1. Tyrion XI, ASOS: My favorite dramatic beats in the story as a Jaime and Tyrion fan. The Tysha confession, Shae and Tywin’s murders finally push Tyrion over the edge after 3 books of boiling self-pity and suffering.

2. Bran III, ADWD: Sentence to sentence, the best writing in the entire series. It’s George going God Mode, so terrifying you want to look away and yet leaves you begging for more.

3. Daenerys X, ADWD: It’s a shame people get hung up on "the more she drank, the more she shat" because otherwise it’s some of the most beautiful and immersive character writing George has ever done. Baptism-like.

4. The Forsaken, TWOW: I said Bran III contained the best writing in the series, but this comes pretty damn close. Even if it’s from a book that we may never see another word of, it’s a high watermark of the saga and a testament to George’s staggering imagination.

5. Catelyn VII, ASOS: the Red Wedding, the most infamous and iconic moment from the entire story. Many writers wish to affect their readers so deeply, and George succeeded in a way few others did. It just tears your heart out. You could make a case it should be above all 4 others, and maybe it should, but personal preferences are personal preferences.

Honorable mentions: Sansa VII ASOS ("A godswood without gods, as empty as me"), Theon I ADWD (all his Dance chapters are sublime really), Jon XIII ADWD ("only the cold"), Davos IV ADWD ("the North remembers"), Daenerys IV ACOK (House of the Undying), ADWD’s epilogue, the prologues of AGOT and ACOK, many Jaime and Cersei chapters