History Characters / ASongOfIceAndFireHouseHightower

* TemptingFate: He predicted that he'd be executed the moment Rhaenyra took the Iron Throne. Sure enough, when King's Landing fell to the Blacks, Otto was the first to find his head on the block.

** Had Aegon the Conqueror not decided on laying the foundations for what later became city of King's Landing, Oldtown would have certainly been the capital of the Seven Kingdoms. They ''did'' crown him there after all, so the possibility wasn't that far off.

* PyrrhicVictory: Quenton saved Oldtown but more than half the city had died and the survivors murdered him and his son.

* {{Foil}}:
** To the Sistermen of the Three Sisters. The Three Sisters houses the Night Lamp of Sisterton, the beacon of the Narrow Sea... only that they've been known to use it to wreck ships intentionally. The Sistermen are also among the poorest people in Westeros, whereas the Hightowers are among the richest; the Hightowers spent centuries fending off the Ironborn, while the Sistermen are said to have been the Narrow Sea's Ironborn until they reformed and dedicated themselves to fishing.
** To the Ironborn. The Hightowers are known for their support of the pursuit of knowledge and are conscientious objectors to participating in war; the Ironborn relish on their shunning of knowledge and are reapers and warmongers. Apart from the Westermen, the Reachmen of Oldtown are among the most frequent victims of the Ironborn.

* {{Foil}}:
** He made a special effort to undermine his son-in-law's brother Daemon Targaryen in all of the latter's endeavors, including his marriage to Rhaenyra. Daemon in turn reciprocated in equal manner.
** He is the on-off Hand of the King for three kings and his daughter is the queen; he is considered extremely ambitious and comes from one of the wealthiest families in Westeros, which he is trying to raise in the social strata. He might as well be Tywin Lannister two centuries before.
** He's also one to a later Hand of the King, Owen Merryweather; both of their efforts to try and pursue diplomatic solutions at the beginning of a CivilWar (The Dance of Dragons and Robert's Rebellion), despite members of their own faction having committed war crimes (Aerys II murdering Brandon and Rickard Stark, Aemond murdering Lucerys) that rendered such efforts useless, ended up turning their respective kings against them and their being replaced with a more militarily-inclined Hand (Criston Cole and Jon Connington).

* PetTheDog: At Lady Caswell's last request before [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled she committed suicide]], Ormund spared her children and sent them to Oldtown as wards of his house.

* NoHistoricalFiguresWereHarmed: Much as her husband Maegor is similar to Henry VIII of England, Ceryse bears some resemblance to Catherine of Aragon. A woman marries a man some years younger than her, and fails to give him an heir (Catherine gave birth several times but only one daughter, Mary, survived, while Ceryse never had any children) and thus is set aside while their husband marries another woman, infuriating both the first wife's powerful relatives and the highest religious authority in their respective lands...although while Catherine refused to acknowledge her change in status, declaring to the end of her days that she was Henry's one true wife, Ceryse eventually accepted her husband's polygamy and was invited back to court. Both women also died in fairly suspicious circumstances: modern medical experts now believe Catherine died of cancer, but at the time it was heavily rumoured that she had been poisoned; Ceryse died of a 'sudden illness', which was widely believed (though never proven) to be a cover for one of the Kingsguard accidentally slitting her throat when Maegor told him to cut her tongue out for offending him.

* WhatTheHellHero: Calls out Ser Luthor and the rest of the goldcloaks for being [[TurnCoat turn cloaks]], but Ser Luthor simply counters that Prince Daemon gave them their cloaks, and were gold no matter how they were turned before executing Ser Gwayne.

* FaceHeelTurn: Rather than face off against Maegor and his dragon, he had his brother murder the High Septon so he could freely surrender. [[RashomonStory Or so some suspect.]]

* EveryoneHasStandards: He may have betrayed the Faith over to Maegor, but the moment the Tyrant King orders him to murder a defenseless child, he comes out in full support of Jaeherys.
* FaceHeelTurn: Rather than face off against Maegor and his dragon, he had his brother murder the High Septon so he could freely surrender.

* InSeriesNickname: The Delayer because he delayed the Poor Fellows outside Oldtown since he refused to fight them. And when he was ordered to arrest Elissa Farman who was going by a different name, either the letters didn't arrive on time or deliberately delayed the departure of his 'fastest' ships to go after them until it was too late.
* KickTheSonOfTheBitch: Imprisoned Rogar Baratheon's younger brother when he tried to abduct Rhaella Targaryen to use her as a puppet in a coup against Jaehaerys, and made it clear he wasn't afraid of House Baratheon's retribution.
-->'''Donnel Hightower''': ''[regarding Rogar Baratheon]'' His wife took his hand and his balls, and soon the King will take his head.

* TheCaptain: Of the ''Lady Meredith''

* {{Nepotism}}: He ensured his brother was chosen as the next High Septon to help promote Jaehaerys's Exceptionalism.

* {{Nepotism}}: He ensured his brother was chosen as the next High Septon to help promote Jaehaerys Exceptionalism.

* YourCheatingHeart: She abandoned Jorah for Tregar Ormollen, a Lyseni merchant.

* NoHistoricalFiguresWereHarmed: Much as her husband Maegor is similar to Henry VIII of England, Ceryse bears some resemblance to Catherine of Aragon. A woman marries a man some years younger than her, and fails to give him an heir (Catherine gave birth several times but only one daughter, Mary, survived, while Ceryse never had any children) and thus is set aside while their husband marries another woman, infuriating both the first wife's powerful relatives and the highest religious authority in their respective lands...although while Catherine refused to acknowledge her change in status, declaring to the end of her days that she was Henry's one true wife, Ceryse eventually accepted her husband's polygamy and was invited back to court. Both women also died in fairly suspicious circumstances: modern medical experts now believe Catherine died of cancer, but at the time it was heavily rumoured that she had been poisoned; Ceryse died of a 'sudden illness', which at the time was wildly believed (though never proven) to be a cover for one of the Kingsguard accidentally slitting her throat when Maegor told him to cut her tongue out for offending him.

* NoHistoricalFiguresWereHarmed: Much as her husband Maegor is similar to Henry VIII of England, Ceryse bears some resemblance to Catherine of Aragon. A woman marries a man some years younger than her, and fails to give him an heir (Catherine gave birth several times but only one daughter, Mary, survived, while Ceryse never had any children) and thus is set aside while their husband marries another woman, infuriating both the woman's powerful relatives and the highest religious authority in their respective lands...although while Catherine refused to acknowledge her change in status, declaring to the end of her days that she was Henry's one true wife, Ceryse eventually accepted her husband's polygamy and was invited back to court. Both women also died in highly suspicious circumstances: modern medical experts now believe Catherine died of cancer, but at the time it was heavily rumoured that she had been poisoned; Ceryse died of a 'sudden illness', which at the time was wildly believed (though never proven) to be a cover for one of the Kingsguard accidentally slitting her throat when Maegor told him to cut her tongue out for offending him.

* NoHistoricalFiguresWereHarmed: Much as her husband Maegor is similar to Henry VIII of England, Ceryse bears some resemblance to Catherine of Aragon; a woman marrying a man some years younger than her, who failed to give him an heir (Catherine gave birth several times but only one daughter, Mary, survived, while Ceryse never had any children) and was thus set aside while their husband married another woman, infuriating the highest religious authority in their respective lands. Although while Catherine refused to accept her situation, declaring to the end of her days that she was Henry's one true wife, Ceryse eventually accepted her husband's polygamy and was invited back to court -- only to die of a 'sickness', which rumour has it was actually a slit throat.

* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Ceryse abandoned King's Landing and returned to Oldtown when she grew tired of Septon Murmison laying her hands on her belly every night in the hope of making her fertile at Aenys request.

* AmbiguousSituation: Lynesse's relationship with her family is left murky at best. It's not revealed why Leyton Hightower agreed to give Jorah Mormont, the then head of one of the smallest and poorest houses in the North, his daughter's hand in marriage instead of saving her for better prospects. It's also not explained why House Hightower couldn't just send Jorah the money and resources needed to keep Lynesse happy (or even if they might have expected Jorah to come to them so they could exert influence on an island most deem pretty pointless, but which does have strategic value when either hoping to in turn hit or influence the Iron Isles, the North -- or, even, over the Wall; but, stubborn git that he can be, Jorah never did see fit to come cap in hand). What's more, after Lynesse ruined Jorah and left him to become the concubine of a merchant prince, House Hightower should have cut off all ties with her out of embarrassment. And yet, they still have a good enough relationship that they hope Lynesse can give them support against the invading Ironborn.

* ZeroPercentApprovalRating: Invoked. She is not a popular lady in-universe and almost everyone who mentions her has a rather low opinion of her and her perceived gold-digging. Still, the bulk of the Mormonts (her unintended victims) would prefer not to speak about her rather than speaking ill of her; this is about as high an opinion anyone expresses of Lynesse. The only consistently good thing that is said of Lynesse and her actions... is that she is, indeed, very pretty.

* AmbitionIsEvil: Wanting far more than Bear Island and Jorah could possibly give her has lead to a string of questionable outcomes. And, some very Not Ms. Nice Girl behaviour. She might think she's ahead of the game in her personal set-up of the moment, but the effects have been more far-reaching than she probably realises.
* DisasterDominoes: Her deliberate decision to screw Jorah over for her own gain in Lys and leave him penniless and without prospects (which worked, thank you) is what has directly led him to be free to be an influential figure in one of Essos' greatest periods of upheaval of recent history. Which could, in turn, turn out to be a Westerosi nightmare. So, the [[UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom overall outcome wasn't, likely, fully planned]], but the initial set of moves that helped form it certainly was.

* TheGhost: For all she has had quite the impact... she hasn't even been seen once.
* GoldDigger: In effect, she's one. Whatever her actual reasons, most people automatically assume this. Never mind that Hightower > Mormont in the heaping piles of dosh stakes; if anything, it could be argued that ''Jorah'' may have been trying to make the jackpot, even despite native rock-hard stubbornness. Most Westerosi never seem to see it that way, [[DoubleStandard for whatever reason]].
* HiddenDepths: There is a considerable chance that most of the stuff she did with and to Jorah, as well as her general behavior, has been planned in advance to some degree -- simply because '''she is a Hightower''' and ''that's what Hightowers do'', after all. Alternatively, she could just be the slut many outside the situation paint her to be.

** She might be a concubine to Tregar Ormollen, but it's mentioned that she's influential enough to rival Ormollen's ''actual wife'', leading credence that she's not just a dumb gold-digger. The fact that her inlaws are hopeful they can get her to convince her patron to supply them with sell-sails to deal with the Ironborn adds credence to this.

* LadyMacbeth: Possibly. Either deliberately or inadvertently, she is rather good at causing her lovers/husbands to do things that give them headaches.
* LoveAtFirstSight: Deconstructed; their marriage ostensibly began to fall apart because Lynesse couldn't get used to the harsh North, Jorah then bankrupted House Mormont to try keeping her happy and even engaged in slave trading when all else fails. After fleeing to Lys, she cheats on him and abandons him for Tregan Ormollen.

* TakingTheHeat: Jorah did this for her. Lynesse is certainly a sore thumb for the Mormonts, but everyone of them seems to agree that whatever troubles that arose were Jorah's fault (even Jorah himself argues this); still, Lynesse certainly made everything worse.
* UptownGirl: A deconstruction of. Because they can be high maintenance and come with well-educated minds of their own, they're liable to dump your pauper's arse in favour of their own agendas.

* TownWithADarkSecret: The aforementioned city of Oldtown contains both the Maesters (the primary conveyors of education and communication in the Seven Kingdoms) and the Faith of Seven (the main religion in the Seven Kingdoms), both of which are linked tightly with the Hightowers; throughout history, there are hints that the two organizations have done the bidding of the Hightowers repeatedly. And, visa versa. It's... probably a political dynamo, reciprocal, cyclic kind of thing that powers not just Oldtown, but often the Reaches (the most populous part of the Seven Kingdoms) and beyond.

* TownWithADarkSecret: The aforementioned city of Oldtown contains both the Maesters (the primary conveyors of education and communication in the Seven Kingdoms) and the Faith of Seven (the main religion in the Seven Kingdoms), both of which are linked tightly with the Hightowers; throughout history, there are hints that the two organizations have done the bidding of the Hightowers repeatedly. And, visa versa. It's... probably a political dynamo, reciprocal, cyclic kind of thing that powers not just the Old town, but often the Reaches (the most populous part of the Seven Kingdoms) and beyond.

* TownWithADarkSecret: The aforementioned city of Oldtown contains both the Maesters (the primary conveyors of education and communication in the Seven Kingdoms) and the Faith of Seven (the main religion in the Seven Kingdoms), both of which are linked tightly with the Hightowers; throughout history, there are hints that the two organizations have done the bidding of the Hightowers repeatedly.

* CoolSword: He wielded the Valyrian steel sword, Vigilance

** She might be a concubine to Tregar Ormollen, but it's mentioned that she's influential enough to rival Ormollen's ''actual wife'', leading credence that she's not just a dumb gold-digger.

* EvenEvilHasStandards: He berated his grandson Aemond for the cole-blooded murder of Lucerys Velaryon, since Aemond killing one of her children ensured Rhaenyra would ''never'' accept a peaceful resolution.