Characters / The Weirwood Queen

Characters

Sansa Stark

"I didn't even get to say goodbye"

Elder daughter of Eddard and Catelyn Stark and their second child. Sansa starts off the same as her canon counterpart, but things change when she's given the opportunity to say a posthumous goodbye to her beloved direwolf, Lady. As of the end of Part IV, she is 18.

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• Adaptational Badass: Sansa in the books is physically harmless. Here though, she's able to turn into a giant red wolf that is capable of tearing soldiers to pieces. In addition, she can mentally communicate with animals, including dragons, and can occasionally get them to do what she wants.
• Animal Eye Spy: She has a network of animal spies scattered around the Red Keep and King's Landing.
• Archenemy: Sansa has become this to Cersei, who hates her for killing Joffrey and fears that Sansa is the younger and more beautiful queen who will one day take everything from her. The feeling is pretty mutual, as Sansa has plenty of reasons to hate Cersei, who's responsible for the deaths of her pet, father, and other people she cares for.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Arya and Sansa start as this, but become one another's best ally as the story progresses.
• Badass in Distress: Spends all of Part III of the story (appropriately titled Caged Wolf) as a prisoner of the Lannisters after being captured by Jaime in the Riverlands.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: This helps kick off the plot. Sansa prays to the old gods for the return of Lady in return for planting weirwoods and restoring them to honor and power. Unfortunately, she doesn't plainly ask for Lady back, just that she not "be the only Stark without protection", which gives them a lot of wiggle room.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Sansa is a kind and compassionate proper lady capable of of transforming into a wolf and killing people.
• Big Little Brother: Downplayed. As of Book V, Sansa stands at an even 6 feet tall, taller than her elder brother Robb by an inch.
• The Chains of Commanding: In Chapter 165, Sansa laments how difficult holding court was, noting that the songs never said anything about the minutiae of government work.
• The Dog Bites Back: Almost literally. Joffrey taunting her with the severed heads of her father and household spurs her first transformation into a direwolf, where she inadvertently kills Joffrey shortly afterward.
• Enemy Compassion: She offers condolences to Kevan Lannister for his brother's death, because while she may have hated Tywin, she knows that Kevan loved him.
• First Period Panic: As in canon, she is horrified by her first moonblood while being held captive by the Lannisters, and takes pains to conceal it to delay being forced into marriage.
• Friend to All Living Things: Sansa greatly prefers to be this rather than fight.
• I Gave My Word: She gets upset when Ned expresses his intention to break her betrothal and send her and Arya home, even though she no longer likes Joffrey, because she made The Promise to the old gods that she would plant weirwoods when she was queen.
• It's All My Fault: She goes into a spiral blaming herself for Trystane and Myrcella's deaths, combined with fear of being denounced as a bloodmage.
• Loved by All: Other than the Lannisters, Sansa is very popular with almost everyone she meets.
• Luxury Prison Suite: After being recaptured by the Lannisters, Sansa is kept in a tower cell. Still, it's much more comfortable than most smallfolk homes. She is even allowed to pray in the godswood and visit other highborn like the Tyrells and Martells and give alms to the poor. She is temporarily moved to the black cells before her trial but gets out after she calls for a trial by combat.
• Mission from God: Sort of. She takes it upon herself to plant weirwood trees and bring honor and power back to The Old Gods in exchange for protection.
• Morning Sickness. Averted. The fact that she doesn't feel the urge to vomit causes her to ignore the laundry list of other, less well known symptoms of pregnancy, including missing her period, tender breasts, dizziness, cravings, increased appetite, and increased frequency of visits to the privy.
• Nature Hero: Very connected to nature. Like her siblings, she is also a warg. Her accidental deal with the old gods leads her to planting new weirwood trees in the South, and eventually amps up her warging ability to the point she can shapeshift into a direwolf.
• Princess Protagonist: After Robb is crowned King in the North, Sansa is a princess.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Especially during the Red Wolf arc where she is free to act in the Riverlands.
• Shape Shifter Mode Lock: She can get stuck in either form after traumatic events or if she overtaxes herself.
• Silk Hiding Steel: Sansa is a polite, kind-hearted teenage girl who is capable of turning into a giant wolf and gave Tywin Lannister - one of the most feared men in Westeros - a "Reason You Suck" Speech to his face in front of hundreds of people, something even Arya admits she isn't reckless enough to do.
• Somebody Doesn't Love Raymond: Downplayed. Viserion is the one animal Sansa isn't able to win over with effort, as Viserion has an aversion to her smell - she is "ice" to Viserion's "fire" - and is jealous of the attention Olyvar gives her.
• Statuesque Stunner: Sansa is considered extremely beautiful and is exactly 6 feet tall by Book V, taller than her elder brother Robb by an inch (which would be considered very tall in Medieval Europe, which Westeros is based on). Daenerys who is almost a foot shorter than Sansa shows some envy of her height.
• Sword and Sorcerer: Sansa is the Sorcerer to Olyvar's Sword, given her magical abilities like shapeshifting, skinchanging and communicating with animals.
• Underestimating Badassery: A lot of people, especially the Lannisters, think Sansa is just a harmless and passive teenage girl that can be easily brought to heel.
• We Help the Helpless: During the Red Wolf arc, she and her companions spent their time helping the smallfolk in the Riverlands.
• Wonderful Werewolf: Becomes one at the end of the first book. Unless you are a Lannister, or harm those under her protection, she is generally a very nice giant wolf.

Arya Stark

"Princess Elia was all alone," Arya said, coming to stand before Sansa. "You have me."

Younger daughter of Eddard and Catelyn Stark and their third child. She is the second main viewpoint character. As of Part V, she is 16.

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• Adaptational Wimp: Downplayed. While she doesn't have the Faceless Man training her canon self has, she's still allowed to continue her water dancing. She gets to kill and decapitate Ramsay Snow due to this.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: She grows much closer to Sansa than in canon, and as a result she also becomes friends with Jeyne Poole.
• Arranged Marriage: Arya is betrothed to Hoarfrost Umber, the heir to Last Hearth, although the marriage will not happen until four years after her first flowering. She actually encourages Robb to marry her off so Robb himself will have time to mourn Jeyne Westerling before remarrying. The betrothal is cancelled after it is discovered that Arya is barren.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Arya and Sansa start off as this (with Arya's helping Sansa find the Riverlands weirwood Lady was buried at being what kicks off the plot), but become more straightforwardly loving and supportive of one another as the story progresses.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Arya prays for the delay of her menarche, as it signals the point when she will have to resign herself to marriage and give up her physical interests. She eventually discovers that she will never menstruate or bear children, because she was born without a womb. Played with - while at this point Arya still grieves at having the option taken from her and thinks of it as another sign that she is "defective" as a woman, Word of God indicates that, on a Doylist level, it's the author's method for her to escape Mandatory Motherhood.
• Character Development: Arya's desire to break free of Westeros' societal norms for highborn women causes her not only to take up masculine pursuits like fighting, but also to make rash decisions in an attempt to prove herself to society. As she grows up, however, she comes to realize that discretion is the better part of valor, to the point where she allows the stronger, more accomplished Brienne to kill a rogue Lyn Corbray rather than attempt it herself and risk her own life in the process.
• Children Are Innocent: As a young girl, she regularly wargs into Nymeria to inflict Crippling Castration on rapists, but sexual innuendo still flies over her head.
• Disabled in the Adaptation: Arya has MRKH syndrome in this fic, which results in her womb being absent altogether, preventing her from having a menstrual cycle.
• Embarrassing Nickname: Thanks to a singer, she's known as "The Beautiful Bane of the Boltons".
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: A sleep-deprived, guilt-ridden Sansa believes Arya is a hallucination. Arya proves otherwise by hitting her with a snowball.
• I Just Want to Be Badass: Despite her age and competency, Arya feels overshadowed by her sister during the Red Wolf arc, and doesn't see the value of her own contributions. This leads her to make some rash decisions. This comes into play again in Wolf Pack when she seeks to prove herself to sexist naysayers by defeating Lyn Corbray, though she ultimately leaves him to Brienne, whose fighting style is more suited to countering his, and fulfills her responsibility as Sansa's guard.
• It's All My Fault: Blames herself for Sansa's capture, believing that if she hadn't gone after Amory Lorch then Sansa would be safe. She also blames herself for not saving her mother from the Red Wedding.
• Oblivious to Love: A teenage Arya has no idea why Edric Dayne keeps staring at her, hanging around her, asking singers to play songs about her, or talking about how nice his lands are. Also Justified, given that she thought he knew that she's barren, so she had no reason to even consider the possibility that he was courting her.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Arya is initially short, and then 5'6 when she finishes growing, but is far more deadly than her size would suggest, as Ramsay discovers.
• Princess Protagonist: After Robb is crowned King in the North, Arya is a princess.
• Proper Lady: Arya, after returning to Winterfell, becomes this much to her frustration. She wears dresses much more often, has ladies in waiting following her around, and even gets named Queen of Love and Beauty at a tourney. She goes along with it for Robb's sake, but goes riding and still practices water dancing whenever she gets the chance.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: A big part of Arya's character arc for the second 'book' is wanting to be this.
• Stay in the Kitchen: After agreeing to marry into House Umber, she discovers to her disappointment that the Greatjon laughs off her Tomboy behavior so far because she's a child and the family expects her to eventually "grow up out of it" and turn to more feminine activities, in the same way that the current Lady Umber gave up archery for embroidery.
• Underestimating Badassery: Ramsay Snow assumed that Arya was just a defenseless 13-year-old girl and that kidnapping her wouldn't be too difficult. He gets his throat slit and then his head cut off by said girl.
• We Help the Helpless: During the Red Wolf arc, Arya, Sansa, and their companions spent their time helping the smallfolk in the Riverlands.

Catelyn Stark (née Tully)

“I have ridden through fields of ash and seen corpses lying unburied by the road. I have seen fields of grain turned to blackened deserts, and once clear streams fouled by the rotting bodies of the slain. A true king defends the realm, and yet you hold tourneys and feast while my father’s people die and starve. Winter is coming, my lords, and it will devour us all if we do not stand together.”

The wife of Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell and the mother of the current generation of Stark children. She serves as a major viewpoint character starting with Part II.

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• Action Mom: Much to Arya's surprise. She personally slits Walder Frey's throat when he betrays them.
• Adaptational Angst Downgrade: She reunites with Arya, receives confirmation that Rickon survived and indications that Bran did as well, and dies laughing after she succeeds in saving Robb.
• Heroic Sacrifice: To save Robb and his guards during the Red Wedding, she holds Lord Frey hostage to cover their escape, then kills him in order to delay pursuit, knowing her own life is forfeit.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Acts as a diplomat for her son Robb once he becomes King.
• Unintentional Final Message: After realizing that their father forced Lysa to abort her child by Petyr Baelish, Catelyn sends a raven from the Twins just before her death at the Red Wedding, expressing empathy for Lysa's pain and fear and placing the blame for Baelish's death on the Lannisters.

Bran Stark

“I told you the dreams were true.”

The second son and fourth child, of Eddard and Catelyn Stark. As in canon he was thrown from a tower by Jaime Lannister and lost the use of his legs. He is a powerful greenseer and warg. As of the end of Part IV, he is 14.

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• Adapted Out: Hodor doesn't accompany Bran from Winterfell, and Bran never wargs into him.
• The Dog Bites Back: It takes a while, but Bran ultimately realizes that Bloodraven has been using him all along for his plans in the guise of saving the world from the Others. This leads him to attack Bloodraven when forced to pick between his mentor or his family.
• Friend-or-Idol Decision: In Chapter 148, he's forced to choose between helping Bloodraven with his plan and saving his siblings from said plan. He chooses to attack Bloodraven instead after realizing he's been manipulated all this time.
• Innocently Insensitive: In his attempt to honor and protect the grieving Meera by presenting her with Dark Sister and expressing his intention to marry her, he insults her "rusty old spear" and fails to consider whether she would actually want to marry him.
• Loss of Identity: As Bran progresses in his lessons with Bloodraven he slowly begins to disengage from his identity as a Stark and as a human altogether. Ultimately subverted when he realizes Bloodraven was using him all along, and reclaims his identity as Bran.
• Out-of-Character Alert: Subverted. Arya correctly assumes that the "Bran" in her nightmares is an impostor, but when Bran does speak to her, she still doesn't believe it's him, in part because he's so detached from his identity that he calls himself Brandon.
• Public Secret Message: Bran realizes that the letter Sansa was ordered to write by the queen contains a secret message. How? There are tons of spelling errors, and Sansa spells better than any of her siblings.
• Talking in Your Dreams: Bran reaches out to his siblings through his dreams, seeing moments of their lives. After a lot of practice he manages to talk to Sansa more than once.
• Tooka Level In Jerkass: Bran once he begins his lessons with Bloodraven begins treating the Reeds and Summer much more coldly and doesn't show any appreciation of their concern for him.

Eddard Stark

“I am a Stark of Winterfell. I will die with dignity if not with honor.”

Lord of Winterfell and father of the Stark children. He serves as a viewpoint character during Part I.

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• Doomed by Canon: He suffers the same fate as he did in the books.
• Heroic Sacrifice: As per canon, he gives a false confession to save Sansa's life, even after she warns him of her vision that Joffrey will renege on the agreement and kill him.
• In Spite of a Nail: Despite everything Sansa tries to do to stop it from happening, Ned is decreed a traitor and executed.
• Papa Wolf: Does everything he can to protect his daughters after realizing the Lannisters are essentially taking over the entire kingdom through Cersei's marriage to Robert.
• The Talk: After Sansa has a graphic nightmare of Ser Gregor Clegane raping Princess Elia Martell, Ned has to explain rape to 11 year old Sansa, 9 year old Arya, and 11 year old Jeyne Poole. He is extremely uncomfortable and wishes Cat was there.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: Because Sansa tells him Arya was holding on to the statue of Baelor in her vision, he's able to find her in the crowd and see her before he dies.

Robb Stark

The King in the North, 305 AC

The eldest son of Eddard and Catelyn Stark. Following the death of his father, Robb is named King in the North by his bannermen in addition to ruling the Riverlands and later the Vale. He is nicknamed the Young Wolf; as of the end of Part IV he is 21.

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• Altar Diplomacy: He marries Margaery Tyrell in Part IV in exchange for food aid to the North and testimony against the Lannisters.
• Babies Ever After: Catelyn's dying vision shows him holding a child.
• Big Good: Serves as one for the story being the leader of the forces opposed to the Lannisters.
• Broken Ace: A famed boy king and military genius, and also a traumatized orphan and widower who feels he has no one to confide in.
• The Dreaded: Following his defeat of the Lannisters and Tyrells, Robb has gained quite a reputation. Olyvar Sand, who at one point took on the Mountain, is genuinely scared of Robb.
• The First Cut Is the Deepest: Discussed in Chapter 169. Margaery surmises that Robb is cold to her because he still grieves for Jeyne Westerling after so many years, though she's grateful that it won't extend to their yet-to-be-born child.
• Honor Before Reason: Mychel Redfort dissolves his marriage to Ysilla Royce and marries the bastard girl Mya Stone. His father is so enraged by this that he disowns Mychel, so he goes to Winterfell to ask Robb for a job as a member of his guard. Robb initially declines, not wanting to offend Lord Redfort. But when Mychel points out Robb's own politically unsound marriage to Jeyne Westerling, he caves and makes Mychel one of his guards. This predictably angers Lord Redfort, one of the most powerful lords of the Vale.
• Hypocrite: Robb is angry at Margaery for marrying Tommen despite the fact that the whole thing was Mace's plan and she was just marrying who her father told her to, but at the same time he's angry at Sansa for running off with Olyvar and not returning to Winterfell to marry who he wants her to.
• My Sister Is Off-Limits: Robb is enraged when he finds out that Sansa was forced to marry a supposed Dornish bastard and makes it clear he wants his sister back, even if the marriage has been consummated.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Robb is willing to let the wildlings cross into the North provided certain conditions are met, which, considering the history between the wildlings and the North, is quite reasonable of him.
• Teen Genius: Robb is a brilliant military commander who completely outmaneuvers Tywin and the Tyrells, despite being outnumbered by them more than two to one.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: He vents to Jon about his resentment toward the lords of the Vale for sitting on the fence until after the Red Wedding, the Tyrells for keeping the Lannisters afloat until Cersei turned on them, and Margaery in particular for making him an offer of marriage he felt unable to refuse. He's also not amused by the fact that his alliance with House Targaryen essentially leaves his kingdom to take the brunt of the Others' offensive while Aegon finalizes his conquest of the South in the meantime.
• Trauma Button: He is left horrified and flailing when Arya's betrothal into House Umber has to be canceled, because the last time he broke a betrothal it ended in the Red Wedding.
• Trauma Conga Line: Poor Robb almost never gets a break. First, he loses his father and has to rule the North. Then his best friend Theon betrays him and apparently murders his brothers, then his mother dies saving him from the Freys and shortly afterward, his wife dies of an illness. Not to mention throughout this, his little sister Sansa is a prisoner of the Lannisters, who he knows have killed children younger than her before. The only breaks the poor guy gets are getting Arya and Rickon back and learning Bran is alive somewhere.

Jon Snow

"I'll kill him myself," Jon rasped. And then he fainted.

The supposed bastard son of Eddard Stark (in reality the son of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen). Jon decides to join the Night's Watch and is later elected the Lord Commander of the Watch. As of the end of Part IV he is 21.

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• The Chains of Commanding: Jon has the unenviable task of balancing the Night’s Watch, Stannis and his army, the wildlings, and the North, all while also having to prepare for the return of the Others.
• Child by Rape: Jon's mother Lyanna was preyed upon and manipulated by Rhaegar Targaryen into having a child with him and imprisoned by him and the Kingsguard when she learned the truth.
• The Dragonslayer: He kills the shadow dragon inadvertently hatched by Melisandre after sacrificing Stannis Baratheon. He denies it's as impressive as it sounds because the dragon was freshly hatched and distracted by Melisandre.
• Dramatic Irony: In Chapter 149, he muses on Aegon Targaryen's return to Westeros after having lived under a bastard name. Of course, Jon himself is a Targaryen scion raised under another name. This continues in Chapter 169, when the two go on a tour of Westeros to show the wight parts and reveal the threat of the Others to the realm at large.
• Embarrassing Nickname: He's dubbed "The Woodcutter" after personally gelding attempted rapists.
• Entertainingly Wrong: In one of his Others-induced nightmares, his mother's ghost intercedes to protect him. He assumes that the teenage girl with a sword is his younger sister Arya, who he hasn't seen for years.
• The First Cut Is the Deepest: Downplayed. When Selyse Flowers attempts to seduce him at Highgarden, he manages to barely resist, thinking of his past with Ygritte as well as his vow to the Night's Watch to prevent himself from falling to temptation.
• Heroic Bastard: The bastard son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark and a heroic character in the story.
• Heroic BSoD: He undergoes a big one after enduring a multitude of harrowing situations, culminating in Howland Reed revealing to him that Lyanna Stark is his mother.
• Interrupted Suicide: As his melancholy gets worse, he nearly goes out of a high window in his sleep before Ghost stops him.
• Lying by Omission: When Cortnay Penrose's sister asks him about the rumor that he killed Stannis, his answer implies that he did without outright saying so.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: Aside from the canonical Jeor Mormont and Maester Aemon, exaggerated with Bronze Yohn Royce, who has a late-night heart-to-heart with Jon only to drop dead of a heart attack the very next day.
• Refuge in Audacity: After Tormund's death, he publicly announces that King Robb has permitted the free folk to move south of the Gift for safety from the Others, when Robb is right there and has said no such thing.
• To Be Lawful or Good: He is wracked by guilt after breaking the Night's Watch's vows of non-interference to save Shireen.

Olyvar Sand

"[I] didn't grow much until I was fifteen, and then I grew so fast everything hurt. But if you can knock a man down, it doesn't matter how tall he is."

Fourth child and only son of Oberyn Martell. Olyvar joins the Dornish retinue to King’s Landing and is a POV starting in Part III. As of the end of Part IV, he is 22.

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• Bad Liar: Oberyn has to be the one to sell Cersei on what a terrible husband he would be for Sansa because there's no way Olyvar himself could pull it off.
• Big Brother Instinct: Olyvar thinks about his younger (and older) sisters a lot. He partially helps Sansa because he would want someone to do the same for his baby sisters.
• Big Damn Heroes: Seeing no one else step forward, and the Lannisters about to choose a champion for her, Olyvar volunteers to serve as Sansa's champion in a trial by combat against the Mountain.
• The Chains of Commanding: Olyvar understandably finds actually being king a stressful job, even after observing its effects on his aunt Daenerys.
• Cowardly Lion: Olyvar immediately regrets volunteering to fight the Mountain and wants to run back to Dorne. He doesn't, because Sansa has no other champion, and he can't let this injustice happen. He also wets himself at some point while fighting the Mountain and is scared out of his mind during the combat.
• Cuteness Proximity: He gushes over Gilly's baby, to her puzzlement.
• Death Glare: When he is nervous or uncomfortable, his face turns murderous. His youngest sister, Loreza Sand, calls it "Olly's stabby face."
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: While more conscientious than average, he has some of the noble presumption toward smallfolk, i.e. he scares Gilly half to death by tossing Kit in the air without consulting her. He also takes it as a matter of course that his adoptive grandfather, Lord Uller, began to pay attention to his bastard daughter Ellaria only after his trueborn children died.
• The Determinator: Olyvar keeps fighting the Mountain after his spear is cut in half, his shield crushed, and his left arm smashed and useless.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • Olyvar failed to consider ways of rescuing Sansa from a forced marriage other than marrying her himself. And he really didn't think of the full consequences of doing so, such as how her brother might react. Sure enough, Robb bombards Dorne with threatening messages and Olyvar and others think that he might be willing to have Olyvar murdered.
  • His Brutal Honesty in calling Rhaegar an idiot and a rapist in front of Jon Connington, whose world is already crumbling around him with the revelation of Young Griff's true identity, triggers Connington's turn into violent denial.
• Dork Knight: He's noble, chivalrous, has a strong sense of justice and is skilled enough to kill the Mountain in single combat. He's also an incredibly socially awkward brooding teenager who has no idea how to talk to girls outside his immediate family and seems to put his feet in his mouth half the time.
• Family Relationship Switcheroo: Readers are split as to whether Olyvar really is the son of Oberyn Martell by a Lyseni courtesan, or whether he might be Aegon, son of Elia Martell and heir to the Iron Throne. He's Aegon, and his sister Meria is Rhaenys.
• Friend to All Children: He generally gets along well with kids, as seen with his interactions with young Samrik. This also allows him to repeat his ancestor Visenya's feat by taking Robert Arryn on dragonback, winning over the Vale by doing so.
• Good Is Not Soft: Once Olyvar gets the Mountain flat on his back, he methodically stabs every weak point in his armor, including the groin, and at the end of the combat he cuts off the Mountain's head and drops it at Sansa's feet.
• Honor Before Reason:
  • Olyvar is very aware that volunteering to fight the Mountain is a terrible idea that will likely end with his death. He fights him anyway.
  • This is also why he's put off consummating his marriage to Sansa due to fearing the likely response from her brother Robb (who Olyvar wants as an ally). This is all in spite of the fact that due to being married, he's within his rights to do so, not to mention the fact that he and Sansa have indeed been falling for each other since they got married.
• I Am Not My Father: Olyvar tries his hardest to not repeat his birth father Rhaegar's mistakes, such as keeping to his word about not touching Sansa even if they're already married.
• In-Series Nickname: "Strongspear" after his victory over the Mountain.
• Knight in Shining Armor: Well, Olyvar wasn't actually knighted yet, still being a squire, but he stepped up to defend Sansa when no one else would because "this is not justice." He is knighted in recognition of his defeat of the Mountain.
• Love at First Sight: Completely averted. Sansa is beautiful, but Olyvar immediately recognizes that she's just a kid like his sister Elia. However, this trope is a very popular rumor among serving girls seeking an explanation for why Olyvar chose to defend Sansa. After he defeats the Mountain, several singers immediately write sappy romantic ballads asserting this to be the case.
• Meaningful Name: A reference to the olive tree, symbolizing peace and long-term growth as well as his Dornish heritage.
• My Sister Is Off-Limits: Downplayed; he gets cranky after discovering Willas Tyrell and his sister Meria have been privately corresponding and now plan to marry.
  Meria: I thought you liked him.
  Olyvar: I did, until five minutes ago.
• "Near and Dear" Baby Naming: His grandfather was Princess Loreza's husband, Olyvar Manwoody. His maternal grandfather.
• Pungeon Master: He has a penchant for delivering ill-timed wordplay. For example:

Chapter 96:

"Which side of the pheasant has the most feathers?" He asked, uncomfortable with the silence. Sansa stared at him, brow furrowed.

"The outside."

A few seats down the table his father groaned, pressing one hand to his brow.

• Race Lift: He looks much more Dornish than the canonical Aegon, even after he stops dyeing his hair black. The "Aegon" that most people saw in the altered timeline was actually the child of Ashara Dayne and one of the Stark brothers.
• Real Men Love Jesus: He's a fairly devout adherent to the Faith of the Seven, especially compared to the more cynical characters of canon.
• Rule of Symbolism: The crown he wears as king is the same one that Aegon the Conqueror and Daeron I used, which fits given him (re)conquering Westeros with a dragon at his side. There's also a touch of irony to this, given that Daeron I lost the crown upon his death while fighting in Dorne while Olyvar is of Dornish descent himself, and Dorne is one of his first allies in his quest to win the throne.
  • Olyvar's adoption of the phoenix as his personal sigil later turns out to be this. With the pillars of Targaryen power in King's Landing (the Red Keep, the Dragonpit, and Baelor's Sept) all destroyed by wildfire, Olyvar has to essentially build his family's power base back up from the ashes.
• Single-Target Sexuality: He has no sexual interest in anyone except for Sansa (and it takes years before either of them acts on their sexual tension). This also means that Olyvar is oblivious to even blatant attempts at seducing him coming from other people. As the author notes, Olyvar may even be demisexual.
• Sword and Sorcerer: Olyvar is the Sword to Sansa's Sorcerer, being an accomplished warrior who defeats the Mountain in single combat and leads the reconquest of Westeros from the front.
• Walking Spoiler: His role as the living Aegon VI, heir to the Targaryen line, serves as one of the big effects of Sansa's actions through the story.
• Wham Line: "My mother dreamt of you!"
• With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: Olyvar is aware of this, which is why he doesn't want to be king at first. He doesn't want the responsibility of ruling the Seven Kingdoms despite being well aware that the Lannisters are driving Westeros into the ground and need to be overthrown. It's also why he is so quick to initially support Dany as he wants her to conquer and rule Westeros instead of him. Eventually, he comes to realize that between Dany coming to treat Essos as home and Westeros being in need of a king who cares for its people, he finally decides to go home and press his claim by the end of Part IV.

Perwyn Frey

"Princess Arya, no!"

The fifteenth son of Lord Walder Frey and the first son born in the marriage between Walder and Bethany Rosby. He is part of Catelyn's guard when she goes to negotiate with Renly Baratheon and later becomes her sworn sword. As of the end of Part IV, he is 30.

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• Ascended Extra: Perwyn does serve as part of Catelyn's escort in canon. However, he gets very little dialogue and characterization beyond being one of the "good" Freys, as evidenced by his exclusion from the Red Wedding. Here, he and Catelyn interact much more, forming a platonic friendship.
• Babysitter Friendship: When he becomes Arya's sworn sword, they get along well, although her antics often stress him out.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: He's a Frey. Perwyn admits that it is not a fun experience having so many brothers, sisters, cousins, and more jammed into the Twins.
• Dead Guy Junior: His daughter is named Bethany, after his mother.
• Disowned Parent: He abandons the Frey name after the Red Wedding.
  A father may disown a son who shames him. Just so may a son disown the father. Lord Walder's actions are an abomination before the old gods and the new. Never again shall we wear the towers of House Frey, nor claim the name of the man who sired us.
• Locked Up and Left Behind: His brother Benfrey locks him in a room to keep him from interfering in the Red Wedding. Because Benfrey is killed in the fighting, it takes a while for anyone to remember he's there.
• Token Good Teammate: Perwyn stays with Catelyn after Robb's marriage to Jeyne Westerling, ignoring orders to return to the Twins. He faithfully guards Catelyn and then Arya, and is led away by his brother before the Red Wedding starts. After the Wedding, Robb names the "good" Freys who protested the Red Wedding House Truefaith.

Bel

Bel

A Dornish brothel madam in King's Landing. Formerly employed by Petyr Baelish; she helps Sansa, Jeyne Poole, and Meri escape the city.

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• Arbitrary Skepticism: She's ready to believe that Sansa's a skinchanger, Qyburn's a necromancer, and her cousin once removed is a water witch, but not that Renly was killed by a supernatural creature.
• Ascended Extra: Bel is based on a character who briefly appears when Eddard is at one of Littlefinger's brothels.
  "They went inside [Littlefinger's brothel], through a crowded common room where a fat woman was singing bawdy songs…"
• Beneath Notice: She's able to get Jeyne, Meri, Sansa and Arya out of King's Landing because people aren't going to really look for them in a common brothel.
• Big Beautiful Woman: She is fat. Arya, Tyrion and Sansa consider her to be a handsome woman. At one point two Dornish lords argue over who can win her favor.
• Career-Ending Injury: Bel was a singer and qithara (Dornish guitar) player. During the Sack of King's Landing, two of her fingers were broken, ending her ability to play qithara. Sansa heals her fingers, restoring their function.
• Chekhov's Skill: In the opening scene of Bel I, she shows off her knife-throwing for the patrons of her brothel. She later throws a knife at Qyburn when he's holding Wren hostage.
• Cunning Like a Fox: Bel manages to protect Jeyne Poole and Meri from Littlefinger's demands that they be "trained." She then helps Sansa, Jeyne, and Meri escape after Joffrey’s death. When Tyrion investigates the girls' disappearance, Bel successfully blames Petyr Baelish, then kills him and frames a pedophile sellsword for the murder. Tyrion ends up paying her so much gold for (half-false) information that she's able to buy the brothel. Later she works as Cersei's agent; when Cersei checks with her that the smallfolk aren't aware that the new High Septon is a Frey by birth, she promptly turns around and leaks the information.
• The Dog Bites Back: She detests Littlefinger's financial control and predatory behavior, and when she learns he's fallen from royal favor, she seizes the opportunity to be rid of him. She also takes the opportunity to chase after Qyburn after wildfire explodes around the city as payback for his maltreatment of some of her girls.
• It's Personal: Not only did Bel lose the use of three fingers during the Lannisters' Sack of King’s Landing, she also lost her sister. Bel eagerly seizes any opportunity to take revenge on the Lannisters (so long as she can keep herself and her girls safe).
• Mama Bear: Hurt her prostitutes at your own peril, as Littlefinger demonstrates. Qyburn threatening her adopted daughter Wren also leads Bel to nail him in the chest with a knife, though unfortunately he doesn't stay dead.
• Miss Kitty: She's one of King's Landing's notable madams, and runs her own brothel after subjecting Petyr Baelish to a hostile takeover.
• My Greatest Failure: Bel is greatly affected by the deaths of her sister Lena, murdered by Lannister soldiers in the Sack of King's Landing, and of Lily, a young girl who Littlefinger forced her to groom as a prospective mistress for Robert. She chooses to help Arya in part because of her resemblance to Lily (Littlefinger had intended to provide a Replacement Goldfish of Arya's aunt Lyanna). She's also thrifty to a fault after Littlefinger took advantage of her debt to stage a hostile takeover of her brothel.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Only Tobho Mott calls her Belandra.
• Straight Gay: Played with. Despite not exhibiting any stereotypical gay behaviors, both Arya and Sansa pick up on the fact that Bel is very close with her second in command, Jess. When Jess comes out as a trans man named Joss, Bel still stays with him as a partner.
• The Oldest Profession: Bel runs a brothel.
• Unknown Rival: She has a one-sided rivalry with Chataya, whose elegant brothel is the best and most expensive in the city and mostly caters to high lords, compared to Bel's brothel, which is less prosperous, and whose clientele are knights, guild masters, and rich merchants. Bel despises her for "willingly" collaborating with Tywin Lannister and for prostituting her own daughter when she has the means to do otherwise. It doesn't stop her from lighting a candle in Chataya's name when the other woman dies in the burning of King's Landing, however.

Merissa of Sherrer

Better known as Meri. A smallfolk girl from Sherrer, she is a little older than Sansa but shorter. She is orphaned and made homeless by Gregor Clegane’s attack on Sherrer, and Sansa takes her into her service. As of the end of Part IV, she is around 19-20.

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• Animal Lover: Meri really loves cows and takes every opportunity to spend time with them, even though she is being trained to serve as Arya’s maid. Catelyn Stark thinks that when they return to Winterfell Meri would do well in the dairy.
• Ascended Extra: Meri appears in canon when the people of Sherrer are brought before Eddard Stark.
  "In ones and twos, the holdfast of Sherrer struggled to its feet. One ancient needed to be helped, and a young girl in a bloody dress stayed on her knees, staring blankly… The girl on her knees craned her head up at Ned, high above her on the throne. ‘They killed my mother too, Your Grace. And they … they …' Her voice trailed off, as if she had forgotten what she was about to say. She began to sob."
• Broken Bird: As in canon, she was raped by Gregor Clegane and/or his men. Unsurprisingly, the experience traumatizes her. Subverted because with support she gradually gets better.
• Innocence Lost: Meri was a milkmaid minding her own business in the quiet village of Sherrer before the Mountain and his men came raiding.
• Lipstick Lesbian: Meri is conventionally feminine. She is also in a discreet but long running relationship with Jeyne Poole.
• Uptown Girl: The highborn Jeyne is this to Meri.
• Rich Language, Poor Language: Over time, Meri's speech becomes significantly more polished.
• Penny Among Diamonds: Exploited. As a smallfolk maid, she is the most low-ranking member of Arya's entourage. When Bel needs to get the attention of the royal party at a point where everyone is trying to get their attention, she stands out from the crowd by calling out something no one else is: Merissa's name.
• Sex Slave: As in canon, Jeyne Poole is taken by Littlefinger and hidden away in one of his brothels. In this AU, Meri goes with her. Subverted because Bel stalls on training them because they are far too young for sex work, having them work in the kitchen instead. After Ned Stark’s execution she helps them escape with Sansa.
• There Are No Therapists: Averted. While staying at Bel's brothel one of the other sex workers, Jess, comforts Meri and helps her open up and process her trauma.
• You Can't Go Home Again: In response to the Innocently Insensitive Jeyne, she angrily explains that the people of the hollow hill prefer staying together with the people they have come to know rather than returning to the ruins of their home villages, let alone being sent off by their original lord to settle elsewhere with strangers.

Gilly

No one ever gave us anything, Gilly thought. Not the crows who came for a roof, and paid father with gifts. Not the wildlings, who tried to steal our sheep and pigs. Not the cold gods, who took son after son and never spoke a word or gave us a single rabbit.

The only surviving daughter of Craster's second wife, Grindis. She is later sent south by Jon and becomes Sansa's maid. As of the end of Part IV, she is around 20.

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• Adaptational Angst Downgrade: She isn't forced to exchange her son with Mance's.
• I Gave My Word: Inverted. Unlike Sam, she never actually promised to keep the meeting with Bran a secret, so when she overhears Sansa's worries about Bran she has no problem with telling her what she knows.
• "Near and Dear" Baby Naming: She gives her son the permanent name Samrik, after Samwell Tarly.
• Never Learned to Read: It comes with being raised in an isolated cult deep in the wilderness. She initially begins to learn in hopes of helping Sam gather information about the Others.

Irri

Irri said nothing, merely looked at her captain, unbothered, as though his obedience were inevitable. When he turned away, she knew she had won.

Irri is a Dothraki noblewoman, the daughter of the deceased Khal Dhako. After her father was defeated and killed by Khal Drogo she and her older sister Jhiqui were enslaved and later became handmaidens to Daenerys Targaryen. As of the end of Part IV, she is 19.

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• Ascended Extra: Irri is a background character in the books with her own story only mentioned once in passing. Here, she is not only a POV character but is the first POV of Part IV of the story in addition to a more detailed version of what happened to her being provided.
• The Dog Bites Back: Irri and Jhiqui secretly poisoned their first mistress, Drogo's grandmother Caana, who treated them horribly.
• Marry for Love: At the end of the Meereen arc, she is soon to marry Rakharo.
• Oh, Crap!: When she and Jhiqui explain Dothraki marriage customs to Daenerys, who points out that her own marriage was nothing like that, both of them freeze up at the prospect of telling her how much of a deviant Drogo was.
  Daenerys: But I was only thirteen when I wed Drogo—
  Both of her Dothraki ladies froze, like fawns hiding from hunters in long grass.
• Riches to Rags: Irri started off as the privileged daughter of a Khal with a bright future ahead of her but their father was killed by Drogo and she was enslaved. She is now essentially Dany's servant. After rescuing Dany she gets a promotion to effectively a lady in waiting for Dany bringing her back to riches.
• Significant Name Shift: She addresses Daenerys by name when the latter makes the decision to poison Drogon.
• Undying Loyalty: Subverted. Irri and Jhiqui's relationship with Dany is usually portrayed as this in most fanfics but here it's pointed out that they really have nowhere else to go. What's more, they were given to Dany as slaves by the man who killed their father and destroyed their old lives, and are intimidated by her. While Dany does care about them and protects them, she rarely, if ever, listens to their advice or shows much consideration for them. This starts to change following them saving her from being kidnapped as she follows their advice on how to deal with Yunkai and it works fantastically.

Daenerys Targaryen

Dany could not burn her foes from dragonback, but there were other ways to make the slavers regret besieging Meereen.

The youngest child and only daughter of King Aerys Targaryen, Daenerys (also called Dany) spent most of her life wandering Essos with her abusive older brother Viserys until she was married to Khal Drogo. Following his death Dany hatches 3 dragons and later becomes the Queen of Slaver's Bay. As of the end of Part IV, she is 20.

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• Book Dumb: She spent most of her life on the run, which meant that she never had the opportunity to study under a tutor or maester or the time for formal education. As a result, she isn't especially book learned, and her knowledge has a number of large gaps — she has no idea that the Blackfyres existed or that their rebellions ever occurred, for instance.
• Broken Pedestal: Part of her arc is coming to the realization that the men she loved and idolized were actually pedophiles and rapists.
• Color Motif: Red and, to a lesser extent, olive green as symbols of hope and peace. Young Griff dreams of a red dragon offering her an olive, the dragon she hatches after Drogon's death is red (as was its egg), her heir has bonded with an olive-colored egg, and after accepting Meereen as her home she fills it with literal houses with red doors.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After years of suffering, pain, and trauma, Daenerys ultimately gets the family and home that she has always wanted.
• Idiot Ball: Grabs this hard in regards to Euron. She ignores multiple warnings from her handmaidens and Barristan that Euron is bad news and goes through with a ritual that will supposedly allow her to control her dragons. The end result is that she loses one of them, multiple Unsullied are killed, and the only reason she isn't successfully kidnapped by Euron is that Irri and Jhiqui attacked him.
• Ignorant of Their Own Ignorance: Daenerys thinks the sword Blackfyre is proof of Young Griff's bona fides as a Targaryen, not knowing of the line of Targaryen bastards who were given the sword and then periodically rebelled in an attempt to take the throne for themselves (to be fair, not even Barristan mentions this).
• Insistent Terminology: Daenerys always refers to Sansa as Lady Sansa rather then Princess as a way of showing that she doesn't recognize Robb as a king or his North, Vale, Riverlands kingdom as independent. This annoys Olyvar somewhat, though Sansa doesn't make in issue of it.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Daenerys gives her husband a crown with a black dragon on it to honor Drogon. Her advisors try to delicately tell her that a red dragon, the symbol of House Targaryen, would be better. She refuses since in her mind the black dragon, Drogon, is the best symbol of her power. She is completely unaware that the black dragon is the symbol of the Blackfyres or that the Blackfyres even existed.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Why Dany can't give birth to a living child. It may be the result of Mirri Maz Duur cursing her, or it may be simply because she got pregnant and gave birth when she was just fourteen.
• My Greatest Failure: Eroeh, a Lhazareen girl she tried to save who was raped and murdered after Drogo's khalasar collapsed. The catalyst for her realization of Khal Drogo's monstrosity is Eroeh's brother petitioning her for the compensation that freedmen are owed from their former masters.
• Never Be Hurt Again: Why Dany seeks power. For most of her life, she was a powerless victim of her abusive older brother Viserys and a minor pawn in Varys and Illryio's plans. Thus, she's terrified of going back to being a helpless victim with no control over her life again.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Dany can be vicious at times, but those acts are usually directed towards some pretty nasty people like the Great Masters of Meereen, a group of nobles whose wealth is built on human trafficking.
• Prophecy Twist: Moqorro initially believes she is able to bear children because he has a vision of her holding children, but eventually realizes that they are the foundlings she has taken in.
• Put on a Bus: In a sense. Her role in the overall story ends after Sansa, Olyvar and company depart for Westeros, and the rest of Book IV and Book V focus exclusively on Westeros.
• Rags to Riches: While Dany was always royalty (albeit in exile), she spent most of her early life in poverty until she becomes the khaleesi of Khal Drogo. She goes back to rags after he dies, and then back to riches again after becoming queen of Meereen.
• Royal Favorite: As she takes charge of Meereen, Dany tends to place her closest servants in very powerful positions. Her faithful Dothraki handmaids, ages 15 and 17, become her ladies, one in charge of diplomacy with Dothraki, one in charge of dealing with the freedmen. Her scribe Missandei, age 11, is in charge of choosing scribes to help run the entire city.
• Sex Slave: What Dany ultimately was to Khal Drogo. However, she refuses to accept this since it was her marriage to Drogo that got her away from Viserys and gave her some actual power for the first time in her life. She also hates the idea that she was a victim. After meeting one of Drogo's slaves, however, she ultimately comes to accept this.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: After she stops trying to appease the Great Masters, she wears the more functional dress of the Meereenese middle class instead of the tokar.
• That Thing Is Not My Child!: Zigzagged. She used to see the three dragons she hatched as her children, but she stops believing this of Drogon after he incinerates and eats one of the orphans she was caring for right in front of her.
• Trauma Conga Line: Where to begin? Daenerys spent most of her early life wandering across Essos with no home, friends, or family besides Viserys, who abused her constantly. She was then sold into effective slavery by her brother and ended up pregnant when she was just 13. She has suffered repeated stillbirths. One of her dragons is stolen from her, another runs off and the last one chooses another rider over her. After becoming Queen of Meereen she suffers from near constant assassination attempts and is betrayed repeatedly. Daenerys almost never gets a break.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: This seems to be what the author is aiming for with her character. Dany means well and isn't a malevolent person like Cersei or Tywin but is prepared to do terrible things while wanting to be good. Like staging a surprise attack at a wedding, breaking down temple doors to reach her enemies, and chaining an old woman to a stake to die of exposure.

Jaime Lannister

The eldest son of Tywin Lannister, Jaime was a member of Mad King Aerys' Kingsguard but chose to kill the king rather than let him burn down King’s Landing, which earned him the title Kingslayer. He later becomes Lord Commander of Tommen/Joffrey's Kingsguard, both of whom are secretly his bastard sons by his sister Cersei. As of the end of Part IV, he is 38-39.

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• Abusive Parent: While he and Myrcella are both being held prisoner on Dragonstone, he proudly tells her that he is her father without showing the slightest bit of concern to how world shattering it would be to her to learn that she is a bastard of incest.
• Analogy Backfire: At the end of chapter 145, he quotes the family anthem "The Rains of Castamere" while mentally boasting about how dangerous he is. That is, he quotes the boast the song attributes to Lord Reyne.
• Attempted Rape: Or sexual assault, rather. Jaime forcibly kisses an unwilling Brienne in Chapter 145. He ends up with a broken nose for his attempt, and it solidifies his lack of true redemption.
• Became Their Own Antithesis: Jaime killed Aerys to prevent him from burning down King's Landing with wildfire. Due to his traumatic memories of the Red Keep (along with other factors), in Chapter 159 Jaime now agrees that the Red Keep should burn in wildfire rather than let Aegon claim it.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Jaime finally gets sick enough of Tywin's bullshit to confront him directly. It does not go well.
• Composite Character: In a way. He's a mix of his canon self with traits from canon Tyrion, due to him being the one killing his father Tywin and fleeing to Essos in the process.
• Condescending Compassion: He graciously offers to have sex with Brienne so that she won't die a maiden. It never occurs to him that anyone else would kiss her, let alone marry her.
• Death by Irony: Jaime Lannister, one of the finest swordsmen in Westeros, dies after getting brained by a rock.
• Didn't Think This Through: Jaime is pretty impulsive and not good with considering consequences.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He grieves for Tyrion and has sworn to avenge him... not knowing who's actually responsible for his death.
• Even Evil Has Standards: He may be fine with throwing a 7-year-old boy out of a tower, but even he is disgusted by Tywin's plans for Sansa, age 13, to be forced to wed ASAP and then raped and impregnated. Downplayed in that he finds things cruel but often doesn't do anything to stop them from happening, or does so for the wrong reasons.
• Gilded Cage: His prison cell in the Great Pyramid of Meereen is very nice. Of course, that's because his captor needs him to cooperate.
• Horrible Judge of Character: He has an almost comical misunderstanding of Cersei and thinks her more stupid and vicious acts were done by Randyll Tarly.
• In Spite of a Nail: He still loses his right hand, this time to infection after being wounded by Edmure Tully.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • He makes fun of Daenerys for granting inheritable titles to Unsullied who are physically incapable of having biological heirs, leading her to implement legal processes for adoption which come in handy once she accepts her own infertility.
  • When Barristan Selmy castigates him for having sex with his sister, Jaime points out that Barristan stood by while Aerys violently raped his sister Rhaella. Barristan, in turn, points out that Jaime didn't do anything to help Rhaella either.
  • When Olyvar offers to exile Cersei to the Faith instead of executing her, Jaime protests that it would be cruel... to the septas.
• Karmic Death: He kills a girl because he thought she discovered him and Cersei as they fled towards Casterly Rock by striking her on the head with a heavy jar. Jaime, in turn, dies after Cersei strikes him on the head with a rock.
• Kinslaying Is a Special Kind of Evil: He murders his father Tywin, his cousin Martyn, and finally Cersei after he realizes she finished off Tyrion.
• Laughing Mad: He bursts into hysterical laughter after realizing the real Aegon Targaryen has been Hidden in Plain Sight and he was lured to Essos to "serve" an impostor.
• Master Swordsman: He was... until he lost his sword hand. After five years of non-stop training, he's back to his old form, with the added bonus that a left-handed swordsman is uncommon and thus harder to fight.
• Not Good with Rejection: He goes from idealizing Brienne as the Maiden and Warrior combined to disparaging her as a "cow in chainmail" once she rejects his advances.
• Redemption Rejection: At the end of the day, what ends up killing Jaime is his insistence on living up to his reputation as a Master Swordsman to be feared, leading him to reject various opportunities to redeem himself.
• Skewed Priorities: His Pre-Mortem One-Liner is focused not on what Tywin intends to do to Cersei, but that Tywin intends to take Cersei away from him.
• Troll: He provokes Ser George Graceford into leaving him and Cersei alone in the room with their escape route by threatening to have sex in front of him.
• Villainous Valour: Over the course of one night he first picks his locks and escapes Aegon's camp for the Red Keep, then escapes the Red Keep with Cersei.
• Wants a Prize for Basic Decency: He claims Princess Elia should be grateful for saving her from Gregor Clegane after Arthur Dayne and the two children in her charge were killed, and that Sansa should thank him for refusing to force her into marriage and killing Tywin (for unrelated reasons) before he could.
• You're Cute When You're Angry: He remembers saying this about Cersei when his mother scolded him for teasing her. Per the author, this aroused Joanna's suspicions about their relationship.

Cersei Lannister

The only daughter of Tywin Lannister, Cersei was married to Robert Baratheon after the conclusion of Robert’s Rebellion becoming Queen of Westeros. Secretly Cersei carried out an affair with her twin brother Jaime and her three children Joffrey, Myrcella and Tommen are bastards. As of the end of Part IV, she is 38-39.

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• Abusive Parent: Hates that Tommen isn't "strong" like Joffrey, but whenever Tommen does try to stand up for himself, she harshly puts him down in addition to isolating him and having one of his few friends mutilated. She also barely pays any attention to Myrcella, has not visited her once on Dragonstone for years and hardly ever reads her letters, and when she does notice her, she increasingly becomes jealous of her daughter's youthful beauty. Then, upon Aegon's approach to Dragonstone, she uses Myrcella as an unwitting suicide bomber and later kills Tommen by shoving him onto one of the Iron Throne's blades.
• The Alcoholic: She slides into it to the point where she's knocking back cup after cup even in the middle of small council meetings; at one point she drunkenly banishes Hallyne from the Red Keep and then has to be reminded why he isn't there.
• Archenemy: To Sansa. Sansa and Cersei hate each other. Sansa killed Cersei's son and Cersei had a hand in the death of Sansa's father, had her pet killed, and tormented Sansa in Kings Landing.
• Big Bad: Following Tywin's death, Cersei takes his place as the main antagonist of the story as well as the most personal one for Sansa.
• Book Dumb: During her rant to her Small Council she yells that the Targaryens practiced incest for centuries and no one objected apparently forgetting or not knowing that The Faith Militant Rising (an extremely bloody and brutal conflict) was started as a protest again Targaryen incest. Given that unlike Dany Cersei was educated by a maester this speaks very poorly of her knowledge of history.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • She tries to toy with a singer accused of writing a treasonous song by ordering him to perform it before the court. It's the song Sansa wrote about the death of Eddard Stark, with uncomfortable inside knowledge about the incident where Bran found her having sex with Jaime and what she said at her secret meeting with Eddard. Afterward Cersei is described as "white as a corpse."
  • She discourages Tommen from learning about Daeron the Young Dragon out of fear that he'll be inspired to defy her regency, instead decreeing that he study the comparatively meek and mild Baelor and Daeron II. The example of these kings encourages Tommen's social conscience and care for the people she holds in contempt, leading him to ride out to hear the concerns of Bonifer Hasty's petitioners and argue for support of the Night's Watch.
• Empty Bedroom Grieving: She won't allow the appointment of a new Lord Commander of the Kingsguard for years after Jaime's disappearance, because she refuses to believe he's dead (which, as it happens, he isn't).
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Seems to believe that every House in Westeros operates on the same ruthless and cruel principles of House Lannister and doesn't understand that Robb doesn't view Sansa as a piece on a board but as sister who he loves unconditionally.
  • She easily believes Oberyn's claims that the Martells disdain Lyanna Stark as a whore and that beneath the chivalrous facade, Olyvar is a sadistic pedophile who only volunteered to fight for Sansa because he was horny.
  • She also believes that Margaery will cuckold Tommen and then murder him to put her son on the throne... because that's exactly what she did with Robert.
  • She believes that after what she (thinks she) did to Sansa, condemning her to a nightmarish marriage, Sansa will inflict the same abuses on the captive Myrcella, and so she unilaterally decides for her daughter that it's Better to Die than Be Killed.
• Evil Counterpart: To Daenerys. Both are Queens (though Dany later becomes an Empress), both had abusive paternal figures (Tywin for Cersei and Viserys for Dany), both are brutal to their enemies, and they both suffered from Domestic Abuse and later kill/have killed their abuser. The differences are that Dany doesn't have Cersei's ego and is capable of learning from her mistakes, and the suffering Dany went through has given her empathy to those who have also suffered while Cersei has no empathy for anyone other then herself. In addition, Dany comes to accept that her father and brothers were terrible people and wants to be different while Cersei admires Tywin and wants to be like him.
• Evil Is Petty: She relentlessly bullied Lysa and talked Jon Arryn into confining her to "The Yellow Wallpaper"-style bedrest because Lysa was once proposed as a match for Jaime. After Sansa is recaptured she gives her nothing to wear but old clothes she's outgrown until Olenna Tyrell makes a pointed remark to Kevan about it.
• Exact Words: She agrees to exchange the Dornish nobles in King's Landing for Jaime, failing to mention that they've all been killed.
• Fantastic Racism: Looks down on the Dornish for their skin color. Is also an ableist as she is disdainful of Elia on account of her being crippled.
• Harmful to Minors: As a seven-year-old, she saw her mother dying or dead after Tyrion's birth.
• History Repeats: Like Rhaenyra Targaryen, she is forced to flee King's Landing, retreats to her home domain only to find it taken by her enemies, and is killed by her younger brother.
• Hoist by Her Own Petard: Cersei tries to get Mace, Margaery, and Loras murdered by sellswords pretending to be Northmen, which would allow her to get rid of the Tyrells in King's Landing while still keeping Highgarden loyal to her and frame the Starks as well. Instead, while Mace is killed, both Margaery and Loras survive and escape to the North, where Margaery has her marriage to Tommen annulled, marries Robb, and sends a message to her older brother Willas informing him of the truth. The end result is that the Tyrells sever ties with the Lannisters and declare Tommen a bastard, massively weakening Cersei's position just in time for Olyvar and Sansa's invasion.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: At the height of her power, Cersei effectively ruled over half a continent. She spends the last few days of her life as a fugitive, going through alcohol withdrawal while her brother uses her for sex. Their return to the Rock ultimately leads to their downfall, betrayed by family and Cersei dying after Jaime strangles her in the bowels of Casterly Rock.
• Hypocrite: We could be here all day.
  • She looks down on bastards despite having three of them.
  • After merchants suffer from the Iron Bank's recall of loans, she loftily thinks they shouldn't have borrowed money they couldn't pay back when the recall was caused by her own default on the Crown's debt to the Bank.
  • Her appeal to xenophobia when she tries to use Varys as a scapegoat for the Lannisters' misdeeds.
    "The men of the Free Cities cannot be trusted to follow the laws of gods and men. Guest right, kinslaying, incest, these crimes come to them as easily as breathing."
  • She also disdainfully thinks on Aegon II's kinslaying after killing both her brother Tyrion and daughter Myrcella.
• I Reject Your Reality: Even after Tarly's army is crushed she still believes that she can defeat the Targaryens ignoring that Olyvar has most of the realm on his side, the Golden Company, and a dragon.
  • Even more delusionally she actually thinks she convince the Starks of all people not to support Olyvar via blaming every bad thing the Lannisters have done to them on Varys, something Robb would never believe.
  • With her small council in open mutiny, she claims that Jaime will defend King's Landing on his own. Against, again, a dragon.
  • Even after being driven out of Kings Landing and forced to go on the run she still thinks she can win thinking that Casterly Rock is unassailable once again ignoring Olyvar's dragon and as Harrenhall shows even the mightiest fortress is useless against dragon fire as her cousin Willem points out to her.
• Karmic Death: She ends up dying in Casterly Rock's sewers, echoing both Tywin's destruction of Houses Reyne and Tarbeck in the Rains of Castamere as well as her murder of Melara Hetherspoon by pushing the poor girl into a well. The sewage (a problem she had previously ignored) combined with the rising tide traps her and Jaime as they try to escape, and when he realizes she killed Tyrion, Jaime strangles her.
• Kinslaying Is a Special Kind of Evil: Her wicked ways are emphasized by the fact that she's poisoned her brother Tyrion after the Blackwater, as well as putting her children in harm's way for her own benefit.
• Kick the Dog: Spends a considerable amount of her time tormenting Sansa.
• Memento MacGuffin: A pendant of a replica Brightroar that Jaime once gave her. She claims to hate it and that it's definitely not a love token, but still sometimes wears it under more elaborate pieces. She's wearing it on the night of Jaime's return and their escape from the Red Keep, it's one of two pieces of jewelry she keeps intact while on the run, the other being her crown, and he later uses it to pick the lock on his chains during their escape attempt at Casterly Rock.
• Never My Fault: Despite planning for Myrcella to unwittingly suicide bomb Olyvar, Cersei blames him as well as Ser Arys for her death. She later blames her father and Jaime for Sansa marrying Olyvar ignoring that she was the one who arranged it and it was her insistence of putting Sansa on trial that let it happen.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: She has a tendency to inadvertently help her enemies out due to her extreme paranoia, arrogance, and short-sightedness.
  • Her decision to endorse the proposal of a Sansa/Olyvar marriage in an attempt to punish Sansa ends in a fiasco for the Lannisters. Sansa was the Lannisters’ only real card against Robb and the marriage allowed Sansa to leave King's Landing, meaning she is no longer their prisoner and can’t be used as a bargaining chip. What’s more, given that Olyvar is actually Aegon Targaryen, letting Sansa marry him basically gives the North a very important ally and weakens her own position overall. Jaime calls her out for this stating he's amazed Tywin's shade doesn't haunt her for arranging the marriage.
  • Her attempt to have Mace, Margaery, and Loras assassinated only succeeds in killing the first while the latter two escape, resulting in the Tyrells forming an alliance with the Starks, giving the North some badly needed supplies for the upcoming winter as well as making Sansa and Olyvar's invasion of Westeros much easier.
• Offing the Offspring: Though she never means to harm her children, the fact that she sent the wildfire-laced veil that killed Myrcella and her accidentally pushing Tommen into one of the Iron Throne's blades means she has a hand in the deaths of her younger children. One could also argue that her upbringing of Joffrey indirectly led to his death.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Had Varys, who has children's tongues cut off so they can be spies, killed after she figured out that he was not on her side and was involved in Jaime's disappearance.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Cersei decides not to try and have Shireen murdered after she flees to Braavos. That's right: not murdering a child is Cersei's idea of kindness. Then again, she only decides this because she thinks Shireen is so ugly that no one will ever fight for her.
  • More conventionally, she shows some idle affection to Buttons the kitten when Tommen adopts him in Sansa's absence, in a scene where Tyrion also finds her wearing a flower crown Myrcella made for her.
  • In another "charitable" impulse, she gives Meria a vague warning about the impending Masked Massacre, which accidentally saves the lives of Loras and Margaery.
• Properly Paranoid: Following Tywin's death, Cersei makes sure that Sansa is kept in her tower cell under guard and restricts what freedoms she has to keep her from escaping, which seems rather excessive given that Sansa is a seemingly harmless 13-year-old girl. Given that Sansa is capable of turning into a giant wolf (not that Cersei knows that), this is actually a pretty smart policy since Sansa was the Lannisters' only real card against Robb.
  • Completely averted in regards to the Tyrells. While Mace was planning to force Cersei into a motherhouse, this was only after years of taunts and mockery, refusal to share any power, and misrule. What's more, his plan could have been avoided via simply refusing to go to Oldtown.
• Rule of Symbolism: She literally kills Tommen in the process of forcing a crown onto his head.
• Sadistic Choice: She intends to force Sansa to choose between marrying the Hound, Ilyn Payne, or Janos Slynt's son Morros.
• Sand In My Eyes: She doesn't recognize her own tears as she asphyxiates in a flooded tunnel after killing Jaime in self-defense.
  The water only swallowed her up to the neck; why did her eyes feel wet?
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Cersei exploits this at least once. The prophecy foretelling the fate of her children says that her children shall have golden crowns and golden shrouds. So when Myrcella is trapped on Dragonstone, she sends her a wildfire-laced golden veil that she intends for her daughter to use to take Olyvar/Aegon down with her. She later murders Tommen when she shoves him onto one of the Iron Thrones spikes.
• Sibling Murder: Cersei arranged Tyrion's death; he died soon after the Battle of the Blackwater via poison Cersei gives him.
• Slave Collar: She "gifts" Sansa with a bejeweled golden choker to signify she's under the Lannisters' "protection."
• Theory Tunnel Vision: When Qyburn shows her evidence of chronic arsenic poisoning on Kevan's corpse, she immediately assumes the Tyrells are behind it. Not the lord with a reputation as a notorious poisoner, and certainly not the lord who bribed Kevan with massive amounts of wine.
• Traumatic Haircut: Jaime forcibly cuts off her hair to maintain her disguise as a silent sister after killing an inn worker who walked in on her with her hair down.
• Villainous Breakdown: She goes on one in Chapter 156 after learning about the result of the Battle of Bitter Winds in a manner reminiscent of Hitler's rant in Downfall.
• Villain Has a Point: Cersei isn't wrong in her rant to the small council that everyone on the council knew or suspected the truth about her and Jaime but did nothing about it until their necks were on the line.

Tyrion Lannister

The second son and youngest child of Tywin Lannister.

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• Adapted Out: He dies without learning the truth about Tysha.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: At one point, Tyrion inwardly notes that if Cersei had just sucked it up and birthed a legitimate heir and spare for Robert, then her children's claim to the throne would not be contested and Westeros wouldn't be falling into war now.
• Death by Adaptation: Cersei poisons him while he's recovering from the wounds he took on the Blackwater.
• Kick the Dog: In a section that starts with him dreaming of hitting Shae, after he wakes up he pets Buttons and then starts to brood over the "ingratitude" of the residents of King's Landing, a number of whom he just rendered homeless, unthinkingly squeezing the cat's jaw to the point of pain.
• White Sheep: Downplayed - he's a lot less terrible than the rest of his family, especially in comparison to his father and sister, but he can still be pretty nasty in his own ways.

Tywin Lannister

Lord of Casterly Rock and father to Jaime, Cersei and Tyrion.

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• Abusive Parents: Abuses all three of his children, especially Tyrion. He even openly admits that the only reason he didn't murder Tyrion after he was born was because Joanna pleaded with him not to with her last dying breath. He also strikes Cersei when she insults him, and when Jaime reveals their incestuous relationship, he intends to remove her tongue and force her into the Silent Sisters. He makes the mistake of saying the last thing to Jaime's face.
• All for Nothing: Tywin dedicated his life to making House Lannister the dominant House in Westeros and dreamed of his blood ruling the continent. All his children and grandchildren end up dying ending his bloodline (with his children all killing each other!!). Tywin's enemies the Starks and Targaryens rule Westeros. House Lannister far from dominating the Seven Kingdoms like Tywin wanted end up losing their traditional seat of Casterly Rock to the Lyddens and their rule of the Westerlands. What's more it was Tywin's own brutality, greed, and horrible parenting that ended up damaging the Lannisters in ways his father Tytos's weakness never did.
• And There Was Much Rejoicing: Aside from Kevan and Pycelle, no one is really upset by Tywin's murder.
• Badass on Paper: Tywin, despite his reputation, isn't a particularly great military commander. What victories he gets are always because he either exercises underhanded means (such as how he exterminated the Reynes and Tarbecks) or massively outnumbers his opponents and even then, he's no match for Robb even when seriously outnumbering him. The disastrous Battle of Sweetroot, for example, has Robb pushing all the right buttons to lure him into a trap. Furthermore, Tywin's brutality, reliance on "scorched earth" tactics, and complete disregard for Westerosi social norms are in some ways as damaging as his father's tendency of being an Extreme Doormat was, as they severely discredit his House and earn them many enemies.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Tywin wanted Sansa to be found innocent of Joffrey's murder and that is what happens. However, rather than Sansa being shown as a harmless girl incapable of murder like Tywin intended, Sansa instead publicly accuses Tywin of being an oathbreaker and a coward before calling for a trial by combat that results in Tywin's favorite attack dog being killed and Sansa being found innocent. As a result, Tywin and the Lannisters are completely humiliated, Sansa becomes an adored public figure, and the Lannister regime's already bad public image takes a serious blow.
• Big Bad: Served as the main antagonist for the first three parts of the story.
• Control Freak: Expects his whole family to do exactly what he wants without question. It says a lot that the person he is closest to, his brother Kevan, is completely subservient to his will.
• Desecrating the Dead: After Mordryd Lydden takes Casterly Rock he has Tywin's corpse exhumed and personally flushes it down a privy.
• Evil Is Petty: Not only did he absolutely intend Elia's rape and murder for the high crime of marrying Rhaegar instead of his daughter, he went to the nursery to watch. More pettily, he has Shae tell him he's better in bed than his dead son.
• Fantastic Racism: Looks down on the Dornish and declared Elia, due to her Dornish blood, was unfit to wed Rhaegar.
• Hate Sink: One of the most loathsome characters in the story. Tywin is petty, cruel, abusive, a rapist, a murderer, and a coward.
• Humiliation Conga: First, Robb, a teenager, completely outmaneuvers and crushes Tywin's numerically superior army, forcing him to sue for peace. Then Sansa calls him a coward, an oathbreaker, and a murderer in front of hundreds, then his favorite hatchet man Gregor Clegane is killed by a squire, and to top it all off he is killed by Jaime while naked in his chambers. Even after he dies his humiliation continues with Mordryd flushing his corpse down a privy.
• In Spite of a Nail: Despite Tyrion's death, he's still killed by his angry son after a confrontation in the Tower of the Hand, thanks to the repercussions of his own hubris and cruelty.
• Straw Misogynist: Hates all women other than his wife. Sansa giving him a "The Reason You Suck" Speech really got under his skin. Further illustrated when he finds out about his children's incest and immediately blames Cersei for it.
• Undignified Death: Even more so than canon, fallen over a desk with his bare ass in the air and his postmortem bowel release all over his fancy carpet.
• Villain Has a Point: Declares that Cersei is completely unfit to be either Queen Regent or Lady of Casterly Rock, and he is one hundred percent correct.

Theon Greyjoy

The youngest child and only surviving son of Balon Greyjoy, Lord of the Iron Islands. As of the end of Part IV, he is around 26-27.

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• Abled in the Adaptation: He doesn't undergo the physical torture and maiming he did in canon.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: The greatest part of the three-eyed crow's vision is concerned with not his acts of rape or murder (including killing his own son), but with the consequences of his callous seduction and abandonment of Alla.
• Loud of War: In an argument with Meera about a loud and off-color song, he resumes singing it (badly) at top volume over her and Bran.
  Bran: Meera sings well. She used to sing duets, with her—
  Theon: OH, TOOTHLESS TESS WAS A LUSTY WENCH, WHO—
  Meera: —just because you love the sound of your own wretched voice—
  Theon: —UPON THE FISHERMAN'S POLE—
• Never My Fault: He heatedly denies the accusations of the three-eyed crow until the truth of each is shoved in his face.
• No Party Like a Donner Party: The "feral hog" he ate on the way to find Bran and Meera was wight flesh. He and Bran resort to it again when stranded at the Nightfort.
• Put on a Bus: He spends all of Part IV and a good part of Part III prior to that trapped inside a weirwood tree.
• Sad Clown: He used to crack jokes and kick around severed heads at executions as a coping mechanism for the ever-present fear that one day it might be him on Ice's business end.
• Trauma Button: After his time in the weirwood mouth, he briefly gets the shakes when facing the talking gate at the Nightfort.

Euron Greyjoy

The second living son of Quellon Greyjoy and captain of the Silence. After having his older brother Balon assassinated only to lose the subsequent kingsmoot to their younger brother Victarion, he travels to Essos and tricks Daenerys into letting him magically bind Rhaegal.

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• Adaptational Badass: He was already a fairly competent character in canon, but here he manages to bend Rhaegal to his will and become a dragon rider in the process. Downplayed in that after this achievement, he gets repeatedly outplayed by teenagers, is left cursing impotently when Aeron escapes him (after rightly denouncing him as an arrogant, power-mad bully), and dies ignominiously.
• Big Bad Wannabe: His actions including enthralling Rhaegal, laying waste to three cities, and starting a reign of terror in Westeros all point to him attempting to make the Others recognize him as their god-king. The problem for him, however, is that he's still very much a mortal human being, and is promptly killed by Olyvar and Viserion early on in Part V.
• Body Horror: The description of him and Rhaegal after getting shot in the face with manticore venom by Irri's archers, being pulled into the path of the Hightower's scorpions, Bran blowing up the Horn of Winter, again in his face, as well as using a blood magic ritual to heal the two of them up, is anything but pretty.
  Euron Greyjoy might wear Valyrian scale armor gleaming with runes, but he had lost his helm. His face was a ruin, pale skin studded with chunks of shattered horn. Half his brow and scalp were gone; the venom had gnawed at skin and flesh until only the skull remained. His eyes were pits, the left eye black and shining with malice, the right eye white and blind, pierced by a splinter of horn the size of a pinky finger.
• Deader than Dead: Olyvar has Viserion burn him to ashes to make sure he doesn't come back. Justified, since even after he barely survived the attack on Oldtown he manages to hang on long enough to partially recover with the use of blood magic.
• Disease by Any Other Name: His "crow's eye" is anisocoria, a permanently dilated pupil from an eye injury.
• The Dog Bites Back: Downplayed. After years of abuse, Rhaegal makes no attempt to evade Viserion when the latter attacks Euron's blind side.
• The Dreaded: Solidifies his reputation as one of the most terrifying characters in the story by destroying most of Oldtown with Rhaegal.
• History Repeats: Like Aemond "One-Eye" Targaryen, he's a vicious kinslayer who unleashes his dragon on civilians and meets his end over the God's Eye.
• Kinslaying Is a Special Kind of Evil: In addition to his canon fratricides, he murders Victarion and nearly does in Aeron as well during a brief return to the Iron Islands.
• Rasputinian Death: He and Rhaegal take a lot of damage while attacking Oldtown, barely survive due to Euron enacting a blood magic ritual to heal them up, and finally perish in the Third Battle over the God's Eye at the hands of Olyvar and Viserion.
• Unperson: The Sept at Harrenhal deems him anathema due to his reign of destruction.
• Wowing Cthulhu: Subverted. He thinks that he's managed to intimidate the Others into declaring him their immortal god-king. They're really just manipulating him into bringing down the Wall for them.

Elia Nymeros Martell

Elia is a princess of Dorne, wife of Rhaegar Targaryen and mother of Aegon and Rhaenys Targaryen. In the aftermath of Robert's Rebellion and the supposed death of her children, Elia returned to Dorne and has been quietly helping raise her brother Oberyn’s bastard children.

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• Attempted Rape: In the new timeline, Gregor Clegane is delayed long enough that Jaime stops him before he commits the act, though too late to save baby Gawaen.
• Awful Wedded Life: While Elia's marriage to Rhaegar started off reasonably well and she had some hopes it would turn to love, after giving birth to Rhaenys it became clear that Rhaegar viewed Elia as nothing but a broodmare. By the time of Robert’s Rebellion, the marriage had all but fallen apart.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: When telling her story to Olyvar and Sansa, she speaks of Gawaen's mother Ashara's reluctance to part with him and her suicide, but says nothing at all about how Jonquil's mother, one of her maids, reacted to her toddler daughter being separated from her and subsequently murdered.
• Disease by Any Other Name: Her unspecified illness from canon is depicted as cerebral palsy.
• My Greatest Failure: Failing to protect the two children, Jonquil and Gawaen, who were serving as decoys for Aegon and Rhaenys. Even after nearly two decades, she has never forgiven herself for not being able to prevent their deaths. Even bringing them up causes Elia to burst into tears.
• Silk Hiding Steel: While having delicate health Elia is shown to have an immense amount of bravery, wisdom and strength of character. She also sometimes feigns that her illness is worse than it is so that enemies underestimate her.
• Spanner in the Works: Elia throws a massive wrench into Varys and Illyrio's schemes by managing to save both her children meaning that Varys and Illyrio's Aegon is exposed as a fraud.
  • Earlier, she inadvertently scuttles Sansa's plan to get Oberyn to champion her in trial by combat for a chance to take down Gregor Clegane because she'd made him promise not to fight.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Thanks to Sansa, Elia manages to avoid her canon rape and murder.
• Underestimating Badassery: Everyone (outside Dorne) underestimates Elia. It never occurred to Tywin, Rhaegar, or Varys that she would switch her children with decoys and smuggle them away from Dragonstone before answering Aerys’ summons to King’s Landing.

Edythe

Edythe saw little point in talking, unless necessary for her work. Sisters who chattered were sisters who drew attention to themselves. Someone had to listen to all that talk, and there was no risk of saying something stupid if she said nothing at all.

A peasant woman in her forties from the Motherhouse of the Lifted Lamp near Castle Darry. Edythe is a lay sister dedicated to the Crone. She and the Elder Sister of her motherhouse are sent to King’s Landing to seek aid from the High Septon. The journey does not go as planned. Her first POV chapter occurs in Part IV, where she serves as a point of view for the smallfolk in general, and things happening in the Riverlands and with the Faith of the Seven. As of the end of Part IV, Edythe is in her late 40s.

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• Ascended Extra: Edythe is based on a character who briefly appears in AFFC when Jaime is visiting Lancel at Castle Darry.
  "“Lord Lancel is asking the Father Above for guidance,” said the third sparrow, the beardless one. A boy, Jaime had thought, but her voice marked her for a woman, dressed in shapeless rags and a shirt of rusted mail. “He is praying for the soul of the High Septon and all the others who have died.”"
• Cuteness Proximity: She gushes over a friendly sheepdog, although she immediately clams up when the shepherd tries to talk to her.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: She has a low opinion of Tommen due to his incestuous parentage, something he ultimately has no control over, and the best outcome she can envision for him is being Locked Away in a Monastery to "repent." On the receiving end, she recalls being physically punished for an autistic meltdown.
• Disease by Any Other Name: She is attached to routine, needs specific direction, prefers not to talk to people or make eye contact, and resorts to giving herself diarrhea to avoid the spotlight. The author has confirmed that she is on the autism spectrum. She is also lactose intolerant, inducing her aforementioned digestive issues by drinking a large amount of milk.
• Doomed Hometown: While she's on the road, the motherhouse where she lived for over twenty years is destroyed by remnants of the Brave Companions.
• Enemy Compassion: She prays for the soul of Timeon of the Bloody Mummers, who killed the Elder Sister and tried to rape them both.
  Only a broken man would defy the gods so boldly, and the Smith was the mender of broken things.
• Hypocritical Humor: Her annoyance at her fellow sisters' speculation about attractive men.
  [...] Sister Maude began wondering whether King Aegon was handsome or plain. As if it mattered; besides, there was no one who could hold a candle to their Lord Edmure Tully.
• My Nayme Is: "Edythe" instead of "Edith" or the canonical "Edyth".
• Pintsized Powerhouse: Although Edythe is somewhat short and skinny, she has also spent her entire life doing manual labor. When she snatches up a loose hardwood board to defend the Elder Sister, she is able to beat a bandit to death with it by cracking his skull like a walnut.
• The Quiet One: Sister Edythe barely talks, mostly because she usually doesn’t feel like it. She does like to pray aloud and sing hymns though.
• Rape as Backstory: She joined the motherhouse after a neighbor raped her and then came to her father to propose marriage; her father claimed she'd been promised to the Faith and punched the rapist in the crotch with a crutch when he didn't take it well.
• Trauma Button: When menacing the Elder Sister, Timeon uses one of the same phrases as Edythe's rapist, spurring her to act.

Young Griff

"You have two choices. First, you might let him live for the nonce whilst you ponder what to do with him. Second, you might have his head struck off this very night. Should you regret your decision, I daresay the first option is much easier to change than the second, unless these Ghiscari have found the secret to reviving headless men."

A young man introduced as the purported son of Ser Jon Connington, Young Griff reveals himself as the long lost Aegon, son of Rhaegar. However, this revelation is thrown into doubt with the arrival of the real Aegon, upon which Young Griff is revealed to be in reality Aegor Blackfyre, the great-great-grandson of Daemon Blackfyre, the great-grandson of Aegor Bittersteel and Calla Blackfyre, and the son of Serra Bittersteel and Illyrio Mopatis. Before this comes out, he marries Daenerys and becomes her Prince Consort and Hand of the Queen. As of the end of Part IV, he is 24.

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• Affectionate Nickname: He calls Olyvar "coz", due to their being descendants of Aegon IV.
• Birds of a Feather: He forms a good friendship with Olyvar/Aegon despite the fact that he was meant to impersonate the latter, due to both men sharing an experience as Hidden Backup Princes while forced to live under an assumed name.
• Broken Ace: He's used to hiding any weakness or vulnerability to conform to his mentors' expectations of the perfect king-to-be, to the point where he collapses from overwork.
  Olyvar's thoughts: Septa Lemore expected Aegor to be as pious as Baelor the Blessed. Haldon Halfmaester expected Aegor to be as learned as Jaehaerys the Conciliator. Ser Jon Connington expected Aegor to play the harp like Rhaegar, fight like Prince Aemon the Dragonknight, and become a greater king than any Targaryen ever was. Perfection they had asked for, and perfection they had received, and now Aegor paid the price.
• Elite Man–Courtesan Romance: The story he's eventually given of how Illyrio and Serra met and married, which he regards with skepticism.
• Happily Adopted: Despite knowing they're not blood-related, he has a loving relationship with Jon Connington and calls him "Father" in desperation shortly before the latter's death.
• Hidden Backup Prince: Subverted. Varys and Illyrio plot to present him as the real Aegon VI, hiding in Essos under an assumed name, but the presence of the real Aegon due to Sansa changing history puts a kibosh on that plan. He may, however, be considered a hidden Blackfyre prince.
• Missing Mom: His mother died of the grey plague soon after giving birth to him.

Deziel Dalt

Ser Deziel Dalt was the Knight of Lemonwood, a dutiful, amiable man of twenty five. It was almost absurd how well his lands and sigil suited him. Ever since arriving in King's Landing Deziel haunted the gardens of the Red Keep, searching for rare plants that he might surreptitiously take back to the orchards and gardens of Lemonwood.

The Knight of Lemonwood and Olvyar's closest confidant. He is interested in botany. As of the end of Part IV, he is 30.

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• Adaptation Expansion: In the books, Ser Deziel is briefly mentioned in A Storm of Swords, with his brother Ser Andrey playing a bigger role in A Feast for Crows. Here, he's one of Olyvar's inner circle and accompanies him on his trip to Essos.
• Bookworm: His primary interests are more scholarly than the typical martial pursuits of a Westerosi noble.
• Opposites Attract: Ser Deziel is a handsome, bookish knight from Dorne who ends up courting Lady Brienne of Tarth, a plain-looking Stormlander noblewoman who is more suited to the battlefield.

Meria Sand

There would be no rude comments directed at Meria. Her gown would be as modest and stylish as that of any lady present, yet not too fine for a girl of bastard birth. She would remind Obara to look less sullen, and leave matrons clucking about how well Meria knew her place.

The third child and daughter of Oberyn Martell. As of the beginning of Part V, she is 24.

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• Cool and Unusual Punishment: In her ultimatum to her soon-to-be grandmother-in-law Olenna Tyrell, she threatens to use her new authority as the lady of the house to rearrange domestic affairs exactly to Olenna's disliking.
  Your favorite servants upon whom you sharpen your tongue will be removed, and placed with gentler ladies. The cooks will cease making your favorite meals; you shall drink only mint tea, never nettle, with plenty of honey to soothe your aged throat.
• Cynic–Idealist Duo: The pragmatic Cynic to her brother Olyvar's earnest Idealist. She disparages his intention to help defend the Wall, thinking that he should withhold aid until the North submits to rejoining the Seven Kingdoms.
• A Day in the Limelight: The prologue to Book V serves as her first (and only) POV chapter.
• Disease by Any Other Name: She has an extremely painful menstrual cycle, explained in the notes to be caused by endometriosis.
• Family Relationship Switcheroo: As Rhaenys Targaryen, she is Elia's biological daughter and Oberyn's biological niece.
• Happily Married: She gets hitched to her longtime betrothed, Willas Tyrell at the beginning of Book V.
• Hypocrite: Sansa calls her out on her insistence that Robb should bend the knee to Aegon, when her own family prides itself on its refusal to submit to the Targaryens.
• I Am Not My Father: She is an accomplished musician, but stopped playing the harp - after smashing a few - because Rhaegar was known for it.
• I Am Not Pretty: So she thinks at her Description in the Mirror.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: During her time in King's Landing, she lets Cersei think of her as a sycophantic and easily-drunk blabbermouth, merrily undermining the queen's position with her courtiers while Cersei assumes she's sleeping with them.
• Skewed Priorities: Even after seeing animate wights on more than one occasion and hearing Jon's testimony about the threat the Others pose to the entire continent, a threat that grows the more people they manage to kill, she yells at Olyvar for not forcing the North's submission.
• Suddenly Suitable Suitor: The revelation that she's a princess makes her a suitable match for the heir to the Reach. She believes that otherwise Willas would have eventually forgotten her despite his protestations of eternal devotion, and according to the author she's right.
• Undying Loyalty: Rhaenys's kitten Balerion, now an ancient tomcat, still remembers her nearly twenty years later and refuses to let Arya warg into him to spy on her in a vulnerable state.

Paul the Pious

"No matter how dark things seem, we must trust that the Father's scales will tip toward justice, and do what we can to work his will."

The High Septon of Harrenhal and a dwarf. As of the end of Part IV, he is in his early 40s.

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• Ascended Extra: Like Sister Edythe, he's a fleshed-out version of a canon character, this time of a dwarf holy brother who was murdered on his way to King’s Landing by men hoping to collect Cersei's bounty on Tyrion's head.
• Big Good: To the faithful of Harrenhal, and to an extent to the Seven-worshipping areas that are loyal to the Sept there.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: The apparent signs and miracles around him (such as escaping chains that may have been defective or improperly sized, scrofula/tuberculosis becoming dormant after laying on hands, the emergence of a rainbow when he blesses Lady Whent) also have possible natural/coincidental explanations.
• Modest Royalty: Though he doesn't refuse to wear fancy regalia when the occasion calls for it, he dresses simply for day-to-day tasks.
• Saintly Church: He and his followers embody this, at least in comparison to the Faith based in King's Landing.
• Virtuous Character Copy: To both Tyrion and the High Sparrow. Like Tyrion, he's a dwarf, but doesn't have the vices and cynicism of the Lannister. Like the High Sparrow of canon, he leads a group of adherents of the Faith of the Seven amidst the destruction in the Riverlands, yet instead of being a militant Knight Templar he prefers to lead through providing alms and aid.

Mordryd Lydden

The youngest brother of Lewys Lydden, the Lord of Deep Den. His sisters include Briony Farman (the dowager Lady of Fair Isle), Lysa Marbrand (the Lady of Ashemark), and Gwendolyn Lydden (unjustly slain against all the laws of gods and men). As of the end of Part IV, he is 57.

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• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: He negotiates the surrender of Casterly Rock and takes over the place while Cersei and Jaime are obliviously having lunch.
• Animal Motifs: The Lydden badger, capable of both great stealth and great ferocity in defense of its kin. Badgers have also been known to take on lions in the wild despite being much smaller animals. Surely enough, his actions lead to the downfall of House Lannister.
• Best Served Cold: After Gwendolyn drowned at Castamere, Mordryd waited decades for the opportunity to take vengeance on the Lannisters. Once he's the Unexpected Successor to the lordship of House Lydden and the Westerlands are in disarray, he seizes the opportunity with both hands.
• Dead Guy Junior: His eldest and favorite daughter is named for Gwendolyn.
• Dishonored Dead: As part of his vengeance against House Lannister, he has Tywin's bones exhumed and then flushed down a privy, since he was denied the satisfaction of finishing off the man himself.
• Dramatic Irony: In "A Drowning Grief", he jokes with his sister about hoping that their father will get her betrothed to Kevan Lannister rather than the gay Rolland Crane or the bowlegged Clement Piper. The reader already knows and they will soon find out that Kevan, who is willing to participate in his brother Tywin's atrocities, is far more glaringly flawed than either of them.
• Due to the Dead: He surreptitiously donates a large sum for the faithful of Harrenhal to say prayers for his sister. He also gives Cersei and Jaime the dignity of a proper interment, burying them together in the crypt their father Tywin used to occupy.
• Family Theme Naming: He and all of his children have Arthurian names.
• History Repeats: His takeover of Casterly Rock ironically repeats what Lann the Clever did to take it over from the Casterlys. He infiltrates the mountain-castle, causes the inhabiting family to turn on each other, then takes the seat after they destroy themselves. This is also the second time a Lydden has become the Lord of Casterly Rock.
• In-Series Nickname: The Mad Badger.
• Klingon Promotion: He supports the smallfolk revolt against his brother Joffrey's misrule, allowing him to take over Deep Den, and later captures Casterly Rock, hoping to be named Lord of the Rock by Aegon. Chapter 169 reveals that his wish was granted, as he hosts King Aegon and Lord Commander Jon at Casterly Rock.
• Meaningful Name: From Arthurian Legend, as the destroyer of the Lannisters' golden age built on the corpses of innocents.
• Motive Rant: He delivers one to Jaime and Cersei after taking over Casterly Rock.
• My Nayme Is: "Mordryd" rather than "Mordred".
• Tampering with Food and Drink: He presents Kevan Lannister with blackberry wine laced with minute amounts of arsenic, slowly poisoning him as revenge for Kevan's role in the massacre of Castamere.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Blackberries, a regional specialty of the area around Deep Den.
• Unexpected Successor: He becomes Lord Lydden after Lewys dies at the Battle of Sweetroot and their middle brother, Joffrey, is brained by angry smallfolk.

Gwendolyn Lydden

But do not get into trouble on my account! Await your opportunity patiently, as seeds await the rain.

The third daughter of Cadwyn Lydden, the Lord of Deep Den during the reign of Jaehaerys II. At loose ends after the death of her betrothed in the War of the Ninepenny Kings, she goes to stay with her paternal aunt Elissa, the dowager Lady of Castamere. She narrates the side story "A Drowning Grief," during which she is 19.

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• Arranged Marriage: She was betrothed to the heir to House Banefort until his death. Her father tries to get a replacement betrothal to Kevan Lannister, who eventually helps Tywin murder her with everyone else at Castamere.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: She has societal tunnel vision to the point where she's giving breakfast orders to the cook while the water is up to their shins, and her concerns are solely for the noble children she herself knows (though, to be fair, she didn't even have enough sweetsleep left to kill herself; there's no way there was enough for all the children).
• Friend to All Children: She befriends and cares for the children of the Reynes as well as the children of allied houses staying at Castamere.
• Mercy Kill: At the end of the story she poisons her aunt Elissa and the Reyne children with Elissa's medicinal sweetsleep before the floodwaters drown them.
• Practically Different Generations: Elissa is much older than Cadwyn, to the point where her niece Gwen is the same age as her grandson Tion.
• Related in the Adaptation: Robert Reyne's canonically-unnamed wife is identified as Elissa Lydden, which makes Gwen and her siblings the much-younger first cousins to Roger, Reynard, and Ellyn Reyne. Her older sisters' marriages make her the (posthumous) aunt to Jeyne Farman and Addam Marbrand.
• Unintentional Final Message: Her letters to her brother Mordryd from Castamere, as she never anticipated the murderous lengths to which Tywin would go against the Reynes and the Tarbecks.