(Spoilers Main) What are some of your favorite overlooked/under-appreciated scenes in the books?

For me, I really liked something that Robert said to Ned on his deathbed:

His laugh turned into a grunt as a spasm of pain hit him. "Gods have mercy," he muttered, swallowing his agony. "The girl. Daenerys. Only a child, you were right … that's why, the girl … the gods sent the boar … sent to punish me …" The king coughed, bringing up blood. "Wrong, it was wrong, I … only a girl … Varys, Littlefinger, even my brother … worthless … no one to tell me no but you, Ned … only you …"

and

"The girl," the king said. "Daenerys. Let her live. If you can, if it … not too late … talk to them … Varys, Littlefinger … don't let them kill her.

Robert has two defining features. For his entire kingship, he's been trapped in the past. He doesn't care about the present or the future of his kingdom. He ignores his wife and children and Small Council in favor of drinking and women and just generally leading a miserable life. Robert longs for a Lyanna he never even really knew, a Lyanna he's idolized and molded into something she definitely wasn't nor would have ever been, a Lyanna whose face he can't even remember anymore.

The other defining feature is his hatred of the Targaryens. We see from one of the very first scenes where we're introduced to him that he still hates Rhaegar, he still dreams of smashing in his chest every single night. He doesn't regret the deaths of Rhaenys and Aegon, viewing them as filthy dragonspawn that had to die- something that almost drove apart him and Ned shortly after the sack of King's Landing. He wants Viserys and Daenerys dead, ordering their assassinations, a point of contention that caused a major conflict between Robert and Ned.

Despite this, on his deathbed, he clearly regrets how he acted. In the moments where he is dying, where he's reflecting on his life and kingship, he knows that the way he treated the innocent Targaryens- Rhaelle, Rhaenys, Aegon, Daenerys, her unborn child, and maybe even Viserys when he was a child- was not right. They were people who deserved to live, not dragonspawn that needed to die to satiate his vengeance and eternal vendetta against Rhaegar.

He turns to Ned, his one and only friend, his oldest and truest companion, and tells him of his regret. He views his death as a punishment by the gods for the way he acted.

I love this passage because not only does it emphasize the friendship between Robert and Ned, where Robert admits that Ned was the only one who was right to openly stand against him for his stance on the Targaryens- from the beginning of his kingship with Rhaenys/Aegon to the end- but shows a different side to Robert. He's someone who is significantly remembered by the general audience to absolutely and resolutely hate ALL Targaryens without distinction. Yet, as he lays dying, he lets go of the hate he held his entire life, a hate he knew was irrational and wrong, and desires for Dany to just live her life.

I thought it was very touching and just builds upon Robert as a tragic character

I don’t see many theories around the oath that Jojen and Meera Reed swear to Bran in ACOK:

“To Winterfell we pledge the faith of Greywater. Hearth and harvest we yield up to you, my lord. Our swords and spears and arrows are yours to command. Grant mercy to our weak, help to our helpless, and justice to all, and we shall never fail you."

"I swear it by earth and water." — Jojen

"I swear it by bronze and iron." — Meera

"We swear it by ice and fire."

I have my own ideas what this is all about, but I would have thought this would be a bigger deal in the community than it is because there’s a lot to unpack there.

Lets see if anyone sees the hidden meaning in this one.

In the granaries were oats and wheat and barley, and barrels of coarse ground flour. In the root cellars strings of onions and garlic dangled from the rafters, and bags of carrots, parsnips, radishes, and white and yellow turnips filled the shelves. One storeroom held wheels of cheese so large it took two men to move them. In the next, casks of salt beef, salt pork, salt mutton, and salt cod were stacked ten feet high. Three hundred hams and three thousand long black sausages hung from ceiling beams below the smokehouse. In the spice locker they found peppercorns, cloves, and cinnamon, mustard seeds, coriander, sage and clary sage and parsley, blocks of salt. Elsewhere were casks of apples and pears, dried peas, dried figs, bags of walnuts, bags of chestnuts, bags of almonds, planks of dry smoked salmon, clay jars packed with olives in oil and sealed with wax. One storeroom offered potted hare, haunch of deer in honey, pickled cabbage, pickled beets, pickled onions, pickled eggs, and pickled herring.

"Gods save me," Ned wept. "I am going mad."

In a book series filled with shocking scenes, this somehow never fails to fuck with my emotions. No big plot twist, just a single passing quote. It's just like, how many times do we see The Ned weeps?

”Are you scared of them?" she asked. "Have you lost your belly for fighting?"

For a moment she thought he was going to hit her. By then the hare was brown, though, skin crackling and grease popping as it dripped down into the cookfire. Sandor took it off the stick, ripped it apart with his big hands, and tossed half of it into Arya's lap. "There's nothing wrong with my belly," he said as he pulled off a leg.

I don't know if this is an underrated moment. I think Sansa fans are pretty aware of this moment but since Sansa is a pretty underappreciated character in general I'm going to count it. The scene in A Game of Thrones where Sansa contemplates suicide following her father's death. I found this a really powerful and realistic moment.

In the tower room at the heart of Maegor’s Holdfast, Sansa gave herself to the darkness.

She drew the curtains around her bed, slept, woke weeping, and slept again. When she could not sleep she lay under her blankets shivering with grief. Servants came and went, bringing meals, but the sight of food was more than she could bear. The dishes piled up on the table beneath her window, untouched and spoiling, until the servants took them away again.

Sometimes her sleep was leaden and dreamless, and she woke from it more tired than when she had closed her eyes. Yet those were the best times, for when she dreamed, she dreamed of Father. Waking or sleeping, she saw him, saw the gold cloaks fling him down, saw Ser Ilyn striding forward, unsheathing Ice from the scabbard on his back, saw the moment… the moment when… she had wanted to look away, she had wanted to, her legs had gone out from under her and she had fallen to her knees, yet somehow she could not turn her head, and all the people were screaming and shouting, and her prince had smiled at her, he’d smiled and she’d felt safe, but only for a heartbeat, until he said those words, and her father’s legs… that was what she remembered, his legs, the way they’d jerked when Ser Ilyn… when the sword…

Perhaps I will die too, she told herself, and the thought did not seem so terrible to her. If she flung herself from the window, she could put an end to her suffering, and in the years to come the singers would write songs of her grief. Her body would lie on the stones below, broken and innocent, shaming all those who had betrayed her. Sansa went so far as to cross the bedchamber and throw open the shutters… but then her courage left her, and she ran back to her bed, sobbing.

The serving girls tried to talk to her when they brought her meals, but she never answered them. Once Grand Maester Pycelle came with a box of flasks and bottles, to ask if she was ill. He felt her brow, made her undress, and touched her all over while her bedmaid held her down. When he left he gave her a potion of honeywater and herbs and told her to drink a swallow every night. She drank it all right then and went back to sleep.

This is not too obscure, but I've always liked the conversation between Lady Dustin and Theon in the crypts under Winterfell in ADwD. A lot of that conversation has fed various fan theories, but I don't see too much discussion of what great writing the scene is on its own.

There's so much history in Lady Dustin's words that explain what was (or might have been) going on in the moments leading up to the fall of the Targaryens. You get morsels that support the maesters' conspiracy, "southron ambitions," the true personalities of Brandon and Ned Stark, political marriage game theory in the North, etc.

GRRM does a really great job of infusing Lady Dustin's words with a wistful regret of lives that could have been were it not for the machinations of the men who set the plot of ASOIAF in motion. She could have been Lady Stark, or even a happier, happily-married version of herself in Barrowton. Instead, because of any number of decisions made without her consent or involvement, she's a bitter widow living out her years watching the world around her slowly fall apart.

Cressen’s ACOK Prolouge was so depressing, but so well-crafted.

“When the Maester donned his collar, he put aside the hope of children, yet Cressen had oft felt a father nonetheless. Robert, Stannis, Renly… Three sons he had raised after the angry Sea had claimed Lord Stephen. Had he done so ill that now he must watch one kill the other?”

The prolouge follows Cressen as a father (figure) trying to save his son from folly. He tries to give advice and to encourage Stannis to make alliances, but Stannis refuses to yield and instead sacrifices more to the Red God.

When Stannis makes Cressen wear Patchface’s helm to humiliate him, my heart broke. He is probably the only person we meet in the series who truly loves Stannis (maybe Davos does, but not in this fatherly sort of way) and his awareness of growing old and dying casts a sadness over the whole chapter. He truly wants to help Stannis but he finds that Stannis is no longer willing to listen to him. The whole prologue is brilliantly written but painfully sad narrative about growing old and irrelevant in the eyes of children you love. So realistic and crushing.

In a literary sense, this is a really great way to introduce Stannis to the reader. We are shown who Stannis is by how he treats (and allows others to treat) the old Maester Cressen, who loved and raised him. We learn that Stannis is willing to put his relationships aside for he sake of his “right”, or what he would call “duty”... which will be important in the books yet to come.

The next day a dozen would-be warriors found their way to Standfast to assemble among the chickens. One was too old, two were too young, and one skinny boy turned out to be a skinny girl. Those Dunk sent back to their villages, leaving eight: three Wats, two Wills, a Lem, a Pate, and Big Rob the lackwit. A sorry lot, he could not help but think. The strapping handsome peasant boys who won the hearts of highborn maidens in the songs were nowhere to be seen. Each man was dirtier than the last. Lem was fifty if he was a day, and Pate had weepy eyes; they were the only two who had ever soldiered before. Both had been gone with Ser Eustace and his sons to fight in the Blackfyre Rebellion. The other six were as green as Dunk had feared. All eight had lice. Two of the Wats were brothers. “Guess your mother didn’t know no other name,” Bennis said, cackling.

As far as arms went, they brought a scythe, three hoes, an old knife, some stout wooden clubs. Lem had a sharpened stick that might serve for a spear, and one of the Wills allowed that he was good at chucking rocks. “Well and good,” Bennis said, “we got us a bloody trebuchet.” After that the man was known as Treb. “Are any of you skilled with a longbow?” Dunk asked them. The men scuffed at the dirt, while hens pecked the ground around them. Pate of the weepy eyes finally answered. “Begging your pardon, ser, but m’lord don’t permit us longbows. Osgrey deers is for the chequy lions, not the likes o’ us.”

“We will get swords and helms and chainmail?” the youngest of the three Wats wanted to know.

“Why, sure you will,” said Bennis, “just as soon as you kill one o’ the Widow’s knights and strip his bloody corpse. Make sure you stick your arm up his horse’s arse, too, that’s where you’ll find his silver.” He pinched young Wat beneath his arm until the lad squealed in pain, then marched the whole lot of them off to Wat’s Wood to cut some spears.

When they came back, they had eight fire-hardened spears of wildly unequal length, and crude shields of woven branches. Ser Bennis had made himself a spear as well, and he showed them how to thrust with the point and use the shaft to parry . . . and where to put the point to kill. “The belly and the throat are best, I find.” He pounded his fist against his chest. “Right there’s the heart, that will do the job as well. Trouble is, the ribs is in the way. The belly’s nice and soft. Gutting’s slow, but certain. Never knew a man to live when his guts was hanging out. Now if some fool goes and turns his back on you, put your point between his shoulder blades or through his kidney. That’s here. They don’t live long once you prick ’em in the kidney.”

Having three Wats in the company caused confusion when Bennis was trying to tell them what to do. “We should give them village names, ser,” Egg suggested, “like Ser Arlan of Pennytree, your old master.” That might have worked, only their villages had no names, either. “Well,” said Egg, “we could call them for their crops, ser.” One village sat amongst bean fields, one planted mostly barleycorn, and the third cultivated rows of cabbages, carrots, onions, turnips, and melons. No one wanted to be a Cabbage or a Turnip, so the last lot became the Melons. They ended up with four Barleycorns, two Melons, and two Beans. As the brothers Wat were both Barleycorns, some further distinction was required. When the younger brother made mention of once having fallen down the village well, Bennis dubbed him “Wet Wat,” and that was that. The men were thrilled to have been given “lord’s names,” save for Big Rob, who could not seem to remember whether he was a Bean or a Barleycorn.

Once all of them had names and spears, Ser Eustace emerged from Standfast to address them. The old knight stood outside the tower door, wearing his mail and plate beneath a long woolen surcoat that age had turned more yellow than white. On front and back it bore the chequy lion, sewn in little squares of green and gold. “Lads,” he said, “you all remember Dake. The Red Widow threw him in a sack and drowned him. She took his life, and now she thinks to take our water, too, the Chequy Water that nourishes our crops . . . but she will not!” He raised his sword above his head. “For Osgrey!” he said ringingly. “For Standfast!”

When Arya recognizes Harwin in the inn and starts crying and yelling her name.

This pulls at my heart strings:

"Yet he dreamed of her at times, so often that he could almost see her face. In his dreams, she was beautiful, and highborn, and her eyes were kind."

The "just one more step" language used for Samwell following the attack at the Fist of the First Men and Catelyn going up to the Eyrie.

Only really appreciated these on rereads.

i always loved this passage, it has a certain comedy sketch thing going on i really enjoy:

"I am no lord. Bear Island was taken from me. I am but a knight.”

“A knight of my Queensguard.” Dany took his arm. “And my true friend and good counselor.” She studied Arstan’s face. He had a great dignity to him, a quiet strength she liked. “Rise, Arstan Whitebeard. Be welcome, Strong Belwas. Ser Jorah you know. Ko Aggo and Ko Jhogo are blood of my blood. They crossed the red waste with me, and saw my dragons born.”

“Horse boys.” Belwas grinned toothily. “Belwas has killed many horse boys in the fighting pits. They jingle when they die.”

Aggo’s arakh leapt to his hand. “Never have I killed a fat brown man. Belwas will be the first.”

“Sheath your steel, blood of my blood,” said Dany, “this man comes to serve me. Belwas, you will accord all respect to my people, or you will leave my service sooner than you’d wish, and with more scars than when you came.” The gap-toothed smile faded from the giant’s broad brown face, replaced by a confused scowl. Men did not often threaten Belwas, it would seem, and less so girls a third his size.

For a moment, Eddard Stark was filled with a terrible sense of foreboding. This was his place, here in the North. He looked at the stone figures all around him, breathed deep in the chill silence of the crypt. He could feel the eyes of the dead. They were all listening, he knew. And winter was coming

With what we suspect will happen at Oldtown

"My great-aunt is a septa at a motherhouse in Oldtown," Lady Smallwood said as the women laced the gown up Arya's back. "I sent my daughter there when the war began. She'll have outgrown these things by the time she returns, no doubt...."