Characters / Bequeathed from Pale Estates

The North

General

• Broken Pedestal: All of them held Robert Baratheon in high esteem thanks to Ned's stories about him. Then Lyarra and Arya went down to King's Landing and actually met Robert, who proved himself to be a drunken whoremonger and terrible king who was still pining after their dead aunt to the point of inappropriately lusting after Lyarra because of her strong resemblance to Lyanna. Needless to say, none of them hold Robert in high esteem anymore, Ned included.
• Heroes Love Dogs: They have a direwolf motif and certainly dote on the ones they own.

The Starks

Eddard "Ned" Stark, Lord Paramount

• Bad Liar: Due to Honor Before Reason below. It's actually subverted. Ned is perfectly capable of lying when it's truly necessary, he just cultivates a reputation that he can't so no one will suspect Lyarra's true parentage.
• Broken Pedestal:
  • When the Martell party comes to Winterfell, Robb is forced to learn that Ned Stark isn't actually as honorable and virtuous as he thought.
  • Ned has his own in Robert. When they finally see each other again, the first time since the Greyjoy Rebellion, Ned finally sees what everyone else sees: a fat, drunken oaf that revels in his Glory Days and uselessly pines after Ned's sister, of whom he only spoke to a couple of times at Harrenhal and who's been dead for close to two decades. Even then, Ned might have actually been able to move past all that — had Robert not started lusting over Lyarra, who is less than half his age, Marked, married, and most of all, Ned's daughter, just for looking like a perfect version of Lyanna.
• Dark Secret: Lyarra is not his daughter, but his sister Lyanna's with her husband Rhaegar Targaryen, and thus the heir to the Iron Throne.
• Easily Forgiven: He forgives Robert when the latter tries to force Lyarra to stay in King's Landing despite the attempted assassination on her. Ned is disgusted with himself for forgiving Robert so easily.
• Gone Horribly Right: Played for Laughs when he tried to dissuade Hoster Tully to involve him in the matchmaking business, sending Mormont and Umber ladies to Riverrun and anticipating they would scare the piss out of his wimpy goodbrother. Edmure instead fell hard for Lyra Mormont, and Hoster now holds Ned for a genius.
• Honor Before Reason: Quite infamously. Even Jon Arryn believes he runs too far with it, and his family motto is "As High As Honor". Though it's implied Ned is deliberately invoking this trope on some level to protect Lyarra. In reality, while he is an extremely honorable man, his honor means nothing in comparison to his love of his family.
• Hypocrite: Oberyn accuses him of this, since he claims to be honorable yet refuses to serve justice by letting the murderers of Elia Martell and her babes run free. It's strongly implied though that the actual reason why he hasn't divulged the information to the Martells is because it may risk Lyarra's safety. After all, if he can break this oath, hiding the trueborn child of Rhaegar and Lyanna isn't out of the realm of possibility anymore, is it?
• I Gave My Word: He swore to Robert he wouldn't reveal the identities of Elia and her children's murderers. Everyone else is ramming him for this, even his own brother.
• My Greatest Failure: He's extremely protective of Lyarra because he blames himself for her mother's death. After all, Ned was the one who first suggested betrothing Lyanna to Robert, a match his sister hated so much that she ran off with the crown prince to avoid it.
• Never Speak Ill of the Dead: Zig-zagged according his opinion regarding said dead. He bluntly calls Rhaegar a fool and lays the responsibility for Robert's Rebellion at the Silver Prince's feet, but harshly commands the King to respectfully speak of Theon Greyjoy after hearing of the boy's "Heroic Sacrifice" to save Ned's son and heir from his own people. He also sincerely mourns for Elia Martell and her children, knowing that they were innocent of any wrongdoing and did not deserve the horrible deaths they suffered, and does not think highly of his father's southron ambitions due to the damage it did to the realm and their family as a whole.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: Oberyn thinks Ned is too much of a stuck-up, holier-than-you prick to ever like, while Ned mislikes Oberyn for his recklessness and trolling impulses. They slowly come to an understanding, though.
• Oh, Crap!: His reaction when Oberyn Martell reveals he is the groom the Gods intend to give to his daughter.
• Papa Wolf:
  • He already lost his father and two siblings to a war created by human stupidity. No more.
  • Ned is rather infuriated at Robert's attraction to Lyarra. When Robert attempts to force Lyarra to stay in King's Landing despite an attempted assassination, Ned finally explodes at him.
  • Adamantly refuses to betroth Sansa to Joffrey after the infamous "Tongues" incident. He even goes as far as to try and steer Sansa's affections towards Domeric.
• Parental Marriage Veto: The rare benign example. While Ned knows that he can't exactly let his kids marry whoever they want, he is perfectly willing to allow them to search for a spouse themselves and then let them ask for approval. He'll even provide some choices himself if they don't know where to start. This is because he wants to avoid another Lyanna as much as possible. Unlike most instances of this trope, Sansa welcomes it, because of her faith in her father's character. She believes that a man her father doesn't respect is a man not worth her time.
• Parental Sexuality Squick: Inverted. Hearing and seeing undeniable proof that his baby girl became a woman and thoroughly enjoys it very much dismays him.
• Parents as People:
  • Yes, he genuinely loves Lyarra and did his best to ensure her safety and comfort... but he still hurt her deeply, with his forbidding her to sing or play harp and keeping quiet about her mother.
  • Also to Robb. He never intended for his eldest son to believe he was a paragon of a man, and unwillingly botched his lordly education, which left Robb quite vulnerable on the political ground.
• Properly Paranoid:
  • Has gone to extreme lengths to prevent Lyarra's parentage from getting out. Considering how it only took Lyarra singing for Monford Velaryon to figure out his greatest secret, he was justified in doing so.
  • Was extremely reluctant to let any of his family set foot in King's Landing due to what happened to the last Starks who did so. True enough, Lyarra and her entourage, including Arya, nearly fall victim to an assassination attempt whilst under guest right due to Cersei's paranoia.
• Rage Breaking Point: When Robert tries to keep Lyarra in King's Landing after the assassination attempt, he procceeds to yell at the King, telling him what exactly he thinks about his friend.
• Secret-Keeper: Lyarra and Oberyn tell him that Cersei may be cuckolding Robert right before they leave the city. He agrees to keep it quiet for now.
• Selective Obliviousness: Ned blames himself as much as he does Rhaegar and Rickard for the rebellion, because he was so blinded by how Lyanna's betrothal to Robert benefited him that he failed to see how unhappy it was making her.
• Shipper on Deck: After seeing Joffrey display his full inadequacy as a human being, he decided to pick a sweet Northern boy for his Sansa. Domeric Bolton was the first candidate, and ultimately the winner.
• Shipper with an Agenda: He pushes Sansa towards to Domeric to not only keep her away from Joffrey, but also to secure the Boltons' loyalty. Mostly the former, however — Ned all but stated that if Sansa and Domeric hadn't hit it off, he would've scoured the entire North to find someone she'd like.
• Thicker Than Water: There's only one thing in the world that will Ned Stark is willing to stain his honor for, and that's his family. He did it for Lyanna and Lyarra, and ultimately he'll do it for Oberyn and the Martells since they're family now too.
• Useless Bystander Parent: Enforced. Ned can't do anything to stop Robert's flirtation with Lyarra, despite how uncomfortable Robert's attention makes her feel because Robert is king. Ned internally seethes over this and slowly loses any patience he had with Robert.
• We Used to Be Friends: When he goes to King's Landing, he's forced to see how far Robert degraded as a ruler and a moral person. He still insists they are friends, but the relationship is definitely brittle. And, despite what Jon Arryn may believe, there's a clear limit on how much Ned can take before even he turns against Robert.

Catelyn Stark née Tully

• Character Development: Has one kickstarted by Lyarra's Mark and compounded by learning about Lysa's abortion.
• Condescending Compassion: She tried to become a mother and mentor figure to Gwyn who violently rejected her, arguing that Lady Tully only wanted a nice pet. Remembering how she acted towards Petyr when he was fostered at Riverrun, Cat ultimately concludes the girl was right to call her out.
• Culture Clash: A Northern lady is much more involved in ruling than Southron ladies are. Catelyn was not prepared for that and, in addition to needing spend time helping Ned with politics, it hurt her reputation at the beginning.
• Death Glare: Gives a really good one to Septa Mordane, after she hurt Rickon.
• Everyone Has Standards: Catelyn is a devout follower of the Seven, but the thought of forcing her faith on anyone repulses her. Septa Mordane stating that she should have thought otherwise leaves her shocked and disgusted.
• Exact Words: Catelyn insists that Lyarra shouldn't have her prospects too high as she's unlikely to marry a firstborn son nor a Lord. Technically she's right as Lyarra marries a secondborn Prince.
• Fish out of Water: This trout couldn't help but have Southern sensibilities when she married North, and they still linger. The Northern people don't really like her because of this, feeling she's trying to change them and doesn't get their mentality.
• Gone Horribly Right: Made sure that Lyarra would learn only the basics of running a keep and nothing required of a Lady of Great House. Thus, Lyarra is complety unprepared for her position as a Princess of Dorne and everyone, especially Oberyn, blames Catelyn for that.
  • To her credit, she got Lyarra remedial lessons as soon as her Mark appeared. It's just that they 1) had only 6 months to prepare and 2) thought her husband would be a distant Martell cousin.
• Happily Married: It took a long time for her to attain this with Ned, but they are.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Winterfell didn't have fosterlings because they feared Catelyn as an Andal influence, which means her children have to be seen respecting First Men traditions and praying to the Old Gods.
  • Many Northerners heard that she was stealing weirwood saplings for House Tully to sell and had lost her maidenhead to Baelish. No one dared speak of those rumors at Winterfell as Catelyn had to find out from Oberyn.
• Hidden Depths: People forget she was Hoster's heir for over decade. As a result, she is very good at plotting and politics, once she gets over her blind spots. She was the one who taught Ned how to actually rule.
• Humble Pie: Dragged off her high horse due to the cascade of consequences created by Lyarra's Mark.
• Humiliation Conga: It starts with the bastard stepdaughter Catelyn hates being Marked, meaning she cannot discriminate against her anymore since the Gods actually wanted for Lyarra to be born. Then the groom reveals himself to be the second Prince of Dorne instead of an obscure Martell cousin, which gives Lyarra a tremendous amount of power and influence. Oh, and said Prince outright shreds Catelyn's self-esteem and pride to pieces by letting her know some nasty rumours about her are lurking around. When the Martell party finally leaves Winterfell, Catelyn is ready to eat crow and reevalute her life choices.
• Mama Bear: Oh yes. Septa Mordane really shouldn't have hurt Rickon.
• No Sympathy: When Robb collapses into a pile of angst after learning of Lyarra's pregnancy, she playfully reminds him a lady is supposed to bear children and her husband's job is to make her conceive, so would you stop threatening your goodbrother's manhood, young man?
• Not Me This Time: Of course she pressured her husband into stopping Lyarra's music lessons, she hated letting the bastard shine, and what reason could Ned have to hurt Lyarra so? Maybe hiding the singing talent she inherited from her blood father...
• Pet the Dog: Gives Lyarra some very helpful advice concerning her Arranged Marriage and was ready to give her Sansa's maiden cloak so she could have a proper one for her wedding to Oberyn.
  • Later, she calms down Ned and answers his questions when he is worried about pregnant Lyarra.
• Psychological Projection: Catelyn feels sorrow on Roslin's behalf that she has to convert to the Old Gods as requirement to marry Smalljon, not realizing that Roslin doesn't share Catelyn's religious fervor and is perfectly happy to do so.
• Selective Obliviousness: Lady Stark used Lyarra's bastardy as an excuse to not teach her how to run a large household, saying no firstborn son nor lord would marry her - even though Lord Roose Bolton asked for Lyarra's hand and Lyarra was nearly arranged to marry the heir of Last Hearth, Smalljon Umber. This bites Catelyn in the ass.
• Silk Hiding Steel: She is very much a proper lady who performs her duties impeccably. Those duties happen to include judging and punishing people in her husband absence, don't they, Septa?
• Unwanted Spouse: Unbeknownst to her, she was this to Brandon, who found her too southern for his tastes and with questionable chastity to boot (not to say he had much of a leg to stand on that front) and preferred Barbrey over her.
• Wicked Stepmother: She never raised a hand against Lyarra (most likely because Ned would have send her packing back to Riverrun had she dared), but she certainly made her feel unwanted. Oberyn disapproves.
• You Remind Me of X: Gwyn is implied to have been hostile to her for becoming Genna Lannister's substitute. The old lioness wasn't really bad towards the girl, but she certainly was quite neglectful and never gave Gwyn a reason to feel safe at the Rock.

Benjen Stark

• Annoying Younger Sibling: To him, Ned is still his idiot big brother instead of the Lord of Winterfell.
• Big Little Brother: It's noted that he grew taller than Ned, but Ned is stronger than him.
• Big Sister Worship: Was the Stark brother closest with Lyanna, who doted on him.
• Cool Uncle: To the current Stark brood.
• Only Sane Man: Gwyn calls him the "only Stark who didn't leave his common sense to die on the hills when he was an infant".
• Secret-Keeper: For the circumstances surrounding Lyanna's abduction. It was actually staged, but it went too far. He also knows Lyarra's mother's identity, and is presumably the only one who does besides Ned and Howland Reed.
• What the Hell, Hero?: He read the riot act to Ned when his brother comes back on his promise to tell Lyarra about her mother when she would be married. Even Ned explaining that he's waiting for her firstborn child's birth so the Martells won't move against her doesn't appease Benjen.

The Stark Children

Robb Stark

• Big Brother Instinct: He let the Red Viper know hurting Lyarra wasn't an option and flat-out refuses to let Sansa be wed to the "Prince of Tongues".
• Butt-Monkey: Regarding love and sex matters, he's the designated punchline to the joke. Brazen heiresses freaking him out with agressive courting, his sister swept off her feet by a smug prince, believed to be gay for his best friend...
• Fiery Redhead: Extremely open with his emotions and passionate about his family.
• Friend-or-Idol Decision: When confronted to the brutal reality of Theon having to lose his head for an Ironborn rebellion, he ultimately encourages his friend to flee instead of following his duty to the King.
• Generation Xerox:
  • Very much Ned's son in spite of his Tully looks, since he wants to be honourable more than anything but will pick his loved ones above everything. The resemblance reaches its climax when Robb ultimately defies the royal authority to save Theon's life, emulating his father who defied his newly crowned friend for his niece's survival.
  • Despite his similarities to Ned, Robb proves that he's also Hoster Tully's grandson with how well he adapts to Northern politics while his father is in King's Landing. For further proof, see Shotgun Wedding below.
• Mistaken for Gay: The Dornish party stubbornly believes Theon is his paramour, which distresses him a lot.
• My Sister Is Off-Limits: Unfortunately, he cannot go against the Gods' will, but he can be loudly and blatantly demonstrate his unhappiness with Lyarra's marriage and departure for Dorne.
• The Nicknamer: From the unflattering variety. He coined the moniker "Prince of Tongues" for Joffrey and later refers to Cersei as the "Mad Queen".
• No Guy Wants to Be Chased: Justified since the potential brides are spying on him or are so aggressive he genuinely fears for his safety. He starts to grow fond of Aislinn Forrester because she doesn't pursue him.
• Screams Like a Little Girl: Lyarra expresses doubts that she, an actual girl, could hit a high note like Robb does if a spider gets on him and genuinely believes he could bring the walls of Winterfell itself down with his screams.
• Shotgun Wedding: Invoked when he beds Aislinn Forrester, whom he likes very much. He knows he needs a Northern bride, his apparent impulsiveness will remind the Northern lords the late Brandon and his wolf's blood and it will also put a halt to all the girls trying to jump him.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Very much a Tully with his red hair and blue eyes - and his bannermen are looking at him askew for it.
• Unwanted Harem: Every lord in the North throws their sisters, daughters and other female relatives at him. Ah, the pains of being a future Lord Paramount...
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: He feels very much unable to be just as good as a Lord Paramount than Ned and tries to adhere to his Honor Before Reason code to please him.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: He hates spiders. Really hates them. Unfortunately, Gwyn is perfectly happy to throw some at him just to see him freak out.

Princess Lyarra Martell, née Snow/Stark / Princess Visenya Targaryen

• Absurdly Youthful Mother: A fourteen-year-old bride promptly impregnated by her much older husband who calculates she's going to give birth at fifteen. Potentially fatal complications are likely to arise because of this, especially with her mother and both grandmothers having suffered Death by Childbirth.
• The Ace: This girl tried learning everything to compensate over her supposed lowbirth: she's good at swordfighting, embroidery, carving, woodworking, jewelry-making, singing, harp-playing, trapping, hunting, riding, calligraphy, reading, painting, sketching, etiquette and much more.
• Action Girl: Is a skilled swordswoman which she gets away with unlike her sisters due to being a bastard. Oberyn and the Dornish contingent consider it a charm point.
• Adoptive Peer Parent: She's younger than one half of her stepdaughters, and barely old for the other half to consider her their big sister.
• Beautiful Singing Voice: She can move an entire room to tears, and that's without training. Her birth father did that too.
• Beware the Nice Ones: She doesn't care about politics, she only wants a happy life with her loved ones. Mess with these loved ones and the she-wolf won't be content to bare her teeth, she's gonna bite nice and deep.
• Big Sister Instinct: Very much. She wants Sansa as far away from Joffrey as possible. When Lyarra hears about Septa Mordane hurting Rickon, her first reaction is to say she would have the septa's hands cut off.
• Brainy Brunette: Lyarra is extremely intelligent and dark-haired.
• Cute Bookworm: Lyarra loves to read and spend time in a library. Her first reaction to finding a library in the Red Keep is copy all the books she can and take them for her own library. Tyrion is rather happy that the library attracts such beautiful women. She's rather moved when Tyrion gifts her Old Valyrian scrolls that he stole.
• Dead Guy Junior: Supposedly named for her paternal grandmother Lyarra Stark.
• The Dutiful Daughter: Lyarra takes care of her younger siblings, follows Northern etiquette and tries to be as honorable as her father. She adapts her dutiful, honor-bound nature as a wife and Dornish Princess.
• Elegant Classical Musician: Lyarra can move people to tears with her singing and harp playing. Something she inherited from her biological father.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Her Mark means she ceased to be the Bastard of Winterfell to be raised as a Princess to the most wealthy Kingdom of Westeros. Of course, in reality she was a "nightmare" to begin with, being one of the last two heirs to the Targaryen dynasty.
• Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak: She conducts herself as a traditional Northern lady, meaning she is skilled in the feminine graces, but also has practical skills like swordfighting, carving and trapping.
• Going Native: Lyarra has to embrace Dornish values and customs if she wants the people to accept her. She learned from Lady Stark the peril of not doing so.
• Heir Club for Men: In spite of her husband's reputation for fathering girls, she wants a son and maintains her firstborn is a boy. The Targaryen party fervently hopes she's right.
• The High Queen: For being a secondborn Prince's wife, she has shades of this. Played straighter with the last Targaryen supporters who believe she's going to be this.
• The Immodest Orgasm: To poor Ned's utter horror while they are camping on the road. Deconstructed, she didn't know everyone could hear her, was really embarrassed once she found out, and was furious at Oberyn for not telling her.
• Imperiled in Pregnancy: King's Landing is not a good city to be carrying a child in.
  • Ghost stopped a poisoning attempt which would have distorted her fetus into a monster such as the ones birthed by Maegor's Black Brides.
  • She read the riot act to her husband for entering a tourney melee. Because a soulmate bond can let you feel your partner's distress, Oberyn being injured could have made her miscarry.
  • Amory Lorch launched an attack against the Martell party in order to kill Gwyn, and he wasn't picky about the people in his way.
• Inadequate Inheritor: Visenya Targaryen has the right bloodline, the right mindset and the right connections to take the Iron throne, yet she's stubbornly female, and the Seven Kingdoms would never accept a ruling queen after Rhaenyra Targaryen and the Dance of Dragons. Her hidden supporters have only the hope she's going to birth a son, who would entitle her to be his regent until his coming of age.
• In the Blood: Her beauty and singing talent are very much her Targaryen blood shining through everything Northern about her.
• Ironic Name: Despite being originally named after her Famous Ancestor Visenya Targaryen, Lyarra is actually a lot like her ancestress Rhaenys in temperament.
• Lady of War: Is growing into one as she learns to keep her demure and grace even on the battlefield. She learns to project an area of serenity and calmness when she has to.
• Lineage Comes from the Father: Zigzagged. Her actual Stark lineage comes from her mother, but her Targaryen features come from her father Rhaegar, making her heir to the Iron Throne.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Not only Ned Stark hid the fact she actually was his niece from everyone, the remnants of the Targaryen supporters are secretly plotting to enthrone her as Queen of the Seven Kingdoms.
• Lost Orphaned Royalty: Her real name is Visenya Targaryen, the daughter of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark. With Viserys, Aegon and Rhaenys dead and Daenerys lost in the Dothraki Sea, she is the true heir to the Iron Throne and the rightful Queen of Westeros. While she had a humble upbringing as a bastard to a High Noble house, she was still raised as a noble and knows how to conduct herself according to Northern aristocratic etiquette.
• Marriage Before Romance: She and Oberyn slowly grow to love each other.
• Meal Ticket: Lyarra is one to Walda. As a Princess of Dorne, she has money and influence both which Walda needs for a better life. Lyarra knows this and deliberately is one to Walda to give a Nice Girl who stuck her neck against her own family a chance.
• Modest Royalty: Her only real jewelry of note is her ruby wedding ring, her Princess circlet and her hand-carved wooden bracelets and necklaces. Being a former bastard and knowing how to run a household account herself, Lyarra is rather frugal. She rather spend her money on practical things and only spends on opulence to fit her new station.
• Not So Above It All: While Lyarra is modest, she has some point in pride and spite:

  There was a certain satisfaction to walking into the Great Hall of Riverrun as a Princess when Lady Catelyn Stark herself had never been more than a Lady there.

• Pregnant Badass: Deconstructed. While she manages to defend Gwyn from Amory Lorch, her pregnancy symptoms act up during the fight, weakening her. Afterwards, people are terrified in fear of her miscarrying.
• Prophetic Name: Her namesake Visenya was a gifted swordwoman who survived both her siblings.
• Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: Lyarra has skin so fair that it looks like she never seen the sun with long nearly black hair. She's largely agreed to be very beautiful.
• Second Love: She's perfectly aware that her husband had another love before her and made her peace with it.
• She Is All Grown Up: Her kid self was extremely embarrassed by her skinniness and knobby knees. Nowadays, she's developing into World's Most Beautiful Woman.
• Shipper on Deck: Lyarra made sure to have Sansa fall for Domeric by sketching of portrait and a depiction of his melée victory against Loras Tyrell. She also give a detailed play-by-play to showcase Domeric's skill and honor. It works perfectly.
• Simple, yet Opulent: Being a Princess of Dorne, she wears the highest quality in clothes and jewels. Being Lyarra, she prefers well-made and simple clothes and jewels, coming across as elegant, in contrast with Cersei's decadence.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Grows fonder and fonder of Oberyn for treating her as someone worth listening for, being a Friend to All Children and having strong morals.
• Sole Survivor: From Rhaegar's offspring, she's the only one left alive to grow up.
• Spirited Young Lady: Lyarra is intelligent, well-mannered, graceful and demure to the point that her Proper Lady younger sister Sansa is jealous. She is talented in traditional lady arts such as singing, embroidery, sketching, and painting. She is firm, dutiful and modest. But she's also a skilled swordswoman, a gifted carver and will stand her ground if someone crosses her.
• Stay in the Kitchen: Oberyn doesn't want her fighting despite liking her being an Action Girl. Which is justified since she is pregnant with a family history of women dying in childbirth.
• Stripperiffic: Being a Martell Princess now, her wardrobe has to reflect her new realm's mores. While her father almost faints from horror while looking at the result, her husband is very appreciative.
• Strong Family Resemblance:
  • She's an even more beautiful version of Lyanna Stark.
  • Once you realize the possibility, it's not hard to see she's a Targaryen as well, at least if you know the family well enough.
• Technicolor Eyes: Has silvery-purple eyes, nearly a shade of lavender which has people theorizing that Ashara Dayne was her mother. It's actually due to her father Rhaegar.
• Textile Work Is Feminine: She made her own maiden cloak with the bastard colors of House Stark, which was put to use when she got married. She also had to make her own clothes when Lady Stark used her age and lowbirth as an excuse to have the servants stop making her clothes.
• Town Girls: Is the Neither as she's both very feminine and tomboyish.
• Unexpected Successor: Nobody saw a surviving child of Rhaegar through Lyanna Stark coming.
• Unknown Rival: Downplayed, as she's aware the Queen hates her but can't grasp how much. That's because Cersei fears Lyarra may be the young and beautiful queen fated to be her doom. She's probably right.
• World's Most Beautiful Woman: Promises to be this. This is the reason why the rumour about Ashara Dayne being her mother has so much traction.

Sansa Stark

• All Girls Want Bad Boys: A downplayed example. She couldn't help but find Oberyn very attractive for being an exotic scoundrel, but it was tempered by his intelligence and warm heart. A real bad boy such as Joffrey utterly disgusts her.
• Always Someone Better: Sansa has to deal with people being better than her.
  • She was intensely jealous of Lyarra being a better Proper Lady than her even with the swordfighting and hunting.
  • When Sansa is learning to command servants, she's in Gwyn's shadow as Gwyn was a better cook and a good if tyrannical commander to the servants.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Sansa would deeply annoy and hurt Lyarra with her parroting Lady Stark and Septa Mordane's bigoted views on bastards. Thankfully, she grows out of it.
• Big Sister Worship: Because Lyarra was Marked and married a Prince, just like in the songs! Isn't it romantic?
• Big Sister Instinct: She let her direwolf assault Septa Mordane for harming Rickon and even slapped her! And she's supposed to be the proper one!
• Broken Pedestal: Without the angst of canon. Through Lyarra and Arya's letters from King's Landing, she learns the true character of Queen Cersei and Prince Joffrey. She is appalled by Cersei's pettiness and Conspicuous Consumption and Joffery's effeminacy and sadism.
• Cool Big Sis: With all their other siblings away, Rickon latched on her, and she showed herself up to the task.
• The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry: Sansa used to be just as close to Lyarra as the rest of her siblings until three years prior to the story, when she started feeling inferior to and threatened by Lyarra, who was more beautiful and better at being a Proper Lady despite her fighting, which Septa Mordane and Catelyn capitalized on. For Lyarra's part, she's both sad and annoyed that her little sister sees her as a threat despite her love for her.
• Glurge Addict: Sansa's inner world is one of songs and fairytales in which princes are always gallant and maidens are all beautiful. She later grows up and matures, but still keeps a fondness for happy endings.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Sansa fell for Catelyn and Septa Mordane's bigoted views on bastards and started to ostracize Lyarra in fear of her seducing away any suitor. Despite the fact that Lyarra knows how people would treat her and Sansa due to their different statuses, as well as her patience and love for Sansa.
• I Hate Past Me: Sansa regrets how she mistreated her sister and wishes that she knew of Lyarra's love back then.
• Like a Son to Me: Septa Mordane claims she loves Sansa as the daughter she never had. The girl declines the honor if it means staying a brainless, bigoted ditz.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Nobody (besides Arya) wants to tell her what exactly did Joffrey do to get disinherited.
• Love Before First Sight: Lyarra's letters did such a good job to paint Domeric Bolton in a good light that Sansa was ready to ask for a match with him when Ned came back to Winterfell.
• The Ingenue: So, so much when asking details about Lyarra's wedding night - the most scandalous thing she can imagine is Oberyn kissing her sister with the tongue.
• Opinion Flip Flop: Sansa used to ostracize her older sister Lyarra due to being mouthfed Lady Stark and Septa Mordane's opinions on bastards. With Lyarra's soulmark legitimizing her, Sansa rebukes any word of Lyarra's bastardy.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: While Sansa is pretty good in the running the servants, she is overshadowed by Gwyn's firm and tyrannical hand, which they miss. Gwyn was willing to get down and dirty with the servants she commanded, which went far with earning their respect. The more genteel Sansa is still under Gwyn's shadow.
• Precocious Crush: She has a small one on Oberyn which changes her view on an ideal prince. She wants her prince to be like Oberyn: a smart, handsome, skilled fighter who adores children and that her father respects.
• The Resenter: It's implied that she was very jealous of Lyarra's seemingly effortless beauty and ladylike manners even with her masculine hobbies. Especially since Ned lets Lyarra get away with a lot of things that Sansa would never be able to get away with. And Lyarra's the most beloved among her siblings.
• Silk Hiding Steel: Sansa is an extremely sweet girl, so much that no one ever saw her assaulting Septa Mordane for hurting her baby brother. Discovering she actually has a spine made the Stark smallfolk like her more.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: She starts with her canon daydreams about marrying Prince Joffrey, but hearing about the tongues incident disgusted her to the point she dropped him as a potential match. She's instead gently pushed towards the gallant and sweet Domeric.
• Town Girls: The Femme as she's very traditionally feminine.
• The Unfavorite: Sansa feels that she was Lyarra's least-liked sister. Which Sansa believes she deserves due to how badly she treated Lyarra, regretting it now that she left.

Arya Stark

• Action Girl: Amplified, thanks to Oberyn encouraging her combat training and Ned hiring her "dancing master" just like in canon.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: With Edric Dayne. She tries to put up a show of disliking of him even after warming up to him, even though it's blatantly obvious she has a crush on him.
• Big Sister Worship: Adores Lyarra due to both being outsiders and Action Girls.
• Big Sister Instinct: Inverted since she's younger. A major point of contention with her mother was Arya taking umbrage for Lyarra being considered inferior.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: Oberyn forces her to do calligraphy every time she displeases him. Her family notes this is actually a good talent to have for a lady.
• Dreadful Musician: Another commonality with her aunt, she's unable to sing. Ned describes her attempt to do so as "caterwauling with enthusiasm".
• Generation Xerox:
  • Very willful and tomboyish with the typical Stark looks, just like her aunt Lyanna.
  • Edric Dayne falls for her, much like how his aunt/cousin Ashara Dayne fell for her father Ned. And it's obvious that she's beginning to return his feelings.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: She tried to haze Edric Dayne for becoming Oberyn's squire. He got utterly smitten with her as a consequence.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Very much of the Vitriolic Best Buds variety with Oberyn whom she constantly nags about his age. Despite that, she admires him greatly and became jealous of Edric Dayne when Oberyn made him his squire.
• Lady-In-Waiting: She's officially a part of Lyarra's household because it's traditional for a Dornish bride to surround herself with her sisters while she's acclimating to her new home. As Lyarra's lady-in-waiting, Arya acts as her caretaker so her pregnant sister won't overtax herself and as a bodyguard.
• Oblivious to Love: To her own feelings, for Edric Dayne.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Arya is much more content in her looks since Lyarra looked like her when she was young and is now considered quite beautiful.
• This Is Reality: She couldn't totally understand the gravity of fighting until she saw the Dornish guardsmen's corpses after the Lannister assault against the Martell party.
• Town Girls: The Butch.
• Uptight Loves Wild: To her utter horror, this is why Edric Dayne is so besotted with her. He had to constantly remember he was a Lord's heir, so Arya's liveliness was a real change of pace.

Brandon "Bran" Stark

• Demoted to Extra: He still has his subplot about latent magic, but it's very much in the background.
• Dreaming of Things to Come: Downplayed. Sometimes he get it wrong (as he did dream about the Broken Tower in Winterfell hiding a big secret but obviously there was nothing to see in this timeline) but he's accurate enough for his uncle to worry about it.
• My Sister Is Off-Limits: He wanted to declare a rebellion to prevent Lyarra's marriage. Father did the same with Aunt Lyanna, right?
• Psychic Children: He has these weird dreams about a three-eyed raven...
• The Squire: To his maternal great-uncle Brynden Tully, or Uncle Blackfish as he calls him.

Rickon Stark

• Big Brother Instinct: Inverted due to his status as the Stark brood's youngest. He didn't hesitate to assault Lyarra's future husband and got hurt by Septa Mordane when he tried to stop her from rummaging through Sansa's belongings.
• Big Sister Worship: He adores both Lyarra and Sansa, which leads him to be very protective of them.
• Fiery Redhead: Still a toddler so he's going to throw tantrums when he doesn't get his way.
• Foil: He is frequently compared to Cersei and Joffrey Baratheon, who throw as many tantrums as he does. But Rickon is an actual young child who throws tantrums as a result of facing changes that are out of his control, while Joffrey and Cersei throw tantrums because they are spoiled and entitled adults.
• Food Fight: Threw a piping hot potato at Oberyn's face. Or at least he tried, since Oberyn's reflexes let Lord Gargalen fall victim to the root vegetable instead.
• Man Bites Man: Bit Oberyn hard enough to make him bleed.
• My Sister Is Off-Limits:
  • The reason for the aforementioned Food Fight was identifying Oberyn as the man who would take his Cool Big Sis away. He later managed to actually bite the Prince.
  • "Fought" Domeric for Sansa's hand. He grudgingly conceded to Domeric after Domeric "lost."
• Tantrum Throwing: Rickon tends to bite, throw his food or start screaming when he doesn't get his way. It's acceptable since he's still a young child and understandable because he only does them out of fear that his beloved older sisters are getting taken away from him.

Other Starks

Rickard Stark, Lord Paramount

• Ambition Is Evil:
  • Ned blames his father's southron ambitions on the near downfall of their house. Considering everything that resulted from said ambitions, he may have a point. Especially if the implication that he allowed Lyanna to run off with Rhaegar is true.
  • Benjen also blames Rickard's southron ambitions, though what he takes issues with is Ned's fostering in the Vale, because he considers it the nail that led to everything else.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Rickard technically got what he wanted with Lyanna's "abduction" — the Starks' influence increased due to Ned being best friends with the new king and his eldest granddaughter being a secret Targaryen princess who was later Marked to a Martell prince, with his great-grandchild fated to sit on the Iron Throne. All it took were the deaths of thousands of people, including two of his children and Rickard himself.
• Control Freak: Has shades of this, not unlike Hoster Tully. Rickard sought to guard his family from the Mad King, but did so at the expense of two of his children's happiness, which backfired on him. Both Brandon and Lyanna hated their betrothals, and went to extreme lengths to escape them: Lyanna ran off with Rhaegar, which was mistaken as a kidnapping, which Brandon used as an excuse to delay his wedding to Catelyn by riding to the Red Keep to get Lyanna back. The rest, of course, is history.
• Hidden Depths: According to Word of God, his children's southron matches weren't completely made out of ambition; they were initially made in case the Mad King instigated a war. Of course, Rickard got a little ahead of himself, and his disregard for his children's happiness ended up causing the very war he sought to guard against.
• Irony: His southron ambitions might have lead him to encourage Lyanna to become Rhaegar's paramour, hoping the Starks would rise in power and influence. The ensuing war instead was almost the doom of his bloodline.
• Like Father, Unlike Son: While they reportedly had many similarities, Rickard was extremely ambitious and sought to extend the influence of the Starks as much as possible, at any cost. By contrast, Ned only seeks the safety of the North and his family, and also keeps all the costs in mind and tries to make sure they're ones that he and his family would be comfortable paying — hence his desire for Perfectly Arranged Marriages for all his children. This was deliberate; Ned saw what Rickard's ambitions led to and strove to be unambitious as he possibly could as a Lord Paramount.
• Parental Neglect: A variation. Rickard honestly loved his children and wanted the best for them, but also used that to further his own goals, ignoring what they wanted. It was this disregard for their happiness that nearly destroyed the Starks. Notably, in the present day, Ned and Benjen both blame Rickard more than they do Lyanna and Brandon for Robert's Rebellion, ostensibly because of this.
• Parents as People: As much as Rickard loved his children, he was also a Lord Paramount that sought to guard the North and extend the influence of the Starks as much as possible. His children's happiness were rarely taken into account in lieu of those goals.
• Plot-Triggering Death: His and Brandon's deaths were two of the main instigators of Robert's Rebellion.
• Present Absence: Rarely mentioned and long dead, but his actions are still felt throughout the entire story. His decision to have Brandon and Lyanna marry south directly led to Robert's Rebellion, which still affects the present day, especially since it resulted in the Baratheons supplanting the Targaryens as the ruling royal family. Ultimately, Ned's decision to pursue a Perfectly Arranged Marriage for all of his children was because he didn't want to make the same mistakes as his father and cause another Lyanna.

Lyanna Stark

• Alternate Character Interpretation: In-Universe. The North sees her as tragic martyr while Dorne sees her as a irresponsible homewrecker.
• Arranged Marriage: Had one with Robert that she was very unhappy about.
• Broken Pedestal: Robb and Lyarra believed her an innocent victim of Rhaegar's lust, but new facts lead them to consider the possibility of their aunt being careless enough to drag the kingdom into war and kill half of her family. It's not a easy pill to swallow.
• Cassandra Truth: She repeatedly told Ned that she hated Robert and that he was a brute and a whoremonger who would cheat on her even after they wed. Ned thought that they would grow to like each other and Robert would grow out of skirtchasing. Ned is sad to say that Lyanna was right when he meets the current Robert.
• Chosen Conception Partner: What Monford Velaryon believes she was, as her obvious health was a huge contrast to Elia's frailty. The facts point to him being right.
• Cool Big Sis: She absolutely adored Benjen, whom Ned openly acknowledges as her favorite brother. The first thing she did when he was born was hugging him and claiming the baby as hers.
• Death by Childbirth: She had a long, painful death due to the aftereffects of childbirth.
• Dreadful Musician: Lyanna was a terrible singer that liked to caterwaul tavern songs in contrast to Rhaegar.
• Fatal Flaw: Irresponsibility. Her decision to run off with Rhaegar to avoid her marriage to Robert ultimately plunged the realm into civil war and led to the near downfall of her own family, the Starks, and the actual downfall of her good-family, the Targaryens. Both Ned and Benjen acknowledge her part in it, though they blame others more than they do her.
• Gone Horribly Right: She tried to drive Robert away by thoroughly butchering a Bawdy Song. Unfortunately, Robert grew more enamoured with her for her spirit.
• I Just Want to Be Free: The root of her decision to run off with Rhaegar. It's because of this that Ned acceded to allowing Arya to go to Dorne — he saw the similarities between her and Lyanna and had no intentions of letting history repeat.
• Irony: Monford Velaryon speculates Rhaegar pursued her because she was healthy and strong enough to bear him children. Only for the poor girl to die painfully from a difficult pregnancy and perillous childbirth.
• Last Request: On her deathbed, she begs Ned to protect her child.
• Like Mother, Unlike Daughter: Lyanna was wild and mercurial while Lyarra is quiet and self-contained. Lyarra is very dutiful even if it means her own discomfort while Lyanna disobeyed her family and her engagement at her own peril.
• Missing Mom: Lyanna died due to the aftereffects of Lyarra's birth.
• Never Speak Ill of the Dead:
  • The Dornish hold her in contempt, but they refrain from saying anything too harsh around Lyarra.
  • Ned and Benjen also refuse to speak ill of her, despite her technically being culpable in the near-downfall of the entire family. While they do recognize that she shares some of the blame, they blame others more than they do her, implicitly because of the nature of her death (a slow and painful childbirth) and her age (fourteen to sixteen, which is practically still a child).
• Peerless Love Interest: How Robert remembers her, idealizing her more and more with the passing years.
• Prayer Is a Last Resort: Oberyn spotted Lyanna and Benjen praying at the Heart Tree in Harrenhal, asking the Old Gods to somehow break her engagement to Robert.
• Present Absence: She's referred to frequently in both positive and negative lights, and her specter hangs over her niece/daughter Lyarra, especially when the Dornish party arrives in King's Landing, partly due to the effects her eventual fate had on the realm, and partly due to Lyarra being a dead ringer for her.
• Rebellious Princess: Deconstructed, she left with Rhaegar to be free of her engagement with Robert, deliberately disobeying her father and shirking her duty as a Stark. This got half her family killed horribly, the other half traumatized and thousands of people dead, including herself.
• Runaway Bride: The Dornish believe she went with Rhaegar willingly. Which is implied to be true.
• Spoiled Brat: Zig-zagged. Oberyn found her haughty, mercurial, sullen and too used to getting her way. Lyanna was irresponsible, but that's all that can be really confirmed; everything else Oberyn describes her as is more than likely colored by Elia's fate as a result of Lyanna's actions.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: She and Rhaegar staged an abduction so she could be free of her engagement to Robert and he could have more children. That led to a war that culminated in the downfall of the Targaryen dynasty and the deaths of thousands of people, including Rhaegar and Lyanna herself.
• Youthful Freckles: In contrast to her daughter, Lyanna had light freckles on her nose, showcasing how immature she was.

Brandon Stark

• Birds of a Feather: What he had with Barbrey, who was strong-willed, followed the Old Gods and was as Northern a lady as you can get. After tasting this, he wasn't very eager to marry the extremely Southron Catelyn.
• Hypocrite: Part of his issues with Catelyn were the rumors that she was 'loose' thanks to her kissing games with Petyr Baelish. He (and Barbrey, for that matter) seemed to ignore the fact that he cheated on Catelyn several times with serving girls and Barbrey herself before they were married.
• Ladykiller in Love: He fucked many women, but Barbrey Ryswell was the one he truly wanted to wed.
• Runaway Fiancé: Hated having a southron match as much as Lyanna did, to the point that he used his sister's kidnapping as an excuse to avoid his own wedding.
• What Could Have Been: In-Universe example. Barbrey muses and Word of God confirms that if it hadn't been for Aerys, Rickard likely would've betrothed Brandon to Barbrey instead of Catelyn.

Bannermen and retainers

Theon Greyjoy

• Adaptational Nice Guy: Much more respectful of women because of Lyarra's refusal to take crap.
• Authority in Name Only: Unbeknownst to everyone, including himself, he's been Lord of the Iron Islands since the end of the Plague. The title is meaningless, though, as the Iron Islands have been taken over by the thralls and smallfolk and fractured into many smaller states.
• Defector from Decadence: Theon swears off the Ironborn culture after he realizes what it really means.
• Faking the Dead: Towards the end of the first story, Robb and his bannermen fake his death after it becomes clear that the Ironborn are raiding again. He then flees to Dorne to seek refuge with Lyarra and the Martells.
• Humble Pie: Learns a good deal of humility and to hold his tongue during his escape to Dorne. Losing places to sleep or eat and barely avoiding to getting beaten to death due to his mother's begging for his life did a lot in tempering Theon.
• Last of His Kind: He's the last known living member of House Greyjoy. The rest either died of the Plague or were tortured and murdered by the rebelling smallfolk and thralls. The only other living member is his mother, who is a Harlaw by blood. There's also Euron, but he was in exile at the time of the Plague and his current whereabouts are unknown; he too might be dead, for all anyone knows.
• Momma's Boy: After seeing what kind of shitshow the Iron Islands became, he refuses to leave without his mother or knowledge of her fate.
• Mistaken for Gay: The Dornish unanimously decided Robb was bedding him on the sly. Theon finds it hilarious, Robb rather less so.
• Run for the Border: Theon flees the North to avoid having himself or Robb killed, keeps himself and his mother's identities hidden and heads to Dorne.
• Shameless Fanservice Guy: Cheerfully volunteered himself when Lyarra started to draw nudes and isn't adverse to people believing he's sleeping with Robb.
• Strong Family Resemblance: His mother Alannys briefly mistakes him for his uncle Rodrik Harlaw before realising he's too young to be him.
• Troll: Cheerfully goes with the assumption that he's Robb's paramour and even tells stories about their "romance".
• You Can't Go Home Again: In regards to both the Iron Islands and the North. If he stays in the North, someone will find out and kill both him and Robb for disobeying a royal command. He does go back to the Iron Islands, but only to gather information and pick up his mother — once that is done, he flees immediately because he knows if he stays someone will figure out who he is and kill and torture him like they did with the rest of House Greyjoy.

Jeyne Poole

• Arranged Marriage: Which sends her out of Winterfell.
• Beta Bitch: She tries to mock Lyarra for her bastardy and mock the man she's fated to. Sansa shuts that down hard.
• Insult Backfire: Attempts to mock Lyarra by mocking that Oberyn has eight bastard daughters. Sansa immediately reprimands her for disrespecting a prince, something which Catelyn backs Sansa on.
• Love Letter Lunacy: Tries to make herself seem more mature by faking having a suitor that writes her love letters. She writes the letters herself - which backfires when her father finds out.
• Put on a Bus: Her father sends her out of Winterfell to become betrothed when he finds out about the fake love letters.

Lady Gwyn Parren

• Angry Chef: Gwyn is a tyrant in the kitchen and she runs a tight ship. The other servants thought she was being uppity at first, but grew to like her work ethic and willingness to do the difficult jobs with them despite her nobility. Her demanding and perfectionist tendencies actually go far in making the other servants do their best and protect her charges from bad food and assassinations.
• Animal Motif: Spiders. She enjoys keeping them in jars, her talent as a seamstress is often referenced, she has a manipulative, mean streak a mile wide, and Varys (nicknamed the Spider for his web of informants) seriously thinks about naming her his successor as Mistress of Whispers.
• Becoming the Mask: She decided to be friendly towards Lyarra because she hated Lady Stark, only to genuinely grow fond of the bastard girl.
• Beneath Notice: Gwyn frequently spies and gets gossip from the other King's Landing servants by disguising herself as a servant. Only the people who personally know her manage to see through it.
• Best Friend: Is Lyarra's closest friend and they'll do anything for each other.
• Bigotry Exception: Oberyn and the other Dornish contingent understandably despise the Lannisters, but most of them exempt Gwyn, due to her age and good nature. Oberyn comes to terms with his distrust of her after much Character Development and seeing Gwyn risk her life on Lyarra's behalf.
• Chocolate Baby: House Parren was created by a son of Orys Baratheon marrying a Lannister girl, and their child was of black hair and blue eyes. Every male scion of the house has married a Lannister (either of Lannisport or Casterly Rock) since then, and all the resulting children were of black hair and blue eyes. Gwyn is the first blond born after ten generations of such weddings. Note that despite that, Gwyn is not the chocolate baby in question — she has other traits that denote her as of Baratheon blood. No, it's instead to point out an actual chocolate baby: Joffrey, who is inexplicably blond despite supposedly being the child of a first-generation Baratheon-Lannister marriage.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Her older sister Tannis had the misfortune to be wed to the Mountain That Rides. No one cared about Gregor Clegane's obvious Blue Beard tendencies, no one cared when Tannis was gruesomely murdered, and no one cared when he decided to prey on Gwyn afterwards.
• Deadpan Snarker: Lannister genes are strong with this one.
• Deceased Parents Are the Best: Her beloved grandfather worked his way up in the Miners' Guild, her father was an honorable knight and her grandmother and mother were great cooks. And they're all dead and Gwyn's stuck with her useless uncle Lord Parren.
• Does Not Like Men: She has shades of this, insisting nothing good can come from marriage. When you look at her experience, of course she would believe that.
• Feminine Women Can Cook: She's very traditionally feminine and a fantastic chef, which is part of her Lady-In-Waiting duties.
• Friend to All Living Things: She certainly leans towards the creepy kind of beasties, enjoying capturing spiders and millipedes, even a snake once. Oberyn actually calls her a budding naturalist.
• Good with Numbers: Very, since her father and grandfather were rather successful merchants. Which is why she is tasked with proving that Tywin stole from Guild's Winter Fund.
• Going Native: When people remark on her strong blood relation to the Lannisters, she reminds them she was raised by wolves and as such, she hunts with them.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: She's fiercely devoted to her loved ones. The Martell party grow to consider her this too, after mistrusting her for her Lannister blood.
• Harmful to Minors: She had to prepare her murdered sister's battered and beaten corpse for the funeral since their parents were dead and too low-ranking to have a Silent Sister to do so.
• Hate at First Sight: Instantly disliked Catelyn the moment they first met, much to Catelyn's distress.
• Healthcare Motivation: Gwyn would frequently make and sell moon tea to brothels and do all sorts of favors to earn some gold. Which she sent South to Sandor Clegane so he could afford skin grafts for his face.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: She would frequently joke that as a Lannister, she's naturally untrustworthy/sneaky/etc.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: It showcases her status as a "good" Lannister. It also hints at her Baratheon lineage, which still runs strong in spite of ten generations of weddings with the Westerlands. It's particularly blatant when compared to the Crown Prince...
• In the Blood: She may be a poor relation, but she certainly possesses the Lannister snark and ruthlessness in spades. And don't forget her Undying Loyalty to her cause - Lord Gargalen compares her to his Western grandmother who would have disemboweled someone for her family.
• It Amused Me: She initially befriended the bastard Lyarra to get back at Catelyn, and likes to prank Robb by dropping spiders on him.
• Jerkass Has a Point: She bluntly accused Lady Catelyn to try to make her into her pet in the first months of her fostering. Cat later conceded the girl wasn't exactly wrong about her attitude.
• Kid Has a Point: Gwyn refuses to tell Oberyn the name of Elia and Aegon's killer because he can't promise to protect her from the wrath of the Lannisters. Oberyn begrudgingly admits she's right.
• Knowledge Broker: Because she's often hanging out with the servants, merchants and whores, and smallfolk gossip like fiends. She's such a master of information-gathering that Varys actually thinks her worthy enough to become his successor.
• Lady-In-Waiting: For Lyarra. Gwyn cooks and finds food for Lyarra and her party, helps make clothes for her, helps Lyarra dress and style herself and acts as Lyarra's spy and accountant.
• Meal Ticket: To Tyrion. Tywin commanded him to get her hand in marriage, agreeing to make their children Lords of Casterly Rock. This is because Tywin wants to silence/bribe Gwyn and ensures Tyrion's children will have the Lannister looks.
• My Nayme Is: Gwyn instead of Gwen.
• Nervous Wreck: She was "jumping at shadows" when she was taken to foster at Winterfell. Even now, she totally shuts down when stressing too much.
• Never Learned to Read: Until she went to Winterfell, but it's still a work in progress.
  • Downplayed, as she knew her numbers and some complicated math since her father and grandfather were merchants. Lyarra even notes Gwyn is better than her at accounting.
• Nightmare Fetishist: She's constantly looking for creepy-crawlies to keep in a jar, and she enjoys even more setting her spiders on poor Robb, who's very much an arachnophobe.
• Original Character: House Parren is already extinct in both the books and the show.
• Schemer: She's always thinking of a way to make money or find out the secrets of her enemies.
• She Knows Too Much: Cersei tries to have Amory Lorch kill Gwyn because she figured out that Cersei's children are not Robert's.
• Supreme Chef: Gwyn is a fantastic cook and can make a delicious meal despite the situation. Don't read sections about her cooking hungry.
• Textile Work Is Feminine: She helps Lyarra with her trousseau along with Sansa. She specializes in beading, crochet and spooling. She even makes Lyarra traditional Dornish clothes.
• Through His Stomach: Her cooking is delicious, so much that Robb forgives her throwing spiders at him when she brings sweet pastries, Tywin and Tyrion remember her through her cream buns and the Hound will do any commission for her because she feeds him baked chicken.
• Troll: She originally became friends with Lyarra to spite Catelyn Stark, throws spiders at Robb to wake him up, sings a ballad about a Baratheon-Lannister romance in front of Cersei... That gal just won't stop!
• Undying Loyalty: Will do anything and everything to protect Lyarra and her new family, whether it's spying or leading Amory Lorch away from them even though the man is trying to kill her.
• White Sheep: She's one of the few genuinely good Lannisters, although the Lannister aspect of her heritage makes Oberyn wary of her.
• Worthy Opponent: Varys admires her cleverness and resourcefulness, going so far as to consider her a potential successor to replace him as Master of Whispers.

Domeric Bolton

• Animal Motif: Horses, due to his Ryswell heritage.
• Blade Enthusiast: An expert when throwing knives, and managed to hide a dozen of them under his plate armor.
• Due to the Dead: After winning the tournament, he refuses to crown any lady present as Queen of Love and Beauty, laying the flower wreath on the late Myrcella's seat instead. It was partially motivated by pragmatism, but everyone was nonetheless moved.
• Elegant Classical Musician: He's a fantastic harp player who uses it to make his betrothed swoon.
• Family Honor: Wants to bring glory to his house and clean the tainted honor caused by his half-brother and father's actions. He succeeds when he wins a tourney and earns a betrothal with Sansa.
• Guile Hero: All the pragmatism of dear ol' dad, none of the sadism.
  • For example, the Serenade Your Lover ploy not only has Sansa fall deeper for him, but wins him an ally in Lady Catelyn for acting like the Southron knights of Catelyn's childhood songs.
• I Can't Believe a Guy Like You Would Notice Me: He has a crush on Sansa but doesn't believe it would go anywhere due to the justified distrust of his house and the rumors that Sansa is going to marry South, completely unaware that Ned and Lyarra are Shipper On Decks for Domeric/Sansa and Sansa is giddy at the thought of being betrothed to him.
• Icy Blue Eyes: So icy they look white — which creep out everyone else (save for Sansa), by the way.
• Knight in Shining Armor: He may have been born in the North, but he embodies more of the chivalry and bravery associated with the position than many killers-for-hire in the South.
• Nephewism: He's extremely close with his aunt Barbrey Dustin.
• Nice Guy: While he may be a Bolton, he's polite, well-spoken, and very chivalrous. This was actually the biggest part of his appeal to Ned and Lyarra, who were looking for a husband for Sansa that would both benefit the Starks' standing in the North and have a happy marriage with her.
• Not So Above It All: The prospect of winning forty thousand gold dragons is enough for him to enroll into the lists, despite being of the North and thus shunning tourneys on principle.
• Only in It for the Money: Domeric only enters the tourney for the massive prize for the winning jouster.
• Perfectly Arranged Marriage: With Sansa Stark.
• Real Men Wear Pink: And play the harp.
• Redeeming Replacement: He's perfectly aware his father screwed up by ruling by fear and is bent on being more liked, or not actively hated at the least.
• Shared Family Quirks: Despite him being nicer, Domeric can be as creepy and ruthless as his father.
• Serenade Your Lover: To endear himself to Sansa. He plays the harp and she sings.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Ramsay Snow died from The Plague so Domeric avoided a nasty case of fratricide.
• Take a Third Option: Since he's the tourney's victor, he has to pick a lady to crown as Queen of Love and Beauty. Choosing a Southron lady will not look good to the North's eyes, and choosing a lady affiliated to the Starks would seem greedy — as the Boltons coveted the Starks' power for a long time. So he lays the flower crown on Princess Myrcella's seat instead.
• Token Good Teammate: He's a nice Bolton.
• What Beautiful Eyes!: Sansa adores his light eyes. She's the only one that does.

Septa Mordane

• Adaptational Villainy: While she was bigoted in canon, this one is also a spy for the Faith of Seven.
• Belief Makes You Stupid: She stubbornly refuses to give credit to Ned and Lyarra's reports about the tongues incident because the Baratheon bloodline was anointed by the High Septon and as such, no member would ever behave this way (well, Joffrey isn't really a Baratheon so...).
• Hoist by Her Own Petard: Now that Lyarra - the sinful product of lust - is Marked, Mordane cannot criticize her because it would be insulting the Gods through one of their Chosen ones.
• Kick the Dog: Frequently did this to Lyarra, saying that the Gods would make her barren for her bastardy and claiming that Lyarra would seduce any of the impressionable Sansa's suitors or husband.
• Malicious Slander: Mordane would frequently start and spread rumors against Lyarra and Gwyn. She claimed that Gwyn was molested at the Rock which is why the North pitied her and took her in. This was not only wrong, but incredibly offensive.
• The Mole: Spied on the North for the Faith. Lady Stark wasn't happy when she discovered her extracurricular activities.
• Nun Too Holy: For a woman of the cloth, she's blatantly intolerant on the subject of bastardy, and actively betrays her employers by spying on them.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: When defending her actions to Catelyn, Mordane alludes to the "tongues" incident and claims Lyarra is lying about it to Sansa to keep her sister from an advantageous marriage, stating that the Baratheon bloodline was anointed by the High Septon and thus no member would ever commit such a horrifying act. She is correct that a member of the Baratheon bloodline is unlikely to act the way Lyarra and Ned claim Joffrey did. However, this isn't because of any sort of lying on their parts, but rather because Joffrey is not Robert Baratheon's trueborn son; he's actually Jaime Lannister's incestuous bastard.
• Toxic Friend Influence: She's a negative influence on Sansa, preferring the girl to remain ignorant, Southron and bigoted rather than grow without her.
• Would Hurt a Child: She broke Rickon's wrist when he found her reading Sansa's mail and tried to stop her.

Smalljon Umber

• Ambiguously Human: His expression when he affirms his family is loyal to the Starks and the Starks only reminded Robb some rumors about giant blood mixing with the Umbers.
• Arranged Marriage:
  • His father and Ned Stark intended to make him Lyarra's husband, only for the Gods to ruin the project.
  • Heading towards the perfectly arranged version with Roslin Frey.
• Beware the Nice Ones: If you manage to well and truly awake his wrath... Just run. Or pray.
• The Berserker: A facet of him which petrifies Robb.
• Bruiser with a Soft Center: Is built like a brickhouse and a fierce berserker. But also adores children to the point of unashamedly crying after seeing innocent children slain.
• Dogged Nice Guy: Ned was about to grant him Lyarra's hand, only for the Mark to sink his hopes. What we get to see of him indicates he would have been a good husband to her.
• Drowning My Sorrows: After meeting Lyarra, he got horrendously drunk to cope with the fact he lost such a bride to the Gods' design.
• Everyone Has Standards: He's absolutely appalled when hearing about Robert's inappropriate lust for the Marked Lyarra, and Robb muses the King might find someone his height to answer for his behaviour.
• Friend to All Children: Enjoyed letting toddler Rickon ride on his shoulders and was reduced to tears by the sight of children's corpses.
• Gentle Giant: A very sensitive soul under his hulking build. Well, until he's pissed off.
• Inelegant Blubbering: The first time, it's Played for Laughs since he's attending the wedding of his would-be bride to another dude. It's not so funny when he's busy gathering children's corpses for a mass funeral.
• Meal Ticket: Roslin Frey came North to find a nice husband who would protect her and love their children. When she saw the Smalljon also had a nice Lordship to inherit, she decided he would do and immediately laid siege to his resistance. He quickly surrended.
• Undying Loyalty: He claims the only Kings the North ever had were Starks, everything else is lip service.

Alys Kastark

• Abhorrent Admirer: Robb is so put off at her having him spied on that he vows that he will never have anything to do with her.
• Hoist by Her Own Petard: The sequel reveals that she was actually one of the options Ned was going to offer to Robb. Meaning that, even if Robb hadn't fallen for Aislinn, she already did her own chances in at becoming Lady of Winterfell.
• Hopeless Suitor: She wants Robb and to be Lady of Winterfell, but Robb wants nothing of her.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: With the third Karstark brother, Torrhen, whom Robb actually likes while he despises Alys.
• Stalker with a Crush: She had one of her maids spy on Robb and report his conversations to her. This backfires when Gwyn catches the maid and reports it to Robb.

Keavan Forrester

• Bigotry Exception: Hates all Ironborn for raiding, raping and killing his people, except Theon.
• A Friend in Need: When Theon is slated to be executed for the Ironborn raids, he immediately suggests to disguise a corpse as Theon and comes up with the idea for Theon to escape to Dorne.
• Inelegant Blubbering: Cried over the slaughtered villagers, many of whom he knew and grew up with.
• Jumped at the Call: Keavan didn't have anything to actually do at home so he jumps at the chance to go on a tour of the North with Robb and Theon.
• My Nayme Is: Keavan instead of Kevin.
• My Sister Is Off-Limits: Considering that Aislinn raised him, he really dreads the idea of her eventually leaving when she gets married. He knows it's inevitable but he still dreads it.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted. He's got the same name as Tywin Lannister's brother.

Aislinn Stark née Forrester

• Achievements in Ignorance: Accidentally succeeds in winning Robb's love and a place as future Lady of Winterfell with her friendly, unaggressive and completely unintentional approach.
• Action Girl: Is a skilled archer and is equal to Theon.
• A Friend in Need: Helps Theon escape the North by giving him supplies and a horse, taking the fall when the supposed horse sell gets her in trouble with her father so her brother wouldn't be in trouble.
• Dark Horse Victory: She didn't bother attempting to seduce Robb because her House was too minor for the Heir to Winterfell. But that was only a small thing for him, who mainly cared that she was Northern and a Nice Gal.
• Freudian Excuse: Dislikes the Faith of the Seven because her Southron mother left their father over religious disputes. Their mother then joined a convent and attempted to pressure Aislinn into joining, saying that Aislinn would go to the Seven Hells.
• I Can't Believe a Guy Like You Would Notice Me: She had a crush on Robb and truly fell for him once she got to know him. She didn't believe a girl from a minor house like her would have a chance, considering her more wealthier competition, but Robb became initially attracted to her because she wasn't aggressive like the rest of his suitors.
• Missing Mom: She joined a convent after leaving her father over religious incompatibility, and later threatened her daughter with hell if she refused to convert. Needless to say, Aislinn doesn't like talking about her.
• Original Character: Doesn’t exist in canon.
• Promotion to Parent: After their mother left, Aislinn had to take care of running the household and mature faster. Deconstructed as Aislinn frequently clashes with her father, who doesn't appreciate his daughter bossing him around despite her being lady of the house by default.
• Shotgun Wedding: She allows Robb and herself to be caught after sex so they can get married as quickly as possible.
• Silk Hiding Steel: Is a traditional Northern lady. Which means she doesn't take anything lying down.
• Spirited Young Lady: She's a dutiful traditional Northern lady - which means she's running the Forrester household and frequently stands her ground against her father. She's a skilled enough archer that she can hold her ground against Theon.
• The Unishment: Her father punishes Aislinn for overstepping his authority with her assertiveness with the selling of a horse by sending her to Winterfell so Lady Stark can straighten her out. Which means she has an excuse to spend time with Robb.

Dorne

The Martells

Doran Nymeros Martell, Prince of Dorne

• Big Good: Responsible for ending The Plague as a threat in Westeros and Essos, which made him the most beloved man in the known world.
• Cool Big Bro:
  • Oberyn fondly remembers his freshly named-a-squire brother taking the time to sit down and helping him with his math homework.
  • Lyarra quickly grows fond of Doran as well when she finally arrives at Dorne, mostly due to his near-endless patience with her while she adjusts to the Dornish court.
• Fatal Flaw: Aloofness. For all his wisdom and love for his family, Doran can be very reserved at times, and while it's good for politics and court, it works to his detriment when it comes to his personal relationships. His inability to make concessions for Mellario is what led to their estrangement, and his refusal to allow Arianne into his plans for treason and not telling her why led to her death when she became paranoid about her birthright possibly being usurped by Quentyn and tried to elope with "Willas Tyrell", only for it to be a trap by Gerold Dayne. Doran seems to be aware of this, which is why he's involving himself a lot more in Quentyn's education.
• The First Cut Is the Deepest: After his debacle of a marriage, he didn't care for asking an annulment because it would have meant going back to the Arranged Marriage market. Then his wife and daughter died during The Plague, and Doran swore off marriage permanently.
• Genius Cripple: He quickly understood spreading illness among his healthy flocks then shipping the diseased beasts away was the perfect way to end The Plague.
• Good Is Not Nice: He's hinted to have fudged the cure's delivery to the Iron Islands, seeing it as a way to nicely and permanently destroy the Ironborn raiders. This eventually confirmed in the sequel, when Theon arrives to Sunspear.
• Heroic RRoD: The Plague not only threatened his Kingdom, it affected him on a personal level. His estranged yet still loved wife died from it, his daughter died from it and he wasn't there, and one of his nieces worked so hard helping the sick that she got sick and perished. When his younger brother found himself bedridden, Doran outright broke and begged Oberyn to not leave him.
• Love Cannot Overcome: His wife Mellario couldn't get used to the Dornish court, and Doran couldn't be bothered with making concessions.
• Obfuscating Disability: He's actually not confined to his wheelchair, being able to walk with a cane, but lets everyone believe he's more weakened by his gout.
• Outliving One's Offspring: His firstborn and heir Arianne died from The Plague.
• Please, Don't Leave Me: When he believed Oberyn was about to die from overexhaustion, following Doran's daughter Arianne, Oberyn's paramour Ellaria and his daughter Tyene into the grave.
• Secret Secret-Keeper: His gifting of Targaryen-colored clothes to his goodsister strongly hints he guessed Lyarra's true parentage but sits on this as an ace in the hole.
• So Proud of You: After his son Quentyn came back from Essos without Daenerys Targaryen and explained why, he happily told his son he finally became a Prince worthy to ascend the Sunchair.
• Wild Take: His reaction when Oberyn showed him the proof that no, he being Marked wasn't some attempt at a bad joke.
• The Wise Prince

Oberyn Nymeros Martell

• All Men Are Perverts: A huge part of the Red Viper's infamy comes from his prodigious sexual appetite. It helped him to accept his fated match - because rebelling would mean forced chastity, and he saw that as a Fate Worse than Death.
• Amazon Chaser: Considers his new bride's martial prowess as a major charm point.
• Animal Motif: A snake, of course. The narration calls his black eyes "reptilian", his smile "fanged" and reminds the reader that even if a viper looks pretty, it's very much deadly.
• Anti-Hero: Oberyn isn't so much a bad guy than extremely Hot-Blooded and occasionally self-centered to the point of casual cruelty or insensitivity.
• Do Wrong, Right: When Arya complains about Nymeria having to stay in the kennels after she found "the nasty sod" (Amory Lorch), Oberyn tells her that, if she is going to curse, at least use harsher words.
• Everyone Has Standards: Firmly disassociates Lyarra from his father and aunt - she wasn't even born so not responsible for the Rebellion - and waits for her to give consent before bedding her. He also horrifies himself when he almost struck Gwyn because she wouldn't name his sister, nephew and niece's killers.
• Fatal Flaw: His impulsiveness. Twice does his impulsiveness nearly doom himself and Lyarra. He enters the Melee despite everyone's warnings to get at Amory Loch which forces everyone (including Robert, Ned, the Northern host, the Dornish host and even Renly) to enter to protect his stupid ass. He's lured into a trap away from the Royal Keep so Cersei's assassins can Divide and Conquer and ambush him and Lyarra and her household in separate places.
• Friend to All Children: Raising eight daughters gave him experience for dealing with kids.
• Good Parents: He obviously adores all of his daughters, and is stunned by Lyarra's confession about her total ignorance of her mother's name. He always let his kids know where they came from.
• Heir Club for Men: After siring eight daughters, he firmly believes he's unable to have a son. The Targaryen loyalists frantically pray the Gods to prove him wrong, since he's married to their last hope for the dynasty's restoration.
• Heir-In-Law: Lyarra would be the logical choice for a Targaryen restoration, as the Silver Prince's last surviving child... if only she wasn't a daughter. As Westeros would never accept a ruling queen, Oberyn stands to become King or at the least regent for his future son. Considering that Oberyn hates the idea of being the ruling Prince of Dorne, let alone King of the Seven Kingdoms, it's possible that Lyarra will end up ruling anyway with him as a willing Puppet King.
• His Heart Will Go On: His marriage with Lyarra has all the markings of being happy, even if he will never forget Ellaria Sand.
• Hot-Blooded: Extremely passionate. This has its good and bad points.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: A hot-blooded warrior obsessed by revenge, and a great family man.
• The Medic: He retained useful skills from his uncompleted training at the Citadel. He personally helped his subjects when they fell down with the grey plague, and helped his paramour to deliver his four youngest daughters.
• My God, What Have I Done?: He's often impulsive, so the consequences of his actions tend to go and bite him back.
  • Following Ellaria and Tyene's demise, he almost killed himself from exhaustion by tending to the sick. It took his brother crying at his bedside for Oberyn to realize he almost added his death to his family's pains.
  • He almost became violent towards thirteen-year-old Gwyn when she refused to name his sister and nephews' murderers. He immediately regretted it when she cowered in front of his anger.
  • Lyarra slapped him for recklessly entering the tourney's melee, which could have endangered her unborn child's life via rebound of his injuries through their mental bond. He admits he deserved the hit.
  • It finally sinks in when Lyarra and her household get ambushed while he followed a lead on Amory Lorch. Gwyn got stabbed in the thigh and lost near-fatal amounts of blood while Lyarra and Walda barely got out unscathed. Subsequently, when he finally learns about Gregor Clegane, he decides to take a page out of his brother's book and wait and plan for this target.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: With Ned. Oberyn thinks Ned is a stuck-up and a bore, while Ned sees him as reckless and impulsive, not to mention his trolling tendencies. That being said, they do respect each other and eventually come to an understanding. Ned actually prefers Oberyn over Robert as far as suitors/spouses for Lyarra go, though that says less about Oberyn and more about Robert.
• Old Man Marrying a Child: He's not that old (in spite of Arya's sniping) but he's acutely aware that he's forty years old while his bride is but fourteen, and he feels uncomfortable about it.
• Really Gets Around: He restrains himself to his bride nowadays - not by choice - but he still has quite the reputation, and Lyarra is quite disgruntled when the whole Martell party gives her tips about his preferences and performances.
• Revenge Before Reason: His sister died gruesomely almost twenty years ago and her murderers still haven't been punished. He's so desperate for closure he shows himself rash about it.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Oberyn wasn't very eager to stay in the city where his sister and her children were callously murdered to begin with, but when his wife and two of her ladies-in-waiting are attacked in the middle of the Red Keep while he was chasing down a lead on Amory Lorch, he finally puts his foot down and has his entire host on the next ship to Dorne the following night.
• Silver Fox: He's reaching middle-age, but is still very handsome in a lean, pretty way.
• Spotting the Thread: The reason why he never believed Lyanna Stark has been abducted and raped? Because he was a friend to Ser Arthur Dayne and knew the Sword of the Morning would have never been complicit to such crimes. He also saw Lyanna pray at the Godswood at Harrenhal for the Gods to break her engagement to Robert.
• Stern Teacher: To Arya. While he supports Arya's education as an Action Girl, he does not excuse bad manners. He makes sure that Arya acts in a proper conduct to not shame both House Martell and House Stark. While he's tough, Arya thrives and her manners and skill improve.
• Tame His Anger: A large part of his Character Development is holding back his impulsive anger. He finally learns it when he leaves King's Landing.
  He would briefly adopt, rather than merely adhere to Doran's way: his pound of flesh would wait, accrue interest, and in time they would pay.
• Troll: He takes a nasty pleasure to dangle the fact that he wedded, bedded and impregnated Lyanna reborn in front of Robert Baratheon, knowing the King can't do anything about it due to the Marks.
• Unreliable Expositor: At least in regards to Lyanna Stark. He regarded her as a Spoiled Brat, but as Lyanna's "abduction" caused a line of Disaster Dominoes that led to Elia's death, he's obviously very biased. This is made all the more obvious when new information comes up indicating that Elia was also involved in the "abduction".
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Inverted, he describes his younger self as a right little horror who gleefully pulled lizards' tails.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Repeatedly insists on this point. Almost raising his hand against thirteen-year-old Gwyn was enough to induce a Heroic BSoD.

The Martell Children

Arianne Nymeros Martell

• And Now You Must Marry Me: She ran away with her conspirator, hoping that he would transport her to Willas Tyrell. He instead kidnapped her, married her against her will, and raped her in the hopes of becoming Prince of Dorne. She ended up catching the Plague and dying.
• Cool Big Sis: Once upon a time, she was one to Quentyn, until she became paranoid about him possibly usurping her status as Heir to the Sunchair.
• Dating What Daddy Hates: Sought to marry Willas Tyrell, the heir of their enemy house, to spite her father. It ended badly for her.
• Driven by Envy: She grew very resentful of her brother Quentyn when she realized that he was being raised as heir despite her being the firstborn.
• Fatal Flaw: Immaturity. Doran cited this as the main reason why he had yet to bring Arianne into his plans for treason against the crown. While Oberyn notes that if Doran had brought her into the plan earlier, she might still be alive today, he also notes that the situation that led to her death proved Doran right.
• Heir Club for Men: Arianne feared that her father was defying Dornish tradition and making her younger brother heir despite her being his firstborn. In truth, her brother was being trained as heir as Doran planned to make her a Queen.
• Improperly Paranoid: Feared that her brother was going to be picked as heir over her and that fear drove her to make some pretty impulsive, and deadly, decisions.
• Posthumous Character: Her family sometimes reflects on her demise and their relationships with her.
• Rebellious Princess: It wound up very badly for her.
• Taken for Granite: The Plague turned her body into her own funerary statue.

Quentyn Nymeros Martell

• All for Nothing: His quest for Daenerys in Essos. After meeting her, he concluded she would never be a good ruler for Westeros and left her with her Dothraki husband.
• Arranged Marriage: To a lady Wyl, in order to promote peace within Dorne.
• The Dutiful Son: So much that failing to bring Daenerys back to Westeros cause him not a small amount of angst, but Doran is actually happy to see him breaking out of this mindset.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Cletus Yronwood, who implicitly considers him a brother in everything but blood.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Very anxious about the prospective of failing his father, enough so he's feeling ashamed to come back to Dorne without Daenerys. Then Doran turns it around to congratulate him for showing he truly had the makings of a Prince, by making a rational decision and sticking to it.
• We Used to Be Friends: Arianne was a Cool Big Sis once upon a time, and he loved her in turn. Then she became paranoid about him usurping her position as heir to Dorne and they drifted apart. Quentyn still feels quite bitter over it.

Trystane Nymeros Martell

• Missing Mom: Lady Mellario left Dorne while he barely was a toddler, so he has no memories about her.
• Satellite Character: He doesn't contribute much to the plot, he's just there.
• Shrinking Violet: He really drowns among his very colourful and lively relatives.

The Sand Snakes

• Arranged Marriage: The Tyrells seek to gain the Martells' goodwill by breaking a betrothal between their Heir Willas and one of the girls. Word of God revealed the bride is going to be Sarella.
• Cuddle Bug: Nymeria very much likes hugging someone when abed.
• Death by Adaptation: Tyene overextended herself tending to the Plague's victims, catching a fever and dying from it.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: The four youngest are naturally hostile to Lyarra for "replacing" their mother. When they learn of her pregnancy, they decide their stepmother can't be so bad since she's gonna give them a new baby sister.
• Dramatically Missing the Point: Oberyn meant the whole "pick tears or the spear" speech to Obara to get her pick what parent she wanted to be with. He didn't mean for Obara to never cry as she was trying hold back her mourning of the late Tyene.
• I Hate Past Me: Downplayed, but they're quite ashamed from their previous accusations of laziness and cowardice towards Doran — the Plague forced him to rely more on his extended family, and they had to see just how much work is required from the Prince of Dorne.
• It's All My Fault: Nymeria was supposed to watch over Tyene to ensure her sister wouldn't exhaust herself too much by helping with the plague's victims. She didn't took her sister's demise very well as a consequence.
• Massive Numbered Siblings: Eight of them before Tyene's death.
• Single Sex Offspring: They naturally assume Lyarra's baby will be yet another girl, since everyone knows Oberyn Martelle throws back daughters only. According Word of God, they are in for quite the surprise...
• Troll: Nymeria answered to Cletus Yronwood's clumsy attempts to flirt by tying him to the bed before having sex with the Fowler twins in front of him.

Other Martells

Princess Elia Nymeros Martell

• Ambiguous Situation: It's unclear how much or why she was involved in Lyanna's "kidnapping", reader speculation ranging from wanting to leave Rhaegar to being in love with Lyanna herself (Elia was Dornish, after all). But make no mistake, she was involved — the fact that she and Lewyn had Lyanna's torc in their possession, despite being nowhere near Rhaegar nor Riverrun at the time of her "kidnapping", all but confirms it.
• Delicate and Sickly: Elia was very frail and birthing Aegon nearly killed her. Monford speculates that her inability to handle a third pregnancy is one of the main reasons why Rhaegar ran off with Lyanna.
• The Gadfly: She decorated Oberyn's bedroom in the Water Gardens in such a way that it was guaranteed he would hate it. He out-trolled her by pretending he loved it.
• Hidden Depths: Apparently, she was more involved in her husband's affair with a certain she-wolf than her family originally thought.
• The Lost Lenore: To her brothers, avenging Elia is still a high priority.
• Nice Gal: She is fondly remembered by her friends and family as very kind.
• Present Absence: Much like Lyanna Stark, Elia is still very much present in her family's lives despite having been dead since the end of Robert's Rebellion. She and her children are viewed as tragic victims of a line of Disaster Dominoes caused by her unfaithful husband and his paramour, and Robert's refusal to punish Tywin and the Mountain for their deaths are the main reasons why Dorne refuses to support his reign like the other kingdoms do. Oberyn himself has never gotten over Elia's death, and he's so desperate for closure that he acts rashly whenever the chance for revenge is seemingly within his grasp. This presence increases even more when more information is revealed about the circumstances of Elia's death in the sequel — including the very real possibility that she wasn't as innocent in regards to Lyanna's "abduction" as initially believed.

Prince Lewyn Martell

• Papa Wolf: After realizing that Robert's Rebellion would most likely be successful, his first priority was to send his niece and her children away from King's Landing. He failed.

Bannermen and retainers

Lord Tremond Gargalen

• Cool Uncle: To Doran and Oberyn on the paternal side.
• Cool Old Guy: Dude laughed a hot potato in his face that some irate kid aimed at his nephew off.
• Friend to All Children: He was amused by Rickon's accidental attack against him, enjoys Arya's spirited attitude and disapproves Oberyn pushing Gwyn around for revenge.
• Outliving One's Offspring: He lost his four daughters in a fire long ago, which left him with a tendence to dote on little girls.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Since Doran wasn't present at Winterfell to cool Oberyn's temper, Lord Gargalen assumed his role for this dynamic.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Non-verbal example; he's seriously pissed off when Oberyn confesses losing his temper with Gwyn.

Ellaria Sand

• First Love: Oberyn's first and longest romantic relationship. Her death suitably impacts him.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Right before her death, she worried about Oberyn closing off his heart to anyone else. Thus, she promised the Ullers she would find a way to tell them she was alright. They interpreted the Mark as her giving Oberyn her blessing to move on.
• The Lost Lenore: To her paramour and Uller House.
• Missing Mom: To four of the Sand Snakes, who naturally resent her "replacement" Lyarra.
• Nice Gal: On her deathbed, she fretted about Oberyn and asked her family to watch over him.
• Posthumous Character: Due to The Plague.
• Take Care of the Kids: Her last request for her family was to support her paramour and daughters.

Ser Damon Sand

• Amicable Exes: He had a fling with Oberyn some time ago and they are quite friendly in each other's company.
• Butt-Monkey: He's either unlucky in love or looks like a wimp to his Northern counterparts.
• Heroic Bastard: Referred as the Bastard of Godsgrace.
• Knight in Shining Armor: Affiliated with the heroic Martells, and very much a Nice Guy (even if he's teasing).
• Straight Gay: A former lover of Oberyn. He attempts to seduce Mikken the blacksmith but has no chance.

Ulwyck Uller

• Alliterative Name: Ulwyck Uller.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: Common sense has an unfortunate tendency to not be strong with the Uller bloodline.
• Cool Uncle: Was one to Ellaria.
• Heartbroken Badass: To him, Oberyn's Mark is Ellaria's will, signifying it's okay to move on and love another woman. Ensuring Oberyn's happiness is the only way he can cope with his niece's death - because she gave it her blessing, so it will make her happy, right?
• Obnoxious In-Laws: How Oberyn views him, in spite of not having been formerly married to Ellaria. Ulwyck doesn't seek to willingly annoy or irritate him, he just has his heredity against him - being a Uller means being half-crazy or worse.
• Shipper on Deck: He's surprisingly okay with his niece's former paramour marrying a Marked girl - because he thinks this is said niece's will.

Septa Mercy

• Fingore: Four of her fingers were broken, and two healed crooked.
• Meaningful Rename: A septa can leave her former name behind after taking her vows.
• Redeeming Replacement: Lyarra is pleasantly surprised to meet her after her nasty past with Septa Mordane.
• Silk Hiding Steel: Lyarra can feel an unbending core behind her gentleness. She also managed to make the youngest Sand Snakes like her so much they forgot any idea to run her away.
• That Man Is Dead: The only thing she agrees to reveal about her past is that she's no longer that person.

The Riverlands

The Tullys

Hoster Tully, Lord Paramount

• Control Freak: For all his love towards his children and grandchildren, he tends to decide some things for them because that's what he wants for them.
• Doting Grandparent: Genuinely happy to have Arya and Bran under his roof, and the prospect of meeting Robb made him ecstatic.
• Helicopter Parents: A justified example. He's been trying to get Edmure to settle down for years, but that's because his own health is failing and he knows he isn't long for this world. His death means Edmure will succeed him as Lord Paramount of the Riverlands, and getting married and having children will not just secure the Tullys for at least a generation (barring some unfortunate circumstance), but also partially prepare him for his eventual responsibilities.
• I Did What I Had to Do: How he justified tricking Lysa into aborting, thinking she would have never been happy at the Fingers with Baelish.
• Idiot Ball: Walda openly criticizes his use of moon tea, pointing it actually damages a woman's body when too along in the pregnancy. And Lysa certainly had fertility issues...
• I Want Grandkids: He unrelentingly pestered Edmure about his refusal to marry, asking his goodson Ned to help him find a suitable wife for his son. One of the reasons he allowed Edmure to marry Lyra (despite the grumblings of his bannermen) is because she was the only one of the women he threw at his son that got him to think about marriage at all.
• Kick the Dog: What half of the Seven Kingdoms think of him forcefully aborting Lysa's unborn baby. Even Lysa's own husband was appalled when he found out, and even admitted he would've been fine with Lysa having a bastard child.
• The Matchmaker: His favorite way to ensure his family's power. He mainly breaks potential grooms into terms of wealth and influence, dismissing "unworthy" prospects and heavily laying on his relatives to make them play along. The sole exception was Edmure — mainly because Hoster has already thrown almost every marriageable maid in the Riverlands at his son only for him to refuse to marry any of them. By the time Ned visited Riverrun, Hoster was just about willing to accept any woman suggested to him for Edmure as long as they were of noble stock, had a decent dowry, and most of all, convinced Edmure to marry them.
• The Mentor: When Sansa asks for political guidance, he has no problems sending her advice.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: He is this to Ned, who has no patience for his plotting and matchmaking.
• Parents as People: Much like Rickard Stark, Hoster honestly does love his children but is also an ambitious and busy Lord Paramount. This made him a poor parent for Lysa, who was childish and free-spirited and thus needed a far firmer hand that he failed to provide. The only reason Catelyn didn't turn out as bad as her sister because she served as Hoster's heir for over a decade while they were waiting for Edmure to be born and had duty drilled into her since birth.
• Upper-Class Twit: His smallfolk don't like him for refusing to leave his castle and inoculating the highborns first instead of inoculating everyone at once. He also believes Petyr Baelish ought to have been content with the scraps of good treatment he deigned to give him.

Edmure Tully

• Amazon Chaser: Who would have thought Lyra Mormont was his type?
• Extreme Doormat: He's a bit too much of a Nice Guy. Which is not a good thing for a Lord Paramount.
• Hidden Depths: Ned tried to freak him by introducing him to a Mormont woman, thinking she would be too much for such a wimp. Edmure took everyone by surprise by falling head over heels and marrying the she-bear.
• Innocently Insensitive: Makes a comment on Lyarra's Immodest Orgasm, which she didn't know about. Which not only deeply hurt her feelings but offended both House Stark and House Martell. Hoster had him immediately sent away so he wouldn't offend them further.
• Unwanted Harem: Much like his nephew Robb, as Hoster's heir he's the most eligible bachelor in the Riverlands. Hoster's been throwing women at him for years, but Edmure was completely uninterested in marriage. By the time Ned visited Riverrun with Lyarra, he was desperate enough to accept any noblewomen his son-in-law suggested, as long as they finally convinced Edmure to marry them.
• You Are in Command Now: With Hoster being sick and his reputation dragged into the mud, he relies more and more on Edmure to pacify the Riverlands.

Ser Brynden "Blackfish" Tully

• Cool Uncle: To Catelyn and the trueborn Stark kids.
• Greater-Scope Paragon: Doran Martell may have spread the inoculation through Planetos, but Brynden was the one who first confirmed the cure worked.
• Irony: Hoster spat on everything his House motto meant by forcing an abortion on his youngest daughter, while his Black Sheep of a brother ultimately honored their words by finding a cure for the Greyplague.
• Nephewism: He accepts his grandnephew Bran as his squire.
• Papa Wolf: If a price has to be exacted for the cure to the plague, then he's gonna be the one to pay it and his great-nephew is going to stay safe from all this, understood?
• Red Baron: The Blackfish. Rickon and Bran soon mangle the appelation into the affectionate "Uncle Blackfish", which he likes very much.
• Skeptic No Longer: After seeing the goatherd was right about having the cure to The Plague, Blackfish doesn't discount anything. So when his nephew starts getting visions, he immediately starts looking into Northern legends.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: He and Hoster are constantly sniping at each other. Catelyn is even surprised they are in talking terms, that's how vitriolic it was.

The Freys

Stevron Frey

• Know When to Fold Them: Intelligent enough to see that the Martell-Stark party is going to unravel the weirwood plot, so he goes to them first in order to negotiate.
• Outliving One's Offspring: Lost his son Ryman to The Plague, and his eldest grandson later dies from his participation in the weirwood contraband.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: He knows his House is going to be punished for contraband. He accepts it and only insists for not everyone getting the axe.
• The Starscream: A very sympathetic version, since his lord father is a jerk and many of his male relatives are grade-A jackasses.
• You Are in Command Now: Following the Twins' debacle, Lord Walder Frey is stripped of his authority and locked away, making Stevron the authority in House Frey.

Lady Walda Frey

• Action Survivor: No combat training whatsoever, yet manages to hold her own quite well when thrown in the thick end of battle.
• Action Girl: Graduates into one when Ser Barristan gifts her a mace for defending Gwyn and Lyarra.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Walda willingly risks her life to take on Amory Lorch to protect Gwyn and Lyarra because they were the first people to give her kindness and respect, along with giving her a better future away from the Twins.
• Big Beautiful Woman: She's actually easy on the eyes when she washes up and has access to make herself better clothes.
• Big Fun: Unrelentingly cheerful and peppy. Not only it helped her survive the Twins, it helped Lyarra to take a fancy to her.
• Carry a Big Stick: When violence is afoot, Walda immediately picks up something heavy to bludgeon the opponent. She uses a Frying Pan of Doom for the dinner party at the Twins, but later upgrades to a full mace when rescuing Lyarra and Gwyn from Amory Lorch.
• Chatty Hairdresser: She does Lyarra's hair once she's added to Lyarra's household, and she's got the chattering alright.
• Cute, but Cacophonic: She's afflicted with a shrilly voice.
• Embarrassing Nickname: "Fat" Walda. Lyarra finds it especially cruel.
• Girly Bruiser: She can carry a mace as one would carry a bouquet on her belt and is very good at using it.
• Gold Digger: She genuinely likes Ser Morton Wyl but she's not blind to the fact he's set to inherit one of Dorne's most wealthy castle and lands.
• Glurge Addict: Lyarra and Gwyn muse she must never meet Sansa, because they would become best friends on the spot.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Mention is made of her lemon-colored hair.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: Oberyn notes they are quite wide, and a "blue steel" shade.
• Karmic Jackpot: She stuck to her morals and rose against her own family. She is now best friends and a Lady-In-Waiting to a Princess of Dorne who's taking her away from her terrible family.
• Lady-In-Waiting: Become Lyarra's second one after Gwyn.
• Nice Gal: Word of God would like to remind everyone she canonically endeared herself to Roose Bolton.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: She genuinely is jolly and bubbly, but tends to heavily exaggerate this when she's amongst people hostile to her - such as her own family and the royal court.
• Pink Is Feminine: She's introduced wearing a pink dress, fitting for her sweet disposition. Gwyn later teases her about liking Domeric Bolton because his family colours include pink, hinting she really likes the colour.
• The Pollyanna: Walda remains cheerful despite her terrible life in the Twins and the horrible things her relatives said to her face.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: While she lived at the Twins, she had ill-fitting dresses (because they were beyond secondhand) and limp hair. With the opportunity to wash a bit and put more flattering clothes, Walda is revealed as a Big Beautiful Woman.
• The Social Expert: It's mentioned she had to be in order to survive the Twins, and it shows. She flawlessly passes as more vapid and dumb than she actually is, and tailors a seduction strategy for Ser Morton Wyl which quickly reduces him to a quivering, aroused mess.
• Stout Strength: When she hits people, they tend to stay down. Mention is made of her Crakehall lineage - this family is known for being heavily built, with the physical might to go with it.
• Textile Work Is Feminine: Lyarra notices that Walda sown herself a well-made dress despite the poor materials she was forced to work with. Walda is shown to be a gifted seamstress once she has access to better materials.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: Oberyn makes sure that her family coughs up a nice dowry for her and gives her an allowance suiting a Lady-In-Waiting for a Princess of Dorne. Walda is extremely moved.
• What Does He See in Her?: Every slim, courtly-raised Dornish lady at Sunspear is befuddled to see Ser Morton Wyl falling hard for the chubby and bawdy Walda. She only realised his tastes ran more to her than the kind of woman he was surrounded by until then.
• White Sheep: She moved against her family because the scam and the attacks on their guests was wrong.

Lady Roslin Frey

• Converting for Love: If she has to follow the Old Gods to marry her Gentle Giant, well, no problem with that.
• Foil: With her relative Walda, who also ends up embroiled with the North. Walda is heavyset, blond and blue-eyed, while Roslin is thin, brown haired and eyed. Walda is cheerful, Roslin is demure. Walda makes good use of her Stout Strength while Roslin is more Silk Hiding Steel. Walda aggressively flirts with Ser Morton Wyl, Roslin subtly charms Smalljon Umber.
• Not So Similar: She and Lady Catelyn Tully are Southron ladies from the Riverlands, coming North to wed. Since Catelyn actually had a happy childhood, she still pines after Southron values while Roslin openly embraces the North.
• Silk Hiding Steel: She looks extremely demure, but laid a very effective charm siege to Smalljon and gleefully burned her shrine to the Seven when her potential goodfather asked for her to convert.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: She explicitly came North wanting a husband who would be kind, good with children and able to protect her. Smalljon Umber ticked all the cases.
• The Ugly Guy's Hot Daughter: Lord Walder Frey is described as a withered corpse. Roslin most certainly doesn't look like him.

King's Landing

The Royal Family

King Robert Baratheon, First of His Name

• Abhorrent Admirer: The whole court is aware of the fact he's lusting after Lyarra and disapproves. Not only she's barely half his age, she's a married woman and her Mark means she cannot return his obsession.
• Analogy Backfire: Compares himself to Aemon the Dragonknight when Ned calls him out on his obsession for Lyarra. Hum, Bobby B, have you looked into a mirror lately? Because you certainly look more the part of Aegon the Unworthy!
• Berserk Button:
  • The Targaryen bloodline. Even after almost two decades, mentioning them is enough for him to fly into a rage.
  • Disrespecting or trivializing a knight's journey or duties. Joffrey really goofed up this time.
• Blood Knight: He really enjoys fighting outlaws, visibly perks up at the perspective of another Ironborn rebellion and enjoys the battles he can engage in during the Vale's Civil War.
• Broken Pedestal: To the entire Stark family, who cannot reconcile the great warrior and friend from Ned's recollections with the wreck of a man the King is.
• Didn't Think This Through: Renly accuses him of having this for his Fatal Flaw. He takes decisions on a whim, and he never considers the way people might react to them.
• Disappointing Older Sibling: For Renly. Renly didn't exactly have a high opinion of him before the Plague, and that opinion only continues to go down as the story goes on.
• Domestic Abuse: He blatantly shames and slights his wife in front of the whole court. And that's even before the Marital Rape License.
• Everyone Has Standards: For all his jackass moments, he utterly disapproves of Joffrey's behaviour.
• Evil Is Petty:
  • There is no other explanation for refusing to give Viserys a burial.
  • He seriously considered ordering Lyarra to stay in the capital, until Ned called him out.
• Excessive Mourning: Ned is startled to see Robert still pines after Lyanna in spite of almost two decades separating him from her death. Even Ned himself has, for the most part, moved on, and he was much closer to Lyanna than Robert was.
• Fat Bastard: Extremely focused on his self-gratification, lusting after a girl who is very Happily Married and very much declines this honour, hinted to routinely abuse and dismiss his wife...
• Generation Xerox: Ironically, Robert mirrors Aerys, his first cousin once removed and the king he deposed: he's lusting after a married woman who is Marked to another man, and of whom they fail to see is not interested in them. Robert with Lyarra and Oberyn, and Aerys with Joanna Lannister and Tywin.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Blatantly hostile towards Oberyn Martell - who's a Southern Prince in a relationship with a beautiful Stark girl.
• Irony: He becomes an Abhorrent Admirer for Lyarra, considering her a more perfect version of Lyanna which is likely because of the Targaryen features she inherited from her father Rhaegar, the man Robert loathes with all his heart.
• Loving a Shadow: When remembering Lyanna, he only alludes to her beauty, which strongly hints he never cared for her character. To him, she's less a person and more a symbol of the happiness he could have had, as Jon Arryn explains to Ned.
  Jon Arryn: The late Lady Lyanna has become the emblem on which all of Robert's thwarted hopes for happiness lay, Ned.
• Marital Rape License: He really needs a sane heir, so he uses his rights as a husband. Cersei isn't very pleased.
• Nostalgia Filter: To him, Lyanna was the pinnacle of beauty and gentleness. He quickly grows fixated on Lyarra as a result, since several people note she's a perfected version of Lyanna.
• Parental Neglect: He tearfully confesses to Ned that he never cared about knowing Myrcella and Tommen before their deaths, and he very much regrets it.
• Revenge Before Reason: Condones the murders of Elia and her children, denies Viserys a burial and orders Varys to track down (and possibly kill) Daenerys. All of this because they happened to be related to Rhaegar.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: In spite of his weight, he personally goes to hunt outlaws.
• Selective Obliviousness: In addition to his canon stance on Lyanna and Rhaegar, he seems to think that Lyarra would gladly leave Oberyn for him if she could instead of being very obviously Happily Married.
• Self-Proclaimed Love Interest: To Lyanna, whom he actually met once and never cared about writing him. Yet he thinks they were soulmates and mourned her passing for an entire decade.
• Self-Serving Memory: Seems to think there was some great love story between him and Lyanna. Everyone else agrees that she couldn't stand him.
• Smart Ball: For once, he took his advisers' suggestions and all but ordered Amory Lorch and Gregor Clegane to stay out of King's Landing while Oberyn and the rest of the Dornish host were present. Surprisingly, Clegane complied while Lorch disobeyed, the latter due to Cersei "needing" his services.
• Unrequited Love Lasts Forever: Not that he knew it was unrequited, but the trope still applies.
• Unwanted Spouse:
  • Cersei loathes him. So much she would rather make her position as a Queen precarious than bearing him a child.
  • Even if they merely were promised to each other, Lyanna considered him this and was constantly begging for the betrothal to be broken. He's utterly unaware of this.
• Wrong-Name Outburst: At least once, he calls Lyarra "Lyanna". That does him no favors with Cersei and Ned and the rest of his court.

Queen Cersei Lannister

• Commonality Connection: She may hate the new Martell Princess, but she totally and fully empathizes with Lyarra's disgust over Robert's extremely inappropriate lust for her.
• Conspicuous Consumption:
  • Always covered in jewelry, her wardrobe consist of only the most fashionable gowns and robes (some of them from Pentos) and she buys sugar from Myr. Apparently, buying it from the Tyrells is unacceptable.
  • Deconstructed, when she is blamed for the Crown's debts.
• Convenient Miscarriage: Averted. When she loses Robert's baby, she faints from blood loss and is put on bed rest to let her womb regain health. And she actually forced it with moon tea.
• Driven by Envy: She hates that Lyarra married a good man who obviously loves and dotes on her, so much that she tried to poison her unborn baby. She was completely un-bothered that Amory Lorch could have killed Lyarra on his mission to kill Gywn, which she hired him for.
• Ermine Cape Effect: Every apparition of her is perfectly coiffed, wrapped in silk and dripping with jewelry to show she's the Queen and a Lannister. It contrasts very much with Lyarra's Simple, yet Opulent.
• Evil Is Petty: The poster girl.
• Excessive Mourning: She always keeps seats draped with black for her dead children at public events. Lyarra cannot help but note she lost these kids one year ago, and she wouldn't dare to presume herself an expert on maternal bereavement, but so long?
• Fantastic Racism: Hates the Dornish and the Northmen, casually insulting both in her narration and dialogue.
• Freak Out: After Gwyn implies she knows Cersei's children are bastards.
• God Save Us from the Queen!: The smallfolk hate her for her decadent lifestyle (she buried her children on golden litters while the populace was starving) and are ready to believe the worst of her.
• Good Girls Avoid Abortion: She's utterly awful and terminated a pregnancy because she couldn't stand bearing Robert a trueborn child.
• Hate at First Sight: Despises Lyarra from the first time she and Robert see her. Not helping that Lyarra looks like a more beautiful version of Lyanna.
• Hoist by Her Own Petard: Her abortion of Robert's child and her attempted murder of Gwyn and Lyarra backfires spectacularly. With "evidence" of her inability to carry a child and the massive scandal of the attempted murder of a beloved Princess and her household, Cersei is kicked out of King's Landing and forced into a brutal Mother House to pray for her fertility and humble her in hopes of either shaping up or finally going crazy. According to the sequel, either she quickens with a child within the year or is set aside and sent to the Mother House permanently.
• Humiliation Conga: Her second tea party attended by the new Martell Princess. Cersei is first reminded she has no great accomplishments she can boast of in front of the other ladies, then her attempt to force Lyarra to shame herself with her singing backfires when Lyarra's beautiful voice reduces everyone to tears, and finally Gwyn Parren fulfills her request for a Western song by singing about a Baratheon-Lannister romance - which contains the clue to figure out the Queen's incestuous affair - and that's the moment when Cersei utterly loses it and proves she's nothing but a wreck by pouring wine on the musician's face.
• Insane Troll Logic:
  • Some of her ideas and "deductions" are kind of... lacking.
  • Come the sequel, she's outright delusional. She's convinced herself that Tywin is the rightful king of Westeros because he's been the one actually running the Seven Kingdoms as Hand for the last two kings that sat on the Iron Throne. Therefore, since he's the rightful king, she's his heir as his firstborn and Robert is an usurper that has stolen her birthright. Thus, she has silently declared war on Robert, and plans on acting as submissive and compliant as possible so he'll get bored and drink himself to death faster. Even if this were true, that technically makes Jon Arryn and every other Hand to the King that's ruled in place of an incompetent king "the rightful king". Compounding that, the Crownlands is not Dorne — if Tywin is the rightful king then Tyrion is the rightful heir to the throne, since Westeros practices male-preferred primogeniture and Jaime is currently a Kingsguard.
• It's All About Me: Her narcissism shines through her madness. When Domeric Bolton honours her late daughter by symbolically crowning her Queen of Love and Beauty, she immediately interprets it as honouring her. After all, her daughter was a mini-her, right?
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Cersei brags about getting a first-class lady's education (i.e. singing, instrument playing) at the Rock. Gwyn asks Cersei if she could play or sing a song for them. Cersei's silence is telling.
• Lady Drunk: How she copes with her kids' death and Robert using his Marital Rape License. Her "tea party" only serves wine as a beverage, something Lyarra notes.
• Laser-Guided Karma: She constantly prevents Robert from impregnating her via moon tea. This backfires on her, as, with Joffrey unofficially disqualified from the line of succession, Robert desperately needs a new heir. Since Cersei has failed to quicken for so long, with the one successful pregnancy miscarrying, her position as Queen is officially on the ledge. At the start of the sequel, Robert and Tywin have issued her an ultimatum — either she quickens within the year or she's put aside for good.
• Locked Away in a Monastery: In the end of Bequeathed From Pale Estates, Cersei is sent to the most brutal Mother Houses in the Westerlands.
• Master Actress: One of the reasons why she does get away with her shit. At least, she's such a convincing mummer it helps to sell her deception.
• My Beloved Smother: After losing two of her kids, she became even more fiercely coddling towards Joffrey. This is not a good thing.
• Not Me This Time: She has nothing to do with the horrendous mismanagement of the Crown's treasury, as she relies on the Lannister coffers to finance her extravagant lifestyle.
• Open Secret: Everyone knows that Cersei hates Lyarra and all the assassination attempts in King's Landing are her doing. Luckily for Cersei, those who do want to prove it's her can't. Those who don't just want her to stop trying, and that's including Lyarra.
• Outliving One's Offspring: Lost her daughter and youngest son to The Plague, which helped her screws to come looser, sooner than canon.
• Pet the Dog: She showed actual sympathy for Oberyn after remembering The Plague took a daughter from him too.
• Properly Paranoid: She hates Lyarra at first sight, remembering the prophecy about "the younger, more beautiful queen" coming to destroy her. Unbeknownst to Cersei, people are already plotting to let Visenya Targaryen ascend to the Iron Throne.
• Psychopathic Womanchild: Good Gods. Lyarra is appalled when Cersei throws wine at Gwyn for playing a song she didn't like, thinking that even her toddler brother Rickon would show more maturity (and that's the kid that threw a piping hot stuffed potato at Oberyn because he was going to take Lyarra away).
• Sanity Slippage: Not that Cersei was all that sane to begin with, but losing Myrcella and Tommen have really done a number on her, and the cracks are already showing and widening.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy:
  • In regards to the part of the prophecy "Queen you shall be... until there comes another, younger and more beautiful, to cast you down and take all that you hold dear." So when she meets the beautiful Princess Lyarra who her loathed husband King Robert lusts at first sight for due to her strong resemblance to Lyanna, Cersei immediately hates her. Out of jealousy and fear, Cersei does everything to either humiliate Lyarra (i.e. the tea party) or hurt her (the attempted poisoning). Since everyone knows how she is targeting Lyarra, it makes Cersei look even more unstable. Her attempts to humiliate Lyarra unintentionally reveal Lyarra's Targaryen heritage to powerful supporters who seek to put her into power. Her attempts to hurt Lyarra move the latter's entourage to protect her. Which results in Cersei getting kicked out of King's Landing when her attempted assassination of Gwyn backfires.
  • And, of course, the prophecy says THE valonqar, not HER valonqar - Gwyn, who is a younger sibling, has all the reason and means to take Cersei down. Gwyn hates the Lannisters for marrying her sister to the Mountain and ignoring how the Mountain murdered her. Gwyn also knows that Cersei's children are bastards, as she personally knows how hard it is for Lannister genes to overcome the Baratheons'.
• Stupid Evil: She's just as bad as her son, if not worse. You can't get any dumber than deliberately aborting a pregnancy you desperately need to keep your family's hold on the throne for no other reason than the fact that you hate the father. It never occurs to her to just have the kid to secure her position and then ignore it.
• Underestimating Badassery: It's actually not so much badassery than abject idiocy, but she manages to take everyone by surprise because they just can't envision how low she's ready to sink out of pettiness. Case in point, she sent Lannister cronies to murder her own guests, under her own roof.
• Would Hurt a Child: She was responsible for arranging the murder of her husband's bastards (outright verified with two newborns and strongly hinted with two others) and tried to poison Lyarra's unborn baby in a fit of pettiness.

Prince Joffrey Baratheon

• Bastard Bastard: Seriously, he couldn't be worse if it were on purpose.
• Chocolate Baby: He's really nothing like Robert, but no one ever thought about the potential causes. Until Gwyn Parren's arrival to court.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: Lyarra muses he would be more convincing as a Princess than a Prince if only he put a frock on. It also quenches Sansa's marriage dreams about him, since she wants a man instead of a little girl.
• Embarrassing Nickname: Robb Stark calls him the "Prince of Tongues" out of disgust, and Gossip Evolution quickly ensures the moniker spread and stuck.
• Enfant Terrible: Joffrey has the potential to be worse than Aerys because of this. Aerys didn't come into his madness until adulthood, and that was after the loss of several would-be children and a truly traumatic event in the Defiance of Duskendale. Joffrey is only twelve in the first story and has always been this insane, and there's no known source of it — the most mind-scarring situation he's ever suffered is Robert's Parental Neglect.
• Inadequate Inheritor: Even his grandfather and mother can see he would be the Mad King Mk 2, Lannister Edition.
• Insane Troll Logic: Just like his mother. He thought that maiming merchants would get him Robert's approval.
• It Runs in the Family: He took his mother's mental problems and cruelty and escalated it. It also doesn't help that his biological father is his uncle Jaime, and their parents were first cousins.
• It's All About Me: Varys is actually impressed by such a degree of self-centeredness, commenting that Joffrey is unable to see other people as real.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Yup, even the horrid little monster, self-centered and idiotic that he is, can see that Lyarra Martell hates being in King's Landing and would rather attend her husband than endure the King's attentions.
• Kick the Dog: He blatantly called Walda fat to her face.
• Laser-Guided Karma: His very public atrocity ends up getting him disinherited from the crown and his attempts to invoke Screw the Rules, I Have Connections! just earns him a swift punishment and his father's disgust.
• Momma's Boy: He's a teenager yet still runs complaining to Cersei when things refuse to go his way.
• Prince Charmless: To the point that Tywin outright plans to send him to the Wall, after potentially making him sire a suitable heir — except that his reputation guarantees any bride fleeing on sight.
• Psychopathic Manchild: His mental development is stuck in the terrible twos — Joffrey is horrendously self-centered and prone to pitch fits of anger while constantly asking for attention to be paid to him.
• Royal Brat: Thinks everyone needs to obey him because he's a prince and throws tantrums when he doesn't get his way.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: He attempts to have King Robert knight him since the king can make anyone a knight. Plus he's appalled by the idea of having to obey anyone and serve them. This only makes Robert infuriated with Joffrey.
• Stupid Evil: This is the actual reason why he can't be king. Nobody really cares if he's evil as long as he runs the realm well, as seen with Tywin Lannister. But no, instead he has to be a complete moron with a sadistic streak a mile wide.
• Tantrum Throwing: When things refuse to go his way, he sniffles, whines or starts kicking or throwing things.
• Tongue Trauma: Merchants are slandering his father's rule? They can't wag their tongues if he rips them off!
• Villain Respect: Admires Ned after seeing Ned dominate the Melee while protecting King Robert and Prince Oberyn only to throw his victory by bending the knee to renew his fealty to Robert.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: He fully believes displaying his cruelty will gain Robert's love and approval, only for the King to be horrified and enraged every time.

Bannermen and retainers

Jon Arryn

• Gone Horribly Right: Played for Laughs, he always talked to his wards about honor and duties to curb their excesses. He realizes that while Robert needed it, Ned really didn't.
• I Did What I Had to Do: Even he wasn't keen on marrying a girl young enough to be his grandchild, but he needed the Riverlands' support for the rebellion, so he went through with it. Having another wife to bear him an heir that he desperately needed was just a bonus.
• In Spite of a Nail: He still dies prematurely, though it was one year later than in canon and an entirely natural death. In fact, Jon would've survived the heart attack that led to his death had the Maester treating him not bled him out so much and induced a stroke.
• Innocent Bigot: A sexist version. Jon is a great man, but he grew up in the Vale, where honor and chastity are upheld to the highest standard. He'd only ever known women that were held to that standard and grew up with the ways of the Faith. As a result, he assumed all women would obey their father's will and devote themselves to their husband's happiness. Then he got married to Lysa, and, well...
• Irony: In canon, he was poisoned and murdered, while Robert wrote off his death as natural causes. Here, he died of natural causes, while Robert is convinced in his grief that he was murdered.
• Nice Guy: He's utterly dismayed to learn Hoster ruined his daughter's womb, since he was told that Lysa chose to have an abortion. Apparently, he wouldn't be particularly bothered by his wife having a bastard child. The narrative also makes it clear that he blames Hoster's poor parenting for their disastrous marriage more than Lysa herself.
• Old Man Marrying a Child: One of the reasons why his marriage to Lysa Tully was doomed to fail.
• Outliving One's Offspring: His young heir Robin.
• Selective Obliviousness:
  • Seems to think that Robert's... everything stems from his unhappy marriage to Cersei and kingship, and that as a Lord of Stormlands he would be more responsible, despite all the signs to contrary.
  • He seriously think that Joffrey can be straightened out. Or at least he did, until the "tongues" incident. After that even he could see that there was no hope for the boy.
• Succession Crisis: He lost his heirs and is now too old to marry again, so every family in the Vale is jockeying for inheriting the Wardenship, to the point of a burgeoning Civil War. It's so bad he decides to resign from being Hand of the King at the end of the first story to focus on his homeland's troubles.
• Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: The last chapter of Wandering Suns reveals that he dies a few months before the birth of Oberyn and Lyarra's first child is announced.
• Tempting Fate: Assures Tywin that there is nothing that could cause Ned Stark to side with Dorne against Robert.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: He helped encourage the idea of Robert marrying Lyanna so he and Ned could be foster-brothers. Years later, with Ned hinting that the rumors that Lyanna ran off with Rhaegar willingly are true, he seems to regret the decision immeasurably, considering what it led to.
• Your Days Are Numbered: He complains of a persisting pain in his left arm. Considering his age and all the stress he's put under, there's a strong chance for him to be due for a heart attack. Come Wandering Suns and he fell victim to Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome.

Varys

• The Chessmaster: He lives to manipulate people as pawns on his board.
• Secret Secret-Keeper: He quickly realized who actually sired Lyarra Stark, and is now plotting to keep the Baratheon rule weakened in order to give her the throne.
• Spotting the Thread: That was seeing Monford Velaryon making starry eyes at the new Martell Princess which made him suspect something fishy about Ned Stark's "bastard".
• The Spymaster: As Master of Whispers, it’s his job which he performs splendidly.
• Thinks Like a Romance Novel: Or at least mummer's play. Though he restricts that to plans for his more visible plots.
• Undying Loyalty: To the Realm itself. Since the Baratheons are unfit to keep it peaceful and prosperous, he feels no qualms about replacing them by the much more beloved Targaryens and Martells.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: Has to constantly reevaluate and tailor his plans to fit more the circumstances. With the exiled Viserys dead and his sister lost, he thought about discrediting the Lannisters to keep the Baratheons as the ruling power, but Visenya Targaryen's appearance gave him a reason to chase Robert away from the Iron Throne.

Ser Barristan Selmy, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard

• Cool Old Guy: Most of the realm sees him as such.
• It's All My Fault: He muses that Jaime Lannister's moral degradation can partially be laid to his feet, since the lad was brutally confronted to the reality of serving the Mad King.
• Ignored Expert: He served three kings, you would think someone would ask his opinion about ruling at one point, but everyone just treats him as a mere bodyguard.
• Knight in Shining Armor: Despite his misgivings, he lives up to his vows to protect the weak.
• Red Baron: The Bold.
• Secret-Keeper:
  • The last living person to know that Ser Duncan the Tall was once married to the Lady of Tarth and blamed himself for not preventing her Death by Childbirth.
  • Lyarra and Oberyn tell him about Cersei possibly cuckolding Robert so he can look for proof.
• This Is Gonna Suck: He laid eyes upon the new Martell Princess, saw her Strong Family Resemblance to the King's late betrothed and braced himself for the fireworks. He was right.
• This Is Unforgivable!: Years after the crime, he's still infuriated by what happened to the Princesses Elia and Rhaenys. So when Amory Lorch finally gets his just desserts, he indulges in gleeful vindication.
• Unrequited Love Lasts Forever: He was deeply fond of Ashara Dayne and secretly hopes she truly is Lyarra's mother because it would mean there's still something of her left behind.

Ser Jaime Lannister

• Brother–Sister Incest: With Cersei.
• Broken Pedestal: His perfect image started to crumble with Tyrion slowly learning the truth about what happened to Tysha.
• Cool Big Bro: Poor Tyrion really needed someone in his corner.
• Demoted to Extra: He barely appears in the story, even during the King's Landing arc. This is because of the increase in bandits in the surrounding areas; Jaime, as the second-most senior member of the Kingsguard (and one of its two best warriors, alongside Barristan Selmy) is on constant deployment to deal with the problem. This later turns out to be a major plot point, as Jaime's missions are why Cersei is on moon tea — she refuses to have Robert's children and can't get Jaime alone long enough for him to impregnate her again.
• Everyone Has Standards: Utterly repulsed by Joffrey's behaviour.
• Glorified Sperm Donor: Towards Joffrey, whom he apparently doesn't interact with. Who could blame him, though?
• Love Makes You Evil: When the woman you're entirely devoted is your sister and a full-blown sociopath, yes.
• Stupid Evil: In canon he's called the dumbest Lannister and Word of God confirms that hasn't changed. Considering his sister is Cersei, that's quite the accomplishment.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Once upon a time, he genuinely believed in honor and wanted to become a Knight in Shining Armor. Only for the Mad King and the Kingsguard to thoroughly shatter him. While his relationship with Jaime is strained, Barristan deeply laments this and blames himself for what happened.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: When Tyrion confesses their father commanded him to marry Gwyn Parren to void the threat she could be, Jaime tells his brother he may not be handsome but he has his cleverness and kindness for him, and he would be a wonderful husband to any girl smart enough to see it.

Petyr Baelish, Littlefinger

• Deathbed Confession: When he realized he would soon answer to the gods, he quickly sent letters detailling how he mismanaged the Crown's finances and how he bedded both Tully girls to many lords.
• The Farmer and the Viper: What Hoster Tully thinks of their relationship. Guess who's the snake, here.
• Good with Numbers: His financial operations were so byzantine that it's impossible to properly gauge the Kingdom's debts without his books.
• Posthumous Character: He found a way to stir chaos from beyond the grave. That's pretty impressive, actually.
• Villain with Good Publicity: To Oberyn's surprise, Littlefinger is actually well-considered by the smallfolk in King's Landing, mainly for being Nice to the Waiter.
• Yandere: His ultimate act was to reivindicate the claiming of Catelyn's maidenhood.

Ser Jorah Mormont

• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Gender inversion. His wife Lynesse Hightower led him to fall out with his family and lose his honor, and now he's hinted to grow a crush on Cersei.
• Boring Yet Practical: How Cersei sums his character up — Jorah has no great accomplishments to his name, but he's dutiful and a hard worker. The kind of lord you need to rule, since he will pay his taxes and ensure things are working properly.
• Has a Type: He likes his women blonde and utterly bitchy under a sweet appearance.
• You Are in Command Now: Robert names him Lord of Stokeworth - the original family was killed by the Plague - for bringing back the definite proof of a Targaryen's death.

Storm's End / Dragonstone

The Baratheons

Lord Renly Baratheon

• Big Brother Worship: Towards Stannis. Robert was such a waste of a ruler that Renly came to appreciate Stannis' diligence and seriousness. Unfortunately, his brother's death means they can't make peace with each other.
• Character Development: The Plague ravaging his lands, his orphaned baby niece's care and his love almost dying forced him to mature and grow up.
• The Fashionista: In addition to his canon clothes, he also hid Shireen's dress because it had terrible colouring.
• Mandatory Fatherhood: The reason why he's disqualified from the line of succession. With a male soulmate, Renly is physically incapable having sex with a woman and siring biological heirs, unless Loras dies. Seeing as Loras is both younger than Renly and heavily protected as a scion of House Tyrell and as a soulmate of a Lord Paramount, barring some unfortunate circumstance, it will be a very long time before he dies.
• Nephewism: He was granted his niece Shireen's custody and is doing a great job to raise her.
• Papa Wolf: He blew his lid off when the King - okay, Renly's brother but the King - tried to arrange a wedding for Shireen without asking him.
• Real Men Wear Pink: He braids Shireen's hair. He expected to get mocked for it but Lyarra's household instead compliment him on his skill.
• Shared Family Quirks: He scowls exactly the same as Stannis used to do when he's staving a headache.
• The Tell: Olenna tells him to stop looking left when he lies. In context, Renly was telling her how nice it was to see her.
• Transparent Closet: The Faith fully maintains that a soulmate bond between males - such as Renly and Loras - is nothing but platonic. Riiiiight.

Lady Shireen Baratheon

• Adaptational Attractiveness: Since The Plague cured her grayscale remaining scars (leaving faint red marks), people don't find her so ugly. She still has a strong jaw and big ears, but her hair is healthy and her eyes quite lovely.
• The Cutie: Even Olenna Tyrell is charmed by her.
• Florence Nightingale Effect: A platonic variant. Renly disliked Shireen at first because he was judgmental about her greyscale scars. Renly grew to love her as a parent when she took care of him and Loras when they were sick with Greyplague.
  • Shireen grew loved by the Stormlands because she took advantage of her Immunity Disability to take care of the sick.
• Immunity Disability: Her catching grayscale while still an infant had the same consequences as inoculation, making her one of the few people in Westeros naturally immune to the Greyplague.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: Her eyes are lighter blue to her fathers dark blue.
• Parental Abandonment: Both Stannis and Selyse died, so she went to Renly and Loras.

Bannermen and retainers

Ser Loras Tyrell

• Camp Gay: Tywin notes that even without his cape of flowers, he's disgustingly flamboyant.
• Green-Eyed Monster: He's irrationately jealous of Brienne Tarth. Renly finds him ridiculous - he's Marked, thank you very much, he's only acknowledging her loyalty to him!
• Parental Substitute: He and Renly love Shireen as their own.
• Transparent Closet: He and Renly are so blatantly domestic their closet could be nothing but air, at this point.

Ser Davos Seaworth

• Secret-Keeper: It's hinted Stannis didn't die from The Plague, but Davos refuses to talk about it.
• Undying Loyalty: For Stannis and his daughter.

Lord Monford Velaryon

• Chubby Chaser: He finds Walda Frey to be pretty though it might be a downplayed case of She Cleans Up Nicely.
• Cool Big Bro: Has a surprisingly cordial relationship with his bastard brother Aurane for a Southron lord.
• Everyone Has Standards: Even he, a Targaryen fan boy, thought Rhaegar's shaming of Elia in favor of Lyanna was a dick move.
• I Owe You My Life: Rather, I Owe You The Rightful Queen's Life. After hearing of Amory Lorch's assault against the Dornish party and how Gwyn Parren saved Lyarra from harm, he muses he wouldn't be opposed to kiss the soil she walks on.
• Noodle Incident: Something happened to make him despise R'hllor and he doesn't explain it.
• Real Men Love Jesus: He started to visit the Sept and the godswood, mainly to beseech the gods to finally grant a son to Oberyn Martell since he married the last viable heir to the Targaryen dynasty.
• Secret Secret-Keeper: After guessing Lyarra's true parentage, he firmly sits down on the info due to the Usurper holding the throne and being as virulently anti-Targaryen as ever.
• Spotting the Thread: Lyarra's singing is so reminiscent of Rhaegar Targaryen that Monford only needed to hear her once to unravel the whole travesty.
• Undying Loyalty: A Targaryen loyalist even two decades after their fall. He considers Lyarra the true Queen of Westeros as Rhaegar's only surviving child.
• What the Hell, Hero?: He was quite incensed by the way Rhaegar conducted his affair with Lyanna, lamenting the Dornish wouldn't have been so insulted by a paramour. But no, it had to be a kidnapping, and his wife's public humiliation was the sweet cherry on the top.

Ser Aurane Waters

• Adaptational Heroism: Thanks to being portrayed through his brother's perspective and not Cersei's, Aurane seems far more heroic.
• Dreadful Musician: Oberyn compares him to a "choking gull", and his half-brother Monford himself begs Lyarra to save his hearing by singing instead. Which gives him the perfect opportunity to compare her talent to Rhaegar's.
• Due to the Dead: Attempted to steal Viserys' body for a proper burial and interrupted Joffrey's desecration with a riot. Aurane manages to at least burn the body as per Targaryen funerary customs.
• Happily Adopted: Monford's mother raised him like her own son after his father brought him home as Lady Velaryon couldn't have anymore children.
• Heroic Bastard: Is illegitimate and attempted to rescue Viserys' corpse from further desecration.
• Secret Secret-Keeper: Along with Monford, he guessed Visenya Targaryen's true identity and lineage, but is aware she's endangered as long as Robert sits the Iron Throne so keeps mum.
• Sibling Team: Monford is the one to plan while Aurane acts, his status as a bastard giving him more freedom.
• Undying Loyalty: House Velaryon as a whole still aligns themselves with the Targaryens.
• Wicked Stepmother: Subverted, to everyone's bemusement. Lady Velaryon was left barren after her son's birth and saw the infant Aurane as her last chance to raise a baby.

The Westerlands

The Lannisters

Tywin Lannister, Lord Paramount

• 0% Approval Rating: For the citizens of King's Landing who still remember his army Sacking the capital and hate him for it. So much that they conceal Littlefinger's records from his men, even killing them whenever they can get away with it.
• Abusive Parents: Utterly awful towards Tyrion. And he's not that great to Cersei either, blatantly valuing her womb over everything else about her.
• Ambition Is Evil: Tywin's greatest wish is to leave behind a legacy comparable to the Targaryens, a dynasty that will endure for countless generations. He's committed increasingly heinous acts to achieve that end, starting with the murders of Elia Martell and her children with Rhaegar, then stealing from the Winter Fund to combat the debts wracked up by the crown, and now by having one of his own bannermen murdered to cover up the former crime. One of the reasons why Gwyn fears Tywin so much is because of this: there is no real way to determine how far he is willing to fall to achieve his ambitions.
• Badass Decay: In-universe. The Plague left him visibly thin and weakened, and the Succession Crisis in the capital means that he doesn't have time to oversee his own bannermen. Including Gregor Clegane.
• Bait the Dog: He's genuinely ashamed that he had to embezzle from the Winter Fund. His idea of making up the difference? Have the Mountain murder one of his bannermen (the current Master of Coin no less) and use his fortune (which will be inherited by one of Tywin's cousins) to replace the funds he stole.
• The Dreaded: Gwyn starts the story terrified of him, irrationally believing that any attempt to rebel against him is doomed to end in the offender's blood.
• Entertainingly Wrong:
  • Since Gwyn was fostered at the Rock before going to Winterfell, he (rightly) concludes Ned Stark saw first-hand how he treated a child under his protection and (wrongly) concludes it will help the Lord Stark to feel amiably towards him. Ned actually took a look at Gwyn and decided he would NEVER trust the Old Lion.
  • Thinks that he can buy Gwyn's allegiance by getting her married to Tyrion. After all, every woman would be ecstatic to be Lady of the Rock.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He genuinely cares for his siblings, Warts and All. His children... that's another story entirely.
• Even Evil Has Standards: He lived through Aerys' rule, and he won't let another madman sit on the throne. Even if it is his own grandson.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: He believes Humans Are Bastards by essence, so everyone can be swayed by the lure of money or power. Which means he constantly misinterprets the Starks and Martells' motives, since they are actually decent people.
• Fantastic Racism: Towards the Dornish.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Was responsible for so many misfortunes in many characters' pasts.
• I Did What I Had to Do: He's really, really not proud of embezzling from the Winter Fund, but he couldn't see another way out of the debts racked up by the Crown.
• Kick the Dog: The whole thing with Tysha.
• Maternal Death? Blame the Child!: The root of his hatred for Tyrion, feeling the little freak wasn't worth losing his soulmate.
• Money Is Not Power: In the past, he used to solve every problem he met by throwing gold at it. Nowadays, the problems he's confronted with are so complex he's unable to do this.
• The Mourning After: Amplified here since Joanna was his soulmate. So she truly was the love of his life, something confirmed by the Gods themselves... and he lost her.
• Sarcasm-Blind: He heard Oberyn and Ned trading sallys, and genuinely thought they hated each other.
• Selective Obliviousness:
  • For all his power and cunning, Tywin can be quite dense. Tyrion believes that he could walk in on Jaime and Cersei having sex and convince himself that they were just two really blond servants skiving off their duties.
  • Refuses to recognize Cersei's failing sanity, instead claiming she is simply stressed. Also thinks that Joffrey can be straightened out.
  • Doesn't realize that Ned wouldn't trust him even if he were on the other side of the world.
• Surrounded by Idiots: He despairs over his offspring's apparent inability to learn and developing some intelligence.
• Too Dumb to Live: If he really stole from the Miners Guild, since they make up the core of his army.

Kevan Lannister

• Big Brother Worship: He's so devoted to Tywin because he genuinely believes his eldest brother knows best.
• The Ghost: Since he's regent to Casterly Rock while Tywin is busy politicking. He finally makes an appearance in Wandering Suns.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Wandering Suns reveals that not even he, arguably Tywin's most trusted confidant, is aware that his older brother is stealing from the Winter Fund. When the Guild sends him a letter telling them their plan to audit the vault where the fund is supposed to be held, he's shaken by the implications.
• My Master, Right or Wrong: Gwyn muses that for all his kindness, he's ultimately Tywin's follower through and through.
• Nice Guy: He’s a polite and friendly person.
• Not So Above It All: He may be a genuinely kind person, he still has limits. Joffrey ultimately wore his nerves so much that Kevan actually spanked him with his belt. Later on, he wrote to confirm that there was no way Joffrey would ever be worthy of the Iron Throne and forwarded his support for a new heir.
• Parents as People: He fondly remembers Tytos as a loving, doting father but a weak and uneffective lord.
• Sweet Tooth: How does Tywin remember Gwyn Parren? Why, Kevan went a bit fat from gorging himself on her cream buns.

Tyrion Lannister

• Good with Numbers: Named the King's Counter as he was considered the most able candidate to reconstruct Littlefinger's financial operations.
• Hopeless Suitor: To Gwyn Parren, whom Tywin commanded him to woo and marry. He thinks she will never agree due to him being misshapen, but Gwyn actually refuses to consider Tyrion because of his Lannister blood and what happened to Tysha.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: After a discussion with Gwyn made him realize the whole mishap with Tysha might be a great deal thornier than he thought.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: When summoned back to the Rock, he pretends to be even drunker than usual in order to discreetly investigate the true circumstances around the affair with Tysha.
• Secret-Keeper: He knows about Jaime and Cersei's Brother–Sister Incest. He hasn't told anyone, however, partly because out of family loyalty and partly because he knows no one will believe him without mountains of proof.
• Token Good Teammate: The only good Lannister in the main branch. Unfortunately, he still helps his less heroic relatives.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Even if he knows Tywin will forever hate him.

Bannermen and retainers

Gregor Clegane, the Mountain That Rides

• 0% Approval Rating: The Red Keep's staff gleefully helped Gwyn for a chance to see him pay for his many, many crimes.
• The Bluebeard: After murdering his first wife, he turned his attention towards her younger sister to gain a bigger dowry. Poor Gwyn had to flee to Winterfell to escape him.
• The Dreaded: To everyone, especially Gwynn and Sandor.
• Greater-Scope Villain: His past crimes are responsible for deeply traumatizing Oberyn and Gwyn.
• The Heavy: For all his horrifying crimes, he's nothing but a symptom for a greater ill. Tywin Lannister is the one who gives him the opportunity to rape and murder as he wishes.
• Serial Killer: Everyone knows he's this.

Sandor Clegane, the Hound

• Adaptational Attractiveness: Downplayed when a maester tried surgery on his face. He's still horrendously Two-Faced, but it's more "melted skin" and less "bones are showing through the skin".
• Badass and Child Duo: Served as a bodyguard to then-ten-year-old Gwyn when she left Casterly Rock to be fostered at Winterfell.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: A grumpy, ill-tempered man who has quite the soft spot for little girls needing help.
• Scars Are Forever: In spite of a visit to a doctor.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Hinted to be chicken, since Gwyn bribes him with roasted or fried chicken.

Ser Amory Lorch

• Asshole Victim: Mourned by absolutely no one. The Dornish party and Ser Barristan Selmy actually relish his demise.
• Karmic Death: Once again, a Lannister commands him to slaughter a young girl. Except that Lady Gwyn Parren has teeth of her own, enough to turn the tables on him. Even better, she serves Visenya Targaryen, Princess Rhaenys' younger sister.
• Would Hit a Girl: He murdered Princess Rhaenys and later attempts to kill Lady Gwyn Parren.
• Would Hurt a Child: His biggest feat was excessively stabbing a five-year-old girl and he's later ordered to kill thirteen-year-old Gwyn.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Tywin Lannister coldly threw him to the wolves, only asking for Oberyn to be discreet about it.

The Reach

The Tyrells

Lady Olenna Tyrell, the Queen of Thorns

• Apron Matron: Of all of House Tyrell.
• Classy Cane: Carries a lovely carved redwood walking stick, which she uses at least once to whack Mace around the shins for saying the wrong thing to Oberyn.
• Cool Old Lady: She’s a sharp old woman, but she’s grandmotherly to Shireen.
• Entertainingly Wrong: She knows the math means there's no chance for Ned to have impregnated Ashara... but Brandon Stark could have. And lying about his niece's parentage, well, it wouldn't do for greedy bannermen to look at the firstborn son's daughter and get ideas, right?
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: For all her bluntness and focus on her family's social climbing, she has her good moments, showing herself quite maternal towards the pregnant Lyarra and little Shireen.
• Know When to Fold 'Em:
  • As much as she would like for her family to make a move for the throne, she realises that the present situation makes it untenable; the unrest in the Reach makes it imperative that House Tyrell focus on consolidating their hold at home and Joffrey is far too deranged for even their ambition to overlook. Thus, she has the Tyrell party stay the minimum amount of time required after the tourney and then get the hell out while the getting's good.
  • Though she still nurses a good old-fashioned disdain for House Martell and Oberyn in particular, she accepts that they are in an extremely powerful position post-Plague and it would be better for her house to be on good terms, or even linked by marriage if she can manage it.
• Never Mess with Granny: Apparently, she arranged quite a few attempts on Oberyn's life after he accidentally crippled Willas. She decided to stop after learning that him applying first aid probably saved Willas' leg.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: Renly Baratheon - practically her grandson-in-law even if the Faith won't acknowledge it - actually seeks to bolt away when she's around.
• Pet the Dog: She refrains from calling Ellaria Sand a whore in front of her grieving lover, in spite of her pointed animosity towards Oberyn.
• Screw Politeness, I'm A Senior!: The poster gal. Olenna has no use for courtesy.
• Underestimating Badassery: Or more accurately stupidity and spite, in Cersei's case. Olenna knew that Cersei was far from a pillar of stability after losing two children and enduring a clearly unhappy marriage, but even she did not dream that Cersei would actually risk certain death by ordering an attack on Princess Lyarra Martell under guest right within her own household. This makes her realise that Cersei is even more dangerously unstable than anticipated and Olenna is more determined than ever for House Tyrell to avoid entangling themselves with the foundering Baratheon dynasty.

Mace Tyrell, Lord Paramount

• Bumbling Dad: Under his political ineptness, there's no denying he loves his children.
• Good Is Not Nice: For a given value of "good" in this setting. It is implied that the Tyrells delayed the delivery of inoculation to their political enemies.
• Never My Fault: Unwilling to acknowledge his part of blame for Willas' crippling.
• Nice Guy: For all his ditziness, Mace is genuinely a swell guy. He shows himself very accommodating towards the pregnant Lyarra Martell and is later horrified when the Dornish ladies are assaulted.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: After hearing how Princess Lyarra and her household had to fend off attackers in the middle of the Red Keep while under Sacred Hospitality, he vows to get Margaery sword lessons once he returns to Highgarden.
• Papa Wolf: For all that he wants his grandson on the Throne, he will never marry Margaery to Joffrey.
• Puppet King: Downplayed. His mother has lot of influence over him but in the end he holds all the power and can just as easily ignore her.
• The Social Expert: His jolly and casual personality makes him a surprisingly good host when he has to entertain the Martell ladies.
• Screams Like a Little Girl: His reaction when Joffrey presented his "gift" during a feast.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Hates Oberyn for crippling Willas despite Oberyn saving Willas' leg and life. Olenna is very exasperated when she finds out.
• You Didn't Ask: The reason why he never told his mother that Oberyn ultimately saved Willas' leg with a tourniquet when he had his accident. Olenna isn't pleased with him.

Willas Tyrell

• Arranged Marriage: His father wants to marry him to a Sand Snake to capitalize on the Martells' popularity and restore the reputation of his house. He ultimately chooses Sarella for a bride.
• Birds of a Feather: He and Sarella are very smart, and both are something of The Ghost (moreso in the canon).
• The Ghost: Stayed in Highgarden.
• I Owe You My Life: Oberyn's quick intervention when Willas had his joust accident actually saved his life and his leg.
• Odd Friendship: Everyone scratches their head to see him casually palling up with Oberyn Martell, since the Prince, ya know, kinda crippled him.

Margaery Tyrell

• Arranged Marriage: Her grandmother briefly thought of giving her as a bride to Joffrey but quickly rescinded this plan, and she was betrothed to Samwell Tarly instead.
• Demoted to Extra: She didn't come to King's Landing due to a mishap in Highgarden.
• The Ghost: Like Willas she stayed in Highgarden.
• Proper Lady: Her letters to Sam are painfully polite.

The Tarlys

Lord Randyll Tarly

• Abusive Parents: He hates his eldest son's softness and bookishness, so he jumped on the opportunity to foster him in the North to make him more of a man.
• Everyone Has Standards: He's fuming when he learns the Sparrows launched a campaign of religious terrorism in the North.
• Heartbroken Badass: The personal consequences The Plague had on him hit hard.
• Jock Dad, Nerd Son: The root of his problems with Sam.
• My Greatest Failure: He could have saved his family if only he had inoculated them, but he opted to listen the Faith instead, dooming his wife and two of his children.
• Outliving One's Offspring: His eldest daughter Talla and younger son Dickon.
• Real Men Love Jesus: Formerly a devout follower to the Seven, his faith was utterly crushed when he lost his beloved wife and two children to The Plague after hearing their preaching of the inoculation being heresy. Nowadays he turned to the Old Gods - who sent the cure - and is shown very serious about it.

Samwell Tarly

• Arranged Marriage: With Margaery Tyrell.
• Big Brother Instinct: When he realised his father wouldn't listen about The Plague, he took his young sisters and skedaddled to Dorne to get inoculated.
• Big Brother Mentor: Brynden Tully actually gently pushes his great-nephew Bran to turn to Sam regarding intellectual matters.
• Cowardly Lion: Randyll was forced to concede Sam isn't actually soft when it really matters - such as disobeying his dad to save his sisters.
• Formerly Fat: Several months of training in Winterfell left him noticeably more muscled.
• In Spite of a Nail: He winds up in the North, only as a foster child to Winterfell instead of a Black Brother.
• Martial Pacifist: While he will never like fighting, he concedes that its necessary to learn.
• Nay-Theist: Has an academic fascination with the Faith of Seven and the Old Gods but doesn't believe in either.
• Like a Fish Takes to Water: Ends up thriving in the North due to Robb and other appreciating his bookishness and putting them to use as an administrator.
• Weight Woe: Despite his training, he has actually gotten bigger due to gaining muscle. Which saddens him but he accepts.

The Iron Islands

The Greyjoys

Victarion Greyjoy

• Ear Ache: Lost his ear to the thralls.
• Eye Scream: Lost one of his eyes to the thralls.
• Face Death with Dignity: Utterly calm and composed when Theon helps him to drown.
• I Was Quite a Looker: When the thralls and salt-wives rebelled, they tortured him to the point he was left a wreck of a man.
• Let Them Die Happy: Before drowning himself - the best death for an Ironborn - he got to meet his nephew who assured him he would find a way to avenge their family.
• Mythology Gag: He took his nephew's place as a victim of torture.

Alannys Greyjoy, née Harlaw

• Earn Your Happy Ending: The woman lost her entire family, first to her husband's idiocy when he rebelled, then to The Plague. Until her youngest son comes to the Iron Islands for her.
• The Ophelia: She's noticeably fragile after losing almost her whole family, and Lyarra describes her countenance as fey.
• Outliving One's Offspring: Lost all of her children except for Theon.
• Revenge by Proxy: The thralls kept her as a trophy against their previous masters when she didn't do anything to them.
• Sanity Strengthening: After being reunited with Theon who takes her South, she gradually becomes more aware of her surroundings and less living in the past.

Other characters

The Targaryens

Aerys Targaryen, the Mad King

• The Caligula: Very much so. A combination of recency and magnitude has made Aerys the go-to example for insane monarchs as far as Westeros goes, and absolutely no one, Targaryen loyalist or otherwise, wants to live through another one of him.
• Predecessor Villain/Greater-Scope Villain: While a lot of people share the blame for the rebellion, in the end, everyone agrees that the source of it all was Aerys. Rickard's decision to have Brandon and Lyanna marry south weren't just to forward the influence of the Starks, but also to guard the family against the Mad King in case he started a war. Unfortunately for everyone, those matches started a line of Disaster Dominoes that saw Aerys start the war Rickard feared using the Starks.
• Present Absence: Despite Jaime Lannister slaying him close to two decades ago, Aerys' ghost haunts all of the Great Houses of Westeros to varying levels. The main reason why Joffrey was unofficially disqualified from the line of succession is because everyone can see that he will just as bad (if not worse) than Aerys if he ever manages to sit on the Iron Throne.
• Stupid Evil: The poster boy for this, as far as Targaryen monarchs go. The fact that this quality of his is echoed through his grandson is something that Tywin does not like. At all.

Rhaegar Targaryen, the Silver Prince

• Base-Breaking Character: In-Universe, opinions about him tends to vary from "rapist dragonspawn who got off lighter than he deserved" to "the greatest king who could have been".
• Beautiful Singing Voice: A very distinctive one, so much it allows for his youngest daughter's true identity to be blown open.
• Elegant Classical Musician: Could reduce the court to tears by playing his harp and singing.
• Family Theme Naming: His children were named after Aegon the Conqueror and his sister-wives. He had Aegon and Rhaenys by Elia Martell, and his second union to Lyanna Stark produced Visenya.
• Kick the Dog: Even his hardcore fanboy Monford Velaryon disapproves the way he publically shamed his wife Elia by his affair with Lyanna Stark.
• Like Parent, Like Child: Quite a moody, beautiful prince with a gift for music. His youngest daughter Visenya really took after him in temperament.
• Love Ruins the Realm: He could be the poster example.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: He fathered Lyarra — whose birth name is actually Visenya — with Lyanna Stark.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: His affair with Lyanna was very much consensual. Unfortunately, it led to Robert's Rebellion.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: Barring the fact that his elopement with Lyanna brought destruction to the Seven Kingdoms and the Stark family, Ned and Benjen hold him in a very poor light for throwing poor Elia away. Then there's the Martells, who hate Rhaegar almost as much as they do Robert and the Lannisters.
• Thinks Like a Romance Novel: According to Monford Velaryon, at least. After realizing that Lyarra is actually Rhaegar and Lyanna's daughter, Monford notes that rescuing a fair maiden from an unwanted betrothal is exactly the kind of thing Rhaegar would do.

Viserys Targaryen

• Cruel and Unusual Death: His body slowly petrified itself. Judging from his face, it was horrendously painful.
• Demoted to Extra: He barely appeared in the canon storyline, but it's made worse here since he died before his introduction.
• Desecrating the Dead: It was already bad when Robert exhibited his petrified body as proof of the Targaryens being destroyed, but then Joffrey decided to go and mutilate him, too.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: He caught the grey plague and died and that's all.
• Due to the Dead: Averted by Robert who paraded his corpse to inform the smallfolk that Targaryen days were definitely over. Aurane Waters still manages to burn the body, in accordance with the former royal dynasty custom of cremation.
• Taken for Granite: What happens when someone dies from the grey plague.

Daenerys Targaryen

• Demoted to Extra: As she's perfectly happy in Essos with her horselord husband, she's unlikely to press her claim to the Iron Throne. Word of God later confirmed in the comments that Daenerys was staying in Essos.
• Going Native: She was totally cut off from Westerosi influences so assimilated even deeper than canon into the Dothraki culture.
• Happily Married: When Khal Drogo heard about the Plague ravaging Pentos, he personally went to retrieve his dragon bride and brought her to safety.
• Rescue Romance: Her relationship with Drogo started off much better than it did in canon due to Drogo saving her from Pentos during The Plague rather than just being sold and presented to him by Viserys and Illyrio.
• The Wrongful Heir to the Throne: The last pureblooded Targaryen from the Conqueror's bloodline doesn't know anything about the Seven Kingdoms, was raised in Essos and is currently married to a brutish horselord. After meeting and talking with her, Quentyn decides she would be an awful monarch and lets her be.

Rhaenys Targaryen

• Cruel and Unusual Death: Absolutely no one - and yes, Tywin is included - is happy to hear how a toddler girl was dragged from under her daddy's bed to be stabbed until she was more holes than flesh.
• Curtains Match the Windows: Described as a brunette with black eyes.
• Death of a Child: And a horrendously brutal one, too.
• Kindhearted Cat Lover: Absolutely doted on her kitten Balerion, which her uncle Oberyn gifted to her.
• Like a Son to Me: Ser Barristan regarded her as something of a treasured granddaughter, which lets him utterly relishing Amory Lorch's quite gory and extremely karmic demise.
• The Lost Lenore: The first book revolves around her uncle's attempt to avenge her, and she ultimately attains reparation in blood.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Inherited the Dornish type from her mother Elia.

Beyond the Wall

Brynden Rivers

• The Chessmaster: He's cooking at least three plans at the same time.
• The Gadfly: Mentioned sending dreams to old Aemon as a way to troll him and has a kick from playing the creepy raven in Bran's dreams.
• Greater-Scope Paragon: The goatherder that intuited the cure to the Plague? Brynden sent him the appropriate vision, so he's responsible for saving all of Westeros and Essos from the pandemic.
• The Matchmaker: Strongly implied to have given Lyarra and Oberyn their Marks and nudged Robb Stark and Aislinn Forrester towards each other. It's all for politics.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: A mite grouchy regarding Oberyn Martell — why wasn't anyone more suitable to marry his many-great-niece?
• One-Steve Limit: Averted, due to Brynden Tully... who also helped to neutralize the Plague.

The Night's King

• Greater-Scope Villain: The enemy of mankind as a whole, rather than a few families.
• One-Scene Wonder: Only appears to show that he's aware of things shifting against him... and he's not happy about it.