.
• The woman who's been reduced to talking in a Creepy Monotone about how her family has been tortured to death one by one at Harrenhal.
• After their summit where the Baratheon brothers bicker and snark at each other over who should be king and threaten each other with their armies, as Stannis' party rides away Renly says bitterly "Would you believe, I loved him once?"
  • Made even worse in the next episode, where Stannis remarks to Davos that he feels the same way, loving the man his brother was. But not grieving over the man he became and had to kill.
• Brienne, who's been The Stoic for the previous two episodes, screaming in grief at Renly's death.
  • And also her line about that being the only time she ever got to hold him.
• Ser Loras driven to grief and bitterness by Renly's death, stroking his face saying "He would have been a good king".
  • It gets worse when you realize that a lot of what Loras is feeling is not just grief but also guilt. After all, who was the one who talked Renly into making a bid for the Iron Throne?
• Ser Jorah coming very close to admitting to Dany that he loves her, and they now both know how he feels about her for sure.

Jorah: [seemingly describing Dany as a queen] There are times when I look at you, and I still can't believe you're real.

• Myrcella, a completely innocent pawn stuck in the middle of the power plays around her, crying as she's shipped off to Dorne as a glorified hostage.
  • Not to mention Tommen sobbing as the only sibling who cares about him is sent away. And Joffrey mocks him for it.
  • Followed by Cersei saying she hopes Tyrion deeply loves someone one day, so she can take that person away from him. Tyrion looks like he's going to give a nasty zinger back, but then just walks away.
    • This troper actually thought it was a look of disdain, considering he already loved someone that deeply, and Tywin already beat Cersei to that promise of taking his love away from him. That look smacked of 'If only you knew, sweet sister.'
• Rodrick Cassel's death, which is very painful as the stroke to his neck is repeatedly botched, and Bran and Rickon look on, weeping.
  • The worst part of that entire scene was Rickon sobbing while Bran frantically begs Theon for mercy. Bran has just yielded Winterfell to Theon to keep his people safe, and is then forced to watch as one of his family's most loyal knights is brutally killed.
  • Ser Rodrick choosing to Face Death with Dignity, as well as his final words to Bran:

Rodrick: Hush now, child. I'm off to see your father.

• • • And then his final words to Theon:

Rodrick: Gods help you, Theon Greyjoy. Now you are truly lost.

• • And of course, the parallels to 'Baelor' and Ned's death. The older Stark child, screaming and begging someone they'd once trusted and loved not to murder a father figure, while the younger Stark is being shielded from watching.
  • The look on Theon's face as he builds up to it. He's so obviously, blatantly torn between his loyalty to his family and these people he really does care about, and he's struggling to bring himself to do it...and then after he takes Rodrick's head, he just stares.
• Tywin asks Arya (who he believes to be a peasant girl) what killed her father, and she answers simply, "loyalty".
• Bran's Armor-Piercing Question to Theon, "Did you hate us the whole time?"
  • What makes it sadder? He never did.
• Tywin opening up to the disguised Arya about how his own father was a good, loving man whose weakness nearly destroyed their family. He doesn't explicitly say that he made a decision not to make the same mistake, though that's clearly what he's thinking. It makes you wonder what sort of person Tywin might have been in a world where it wasn't necessary to scheme and fight simply for the survival of the people you care about.
  • Tywin finishes his speech with the statement "I'm cold". Even though it's an instruction to light a fire, the way he says it makes it clear what he really means, and that he's saddened by it.
  • There's also the description of how he taught Jaime his letters (by the sound of it Jaime's dyslexic, though of course Tywin doesn't use the term). Even though he ignored the maester's advice to accept it and made Jaime's life miserable trying to cure it, it is clear that Tywin put in a great deal of personal effort to help his son, which says a lot about him.
    • That story is actually a perfect demonstration of both Tywin's good and bad aspects with regards to his children. On the one hand, he loves them enough to put in a lot of time to help them, and is willing to incur their hatred for it, which would be painful for a father who actually did love his children. On the other hand, he rejects the maester's advice to "just accept it", and makes Jaime's life miserable to make sure he lives up to his perfectionist standards, and consequently he detests Tyrion for being unable to be cured of his own imperfections.
• The sight of Irri dead on the floor after Dany's dragons are stolen.
• The sound Dany's dragons make as they're being carried off in a sealed box to the House of the Undying. They really do sound like infants crying for their mother to save them.
  • Not to mention Dany's reaction to finding them gone. Her frantic searching and crying really gives the impression of a desperate mother, especially considering the the dragons essentially are her children.
• Cersei lamenting how Joffrey turned out, and Tyrion trying to comfort her by telling her that Myrcella and Tommen still turned out all right. Cersei actually starts to cry, letting her guard drop around Tyrion, and he just stands there without saying anything, at a loss for words. For extra tear-jerker-ness, this episode aired on Mother's Day.
  • Tyrion's palpable uncertainty about whether he's meant to put a hand on her shoulder or hug her or something makes this worse, as it makes you realise that he has probably never been in a situation like this before; Cersei hates him too much to let him see her cry, and while he and Jaime are close, it's hard to imagine Jaime ever breaking down crying, so it's unlikely Tyrion has ever had to console a crying sibling in his life. It really drives home how cold and screwed up the Lannisters are.
• Maester Luwin's cry of despair when he sees the burnt bodies of who he thinks are Rickon and Bran.
• Sansa's pure desperation when she realises her period's started and Joffrey has license to start raping her, trying to hide the evidence and moaning in horror.
  • Later, when Cersei is giving her some genuinely heartfelt advice (see the Crowning Moment of Heartwarming page), Cersei says that the only people Sansa should allow herself to love are her children, to avoid being hurt. This would be sad enough on its own, but Cersei then says that women have "no choice" about loving their children; she's fully realised what a monster Joffrey is, but still can't stop loving him as a mother.
• The look on Jorah's face when Quaithe plainly states he loves Dany, and the emotion in his voice when he answers the question of whether he'll betray her again with one word: "Never."
• "Don't die so far from the sea."
• Luwin tells Osha that they shouldn't tell Bran about the orphan boys being killed, as he'll blame himself, unaware that Bran is awake and heard everything.
• Cersei telling Tommen a fairy tale as she prepares to Mercy Kill him and herself.
• Dany's vision of Drogo and a living, healthy baby Rhaego in the House of the Undying. Its not made clear if this is just a vision or actually happening, but the emotion in that scene was intense, especially the sight of infant Rhaego.
  • Especially her face when she realizes (or decides) it's not real and she has to walk away from the husband and son she's still deeply grieving and missing.
• Tyrion's whole exchange with Shae in "Valar Morghulis".
  • In particular Tyrion breaking down and sobbing when Shae makes it clear that she isn't going to leave his side.
• Stannis's agonised admission of his guilt: "I murdered my brother! All he did and he thinks it was all for nothing.
• Luwin's death. After all he's done to help the Starks and even Theon, he is unceremoniously stabbed by Dagmer, left to die in a burning Winterfell and crawls bleeding to the Godswood. At least he managed to say goodbye to Bran and Rickon before asking Osha to Mercy Kill him.
• Theon and Luwin's scene in "Valar Morghulis".
  • Theon furiously swearing, voice hoarse and cracking, to "the Drowned God, the old gods and the new, to every fucking god in every fucking heaven" that he will kill the hornblower really drives home how desperate and scared he is.
• The hanged women Brienne and Jaime come across. Their only crime was trying to survive in a war torn Westeros, and the Northern army butchered them for cooperating with the Lannisters.
  • Even worse, one of the men who did it heavily implies that they did worse to at least one of the women before they were hanged...