History Characters / ASongOfIceAndFireEssosTheFreeCities

* LargeHam: Tyroshi are boisterous, flamboyant, and fond of bright colors.

* AnAxToGrind: Killed Amaury Peake by burying an axe in his skull.

* AnAxeToGrind: What Norvos is known for.

* BreedingSlave: In Lys, the most beautiful pleasure slaves are matched together to produce children who are even more beautiful.

* TheDreaded: Had a legendary reputation by the time he served as Larra Rogare's bodyguard with it being said of him that he won a hundred fights in Meereen's Death Pits, drank the blood of his defeated foes, had tore an opponent's throat with his teeth after his blade broke, and that he had killed wolves, lions, bears, and even wyverns with nothing but rocks during his career as a pit fighter. Following his slaying of Amaury Peake and his men, his sole presence was enough to unnerve the regents and Small Council.

** Braavos being a CityOfCanals like Venice. The Titan of Braavos is a statue based on both the Colossus of Rhodes (a statue [[BetweenMyLegs whose legs form the entrance to the port]]) and the legendary Colossi of Memnon in Egypt (a statue that "sings" on sunrise.) As a city founded by slaves, exiles, and boasting a multi-cultural, multi-lingual culture, it can be seen as one for New York City as well with the Titan being the medieval Lady Liberty. The number of playhouses make it sound like Elizabethan era London.

* {{Foil}}: Unlike the whores Arya meets in Braavos, who are cheerful souls and happy with their trade, the sunset girl has been completely broken by a lifetime of sexual slavery.

* HiddenDepths: She sought Aegon IV when he was already fat and decadent. This implies that she wasn't just looking for a fun rump in bed. If one were naive, she found the love of her life right then and there, but things are never quite so simple, are they?

* PlotTriggeringDeath: His death and the one of his brother Drazenko began the downfall of the family, both in Westeros and in Lys.

* RhetoricalQuestionBlunder: During his trial, when asked what he did with all the gold he embezzled, Lysaro started pointing to various magisters in attendance and saying he had bribed them.

* AllOfTheOtherReindeer: Larra never felt truly a part of court, which might have motivated her to return to Lys even if it meant leaving her husband and children.
* AllThereInTheManual: Only mentioned in ''The World of Ice and Fire''.

* SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil: With the exception of Braavos, and Pentos ''de jure'', all Free Cities practice and depend on chattel slavery. Braavos being a city founded via a slave rebellion explicitly forbids slavery of all forms inside its domain, and constantly goes to war with other cities to curb its practice.

* FictionalPoliticalParty: Two big parties compete for one of the three ruling chairs (Triarchs) of the city. The "Tiger" party are warhawks that pulls for military expansionism, while "Elephants" are mostly moneylenders who want to build trade relationships and economic influence. The latter has been consistently more popular for quite some time, as the Tigers have never elected more than one of their members as Triarchs for nearly 300 years.

* TheRepublic: The people of Volantis elect three leaders, called the Triarchy. The triarchs rule jointly for one year, then get replaced or re-elected. Even women have the right to vote and run for office (though in practice a woman hasn't been elected triarch in 300 years). It's actually a pretty stable and respected democratic system - the one time a triarchy tried to get elected to a life term, they had him pulled apart by elephants - but of course, only the free population can vote, not slaves, and there are five slaves in the city for each free man.

Nyessos Vhassar is one of the Triarchs of Volantis. He's a member of the Elephant party, the faction of merchants and moneylenders, advocating trade over war. Not only he's on Illyrio Mopatis' payroll, it is also said in Volantis that he has been bought by Yunkai in order to get Volantis to wage war against Daenerys.

* BreakTheCutie: First her brother gets killed, and then she gets enslaved and winds up in the siege lines around Meereen with a dying master. [[spoiler:Then she gets to spend quality time with the Second Sons, none of whom have much time for a none-combat trained dwarf girl.]] It all rather starts to get her down.

* OlderThanTheyLook: She is at the very least seventeen years old, but she behaves like a much younger person. This is one of the reasons Tyrion tries to keep a healthy distance from her, as not to take advantage of a person he considers a child; granted, she doesn't make it easy for him.

* ThePollyanna: Well, as much as anyone can be when you live in a CrapsackWorld. Even though every horror she faces, she still finds a way to smile.

The city guard of Volantis, named after the Tiger Party--the more military minded of two factions of Volantene politics. They are slaves.

* MoralityPet: Inverted--Tyrion feels even worse after he has sex with her, realizing the lows he has sunk to.

* JustSoStory: We don't know exactly when he lived or were did he found giants, but they ate him and that's all that matters.

* AffablyEvil: He's jolly, complimentary and completely amoral.

* MysteriousBacker: First for Viserys, then for Daenerys [[spoiler:and also acts as this for Aegon Targaryen]].

A Pentoshi merchant, trader and money-changer who rose from nothing to become the richest man in Pentos. He was Jaehaerys I Targaryen’s Master of Coin.

* CruelAndUnusualDeath: [[spoiler:While going from his mansion to the Red Keep, he was attacked by drunken bigoted criminals in Flea Bottom. He was pulled from his palanquin, beaten and then had his head smashed with a cobblestone until only a mass of bone, blood and brains remained. Afterwards they ripped his fine clothes and cut off his fingers to take his rings.]]

* EveryManHasHisPrice: His suggestion to insure the election of an accommodating High Septon is to spread bribes among the Most Devout.
* InSeriesNickname: After he was made a lord by Jaehaerys to put him on equal footing with the rest of his council, some smartass dubbed him “the Lord of the Air” because he had no lands, sworn men or a castle. [[InsultBackfire Draz replied that if he could tax air, he'd be a lord indeed]].

* SpannerInTheWorks: Rego was one [[spoiler:for Androw Farmen during his killing spree on Dragonstone; Rego realised the deaths were not being caused by a mystery plague but by someone using the Tears of Lys to poison people, and Androw's wife, Rhaena Targaryen quickly figured out her husband was the culprit]].

* GruesomeGoat: The Black Goat demands daily blood sacrifice--of animals, criminals on holy days, and highborn children when the city is in danger. Even R'hllor's worshippers aren't usually that bloodthirsty.

* HumanSacrifice: Practiced in Qohor in holy days--in which criminals are sacrificed--and in times of crisis, in which the nobles offer their own children to the Black Goat.

* TheNoseKnows: A non superpowered example. He claimed that he could tell one port from another just by the way they smelled. Cities were like women, he insisted; each one had its own unique scent. Oldtown was as flowery as a perfumed dowager. Lannisport was a milkmaid, fresh and earthy, with woodsmoke in her hair. King's Landing reeked like some unwashed whore. White Harbor was sharp, salty, and a little fishy like a mermaid should.

* AgentPeacock: Like most Tyroshi, he dyed his hair to bright colors. He also enjoyed sweet scents, bathing himself in lavender or rosewater and sometimes dressed as a woman and pretended to be a whore. He was still a force to be reckoned with.

* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: He was famous for his eccentricities, and many would even call him mad. Nonetheless he was widely feared and inspired UndyingLoyalty in his men.

* RoyalHarem: Had a dozen wives. He never beat them, but sometimes he let them beat him. It's mentioned that he sometimes gave wives away. Once, he offered to let Alyn Velaryon sleep with and impregnate two of his wives, though its unknown of Alyn ever took him up on this offer.

* TheAlliance: During wars they tend to from alliances towards other Free Cities. Particularly Qohor and Norvos vs. Volantis as well as Myr, Lys, and Tyrosh vs. Volantis during the Century of Blood.
** One of the most notable of this was the union of Myr, Lys and Tyrosh during the reign of Jaehaerys I as the Triarchy, or the Kingdom of the Three Daughters.

* CultColony: How Lorath, Norvos and Qohor got founded.

** Braavos being a CityOfCanals like Venice. The Titan of Braavos is a statue based on both the Colossus of Rhodes (a statue [[BetweenMyLegs whose legs form the entrance to the port]]) and the legendary Colossi of Memnon in Egypt (a statue that "sings" on sunrise.) As a city founded by slaves, exiles and boasting a multi-cultural, multi-lingual culture, it can be seen as one for New York City as well with the Titan being the medieval Lady Liberty. The number of playhouses make it sound like Elizabethan era London.
** Volantis is that to Constantinople--a former colony of an empire whose capital (Valyria/Rome) is in ruins, considering itself an heir to the fallen empire. Volantis also has an oligarchical form of democracy like a Greek city-state.

* CultColony: It was founded as one by the eunuch Blind Priests of Boash the Blind God, who wore eyeless hoods and simple cloathing, believing that only in darkness could their third eye open. As they gained power over the settlers who came to Lorath, the priests grew corrupt and were eventually killed by the citizens of Lorath.

* StrangeSyntaxSpeaker: As part of their doctrine of denial of the self, the followers of Boash would refer to themselves and others with indefinite pronouns - "a man" or "a woman" instead of "I", "me", or any personal name. Though the faith of the Blind God has died out, these speech habits persist in the city; particularly among the noble class, speaking of oneself directly is considered vulgar even in the modern era.

An Andal King from Lorath who desired to unite all Andals in Essos under his rule. His seat was a large wooden keep at Lorassyon. After warring for twenty years, his domain extended from the Shivering Sea all the way to the Axe and the northern river Rhoyne, unfortunately this put him in conflict with the Valyrian city of Norvos. The dragon lords defended their colony and burned him and his host outside of Norvos. Apparently nobody survived the Scouring of Lorath.

* TheConqueror: How he styled himself. In practice he fell completely short.

* CrapsaccharineWorld: Lys is a beautiful, wealthy city located on a fertile island filled with pillow houses and pleasure gardens, considered a paradise by Valyrian dragonlords. Sounds like a great place to be...just ignore that its wealth comes from buying, training, and breeding sex slaves to be sold to every corner of Essos. Also pay no attention to the pirate ships in the Stepstones, or the magisters' political power struggles that frequently end in murder.

* PlotTriggeringDeath: His murder led to the collapse of the alliance of the Three daughters, since Myr and Tyrosh blamed him for their losses at the Battle of the Gullet.

* TheMistress: The 9th recorded mistress of Aegon IV

* UglyGuyHotWife: Though she was only TheMistress. By this time Aegon IV was already obese.

* MassiveNumberedSiblings: He had nine trueborn children, Lysaro, Larra, Moredo, Lotho, Roggerio, Lysara, Drako, Fredo and Marra Rogare. He also had at least ''sixteen'' bastards.

* GeneralFailure: Thaddeus Rowan put him in charge of the crown army dispatched to the Vale to put an end to the fighting between the various successors to Lady Jeyne Arryn. Moredo's inability to speak the Common Tongue made it difficult to command his Westerosi troops, which became even worse after his translator was killed in the battle to capture Gulltown. Moredo lost thousands in the campaign to the rebels, attacks by hill tribesmen and [[spoiler: an attack by Nettles and Sheepstealer when his men stumbled on her hiding place]].

* WrongfullyAccused: During the regency of Aegon III, he and his brothers Lotho and Roggerio were arrested by their rivals in the King's landing court. Lord Thaddeus Rowan, Aegon III's Hand who was thought to be the Rogares' ally, was arrested as well, though he was also tortured for information. Ser Marston Waters, Lord Rowan's replacement, then attempted to arrest Larra, but Aegon and Viserys wouldn't allow it. Ser Marston besieged Maegor's Holdfast for eighteen days before acknowledging his error and arresting those who had implicated Larra and her family.

* TheDreaded: Had a legendary reputation by the time he served as Larra Logare's bodyguard with it being said of him that he won a hundred fights in Meereen's Death Pits, drank the blood of his defeated foes, had tore an opponent's throat with his teeth after his blade broke and that he had killed wolves, lions, bears and even wyverns with nothing but rocks during his career as a pit fighter. Following his slaying of Amaury Peake and his men, his sole presence was enough to unnerve the regents and Small Council.

* LightningBruiser: Despite his big height and size Sandoq was very fast as he was able of keeping up with and even outpacing many opponents at once, and was said to cut them as silently as a cat.

* OneManArmy: In a world that normally runs with surprising amounts of realism, he stands out. When Ser Amaury Peake of the Kingsguard came with a dozen men-at-arms to arrest Prince Viserys's wife, Larra Rogare, Sandoq met them alone. And slaughtered them with, quite literally, contemptuous ease — according to the account of a purported eyewitness, "betwixt every fresh wound he dealt Ser Amaury, he would kill one of his remaining minions".
* ScaryBlackMan: He was seven feet tall, dark skinned and dark haired. That and all the scars and disfigurements must have made him very intimidating, not to mention his skill at fighting.
* SubmissiveBadass: Despite his incredible strength and fighting skills he was perfectly content to just serve as a bodyguard to Larra Logare and Aegon III.

* WrestlerOfBeasts: Fought many beasts in the Death Pits of Meereen, it's said that he killed wolves, lions, bears and wyverns using nothing but the rocks he found with his hands.

* {{Troll}}: During dinner with Tyrion, he trolls the little man by offering him a dish of mushrooms while casually dropping an anecdote about a Pentoshi magister who was recently poisoned by one, and then eats one himself to reveal they're not poisoned after all.

* MamaBear: Downplayed. She was ''not'' pleased when Doran sent Quentyn away to the Yronwoods, and she let him know it. However, there was little she could really do about it: when Doran tried the same with Arianne and sent her to Tyrosh to serve as cupbearer, Mellario threatened to harm herself which made him back down. The issues turned too hard to solve which led to her leave Doran and her other children. How she felt about leaving Arianne and Trystane isn't mentioned in the books themselves, but Martin's comments below state she wasn't too happy about it.

* BrotherSisterTeam: A performing one with her brother Oppo and their carefully trained pigs, one of which was called "Pretty".

* ActuallyPrettyFunny: He found the Lord of the Air moniker hilarious.

* YouGottaHaveBlueHair: Tyroshi are known for dying their hair and beards of unnatural colors: mostly blue and green.

* TheDreaded: Had a legendary reputation by the time he served as Larra Logare's bodyguard with it being said of him that he won a hundred fights in Meereen's Death Pits, drank the blood of his defeated foes, had tore an opponent's throat with his teeth after his blade broke and that he had slayed wolves, lions, bears and even wyerns with nothing but rocks during his career as a pit fighter. Following his slaying of Amaury Peake and his men, his sole presence was enough to unnerve the regents and Small Council.

* WrestlerOfBeasts: Fought many beasts in the Death Pits of Meereen, it's said that he killed wolves, lions, bears and wyerns using nothing but the rocks he found with his hands.