3. Wildfire
The Battle of Blackwater Bay was the high point of A Clash of Kings, and a thrilling part of the TV series. Stannis fleet besieges Kings Landing, threatening the outnumbered and poorly-managed defenses of King Joffrey. It looks to be a tense, dramatic battle, until the defenders unleash wildfirea hyper-charged version of the actual Greek Fire used in the defense of Byzantium back in the daydestroying Stannis fleet. Its not magic
per se, more like alchemy or science, but it still has that
deus ex machina element I found distasteful. The tension had been building up, and then it as resolved suddenly by a plot creation that kind of came out of nowhere. I actually felt a bit cheated, really. Convenient nick-of-time rescues are for Tolkien. I was expecting some more (or less, I guess) from Martin.