1. Dragons
SPOILER ALERT I guess this isnt a plot contrivance as much as the plot itself, but Ill still put it in. Throughout the first book, we hear a lot about the deposed Targaryens and the dragons they rode into battle, once upon a time. But the dragons are all dead. It sets a nice mythic tone to the gritty, real-world political struggles of the story, a hint of a time long gone that only makes the present (so to speak) more depressing. Oh wait, nevermind. There really were dragons. And there still are dragons, as we find at the end of the book. Daenerys Targaryen (Dany), the last of the clan, received petrified dragon eggs as a gift, and they eventually hatch. As the books go on, the dragons grow into a bunch of brats who tend to burn down everything around them. They make Danys task of travelling through hostile wastes and taking over well-defended cities laughably easy. Which is a shame, since Dany is pretty irritating, and one character Id be ok with seeing conveniently wiped out. I wouldnt go so far as to say that Dany is the Jar Jar Binks of Westeros, but I wouldnt mind a version of the book series with her edited out. The fact that Martin gave her two dragons to follow her around and solve her problems for her makes it worse.