History Characters / ASongOfIceAndFireTheOrderOfTheMaesters

* ArcherArchetype: Cool and collected, and extremely accurate with a bow. His bow is made from goldenheart, a rare wood from the Summer Islands that makes the best longbows.

[[folder:Archmaester Vaegon]]
!!Archmaester Vaegon, born Prince Vaegon Targaryen
!!!The Dragonless
Seventh child and third son of King Jaehaerys I and Queen Alysanne Targaryen. He was given to the Citadel at a young age, eventually becoming Archmaester, holding the ring and rod and mask of yellow gold.

* AllThereInTheManual: Only mentioned in ''The World of Ice and Fire'', the details of his early life are fleshed out in ''Literature/FireAndBlood''.
* ArrangedMarriage: He was supposed to have one with his sister Daella, but his coldness toward her put an end to that.
* BigBrotherBully: He couldn't stand his younger sister Daella, whom he considered an utter moron, and told her so to her face. She ''was'' a bit slow and could barely read, but the ''manner'' in which he said it was very rude, and having an intellectual disability was hardly her own fault or something to hold against her.
* {{Bookworm}}: Books were his only passion.
* CoveredInGunge: After he insulted Daella and made her run off in tears, their sister Alyssa dumped a flagon of wine over his head. His only response was, "You're wasting Arbor gold."
* {{Foil}}: To his sister, Saera. He was an apathetic bookworm who was sent to the Citadel and she was a promiscuous jerk who ran away to Lys to work in a brothel. Both were considered to be their parents' problem children and both were likely the only children in their family to outlive their parents.
* GoodWithNumbers: He became an archmaester and earned himself the ring, rod, and mask of yellow gold for his extensive studies in mathematics and economy.
* InSeriesNickname: The Dragonless, because he was never allowed to bond with a dragon. Not that he probably would have wanted to, anyway.
* {{Jerkass}}: He always was an asshole to everyone in the Red Keep.
* JerkassHasAPoint:
** In private Queen Alysanne was forced to admit that his evaluation of Daella's intelligence was not wrong.
** It was Vaegon who proposed the Great Council in Harrenhal to solve the SuccessionCrisis. While we know how that ends, there was no better or more viable way. Jaehaerys ultimately went along with it.
* LackOfEmpathy: He never showed any real care or interest in other people. After going to the Citadel, he regularly wrote to his parents because that's what a good son does but his letters lacked any love or warmth.
* LaserGuidedKarma: After insulting his sister Daella and refusing to apologize, his sister Alyssa humiliated him fifty times during sword practice, all while Daella watched from a window.
* NonActionGuy: It was clear from a young age he was never going to be a fighter.
* NoSocialSkills: Vae started off with no grasp of tact whatsoever. It took several long, ''awkward'' talks with his dad and brothers to get him to even a basic understanding of it, but even then he remained an aloof and distant man until the end of his days.
* PerpetualFrowner: Even as a child, Vaegon never cracked a smile and was perpetually dour. Apparently he ''almost'' smiled when his father told him he was going to the Citadel.
* RageQuit: Baelon spent a year trying to get him to learn swordfighting, but he never took to it. After Alyssa humiliated him, he finally threw down his sword and stormed out, never to return.
* SpareToTheThrone: Deliberately subverted. He was sent to the Citadel to remove him from the line of succession since he already had two surviving brothers. Even when the line of succession came up, with his older brothers being gone, pretty much everyone took one look at him and admitted that he was a no-hoper. There was speculation that Jaehaerys might have tried a last-ditch effort to make him heir shortly before convening the Great Council of 101, only for Vaegon to turn him down.
* TerseTalker: He wasn't the most chatty person to ever live. Even when his father told him he was going off to the Citadel, his reaction was a mere three words. "Yes, father. Good."
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: He was last mentioned being summoned to the Red Keep by his father to help discuss the matter of inheritance before going back to the Citadel. After that he just disappears from the record entirely.
** Vaegon was only 38 years old at the Great Council of 101 AC - many readers just assume he isn't mentioned again because he must have died in obscurity after that. But he would have been 66 years old when the Dance of the Dragons began in 129 AC, and 73 years old at the end of the long regency of Aegon III in 136 AC - which is the stopping point for the first half of Archmaester Gyldayn's history. It's ''entirely possible'' that he still has some role to play in the second volume of ''Fire and Blood'' - sort of as a foil to Maester Aemon in ASOIAF?
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Archmaester Gyldayn]]
!!Archmaester Gyldayn
[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/maester_studies.jpg]]

-->''"Who can know the heart of a dragon?"''

A renowned historian, he is the author of several Histories about the Targaryen Dynasty. In his life he was a Maester of Summerhall Palace, and is one of the few survivors of the Tragedy of Summerhall.
----

* PracticallyDifferentGenerations: While their exact ages haven't been specified, it's heavily implied the age difference between Leo and his older brother Luthor was great, since his ''great-niece'' Elinor is only a couple of years younger than 16 year old Margaery Tyrell and he's around the same age as Samwell Tarly.

* SpareToTheThrone: Deliberately subverted. He was sent to the Citadel to remove him from the line of succession since he already had two surviving brothers. Even when the line of succession came up, with his older brothers being gone, pretty much everyone took one look at him and admitted that he was a no-hoper.

** The only reason he was recaptured was because while he worked as a janitor in a brothel, he took it upon himself to teach some of the youngest whores how to read. One of them demonstrated her new skill to a serjeant in the city watch, who got suspicious, and, well...

* UnreliableNarrator: Clearly, his work is flattering towards the Lannisters, skirting over their more unpleasant acts. For example, he claims nobody really knows how Rhaegar and Elia's children died, saying perhaps Elia killed them fearing what would happen to them, or that Aerys may have done so in his madness. In-universe it is well-known they were murdered by Ser Gregor Clegane (who dashed the infant Aegon's head against a wall) and Ser Amory Lorch (who stabbed the toddler Rhaenys multiple times), knights in Tywin Lannister's army.

* KillItWithFire: Subverted. Gyldayn was one of the survivors of the Tragedy of Summerhall. According to Maester Yandel, Gyldayn was barely able to speak after he was removed from the palace, suggesting that he wasn't entirely unscathed.

* ADegreeInUseless: The Valyrian Steel chain is regarded as this. Maester Luwin laments how studying for his Valyrian chain, far from fulfilling his passion for magic, disillusioned him. Indeed, the Citadel's rituals of being alone with the Glass Candles is meant to deter people away from magic, [[spoiler:pity that Archmaester Marwyn managed to light his candles]].

** He claims that any childern born from ibbenese men impregnating women of other races will always result stillborns or babies with hideous deformities, However various characters in the series claim that they have ibbenese fathers and mothers from other races. So it’s possible Yandel is simply mistaken or even racist towards the ibbenese and so added false information about the ibbenese

* JerkassHasAPoint: In private Queen Alysanne was forced to admit that his evaluation of Daella's intelligence was not wrong.

** Their nature as educators and investigators has also, unsurprisingly, changed over time. Particularly since the widespread establishment of Andal societal institutions and practices within Westeros (particularly that of the Faith of the Seven). Between the Faith, the Hightowers and the Citadel -- it's hard to say who has been conspiring most against whom, for why, for how long and since when, exactly (or if any conspiracy has actually had any grand plan since conception, or just spiralled out of control over time). And, at this point, if the distinction even matters: a lie maintained becomes a form of truth to most of those telling it if they honestly think it true after years of being told it, themselves. And, the Maesters of the Citadel are very good at telling people what they genuinely want to think is the case (even if they are just plain wrong).

* DirtyOldMan: Maesters are supposed to take a VowOfCelibacy after getting their chain, but there are at least two accounts of Grand Maesters who were quite familiar with certain in-universe pornographic books. Actual sex is off the table, but ADateWithRosiePalms isn't, apparently.

* {{Doorstopper}}: Books written by maesters tend to be large in size, thick in width, dry in content, dense in text and purple in tone. This discourages most people from reading or copying them even before they start becoming dated.

* ExactlyWhatSaysOnTheTin: He's literally an Acolyte named Armen.

* PracticallyDifferentGenerations: While their exact ages haven't been specified, it's heavily implied the age difference between Leo and his older brother Luthor was great, since his ''great-niece'' Elinor is only a couple of years younger than 16 year old Margaery Tyrell.

The third son of Ser Moryn Tyrell, Leo is a widely disliked novice at the Citadel.

* AmbiguousDisorder: Pretty much spelled out that he was an autistic man in a world that doesn't know what autism is.

* UsefulNotes/{{Asexual}}: Related to AmbiguousDisorder, he's heavily implied by context to be an asexual autistic man.

* UsefulNotes/Asexual: Related to AmbiguousDisorder, he's heavily implied by context to be an asexual autistic man.