"Tell me, Bronn. If I told you to kill a babe… an infant girl, say, still at her mother's breast… would you do it? Without question?"
One of the major themes in the book is illustrated through this quote, and that it duty. In the fictional world of A Song of Ice and Fire , it is frequently stressed the importance of keeping one’s promises and meeting the expectations imposed on them. Here, Tyrion is asking whether Bronn would prove his loyalty to him by killing an infant child or deny him and maybe be loyal to his moral principles. Bronn’s answer proves that in his world, the moral values can be ignored as long as it would benefit him.
He did not think the captain approved, and that was amusing as well, watching the man struggle to swallow his outrage while performing his courtesies to the high lord, the rich purse of gold he'd been promised never far from his thoughts.
Here it is presented a form of manipulation found in Westeros, and that it money. While many maybe chose to manifest their power by intimidating others, Theon takes advantage of the greedy nature in the captain to get what he wants.
Riding out in front of the wagons on her horse, Arya saw burnt bodies impaled on sharpened stakes atop the walls, their hands drawn up tight in front of their faces as if to fight off the flames that had consumed them.
What is presented through this quote is the true face of war. While the others characters see the war through the eyes of nobility, relatively safe from famine and death because of their blood status, the common people are the ones who suffer the most during the war. They are just innocent victims forced to suffer while the nobility takes decisions without thinking how the life of the common people will be affected.
