2d4chan - User contributions [en]

Star Trek

2019-12-09T09:28:33Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:290B:BAAA:92F2:A623: /* The Orville */

{{cleanup}}
[[File:Enterprise.jpg|thumb|500px|right|If you aren't already hearing the theme song you might not belong here.]]

{{Topquote|Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before!|James T. Kirk, third captain of the starship USS Enterprise}}

'''''Star Trek''''' is a multimedia science-fiction series and one of the cornerstones of nerdy media properties, and one of the few to crossover into mainstream popularity (alongside ''[[Star Wars]]'', ''[[Doctor Who]]'' and a few others). It's also one of the longest-running science fiction franchises, as it began when the the first episode of The Original Series aired in 1966, and since then has had over 50 years of geek history spanning several generations. Needless to say, it's had a huge influence on all things sci-fi, and, by extension, [[/tg/]].

Originally, ''Star Trek'' was [[noblebright]] beyond noblebright and, in many ways, was the polar opposite of ''[[Warhammer 40,000|Warhammer 40K's]]'' [[grimdark]]. The more recent reboot films, however, have taken a much, ''much'' more grimdark tone, which is delightfully [[skub]]tastic.

== Games ==
There's been plenty of tabletop games and [[/v/|vidya gaems]] featuring ''Star Trek'' without being merchandising bullshit (see: themed ''[[Monopoly]]'' sets), including one of the earliest action multiplayer wargame: ''Netrek''.

*'''''Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier''''' (1978) The very first Trek tabletop [[RPG]]. Written by, I shit you not, Michael Scott. Groggy (grokky?) as all hell, and due for an OSR.
* '''''[[Star Fleet Battles]] (SFB)''''' (1979-) The crunchiest starship combat game you're ever going to find outside of a computer. Based on the original series and not any of the later series, for licensing reasons. Takes some liberties with the setting, which (combined with the aforementioned licensing) is why "''Star Trek''" isn't actually in the title. It's had its own video game spinoff in the form of Starfleet Command. The series died when the last company owned by Interplay broke up in the early 2000s.
* '''''Star Trek: The Role Playing Game''''' (1982-1989) Made by [[FASA]], essentially ''[[Traveller]]''-lite, or a happier, shinier ''[[Rogue Trader]]''. Hasn't aged terribly well, what with having been made when the only canonical ''Star Trek'' materials to work with were the original and animated series, the first four films, and a couple of now non-canon novels. If you try to dust it off, expect tons of conflict with the rest of the show. Died as they were trying to update it for ''TNG'', because Paramount's corporate suits (surprise, surprise) had no idea what an RPG actually entailed and were worried about violence, and getting their cut, and... oh you know the drill by now. Welcome to the 80's.
* '''''Star Trek: Starship Tactical Combat Simulator''''' (1983) FASA designed this, so it feels like ''[[Battletech]]'' but not as good.
* '''''Prime Directive''''' (1993-2008) The most successful tabletop RPG line (but that's not saying much), it's actually still in print. Produced by Amarillo Design Bureau, so again no direct name-dropping of "''Star Trek''." Lasted as long as it did by constantly evolving, in Borg-like fashion, to adapt to the current zeitgeist. Has had 4 editions, with the second using [[GURPS]], the third using [[Wizards of the Coast|d20]], and the fourth [[d20 Modern]].
* '''''Star Trek [[Card_Game|CCG]]''''' (1994-2007, 2011-2014, 2013-2015, 2018-) There's been a few of these, most notably the games released by [[Decipher]], but never globally popular. They also suffered from game balance problems from fans wanting their fave character, but needing extra rules for their quirks. There's also the problem of putting numbers to character stats, such as one game that asserted that [[Heresy|Picard having about twice the integrity of a Klingon pig]]. Later versions are "deck-building" games to try to cash in on the popularity of ''[[Dominion]]'' and ''[[Thunderstone]]''. And now virtual CCGs are the order of the day.
* '''''Star Trek: The Next Generation Role Playing Game''''' (1998-1999) The next attempt, made by Last Unicorn Games. Won an award for best new game, which makes it a complete shame that no one has ever played it.
* '''''Star Trek Red Alert''''' (2000) A Diskwars game themed to ''Star Trek''.
* '''''Star Trek Roleplaying Game''''' (2002-2005) When [[Decipher]] had the CCG license, they decided, "What the hell, let's make an RPG, too." It, like so many of its predecessors, died unnoticed and unmourned.
* '''''Star Trek Online''''' (2010-) An [[MMORPG|MMO]]. Decent gameplay mechanics, especially starship combat. Storyline leaves something to be desired, especially when the ostensibly [[Noblebright|peaceful]] Federation trades shots at least once with every other faction in the galaxy.
* '''''Call To Arms: Star Trek''''' (2011) [[Mongoose_Publishing|Mongoose]]'s license for ''Babylon 5'' expired, so they collaborated with Amarillo Design Bureau (the ''Star Fleet Battles'' guys), re-themed the game to Star Trek along with improving the system to make it more nifty. Less micro-management than SFB, and ships get some cinematic feats.
* '''''Star Trek: Expeditions''''' (2011) Ignore the tie-ins to the movie, Reiner Knizia designed this. Explore the gameboard, flip over missions, try to have the proper crew to get victory points.
* '''''Star Trek: Fleet Captains''''' (2011) Tile flipping, exploring, and spaceships fighting over resources
* '''''Star Trek: Attack Wing''''' (2013-) [[WizKids]] license the flightpath system from [[Fantasy Flight Games]] and adds ''Star Trek'' to the mix, [[Skub]] ensues. The game has been consistently plagued with balance issues, to the point that the rules errata is more than ten times longer than the actual rules. The actual current rules for things like the Borg special movement and fighter squadrons are completely different than the rules as written.
* '''''Star Trek Adventures''''' (2017-) The latest attempt at an RPG, by Modiphius, coming out soon to tentative praise. It also comes with a whole range of miniatures of the various crews from the show.

== So why should I care? ==
Because between them, these six TV series and their assorted spinoff movies, books, etc. can provide inspiration for any sci-fi game you could care to run. If you want light-hearted action, look at the sort of things that happened in ''TOS'' or ''DS9'' to get the crew into some dangerous situation. If you want a charismatic villain, look at Gul Dukat or the Borg Queen. If you want moral issues and debates, look at the shit that happened to Voyager and remove all the transparent deck-stacking and cheesy moralizing (or you could read any decent SF book/watch a ''Twilight Zone'' episode written in the previous 50 years, if you don't need your source material to be served at a 2nd grade level). Like [[Tolkien]] is to fantasy it's a prime gateway drug to science fiction and especially science fiction which is more than "action movie IN SPACE!"

Not to mention in any sci-fi RPG with remotely free-form rules you're likely to encounter ''Star Trek'' fanboys, so you might as well know what they're talking about. The unholy spawn of a Trekkie and a [[Furry]] is known as a [[Chakat]], and you should fear it.

At its best ''Star Trek'' is thoughtful, optimistic futurism with a positive human element and brings you to strange new worlds in the grand tradition of speculative fiction which is accessible to even the layman. At its worst ''Star Trek'' is arrogant, smug, hypocritical, preachy, dull, sloppy and prone to the strawman fallacy.

== Setting ==
Here's the Cliff's Notes on ''Star Trek''. A couple of general warnings; firstly, ''Star Trek'' likes to ''really'' take its "racial themes" bits just a little too far. Second, despite this, it's rare for an entire race to be completely irredeemable the way many fictional aliens are: there are heroic and sympathetic characters from nearly every race listed below, able to put more-positive spins on their racial themes. Thirdly, aside from very occasional appearances by [[H.P. Lovecraft|aliens who are so bizarre that humankind can barely comprehend them]], all of the aliens look like dudes with rubber masks on (because they are). In real life, this was because there was no budget for anything else, but in-universe it's been explained by some kind of [[Old Ones|Precursor]] race who seeded all of the planets with their broadly humanoid DNA, and every race evolved slightly differently from there. There isn't much [[fluff]] on what these precursors were like, and some of it was contradictory, and Gene Roddenberry didn't like the idea (although he still had to work with the rubber forehead stuff). The good news for fa/tg/uys who like [[homebrew]] is that this makes it fairly easy to write [[d20 system]] rules for all of the races - after all, most ''D&D'' races are just humans with rubber masks on...

=== A Composite Creation ===
This is a general note that one should consider: Star Trek was created in pretty much the opposite way as The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien worked out a bunch of linguistic stuff and general history of Arda in his spare time, then decided to use that as the basis for some stories that he eventually gave to some publishers which in the end sold quite well.

Roddenberry by contrast pitched a very broad general idea (it's the future, things are good, we got guys some on a ship exploring space; a "wagon train to the stars") to the networks who eventually took it up on it and had him work with a variety of writers and actors who added to this rough skeleton of an idea in a process that would continue on to this day.

This is not to knock either approach, but both have their advantages and disadvantages. In regards to Star Trek, a franchise which relies mostly on an episode of the week format that's been going on for more than half a century this means that the canon is a fucking mess. There were numerous people at the helm and many of them had often very different ideas about what should be done that were just thrown out to see what stuck, many of which were contradictory and some of which we'd frankly rather forget. In general fans and fluff writers have been spending a whole lot of time trying to straighten out things and much of the lore is basically a rough consensus of what people like and what fits in with it. Later series got more systematic about this, but there are still points of contention and a lot of flat out contradictions due to its scattershot nature.

=== Factions ===
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
'''The Federation'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
[[File:Federation_Ships.jpg|thumb|500px|left|Starfleet's ships of the Line (primary timeline)]]
Might as well talk about that main faction. The United Federation of Planets is what the [[Tau]] think they are. Its backstory is that in the distant future of the 1990s, [[God-Emperor of Mankind|übermensch]] [[Space Marines|created by genetic engineering]] began conquering the Earth. The [[Imperial Guard|normies]] fought back and won through sheer numbers, cryogenically freezing the Augments and kicking them out of Earth, but the damage and mass political unrest of World War III got half the planet nuked. This was why genetic engineering was banned. Fortunately, in 2063, a <s>drunken asshole</s> heroic visionary named Zefram Cochrane created humanity's first warp drive (though it functioned based on the principle that gravity bends space-time, and was therefore more akin to an Alcubierre drive than anything that's dependent on the [[Warp]]) and made first contact with the Vulcans. The Vulcans eventually helped humanity rebuild and overcome poverty, disease, war and hunger. With its Earthly problems solved, man turned to the stars and found out its three closest neighbors were [[Imperium of Man|racist xenophobic dicks trying to murder each other]]. Since any war between them would've swept up puny little Earth and gotten it glassed, humans decided to force their neighbors to sit down and talk things out. Incredibly, it worked, and the United Federation of Planets was born.

The Federation is a commie [[noblebright]] hippieland society with a strong democratic government ([[Mary Sue|pretty much Roddenberry's idea of utopia]]). As a result, Federation citizens work not because they have to, but because they want to. However, despite their advanced technology, transhumanism, that is intentionally making [[Space Marines|SPESS MEHREENS]] and mutants like the infamous antagonist Khan Noonien Singh, is illegal.

The Federation's Navy is almost always called Starfleet. It's a mix between a military, a coast guard and a space agency, and usually rates scientific research as a higher priority than defense. One of its quirks is that it doesn't subscribe to the "bigger is better" policy used in most [[Warhammer 40K|sci-fi]], and even by most of the other ''Star Trek factions''. If the Federation ''does'' make a large ship, it's because they want it to have a daycare, swimming pool and ice cream bar. If they want a warship, they'll take a little gunship half the size of a modern day destroyer and pack it with enough antimatter nukes and guns to exterminate a solar system. In some cases, especially when dealing with ships from several centuries into the future, the ship is bigger on the inside than on the outside [[Creed|allowing it to hide a vast array of powerful armaments, ''space-bending'' equipment, and even whole planetary landscapes]]. They can get away with this because they out-tech almost everyone else by a country mile. The reason for the series' infamous "technobabble" is that <s>even ''they'' don't know everything their tech can do!</s> their technology is always evolving, and they know it so well that they can often use it in ways that even the original in-show design schematics did not intend.

In theory, Starfleet follows a rule called the "Prime Directive", which says that you're not allowed to interfere with low-tech races ("low-tech" being defined as "not having invented the warp drive", since warp technology apparently follows naturally from the laws of physics) or else things like turning the locals into Nazis might happen. The Original Series talked about this rule all the time, and Captain Kirk threw it aside whenever there was a sexy alien babe in sight. From ''TNG'' onward, it tended to instead be brought up whenever a hack writer needed a reason for the heroes to ''not'' instantly resolve a given problem with their superior technology or a way of making our heroes look like assholes for following it rigidly (yes, we could save this species from extinction but that would be interfering with the cosmic plan!), though there were a few good episodes that took it seriously.

Some of the more important member races are:
* [[Humans]]: You know 'em, you love 'em. Comprise seemingly 90% of Starfleet for reasons in no way related to the cost of makeup/CGI.
* Vulcan: The Original [[Eldar|Space Elves]], very emotional, especially during "pon'farr" (see below), who followed the teachings of an enlightened sage and embraced logic and rationalism after their emotions nearly led to them [[Slaanesh|wiping themselves out]]. They are what the average race of fantasy elves think they are, except on ''Enterprise'' because the writers wanted to artificially inject tension into the show (some of that was retconned to be a Romulan plot). Occasionally enter a state called "pon'farr," where they need to either [[Dark Eldar| fuck something half to death]], kill it with the nearest sharp object, or die of a brain aneurysm to let out all that pent-up emotional tension. Fa/tg/uys may recognize this as the sensation they feel every time [[Games Workshop]] puts out a new army book. Pretty bro-tier overall.
* Andorians: Blue dudes with antennae and constant fits of passion, the polar opposite of Vulcans and their one time foes. Pretty much fa/tg/uys, right down to the romantic streak, in the technical sense. Also, they live underground on a diet of meatbread and rage. Most of what defined them happened in Enterprise as they rarely showed up in the TNG-era, and even then did so as set dressing, allegedly because one of the showrunners hated their antennae and banned anyone from using them.
* Tellarites: Space [[Dwarf|Dorfs]]; like insulting everyone and arguing a lot (no, really, petty insults are considered a polite gesture in Tellarite culture), mostly because the very first tellarite ever shown in the series got in an argument with Spock's dad and now it's their whole racial thing. “Sarek said something in a scene once that was meant to demonstrate that he was stand-offish and kinda rude, but we like Sarek so it's now the defining attribute of this species.” It's all in good fun you understand, your confidence in your ideas and actions should be sturdy enough to withstand honest assessment and critique.
* Betazoids: Invariably attractive humanoid aliens with telepathic powers. Half-betazoid, half-humans apparently only have "empathic" powers, so they are well-regarded by Starfleet captains for their ability to point out the obvious and fill out the tight bodygloves that make up the Starfleet uniform in a pleasing manner, especially since theirs seem to come in a custom cut for reasons entirely unrelated to Roddenberry's erection. Their homeworld is like dropping a really hippie college and Space Vegas into a blender.
* Trill: Originally a one-off race introduced as a sapient parasite that possesses and controls a barely, or even unintelligent humanoid host, they were radically reworked in ''Deep Space Nine'', right down to losing their rubber foreheads in favor of spots. Now, the host is itself an intelligent humanoid, and some, but not all, of their kind are able to willingly merge with a symbiont (because someone can't spell) that allows them to access a mixture of the memories and personalities of all previous hosts, though in a way that, theoretically, enhances the host's personality rather than destroying it or subsuming it. Then, when they die, they can pass on the symbiont to another host, theoretically one they mentored. Also, because the makeup artist didn't want to ruin the leads' good looks on DS9, they went from having a rubber forehead to some spots.
</div>
</div>
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">

'''The Klingon Empire'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
[[Image:Batleth.jpg|thumb|right|A Bat'Leth (sword of honor), one of several types of Klingon bladed weapons. Frequently mocked IRL for being a poorly designed weapon.]]
[[Commissar|''"It is a good day to die!"'']]

The Federation's main rival and (movie era and afterwards) the quintessential ''Star Trek'' race of lumpy foreheaded aliens. Originally they were a rough analogue to the Russians (though they took some elements from [[Communism|communist China]]) in a rough cold war allegory with the Federation (even though the Federation are as commie as they come, though admittedly much of that came around in the TNG era). Their defining feature was that they were militaristic and imperialistic while the Federation was scholarly and respected liberty. This gradually moved more and more into them becoming Imperial Japan/[[Vikings]] In SPESSS obsessed with honor, fighting and dying honorably in battle while worshiping at the altar of [[Sigmar|warrior Jesus]], even as they turned from the Federation's bitter enemies into that friend who's fun to be around when he's not getting into drunken bar fights. You see shades of it in during the movie era and it became more and more prominent through ''TNG'', culminating in ''DS9''. Do not make the mistake of thinking that Klingons are nothing more than barbaric savages however; with Worf being part of the crew, and with ''DS9'' dealing with Klingon politics an awful lot we can see Klingon society as it truly is. Even so they do often wander into self parody territory.

The Klingons, in their current iteration, are a feudal society ruled by a council made up of the most powerful families. Klingon society holds very little value on things such as currency and material gain (which results in the Klingon empire [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q65l7RHUx2A having a very simplistic understanding of economics]), believing that anything you acquire without some form of blood, sweat and/or tears on your part is a pathetic and dishonorable way of going about things, much the same way many cultures used to hurl abuse at merchants and bankers. Another thing to keep in mind is that a Klingon's reputation is literally everything. This can be easily seen in the episode "The House Of Quark" where dying honorably can literally change the outcome of an entire noble house, later when the Grand Council is visibly disgusted at D'Ghor. No respectable Klingon uses ''money'' to defeat his opponents. And no respectable Klingon would be so eager to perform an execution of an unarmed Ferengi in what was supposed to be an honorable duel. Klingons are still capable of being cunning and crafty however, and having a high diplomacy score is viewed as honorable as they still have examples of cunning and clever heroes tricking boorish and stupid monsters.

[[Warhammer 40000|Klingons often carry swords into battle in an age of energy beam guns]]. In-universe, this is less suicidal than it sounds in the context of boarding actions and tight starship corridors. The Bat'leth is actually a rather shitty weapon. The Mek'leth is noted to be better in most situations. They use the same Disruptor weapons as the Romulans, and at one point used similar starship designs. While is explained as the result of a temporary and unholy alliance, given the eventual animosity between the two races, it was just an excuse to reuse props on a limited budget.

The Klingons are tied with the Vulcans and the Borg as being the most prominent and recognizable non-human species in Star Trek. Beloved of the Internet and the general public, to the point that there are published books like "A Klingon Christmas" in the world. The Klingons have their own constructed language. If you are ever worrying that you might not be a nerd, learning Klingon will solve that problem for you. Please note that this is in general considered by experts to be pathognomonic of [[Chris Chan|autism]]. You have not experienced Shakespeare until you hear it in the original Klingon.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
'''The Romulan Star Empire'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
''"It's always chess with the Romulans"''

You know those [[Eldar|Vulcans]]? Well a few thousand years ago, as their planet was ravaged by war, some of them turned to intense emotional control and logic to tame their murderous passions, while most others left the planet altogether, founding a colony on the planet Romulus and dubbing themselves [[Dark Eldar|Romulans]]. Since said planet shares a name with a mythical figure known for founding [[Roman Empire|a city which built a vast empire]], and they had warp drive while those around them did not, you probably know that they turned to building an empire of their own. They hold the second place of prominence as immediate rivals to the Federation. Comically, they actually have better emotional control than the average Vulcan, since they gene-engineered most of their problems away years ago, and don't have to deal with the emotional blowback from pon'farr. The downside is that they lost some of their cousins' niftier powers, like mind reading and being able to transfer their soul into another person for safekeeping. Although Star Trek Online also revealed that their trip to Romulus was a terrible ordeal, and their gene-engineering was taking during that time resulting in them losing most emotions save for bitterness of being "forced out".

The difference between the Klingons and the Romulans is basically the difference between Gork and Mork, or Khorne and Tzeentch. Klingons will fight you up front with simple brute force. Romulans are sneakier guys, preferring to fight you when you're not looking with spies, cloaked ships and complex plots behind the scenes and playing the long game. There is a lot of political infighting among them, though where the Klingons would duel to the death Romulans would seek to discredit their rivals, have them die in unfortunate "accidents" or disappear. This difference has left both Romulans and Klingons with a big hate-boner for each other, to the Romulans the Klingons are crude brutish barbarians and to the Klingons the Romulans are a pack of scheming cowardly weaklings.

Like the Klingons, they served as a rough Cold War allegory. In this case, they were rough analogs to Communist China (as seen by 1960s Americans), a distant horde of inscrutable and potentially dangerous Orientals who generally were unseen and projecting vague menace, but when encountered face-to-face could pack quite a punch indeed: the first major Interstellar War that Star Trek Earth fought was with the Romulans, which was fought entirely in space with neither side ever seeing the other face to face. Afterwards they set up a 'Neutral Zone' between the Federation and the Romulan Empire that no one even tried to cross for a century. From the Original Series onward, they frequently squabble and bicker with the Federation, before joining forces with them to fight the Dominion in ''Deep Space Nine'' and having their government devastated in ''Nemesis''. Finally, Romulus itself got caught in a supernova as part of the Ambramsverse's backstory.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
'''The Ferengi Alliance'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
[[Image:GW_Ferengi.jpg|thumb|left|A typical ferengi engaged in typical ferengi activities]]
''"A Ferengi without profit is no Ferengi at all."''-Eighteenth Rule of Acquisition

Introduced in ''TNG's'' early days as the villains for the series, and what [[/pol/]] thinks Jews are. Some Jewish people have actually complained about their being subliminally Jewish and thus anti-Semetic, specifically mentioning that they were moneyhungry, lascivious, and ugly, and their large ear lobes were stand-ins for the sterotypical Jewish nose ([https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2018/08/14/science-fictions-anti-semitism-problem/?noredirect=on more on that here, we're not shitting you]), based on an old medieval stereotype that was enforced to prevent them owning land or assets. The idea was to make a caricature of capitalism as a contrast with the techno-communist Federation. This might have worked if these were not [[FAIL|''TNG's'' early days]]. Instead they overshot the mark by a light year or so, on top of other bad decisions, and you got a race of short (Gene wanted to make an evil short race as big evil races were overplayed), big-eared, [[goblin]]-like losers about as threatening as a grumpy pug. Over the first and second seasons they tried to make these guys threatening, but they fell flat on their face every time. Eventually the writers just said "fuck it" and the Ferengi got demoted to comic relief species, and their status as terrible enemies was demoted to propaganda designed to scare the Federation while the Ferengi government tried to figure out what to make of a species that rejected the acquisition of wealth as a goal. The Ferengi had some good moments in the later seasons of ''TNG'', but most of the best stuff that fleshed them out came from ''DS9'', which had an [[awesome]] Ferengi bartender named Quark as a major character. For an idea of what the Ferengi might have been like if the writers had their shit together, look up the Druuge of [[Star Control|Star Control II]] or the Magog Cartel from Oddworld.

Ferengi religion is only hinted upon in ''DS9'', but what is seen implies a simplistic system based on financial success. Ferengi all follow a rulebook/canon known as the Rules of Acquisition, which can be described as Ayn Rand IN SPACE and condensed into the form of Confucius' Analects. There are 285 of these, each a short piece of advice on how to stay in the black. Examples include "Peace is good for business," "War is good for business," "Never have sex with the boss's daughter," and "Dignity and an empty sack is worth the sack." The first, and most important, of these is "Once you have their money, you never give it back." Sometimes, the Ferengi Randian spirituality extends into outright interpretations of the afterlife: according to some, the afterlife consists of the Divine Treasury and the Vault of Eternal Destitution, which are respectively analogous to Heaven and Hell. Entrance into one or the other depends on one's business ventures at the time of death; those that were turning a profit are allowed to enter the Divine Treasury, and the rest are damned to the Vault.

Ferengi government is ruled over by a Grand Nagus, a mix between a <s>pope</s>chief rabbi and a CEO, and he basically treats his civilization like some sort of company, with citizens regarded as workers. Directly below him is the Ferengi Commerce Authority, a [[what|quasi-religious]] organization dedicated to ensuring that correct business practices were followed and correct moral behavior was shown (including keeping the proles in line), although to the Ferengi, these are one and the same. The agents of the FCA are the Liquidators, who are essentially Inquisitors crossed with IRS auditors on steroids. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Ferengi females have no rights and are mentioned as [[PROMOTIONS|not even being allowed to wear clothes]], which leads to [[That Guy|boorish behavior]] on the part of Ferengi towards just about any species. Of course, we see female Ferengi on the show who push that envelope, but it seems that overall "regressive" does not even begin to describe the gender relationships in their culture. Quark's mother, a social climber who marries the head of their government, begins pushing through a women's rights movement during DS9, which proves more successful as time goes on.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
'''The Borg Collective'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
[[Image:Borg cube.jpg|300px|thumb|right|The Borg have assimilated and improved your [[d6|die]]. It always rolls six. Crap your pants, 'cause resistance is futile.]]
{{Topquote|We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture shall adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.|The Borg's opening hail. This is not a boast or a brag, it's them simply explaining you how things are going to go down.}}
{{Topquote|One other thing. You may encounter Enterprise crew members who've already been assimilated. Don't hesitate to fire. Believe me, you'll be doing them a favour.|Picard going full [[grimdark]].}}

The Ferengi were utter failures as serious villains, so they needed something to fill that gap. Thus they made the Borg, an aggressive [[Tyranid|hive-minded]] collective of hyper-adaptive, [[Necron|regenerating]] cyborgs that assimilates entire species into itself in its attempt to improve and evolve. Shit, that's like coming up with [[Warforged]] while trying to replace [[Kender]].

In many ways, the Borg are the truest dark reflection of the Federation, and despite their name, they're not Swedish. While the Feds want you to join their little club on your own, to "add your culture to the galactic community," the Prime Directive means they will ultimately accept you turning them down, even if you have shit they really want. The Borg say "fuck that" and just absorb you. While the Federation believes everyone should work together [[Tau|for the greater good]], they still have a very strong sense of individualism and a culture of personal accomplishment (unless your individual belief happens to run counter to the Federation's principles anyway, in which case you're just WRONG because the Federation is the best). The Borg pool all their minds together into a massive collective consciousness in the pursuit of group perfection, becoming an almost-literal personification of techno-capital. The Federation is all about beauty and tranquility and all that hippie stuff, and their tech is eco-friendly and dolphin-safe. Borg [[Tyranids|strip mine entire planets and drain entire oceans]] in the name of growth and efficiency.

Your standard Borg [[cube]] is a huge multi-kilometer [[Firaeveus Carron|metal box]] (yes, bigger than most [[Imperial Navy]] cruisers) able to go up against an entire Federation warfleet and win. That's right, one of their ships could threaten the entire Federation and [[Exterminatus]] Earth. When done right, [[Necron|they are a cold, calculating, nigh-unstoppable force, a threat to all life]] that wants to retain free and distinct personalities (although they will ignore a single person if not on an assimilation mission, as what they really want is to absorb whole civilizations). Apparently, in Picard's nightmare in ''First Contact'', the Borg assimilation process includes a surgical [[Grimdark|drill through the eye. While awake.]] Of all the stuff to come out of the TNG Era they are undoubtedly the most well recognized in mass pop culture.

Unfortunately the got a bad downgrade during ''Voyager'' (the Borg Queen blew up cubes full of tens of thousands of drones because a few of them have been severed from the Hive Mind), but even there they were frequently not to be messed with. One amusing thing to note for people that haven't watched ''TNG'': the Borg were actually only in six episodes (and three were breakaway drones) and one movie, yet they're arguably the franchise's most famous pure villains aside from Khan. Goes to show how good they were when written properly. Then in ''Voyager'' they get their shit completely pushed in when they discover a new race of extradimensional aliens which they label Species 8472, which were immune to being assimilated, and had to ask the Federation for help in dealing with them. [[File:Bloodcrons.jpg|Wait, this sounds familiar...]]
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
'''The Cardassian Union'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
Introduced in ''TNG'', they are third fiddle to the Klingons and the Romulans. If the Klingons are hypothetically-honorable techno-barbarian warriors and the Romulans are an empire of civilized and refined but sly and ruthless expansionists, the Cardassians are essentially scaly fascists re-enacting ''[[1984]]'' IN SPACE. Their trials announce the outcome at the beginning, and the defense attorney is executed if he wins. Also, THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!

Originally a race of peaceable, spiritual artists called the Hebitians (ironically not dissimilar to the Bajorans), modern Cardassia was born in hunger and desperation when their homeworld began to suffer simultaneous mass famine, pandemic, resource depletion, and ecological collapse. A military junta seized power, figuratively and literally auctioned off the soul of their culture through liquidating all the planet's art and religious artifacts into cold hard cash, and turned the Cardassians into the opportunistic imperialists they are today.

Despite being a whole lot weaker than the Federation, the Cardassians manage to hold their own, partly because what they lack in resources and raw power is made up for by a combination of intense cunning and high charisma stats. Compared to the equally deceptive Romulans, the Cardies are more likely to flash you a smile while tickling your ribs with a knife. They'll use any tool they can to gain the upper hand and while that often means unpleasant and terminal sessions in dark rooms, strip mined planets and the enslavement of entire species, they'll gladly become your bestest buddy if it would achieve their goals. Their intelligence service, the Obsidian Order, is also one of the most ruthlessly efficient organizations in the entire sector, managing to outscale the Romulan Tal Shiar when it comes to producing magnificent bastards and manipulating the politics of entire worlds to their advantage. Unlike the Romulans or the Klingons, they don't tolerate the sort of literal infighting that is rampant in both those states, that shit only serves to weaken '''GLORIOUS CARDASSIA''' and needs to be stamped out with ruthless efficiency. Exposing that someone who just happens to be your enemy as being a dangerous subversive is just a benefit, although this can result in both sides of a conflict shouting "For Cardassia!" as they charge each other. Sort of how Democrats and Republicans are both for America, yet oppose each other.

Cardassia has a very fluid hierarchical government, similar to the political realities of post-Stalin but pre-Collaspe Soviet Russia. Broadly speaking, there are three different facets of the government: the Central Command (which holds all the power) the Obsidian Order (who holds the least amount of power, but controls the most puppets) and the Detapa Council (similar to the [[High Lords of Terra]] and just as worthless). Cardassian society holds a very strict view of family, placing family just below the needs of the State.

The State holds a semi-divine mythical status in the eyes of its citizens, with it being viewed as impossible for the State to ever make mistakes. The ideal Cardassian life was one of complete loyalty and servitude to the State and family, with the "repetitive epic," detailing how generations of Cardassians go on to serve both in exactly the same way over and over seen as the height of their culture. The Cardassian government is assumed to be omniscient, omnipotent, and benevolent by pretty much every Cardassian, with all Cadassians gladly giving of themselves to the State. Such was this level of belief that when Picard was tortured by the Obsidian order, the torturer saw nothing wrong with bringing his daughter to work because he was working for the State, and therefore the torture of Picard could never be disturbing or wrong. That's why their trials announce their sentences at the beginning and execute the defense attorney if he wins; their "trials" are more excuses to show off the power and infallibility of the State to the masses than actually determine guilt or innocence.

As far as plot significant activities went, they had a war with the Federation a few years before ''TNG'' which ended in the creation of a Demilitarized Zone between the two powers and (significant to ''Deep Space Nine'') abandoning the previously occupied planet of Bajor they had exploited for resources. After a disastrous war with the Klingons and The Maquis led to a popular revolution and overthrow of the existing government, one leader seized power, declared himself absolute leader, and joined the Dominion towards the end of ''DS9'', which was some serious bad news for the ''DS9'' crew.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">

'''The Bajoran Republic'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
The Bajorans are a species native to the Planet Bajor. They were, until shortly before the events of ''Deep Space Nine'', under a brutal occupation by the Cardassians who strip mined their planet. They had a fighting resistance which veered in and out of being considered terrorists and all in all were often represented as Palestinians IN SPEHSS. After that, they got their independence, although they're thinking about joining the Federation. The Bajorans have one system and are technologically backwards; the Federation is technically breaking the Prime Directive by interacting with them, but as they've spent years under the oppression of a warp-capable species, they can probably handle it. Also ''DS9'' proves that ancient Bajorans managed to travel at warp speeds to Cardassia using solar sails and an enormous amount of luck, which technically makes them a warp-capable species. The only reason why they are significant in terms of the politics of ''Star Trek'' is that they have a wormhole near their planet, which has some timey-wimey aliens living it that they worship as gods, and serves as the only way to get to or from the Gamma Quadrant that won't take decades, making it strategically priceless. Hilariously, this was discovered almost immediately after the Cardassians ''thought'' they'd extracted everything of value from the Bajorans and peace'd out, certain that the system was no longer worth the PR hit they were taking from it, only to get burned by some harsh seller's remorse. Also, their species has the oldest civilization (roughly a half-million years) of any major ''Star Trek'' race, and the wormhole aliens have gifted them some cool shit, like the Orb of Time.

The big thing that makes the Bajorans unique is that they actually have a serious religion going on -the human race is depicted as mostly non-religious. They're also probably one of the most accurate depictions of any highly religious alien race in a sci-fi franchise, because they are divided between the majority who interpret their religion as [[Noblebright|peace and love]], and a small but loud minority of bastards who interpret it as [[Grimdark|condoning acts of terrorism]]. A blatant attempt to simulate Israelis for criticism, although that can apply to many religions nowadays.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
'''The Dominion'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
A vast empire which exists on the other side of the galaxy in the Gamma Quadrant. The Dominion is ruled over by a species of liquid shapeshifters called The Founders.(aka Changlings aka Odo's people) They have at their disposal a military composed of two genetically engineered species that worship the Founders as gods: the short and articulate Vorta who serve as ambassadors, bureaucrats, and political commisars and the big brutal Jem'hadar, who are vat grown, drug addicted, cannon fodder. These oversee a large number of vassal races, including (as of later seasons of ''DS9'') the Cardassians.

The Founders were once (according to them anyway) a peaceful, kind civilization of explorers who wished to see the galaxy, explore strange new worlds, and seek out new forms of life. Unfortunately, they did this in the wrong neighborhood, and quickly ran into species who did not tolerate others. The fact that the Founders were shapeshifters capable of mimicking almost anyone did not help either. Paranoia, mutual mistrust, and some very bad things eventually led to the Founders deciding "fuck this" and moving their planet into a nebula so nobody would bother them. So more or less, a [[Grimdark|grimmer]], [[Grimdark|darker]], counterpart to the Federation, but with spookier Real Aliens.

The Founders are obsessed with order and are both extremely racist and xenophobic, and believe that all alien life is inherently untrustworthy and evil, and the best thing to do is conquer/enslave them before they do the same to them. They don't care about the rights of "Solids", and will happily ignore any sense of decency when convenient. This can be seen when The Dominion runs a simulation of the Dominion dominating the Alpha Quadrant. When O'Brien is assaulted by a Jem'Hadar and severely beaten to the point of needing emergency teleportation to medical (the crime being "disrespectful"), the Founders (disguised as Federation Officers) do not press charges, and when Sisko comes barging in demanding answers, dismiss him with little concern about their own soldiers brutalizing citizens. Their overall ideology could be thought of as Thomas Hobbes IN SPACE: people are inherently evil and the only way to make a better world is to impose order upon them through brute force from a position of absolute, unquestioned power.

The Founders, when not wandering around in various forms, tend to spend their time in a massive ocean literally made up of countless billions of Founders, something which is referred to as the Great Link. According to the Founders, this allows them to share information with each other and come to peaceful decisions. This is rapidly proved to be bullshit; when a separated-at-birth one of their own merged into the Great Link to share his memories of the Federation as peaceful and tolerant space hippies, not only did the Founders ignore his memories, but actively fucked with his mind in an attempt to turn him into a sleeper agent. And even if it weren't, it shows their hypocrisy through their willingness to share freedom and liberty among themselves while depriving all their various slaves and conquered peoples of the same.

The Founders are massive dicks, even to their own people. Failure among Jem'Hadar is rewarded with slow and painful death from deprivation of the drug they're created to need and their lifespans are incredibly short. To be even bigger dicks, the Vorta have no sense of taste and can't appreciate beauty. Not to make them better diplomats, but because they were raised from a primitive stone-age ape tribe, and the Founders think they shouldn't be ever allowed to forget that. (On the plus side, they did give the Vorta an immunity to poison that would make [[Mortarion]] himself jealous. [https://youtu.be/rACCZaBcq1g?t=1m29s Observe.]) This may also stem from their own neuroses: the Founders themselves have almost no bodily needs at all and require no nourishment, so they design their slaves to be like them. Notably, Vorta tend to come in [[Paranoia|packs of clones; a new one is activated when an old one dies, and they retain some memories and personality between "lives,"]] further hammering home how expendable they are to their makers.

And both races are literally engineered to love their makers for what they have done to them and worship and revere them as gods.

Continuing from the Cardassian Union section because the fate of both powers are link in DS9. After joining the The Dominion. Everything was going seemingly for them and their leader Gul Dukat. They figured out how t bring down the minefield created by the crew of Deep Space Nine. (they temporarily use its old name Terok Nor.)

However doing the start of the sixth season the Founders learn that their not the only "gods" in the Galaxy. As the Sisko convinces the Bajoran Prophets to remove the Jem'Hadar reinforcements in transit. Forcing them to retreat back to Cardassian Space and Dukat's old friend Damar shoots Dukat's half Bajorion daughter Ziyal. Forcing Dukat off the deep end as the sod loses his sanity and jumps off after the rehab transport is destroyed by the Jem Hadar, and ends up fighting an injured Benjamin Sisko being forced to hide inside some caverns on a hell world.

After escaping he allows one of the evil wormhole aliens to possess him, kill Jadzia Dax, forgives forgiving Damar for killing a family member, he Creates a cult of Bajorions dedicated to the Pai-Wraths,than abandons the cult when Major Kira outwits him. Has sex with an old woman and becomes a demi-god. Bent on buring the universe despite the fact that his own people suffered heavily under the rule of the Dominion. After getting a final bitch slap from the Sisko who gets to have a happy ending living with his alien parents. While Dukat is trapped in the Fire Caves on Bajor.

His old friend Damar despite murdering a half breed woman is a lot more sane. Lacking Dukat's Crimisa things get worse for him and the Cardassians under Dominion rule. Most of their victories are off screen such as taking over Betazed. One of the none few major non founding planets of the Federation. This forces the Sisko to bring the Romulans into the war to on the side of the Klingon-Federation alliance. With some underhanded methods from a former member of the Cassidian Obsidian Order(Elim Garak) helping him do it with some underhanded methods. I.e. blow up a Romulan Senators shuttlecraft and tricking the pointy ears into thinking a damaged but fake datarow was the real deal.

Thus the blame for thee loses against the Feddies and pals gets shifted to the Cardassians and Damar in particular. So in season 7 the Dominion finds new best buds in the form of The Breen. Damar decides he has enough of the bullshit and in the ultimate irony that his status of his people were now no different from the Cardassian Occupation of Bajor.

So after the Breen score the Domain a temporary victory over the Federation Alliance. Damar and his Cardi buds destroy a Dominion cloning facility. Leaving them and the Klingons being the only thing stopping The Dominion from steamrolling the Alpha Quadrant. As one small Bird of Way was immune to the Breen energy dampening weapon. Gowron, due to being a moron who did nothing to change course after his most trusted advisor(Martok) turned out to be a Founder and the first time the Jem Hadar kicked their asses during the Klingon-Cardassian War. Decides to take glory for himself and discredit General Martok(who now how his pre Dominion internment job). This goes as badly as you thinking. Forcing Worf(now a legitimate badass compared to TNG) to kill him and turning the role of Chancellor to Martok.

Meanwhile the Feds decided to help out Damar's resistance by sending him Colonel Kira(now a Starfleet Commander), Odo and Garak(Ziyal's former simi-boyfriend). The resistance eventually get their hands on one of the Breen Dampeners. During some infighting Damar realizes that the restoring the old Cardassia is pointless. Killing one of his old friends. The Breen and Jem'hadar do eventually one up the resistance. But not before their brutality turns more Cardassian against them. So during the last space battle this makes the Cardi military switch sides.
Damar is killed during the final raid on Dominion HQ. Focing Kira and Garak to lead the final push into the compound.
The War between the Alpha Quadrant Alliance and The Dominion is ended when Odo offers to share the cure to the disease created by Section 31(the Federation's answer to the Tal Shiar and Obsidian Order) passed on he forced to return to the great Link the first time. While also promising to join the Great Link.

With all their advanced technology. One would think the Founders would have discovered a cure before hand on their own. But the bad guys being just as flawed as everyone else is a common theme in Star Trek. Even in Star Trek Online despiste Odo being the one in charge a few decades later. As their Ambassador to the Federation. The experiments of the Founders sketchy past cause them and everyone else huge headache including the dishonorable mention of the revived True Way.

</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">

'''Species 8472'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
The one and only race in the galaxy even the Borg don't want to fuck with. Introduced in Voyager, Species 8472 are three-legged creatures that live in a space called Fluid Space. It's similar to the [[Eye of Terror]] for the fact that it connects to an alternate dimension and [[Khorne|everyone will be ripped apart upon entering.]]

When the Borg first came around to try and assimilate them they were completely obliterated in a war in which 4 million Borg were killed in the first few days at the cost of almost no members of Species 8472. This war was such a roflstomp that the Borg were forced to call on the Federation for help. [[Tau|The Federation being the better people swallowed their pride and decided to help their sworn enemies,]] [[Eldrad|but were dicks and sent only one ship.]]

Species 8472 fought with fast moving, small ships and devastating beam weapons so the small ship of the Federation could keep up with them and helped the Borg force the species back into Fluid Space. The Federation were the villains on this one. That said, they eventually came to an accord with Species 8472, preventing further wars between the denizens of Fluid Space, except in lots and lots of video games that want to use a fresh antagonist.

That and that in ''Star Trek Online'', [[Awesome|they look like the fucking Predator.]]
</div>
</div>

===The Q===

The Q are a race of beings who have elevated themselves to the point where they are basically gods. Most of them do not interact directly with the younger races, who they tend to consider with disdain- if they consider them at all. However a few of them take a more enlightened view, and one in particular has been known to fuck with individual humans from time time. They are mostly a TNG thing, and even there they work mostly by grace of John de Lancie's acting chops as a counterpoint to the charisma of Patrick Stewart, as de Lancie played the ''character'' Q, an all-powerful epic [[troll]] (no, not the fantasy kind) who's occasionally [[Tzeentch]]ian games sometimes appeared to be for his own amusement and sometimes acted as education or event protection to the human race. Various subplots involving the Q ''species'' range from somewhat thought provoking to mildly entertaining to ridiculous and banal, but the classic episodes that highlighted the charisma and chemistry of the two actors were often quite excellent.

=== The Mirror Universe ===
Not so much of a faction as an alternate setting, this is a parallel universe in which [[Alternate History|things have gone differently]] in Earth's History. The main point of divergence appears to occur when the Vulcan scientists who landed at Bozeman, Montana in 2063 are not welcomed with alcohol and music but instead are killed and have their ship looted. It is equally clear that where the main universe is Noblebright the Mirror Universe is Grimdark. Instead of a peace loving Federation searching for knowledge and friendly cooperation for the betterment of all, Earth gave rise to the ''Terran Empire'' which seeks out new life and civilizations to conquer and enslave, as it had done with the Klingons. Pretty much it's the PG-13 version of the Imperium of Man with a bit more Grimderp. Junior officers get promoted by killing their superiors, those that fail at that get thrown in the agony booth for their troubles and Emperor gets the job by usurping the previous incumbent. In general everyone in the Mirror Universe is a selfish asshole version of themselves and following comic book logic the uniforms for the female characters are more revealing. Occasionally people can cross over from one universe to the next due to technobabble and cause mischief in either realm.

Originally it was a one off TOS setting for an episode of the week, but it was brought back in a few novels and some romps in Deep Space Nine in which [[Fail|the Terran Empire had fallen]]. In Enterprise's fourth season it got a two parter that was pretty good and would have been an annual thing if the show had been renewed, this one having little crossover with the main universe (a ship from TOS ended up in the Mirror Universe and is salvaged after all it's crew have died). We also went there in Discovery, for better or worse. Voyager never did the mirror universe, but instead got a homage episode with some alien historians in the far future getting the details wrong like historians tend to.

== The Star Trek Crew ==
Whether the focus of the show is exploration, manning a space station in an important locale or trying to get home, all Star Trek series have a basic set up of casting and focus: namely on a collection of people who are usually the senior most officers on the ship. If you decide to make a Star Trek inspired game take this into consideration.

* '''The Captain''': Big cheese. Makes the hard decisions. Needs to be able to talk, think or fight out of situations as needed. The third option fetishist finding the balance between empathy and reason. (Two least skubby examples: Kirk and Picard, but the skub will fly hard if you say one is better than the other, sufficed to say that people like both of them alot but for different reasons)
* '''The First Officer''': Second in command and trusted advisor. Added after the original series, where the role was combined with and split between two others. (Two least skubby examples: Riker and Kira)
* '''The Science Officer''': Got high Int stats. Can analyze the situation and work out solutions. The voice of reason. Almost never human. (Two least skubby examples: Data and Spock)
* '''The Engineer''': Hard working technically minded guy who gets shit done. (Two least skubby examples: Scotty and Geordi)
* '''The Doctor''': Ship's healer with a secondary scientific role. The voice of empathy, whether prickly or serene. (Two least skubby examples: Bones and the EMH Doctor)
* '''The Security Officer''': Rough and tumble no-nonsense sort whose job it is to keep these guys alive when diplomacy fails, which it often does. Often has to juggle providing ship's security with working the tactical station on the bridge in a crisis. (Two least skubby examples: Worf and Odo)
* '''The Helmsman''': Got mad spacecraft piloting skills, either full-sized starships, shuttles, or fighters. (Two least skubby examples: Sulu and Tom Paris)
* '''The Other Guy''': A crewmember whose role doesn't cleanly map onto other positions, a role often restricted to a single show. Example positions include communications officer, ship's councilor, transporter chief, and linguist. (Two Least skubby examples: Uhura and Troi)
* '''The Outsider''': Someone who is a passenger and regular cast member, but exists outside the organization, looking in and commenting. Usually works a side-job, like tailor, bartender, or cook. Either a beloved fan-favorite or utterly despised, there is no middle ground. (Two Least skubby examples: Guinan and Quark)

Some of these hats may be worn by more than one character, some may be worn by no one at all. This is especially true in the original series, which had a smaller cast overall, and which put less emphasis on an ensemble and more on the main trio of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. The usual roles and character dynamics were instead set down by ''The Next Generation'', which later series generally copied.

== The Shows ==
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===''The Original Series''===
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

Created in 1966 by legendary sci-fi [[spiritual liege]] and money-grubbing sexist lounge lizard Gene Roddenberry and pitched as a "Wagon Train to the stars", it's a pulpy adventure sci-fi, full of fistfights, sword fights, and hammy speeches. (The guns never work.)

The USS ''Enterprise'' is tasked by the Federation to go on a five year mission to explore space: the final frontier, to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations and boldly go where no man has gone before, though due to budget constraints, her crew often finds that man has in fact gone there before. Or at least something that looks exactly like a man but is actually an [[Xenos|Alien]]; most episodes split the difference. James T. Kirk sleeps with [[Hot Chicks|hot alien babes]] who either die tragically or leave tearfully at the end of the episode, but it's 'k because he's too in love with the Enterprise to ever love a mere ''woman'' more. Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy are cold and logical and rash and emotional respectively, and their constant friction must be resulting in the best make-up sex in the world, Mr. Sulu and Lieutenant Uhura wait in vain for focus episodes that never come, Ensign Chekhov suffers horribly to the approval of American Cold War audiences, and Scotty [[gets shit done]]. Uniforms, while iconic, tend to look a bit civilian though. Miniskirts are apparently mandated attire for the ship's fan-servicey female "yeomen" and others, because 1966. The civilian nature of the attire (including, one must assume, the miniskirts, but they had a visual appeal all their own) were apparently an intentional design decision by Roddenberry who didn't want uniforms to look military. Further specialness on the part of Roddenberry demanded phasers not look like guns, instead looking like nothing in particular at all (although looking back at them today they look sort of like TV remotes, which would be invented much later), and also (probably the only sensible decision in this category) ships that didn't look like rockets, giving ships their distinctive and iconic saucer-engineering-nacelles look that still stands out today.

The Original Series frequently ran out of budget and entire episodes were filmed using spare costumes belonging to the production company, resulting in a series of extremely goofy excuses to go to planets full of gangsters or [[Nazi]]s. This is often copied by shows who don't realize it was done out of pure expediency, and nowadays this [[TVTropes|"Planet of Hats"]] gimmick is practically a box to check off when doing sci-fi adventure. The lack of budget also resulted in one of the more memorable inventions; unable to budget for a sequence showing the ''Enterprise'' or a shuttle landing on a new planet every week, the writers instead decided to invent the transporter to "beam" the crew down to planets or between starships. Also worth noting: despite its mediocre critical reception, ratings and eventual cancellation, not to forget the uneven quality of many episodes, especially in the Roddenberry-less third season where poor Fred Freiberger had to come onto a show he didn't understand and try to get better ratings with less money, ''TOS'' had a hell of a cultural impact thanks to syndication and it has been said that since it entered syndication in 1969, there hasn't been a 24-hour period without some TV station, in some country, playing Star Trek. Cancellation of The Original Series is now considered one of the worst decisions in TV history, and while much of its silly 60's campiness is now laughable, it often still manages to teach relevant and important lessons today.

Fun fact: the ''Enterprise'' and each of her 11 sister ships have enough firepower to [[Exterminatus]] a planet by themselves, after getting issued an order called General Order 24. This however is likely a time-consuming task. According to a later DS9 episode, it takes a fleet of 20 warships 1 hour of sustained bombardment to destroy a planets crust and 5 hours of sustained bombardment to destroy a planet down to its mantle. These 20 ships were also in service 100 years after the Enterprise so they were also more powerful.
Kirk has the distinction of being the only known captain to issue a [[Exterminatus|General Order 24]], because a planet was ''too'' much into wargames (he changed his mind after they dropped wargaming).
</div>
</div>
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">

===''The Animated Series''===
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
The often forgotten middle child. More or less "seasons 4-5" of ''TOS'' with the same writing staff and actors, sans poor Walter Koenig. He was replaced by a weird camel person. He learned this at a convention, from a fan, while he was trying to announce he'd be writing an episode, which Gene promptly demanded he rewrite over and over. Classy.

Being animated allowed the staff to get a lot more creative with the alien designs and plots, and the writing and acting remain... well, top notch is a stretch, but certainly at the same levels as ''The Original Series'', with the occasional low point. Not ''nearly'' as bad as you're probably picturing from the name, although still limited by the low budget and primitive, cheap animation techniques of the television era it was aired in. Notably some sci-fi novelists were brought in to write some episodes, such as Larry Niven, and at least one episode, "Yesteryear," is considered such a pivotal moment in Spock's development that even people who hate the series enough to consider it all non-canon often make an exception just for that one.

Also, since the series now has no excuse for throwing in lots of Space Puritans and Space Wizards, it of course continued to do so to derptastic results, because by this point it had become traditional. The presence of a straight-up [[furry]] on the bridge, however, is downright unacceptable.
</div>
</div>
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">

===''The Next Generation''===
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
Here's where it starts getting a little deeper and a little darker, although with a lot of left-wing political subtext turned up to 11. The USS ''Enterprise-D'' (the original and C were destroyed in action while A and B were retired) is, like its predecessor, tasked with going where no-one has gone before, but this time around the problems are less likely to be solved in a single episode. Jean-Luc Picard is the captain and he plots and negotiates his way to victory; Mr. Data is cold and unemotional, though not by choice - as an android, he'd very much like to change that; Riker takes over the captain's "sleep with alien babes" duties since Picard is married to the job; Worf the Klingon gets beaten up by monsters to show how tough the monsters are, meaning that Worf winds up looking incredibly weak by the end of the show's run and doesn't regain his badassery until his run on ''DS9''; Dr. Beverly Crusher is good old Bones minus his temper; Dr. Pulaski is Bones ''plus'' temper; Counsellor Troy is so badly written she becomes a running joke; and Geordi LaForge [[gets shit done]]. Only two things need to be said about helmsman Wesley Crusher: he was [[Mary Sue|Gene Wesley Roddenberry's shitty self-insert fanfic character]], and his sueness got to the point that even his actor started to hate him within the first season of the show.

Due to the massive success of The Original Series in syndication (and Paramount being [[Rage|pissed off]] by broadcast networks treating their most valuable IP like any other show), TNG was aired through syndication from the beginning. Although the first two seasons were laughably bad, the quality began to improve dramatically after an increasingly cocaine-addled Gene Roddenberry got too sick to keep ruining it and his partner-in-crime Maurice Hurley was thrown out on his ass, a moment often pinpointed via looking for when [[Meme|Riker grew a beard.]] The later seasons are widely considered to represent the apex of the franchise's episodic formula on the small screen (although ''DS9'' gave it a run for its money with a more serialized approach); sadly, this series only got one good movie.
</div>
</div>
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">

===''Deep Space Nine''===
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
Unlike all the other series so far, ''Deep Space Nine'' primarily takes place in a fixed location - the titular space station Deep Space Nine, out near the borders of Federation Space. Said space station is near Bajor, which was recently freed from Cardassian occupation, and a wormhole to the other side of the galaxy which allows [[Warp|all sorts of of crazy shit to go down]]. If the other shows are a wagon train, this one's a border fort.

Benjamin Sisko is the captain, declared Emissary by the nearby Bajorans for making contact with the wormhole aliens they worship, and he successfully hybridizes the blow-the-shit-out-of-whatever-you-can't-punch Kirk approach with the talk-in-a-very-dignified-way-about-the-philosophy-of-the-thing-and-win-by-rhetoric Picard maneuver, in his ultimately-successful quest to become the baddest motherfucker in space, then literally becomes a space god. Kira the Bajoran ex-<s>terrorist</s> <S>''noble freedom fighter''</s> (who are we kidding she calls herself a terrorist) struggles to free and rebuild her people while coming to terms with the moral ambiguities of situations she prefers to see in black-and-white, Dr. Bashir works to find his character for several seasons before becoming a highlight, Dax gets often written poorly and has to switch bodies doing it, Odo IS ''Liquid Space Cop'', Quark runs his bar and [[troll|heckles]] the Federation, Garak pretends to be a tailor while definitely not being a super-spy and dropping killer lines, and Miles O'Brien [[gets shit done]]. Also, Worf wanders in halfway through, and actually gets to punch things instead of just getting punched by them. It's also a lot more political than other series (though ''TNG'' and ''Voyager'' have their moments) and the last series to have Gene Roddenberry's involvement (with less enthusiasm, in fact often much to the benefit of this particular series thematically, although Roddenberry's complete departure did not necessarily bode well for the franchise in general.)

It's the [[Awesome|closest the canon series ever get]] to [[Grimdark]], especially when the Dominion show up. The show has aged remarkably well and the terrorist/freedom fighter debate was repeatedly explored in a very mature and honest way. ''DS9'' is the most serialized of all Trek shows and could be considered a forerunner to the golden age of television with its long story arcs and deep character development. Overall, ''DS9'' has to be considered the most consistently good Trek show thanks to the excellent writing and fantastic performances from a truly wonderful ensemble cast. At least until the final season, when the writers who made it good were pulled to try and fail to make good movies, heralding the failure that was ''Voyager''. The finale episodes were mostly okay and tied up the story semi-satisfyingly, though a few die-hard subplots fell flat.

It wasn't without its controversies however. The show was airing around the same time as another thematically similar sci-fi show, ''Babylon 5''. Not only that but characters also shared similarities, as did the episodes. Interestingly, beginning of both series, introduction of characters and airing of similar episodes were often too close to each other for one show to copy the other but this did not stop massive [[Rage]] and [[/v/|fanboy wars]] from starting between fans of the two series accusing one another of plagiarism and having an inferior product. Happily, as time went on and both shows evolved, these hurt feelings have mostly faded.

How good is ''Deep Space Nine''? Every Star Trek series and even the reboot movies have pretty much ripped off ideas and concepts established during the series. Famously, within the "Trekker/Trekie" fan community, there's a little cell of fans who like it better than most other ''Star Trek''; these fans are typically called "Niners."
</div>
</div>
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">

===''Voyager''===
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
Star Trek: Voyager centers around the eponymous USS ''Voyager'', a smallish ship which gets teleported over to the other side of the galaxy. The plot of the series centers on the crew's efforts to get back home, which COULD have made for an excellent premise. Unfortunately, there were few lasting story arcs, with most episodes being fully self-contained (as well as being littered with far too many episodes featuring holodeck or transporter incidents). As a consequence, despite being completely isolated from the Federation, no matter how bad things got Voyager always appeared in the next episode without a scratch, fully supplied, and with all its shuttlecraft intact. Think ''Gilligan's Island'' on a starship.

Like ''TNG'' and ''DS9'' it's a character-driven drama just as often as it is a sci-fi adventure romp, although compared to TNG only a few of the characters are particularly memorable. The captain and arguable "main character" is Kathryn Janeway, a Katharine Hepburn lookalike (I see what you did there) who is stern without being cold, and principled without being inflexible. The fan favorite is a character called "The Doctor" ([[Doctor Who|No relation]]); he's the solid-light hologram representative of the ship's emergency medical computer, who has to take on actual medical duties when their chief medical officer was conveniently killed in the pilot episode. Other than this, Chakotay is a peace-loving and spiritually rich indian <s>freedom fighter</s> <s>terrorist</s> [[FAIL|who was written with the help of a special cherokee consultant so native his name was Jamake Highwater and it turned out later on that he was actually jewish and didn't know dick about native cultures so he made everything up resulting in Chakotay basically being a borderline racist caricature of what you think indians are like. Akoochimoya.]] Tom Paris is an annoying jerk and is counterbalanced by Harry Kim who is the ideal boy-scout, making him only half as annoying and twice as boring. B'elanna Torres tries to perpetuate a lineage of dudes getting shit done but ends up blankly reciting her technobabble, having second degree plasma burns and – worst of all – systematically fails to get shit done whenever the warp core goes nuts. Tuvok tries hard to be as cool as Spock but ends up being a lame version of the n°1 Vulcan who uses logic to justify everything and makes it short for "you are wrong, I am right because I said so." Kes is passed as a fragile and nice character but it takes a couple of episodes to realize that having a short lifespan does not change the facts: [[powergamer|when you can boil someone to death from the inside of their body, drain life from everything around you to become stronger and do anything you want without knowing how, just by thinking of it]], you are a goddamn Mary Sue. From the fourth season onwards the only character the writers seemed to care about are Seven of Nine, [[Mary Sue|a human woman who recently escaped from Borg control and kept all of her cyborg enhancements but regained her free will]]; another Mary Sue, to be sure, but she's [[Hot Chicks|hot]], and the other characters are much worse, so that's not really a bad thing. Fortunately, The Doctor still received a lot of attention from the writers and almost single-handedly made the show watchable. There was also Neelix, who was the apparent inspiration for Jar-Jar Binks, and any sane crew would have pushed him out of an airlock on the first episode. Fans who stuck with the show despite its glaring failings were given one final slap in the face with the <s>controversial</s> shit final season, in which the producers decided "screw steadily crafting a satisfying conclusion to a story which we have wasted for most of the last seven years anyway; lets just ignore it until the final episode and then throw in some shit about trans-warp conduits and time travel, bitches love time travel!" If you did not care about any of the characters or the subplots or time travel making sense (the writers sure didn't), then the final episode was explosions (and the Borg got a major setback, just don't think about the setup too hard).

The Doctor never once stopped being totally fucking awesome though (enough so to even earn a cameo in First Contact), and the great acting from the cast carries the series from being horrific to watchable. Just goes to show that no matter how good your actors are, they can't make diamonds out of shit.

Overall, most Star Trek fans view Voyager's legacy with a shrug and a "meh." Unfortunately, hopes that Voyager's successor would revitalize the franchise would soon prove to be overly optimistic.

</div>
</div>
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">

===''Enterprise''===
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
From the minute the Nickelback-tier theme tune started, Enterprise attempted to take Star Trek in a new direction and was only partially successful in doing so. The series never quite caught its footing, although it still managed to have some enjoyable moments. It was most notable for providing a first-hand view of the key events that directly led to the formation of the Federation. The Federation's founding races were also featured heavily, with Andorians, Tellarites, and Vulcans all enjoying significant screen time alongside the human characters.

It's a prequel to the rest of the canon, taking place on the first ''Enterprise'', before the Federation was founded and during the period when Earth was still an independent power- so there's a lot of primitive versions of things from other series. At least the uniforms were pretty cool in an Air Force sort of way. Captained by <s>that guy from ''Quantum Leap''</s> Jonathan Archer, in hindsight the fact that they had to rename him from their original choice of Jeffrey Archer to avoid confusion with the disgraced British MP and author of the same name probably cursed the series with bad karma before it had even begun shooting. In an unusual twist for a ''Trek'' series, his first officer isn't a <s>terrorist</s> ''noble freedom fighter,'' however she does share a trait with her ''Voyager'' predecessor in that the actress who portrayed her frequently criticized the show's writers in interviews. Other than that, well, Hoshi Sato screams a lot, Travis Mayweather was so dull even the writers forgot he existed, Malcolm Reed has an accent, Dr Phlox is a weird creepy alien with weird creepy alien moral (and gets surprisingly interesting when given enough screentime, which hardly happened), and Trip also has an accent and [[gets shit done]].

Was retooled twice, the third season tries to be ''24'' IN SPACE (stop some guys the Xindi from blowing up Earth) while the 4th season is a massive apology about the last three seasons that tries to fix all the problems they had, and as a result, the only season that's close to being good.

Unfortunately, the poorly-received final episode is set on the holodeck of the Enterprise-D, which leaves us with the firm impression that the producers would have much rather have just continued making ''The Next Generation''. Considering the mediocre quality of the ''TNG'' movies we got instead, this probably would have worked out better for all involved (Or not since ''Voyager'' was that; its first episode was even numbered 901, as in Season 9 Episode 1).

Yet despite all this bad directing, subpar plots, and frankly boring episodes, ''Enterprise'' still manages to be moderately enjoyable with occasional moments of awesomeness if you can suffer through a fair few awful spots and aggressive mediocrity almost everywhere else. The focus on founding Federation races like the Andorans was refreshing and the technology level, being somewhere between the original series and the real world present-day, was quite interesting. We also got to see the Vulcans portrayed as arrogant, superior dicks. Which makes a lot more sense than the way they're usually portrayed as fairly submissive towards humans because they are, obviously and objectively, the superior race. The Klingons certainly still considered themselves to be honorable but the show made it clear that the Klingon notion of honor is rarely analogous to the human concept which was interesting as all hell to watch. There have been a few small nods to it in discovery and the abrams movies.

And let's be fucking honest, [[/tg/]] loves 40k and the Xindi arc was about as grimdark as shit gets. And that was awesome.

Also makes a neat pairing with ''Voyager'' in that they really mess with the Prime Directive and question the Federation.
</div>
</div>
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===''Discovery''===
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

----
<s>A LOAD OF SOCIAL JUSTICE SHIT!</s> Ahem, let's start again, shall we?

A new "prequel" series set 10 years before ''The Original Series.'' Run exclusively on CBS' paid streaming service (unless you live outside the US and Canada, in which case you can get it on Netflix) to try and drum up sign-ups and revenue, it features a mix of ''Enterprise'' and Abramstrek aesthetics despite supposedly taking place in parallel to the TOS "The Cage" pilot while [[what|having technology superior to late DS9]] and introducing [[dune|mushroom-based space travel]] that would imply [[retcon|all later events and warp travel would be outdated]]. The trailer has attracted a lot of concern over the fact that Klingons have been completely redesigned to look like slit-nosed ogres wearing ancient Egyptian cosplay, and rumors that the Klingons shown were [[Racial Holy War|primitives who had been trapped in stasis]] proved to be unfounded, so there is no excuse. Not having a cold war to posture about, the new villains are based off of Trump-inspired xenophobia by the admission of the authors. Also the lead character is Spock's human sister that he never mentioned before, aka the ''exact'' origin of the [[Mary Sue]] which is just fucking depressing. Want a new Star Trek episode about racism and immigration? Try the now-banned [https://youtu.be/3VEZH8bqytA Star Trek Continues]. Want Star Trek with humor, keep an eye out for the upcoming [https://ew-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/ew.com/tv/2018/10/25/star-trek-animated-comedy/amp/?fbclid=IwAR2WN6auDNm5YiunYhaqiu7vt9f-P08AuUjMpLA5LlpUgvTm9_xloJNRYb0 Star Trek: Lower Decks]; want a pseudo-Star Trek show about other modern issues? Try ''The Orville'' below; that's right, American Dad In Space may right now be a better Star Trek than an actual Star Trek series.

Initial reviews have been... well, it's shit. The writing is overly convoluted, the massive injection of grimdark into pre-TOS continuity is anathema to the hardcore fans (the ''human'' characters are often the ones doing the nastiest shit, including [[Marines Malevolent|trying to kill a Klingon party by planting an explosive on the corpse of one of their comrades for when they came to collect the dead]]) and the Klingons are so flat and devoid of characterization that they might as well be Larry the Cable Guy lookalikes wearing Trump hats, which is a massive disappointment for a series that promised to put a spotlight on Klingon culture but ended up retconning all the characterization that happened in TNG and DS9. It ''may'' get better with time (remember that it took two seasons for TNG to get really good) but given the release schedule (split between 2017 and 2018 with a long break) it may come too late for the fanbase to care. Currently it's cause for more fans to lose their shit over whether it's good or not than the Abrams movies, which is a new record of [[Skub|Trek Skub]]. Releasing the show on CBS All Access instead of cable or broadcast TV makes it seem that executives don't really give a shit if the show succeeds or fails, bringing up the question of [[Bioware|whether they're deliberately putting Star Trek: Discovery in a no-win scenario where, no matter what happens, the executives have an excuse to cancel Star Trek altogether]].

Other stupid decisions are: not bringing back Bruce Greenwood and Zachary Quinto as Captain Pike and (at this time a likely a Lieutenant Commander) Spock. Who wouldn't mind taking a pay cut to bring the characters to the small screen. Their ages wouldn't have mattered either if CBS and Paramount weren't such cheapskates. As they don't even care enough to shell out cash for the CGI technology that Marvel Studios uses to make their actors appear younger during flashback scenes. There's also allegations that large chunks of plot were stolen from previews of an in development indie game.

Naturally, nobody is ever going to let this series live down its unfortunate initials.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">

===''Picard''===
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
Set to be a continuation of the original timeline, featuring old man Picard with Patrick Stewart reprising the role. Stay tuned. Hopes are not high, but at the very least Patrick Stewart's presence should make it watchable if nothing else.
</div>
</div>

== Homages ==
Being a longrunner with a wide audience, Star Trek has gained enough acclaim to have numerous references. In a few cases entire works get made to homage Star Trek. Here are some of the examples.

=== Galaxy Quest ===
A sci-fi/comedy film released in 1999, directed by Dean Parisot. It parodies science fiction films and series in general, but particularly ''Star Trek'' and its fandom. The film stars big name actors including Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver and the late great Alan Rickman. The plot revolves around the cast of a defunct cult television series called Galaxy Quest (for example, Tim Allen played the Kirk/Shatner expy and the late Alan Rickman played the Spock/Nimoy expy). They're also suffering fatigue that mirrors the experiences of the actual Star Trek actors (Rickman's character is typecast with his Galaxy Quest character and laments it, similar to how these things happened to the late Leonard Nimoy).

The cast are suddenly visited by actual aliens, who believe the series to be an accurate documentary (it helps that the aliens have no concept of fiction and only the most bare bones idea of lying) and seek their help. They take the actors with them, who find themselves involved in a very real, and dangerous, intergalactic conflict, and unlike the show where it all wrapped up quickly they struggle to learn about and relate to the aliens. Can these actors find greatness within themselves, and possibly personal redemption? (Spoiler: yes, and it is incredible.)

Built around the basic premise of "What if the cast of ''Star Trek'' ended up on a real spaceship and had to actually do the shit they did in the show?" Featuring a veritable all-star cast of talented comedians and character actors, this is one of the best parodies ever made, and an affectionate love-letter to the franchise as a whole.

===Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning===
Another parody, parodying not only ''Star Trek'' but ''Babylon 5'' as well. The seventh in a series fan movies released in 2005, it's about Captain Pirk builds a starship called CPP ''Kickstart'', allies with Russia and takes over the world. He wants to take over more planets but the ships of his P-Fleet aren't fast enough to travel outside the Solar system. A maggot hole opens and it leads to an alternate reality. Pirk wants to take over the Earth of this reality, which leads to an [[awesome]] space battle between the P-Fleet and the fleet of the space station Babel 13 led by Johnny Sherrypie. The movie features some of the best special effects ever put in a sci-fi movie, which is pretty impressive, considering that this is an amateur film with a very low budget and was rendered in five years in someone's bedroom. The film is spoken in Finnish but subtitles are available for a wide variety of languages, including Klingon. They also made [https://web.archive.org/web/20070828010927/http://rpg.starwreck.com/ a role-playing game based on it], where your character [[Truenamer|becomes more incompetent]] [[Page 42|as he levels up]].

===Star Trek: Renegades===
Kickstarter Trek. The makers submitted their made-for-TV movie pilot to CBS in an attempt to get it made into a legit on-the-air series (and by god it shows), but they were not successful. As a result, while the project limped along for a few years afterward, it has good and bad in equal measure. As a non-official product it also cannot be considered canon. Some characters are actually interesting (about time we saw more of the Breen!) while others are pure Mary Sues (including a male Seven of Nine with a built-in Borg-gun/personal shield/fully-functional hand). Some of the ideas are interesting while others are boring or already-been-done. The CGI is all Hollywood-quality, but the practical effects are okay at best.
It's obvious that they made this without knowing that they were going to be able to make a TV show or not, and tried to cram the sort of build-up and intrigue we saw in DS9 into a span of 90 minutes. For now though, it's decidedly meh, and probably a dead project as well since it hasn't been mentioned on the maker's website in over a year as of late 2019.

=== The Orville ===
A comedy drama television series homage to Star Trek that's pretty much to Star Trek what Family Guy is to The Simpsons, even being created by and starring Seth MacFarlane of ''Family Guy'' infamy-- [[Skub|No wait, come back!]] The guy's a huge Trekkie and he felt that too many shows nowadays were up in their ass with grimdark, so he pitched the show the execs to make a loving comedic sendup of The Next Generation. Many of the executive producers are actually Trek alumni or notable industry Trekkies, such the guy who wrote the ''Futurama'' Trek parody episode, and the episodes aired so far have featured the same kind of themes that you would expect from a new Trek series. First airing in 2017, the series is about the strung-out not-Picard protagonist Captain Edward Mercer, played by MacFarlane himself, of the eponymous not-Enterprise spaceship "The Orville". His ex-wife is the first officer with the pilot episode about them reconciling for the sake of getting shit done. The crew of the not-Enterprise includes the not-T'Pol alien security officer Alara, gay beefy not-Worf alien Bortus, asshole not-Lore android Isaac, and John LaMarr and Gordon Malloy - an even more ridiculous parody of Harry Kim and Tom Paris. They explore the galaxy while fighting bad guys such as UV-allergic [[The Culture#Other civilizations|not-Idrians]] reptilians called Krill.

The show's reception is quite [[Skub|mixed]]. While the audience loved it and critics hated it upon release, the initial surge from the "honeymoon period" has mellowed, ultimately leaving both divided between adoration and hatred. Seth's signature style of humor is evident, for better or worse, combined with dramatic elements and sci-fi material. The Orville also contains some commentary on real world issues, and while less preachy than ''Discovery'' on some subjects, it's just as bad or even worse on other subjects (for one, the show's preachiness on atheism exceeds even Star Trek's). Some commend the show as a breath of [[Noblebright|fresh air]] in an overly [[Grimdark|stagnant]] genre with good special effects and a few splashes of genius - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers#Orville the titular ship is named after one of the Wright Brothers] and one episode discussed the pitfalls of social currency. Others denounce it as derivative (The Orville is piggybacking on Star Trek's fanbase and on top of the above, several episodes' plots are copy-pasted from other works - The Orville's "Majority Rule" and "Mad Idolatry" are pretty much Black Mirror's "Nosedive" and Star Trek's "Who Watches the Watchers?") with sophomoric messages, clumsy pop-culture references and hit-or-miss writing. Other criticisms include MacFarlane's stunt-casting of himself as the main character being the height of vanity and his interactions with his ex-wife character are uncomfortable to watch from the word "go." Some think both its supporters and detractors have a point. Trekkies are equally divided on the show, with many [[butthurt]] over Discovery endorsing the Orville, a small group liking both and others disliking The Orville.

In the second season Alara/not-T'Pol was written out of the show (which may come back to haunt them as she's one of the more well-received characters) while being replaced with a [[TVTropes|suspiciously similar substitute]], Issac turns good at the last minute (becoming not-Data instead of not-Lore) and the Krill become the "lesser villains that need to team up with the good guys to fight worse villains" cliché with the introduction of the rest of Issac's robotic race, the Kaylons. The cast seems to be gelling better, the writers have a better idea of what the show should be and the humor works in service of the stories rather than being shoved in haphazardly, yet the same criticisms still remain. As always, stay tuned for how this turns out.

== Films ==
As a general rule, the even-numbered ones aren't complete shit.

* '''''Star Trek: The Motion Picture''''': AKA: The Slow Motion Picture, or the Motionless Picture. A giant space whatsit is flying towards Earth, the mostly-retired crew has to go figure out what's going on and stop it. Old school sci-fi geeks like the ideas, but terrible pace and interminable special effects that were clearly meant to capitalize on ''2001: A Space Odyssey'' while failing to understand what people like about that movie kill them dead for everyone else. Besides the uniform worn by Kirk, the uniforms also look like pajamas. So no wonder they were changed only a movie later. Features an entirely bald female alien who is [[What|so good at sex that she has to swear an oath not to get it on with the crew]]. Really. This is canon.
* '''''Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan''''': As Kirk starts to feel his age, a one-off villain from the show makes a dramatic reapperance: [[Meme|KKKHHHAAAAAAAAAAAANNNN!!!!]] Widely considered the best of all the films, and the only one considered a straight up great film, no qualifiers. If you haven't seen it, see it. So good many later movies in the franchise just try to rip it off instead of finding their own identities. Interesting fact: due to time constraints, actors of Kirk and Khan weren't available at the same time. So the entire script was written so that Kirk and Khan never need to meet face-to-face. But you'd never notice if it weren't pointed out to you. Roddenberry screeched autistically and objected to some of the actions of his characters, including Kirk shooting a [[Enslavers|brain eating space parasite]] rather than "[[Noblebright|keeping it for study]]." The fact that his strongest objections came to the most [[win]] of the films says a great deal about his deprecating value to the franchise around the TNG era.
* '''''Star Trek III: The Search for Spock''''': Where is Spock? ''He's on Genesis.'' ALL AHEAD FULL! Not really bad, just mediocre and run of the mill compared to the superior films that surround it. It was also saddled with the misfortune of undoing some of the previous film's more-daring decisions, and having its only daring decision reversed a film later. If you had to say that any film broke the "odd numbers suck" rule, it would be this one.
* '''''Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home''''': The crew of the ''Enterpise'' travels back in time to save the whales. No, literally and unironically. Scott tries to talk to a computer through the mouse, Spock nerve-pinches a punk on a bus in San Francisco, and somehow it works, creating something perhaps not quite in the genre intended but a classic in sci-fi dramedy. ''The Voyage Home'' is a zany comedy romp beloved by the general public and fandom alike, leaving only the most intractable fanbois to bitch and moan. Nimoy directed this one but there was a contract stipulation that Shatner would get whatever Nimoy got, thus leading to...
* <del>'''''Star Trek V: The Final Frontier''''':</del> <s>The epitome of the "odd-numbered Star Trek films suck" rule.</s> {{BLAM|Lies! There is no}} '''''Star Trek V'''''{{BLAM|! It was not called}} '''''The Final Frontier'''''{{BLAM|! It was not directed by Kirk's egotistical actor and did not have a plot that could literally be summarized as "Kirk is betrayed by his incompetent crew, yet goes on to fight God and win!" The films mysteriously moved from four to six and ''we are all improved because of this!''}}
* '''''Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country''''': The Space Cold War ends amidst searing mystery and drama. The sendoff for the original cast, except Kirk who got a worse send-off a movie later. Gene Roddenberry watched it, hated it, and was going to seek legal advice but died a week later. And good riddance to that, because it's a pretty sweet political thriller if your hippie-panties don't get into a twist at the thought that the Federation isn't a perfect place full of perfect people.
* '''''Star Trek Generations''''': Malcolm McDowell blows up planets to get into a magic space ribbon to live forever, no it does not make any more sense in context. An already-weak story hamstrung by its obsession with being daring and unconventional rather than good. Also, Kirk dies on the bridge in the most face-palming manner possible.
* '''''Star Trek First Contact''''': The ''TNG'' crew face off with the Borg to ensure the future happens. Lots of action, a script that sparks with energy and snark, and some quite effective performances make this the only good ''TNG'' movie. It sadly is also the only appearance of the Defiant on screen, doing a pretty decent job of fighting the Borg before the Enterprise E saves the day of course. The Borg Queen was also introduced here before Voyager, ruining what could have been a good idea.
* '''''Star Trek Insurrection''''': If you thought the [[Avatar|Na'vi]] were a bunch of badly-written [[Mary Sue]]s, you ain't seen nothing yet! B-b-b-baby you ain't seen n-n-n-nothing yet! Also, Riker shaves his beard, and that's basically a war crime. Aged from terrible to forgettably bad thanks to that one scene of Picard and Data singing ''HMS Pinafore'' going memetic.
* '''''Star Trek Nemesis''''': The last stand of the ''TNG'' cast, ending not with a bang but a whimper. It also required amending the even=good/odd=bad rule to "''Galaxy Quest'' counts as a ''Star Trek'' film so this one is also odd."
* '''''Star Trek''''' (2009): Alternate timeline "reboot" (sideboot?) with the original crew, albeit with new younger actors. Timey-wimey shit happens and old prime timeline Spock (reprised by old Leonard Nemoy) is hurled back in time along with a bunch of Romulan assholes. The dickbag Romulans begin fucking shit up, slightly altering history in a way that ensures gratuitous lens flare. [[skub| Skubtastic]], but at least watchable, which is more than ''most'' odd-numbered films can muster. If you still even count it as odd, without the ''Galaxy Quest''-amendment.
* '''''Star Trek Into Darkness''''': Some [[edgy]] shit. The second of the alternate timeline ''Trek'' films. Terrorism, conspiracy and flapdoodle. Even more skubtastic, but generally considered worse than its predecessor, partially because (like ''Nemesis'') it tries to be a remake of ''The Wrath of Khan'' and having Kirk at his most punchable.
* '''''Star Trek Beyond''''': Controversial, but more in a question of whether it's decent or quite good. Lots of good character stuff and a decent story revolving around a race of mysterious space pirates trying to conquer a colony, but the action photography is poorly-lit shaky-cam horseshit and the sound work is awful. If it's the last "Kelvin Timeline" movie, as it seems it will be, at least it ended on a good note.

== Novels ==
Like most long time franchises ''Star Trek'' has a massive line of books. Unlike most they're basically just fanfics as nothing but the show and the movies is canon so the writers can do whatever they want. This changed after ''Nemesis'' since they might never have another show or movie in the "Prime" universe, so the writers got their shit together and wrote a group of books as a tight community very close to the shows. The relaunch novels are a continuation of the show they're about. Also there's the ''Titan'' book series which is about Riker and Troi getting their own ship, which happens to be staffed by every race in the Federation including living rocks, [[awesome|space dinosaurs]] that smell like [[meatbread|toast]] and a [[what|space cyborg ostrich]].

During yet another novel continuity (Star Trek: Destiny), the Borg go nuts and eat Pluto... yeah... and then they finally get sick of the Federation somehow managing to not get assimilated all the time, so they finally just send every last cube they have with orders to Exterminatus the absolute SHIT out of the entire Alpha Quadrant. Pretty much every important character from TNG, DS9, and Voyager has to team up to stop them, and even then the Federation still gets its shit kicked in and winds up having to rely on a vaguely ridiculous deus ex machina to win, and [[Grimdark|billions of people still die and dozens of planets are blown to shit]]. It was pretty insane.

Then all the Federation's main enemies get together to form an anti-Federation and start poking the bear, all the while telling their allies that they're somehow warmongering dicks, Section 31 gets its cover blown in a big way, and Riker gets promoted to Admiral. Also, a lot of the newer TNG novels have been devoted to following up on one-shot aliens from the show, like the guys that sent out the probe that made Barclay super-smart and those fish monks that were abducting crewmembers for experiments. Now that the Picard show is coming out, though, this will all presumably be chucked in the dustbin.

== Video Games ==
=== Star Trek Online ===
''Star Trek Online'' is the free-to-play online game built by Cryptic Studios and run by Perfect World. With an official license CBS, recurring characters voiced by various Trek alumni, and recently a license to include references to the reboot chronology (officially known as the "Kelvin Timeline"), it's the closest existing thing to an "official" continuation of the "Prime" timeline, and contains history and fluff extending nearly 40 years from the end of Star Trek: Nemesis.

Taking place in the 25th century (around the year 2409-2410), the Hobus supernova (the event that kicked Nero and Spock into the past during Star Trek 2009) has devastated the Romulans, and its near-collapse and fragmentation causes tensions between a resurgent Klingon Empire and the Federation. The tensions blow up into a war, with members of a new, nicer, breakaway Romulan Republic playing both sides in exchange for development aid.

The game contains deep cuts from all over Trek lore, and answers questions about what happened to various key characters, including Data (took over the Enterprise-E, then retired), the Enterprise (now an even bigger ship run by Andorian captain Shon), and the Voyager crew (it took Harry Kim 30 years to make Captain lol). Raises barely-shown, unnamed, and otherwise obscure races to new prominence as big bad foes, including the Iconians (ancient aliens with god complexes who mutated into energy beings, currently live in dyson spheres and were only defeated by predestination paradox), Tzenkethi (4-armed halo guys whose weak points are the FRONT of their shields), and Na'kuhl (the alien nazis from Enterprise as time-traveling terrorists who blame the Federation for a throwaway event that happened in TNG's beach episode).

Ostensibly free to play, but don't let that fool you... the ''not-so-micro''transactions are the only reason the lights stay on.

=== Starfleet Command ===

''Starfleet Command'' was a series real time space battle games by Interplay based on the much older tabletop game Star Fleet Battles. It came out in 1999 and was followed by several sequels and expansions. Gameplay was much like ''Battlefleet Gothic'', but with the player only controlling one ship. SFC remains Interplay's best selling game, topping even ''Baldur's Gate''.

=== Armada ===

A series of low effort RTS's churned out by Activision in 2000. Tried to take on both ''Homeworld'' and ''Age of Empires'', both of which have recently gotten HD remakes and ''Armada'' hasn't so that should tell you all you need to know. However, for one of the first 3D model space RTS's it was surprisingly easy to mod, resulting in many ship mod packs being made for it.

== Would you like to know more? ==
And oh Lordy, is there more...
*[http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/ Main Memory Alpha: A ''Star Trek'' wiki]
*[http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/ Main Memory Beta: The flip-side of Memory Alpha for the less than official stuff]
*[http://sfdebris.com/ SF Debris: opinionated episode reviews, has some non ''Trek'' stuff as well]

[[Category: Television]]

Always Chaotic Evil

2019-12-09T08:49:26Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:290B:BAAA:92F2:A623:

'''Always Chaotic Evil''' is a slang term that [[/tg/]] has picked up from our frenemies over on [[TVTropes]]. The term originates from [[Dungeons & Dragons]] and specifically its early use of the mechanics of [[alignment]]. In the [[Monster Manual]], creatures would always have their "alignment propensity", the specific alignment that the "average" member of their species would have, listed as part of their statblock.

It's mostly used as an easy placeholder term for the "typically villainous races" - [[orc]]s, [[goblinoid]]s, [[gnoll]]s, [[ogre]]s, etc. A handy way to refer to the usual "chuck 'em at the PCs and let them hack 'em down" cannon fodder races.

The term has gotten a little unwelcome on /tg/ in modern years, as the basic idea that thinking humanoid races are somehow inherently evil and deserve only extermination is seen as being... well, a little too [[/pol/]]-friendly. That, and what's the point of roleplaying if you can't go against type ([[Drizzt|''meaningfully'', mind you]])? These last years, focus has somewhat shifted to throwing people actively doing evil things ([[slavery|Slavers]], [[Nazi]]'s, etc...) as chaff to be exterminated to players instead of [[kobold]]s and their ilk, though for this to work you have ignore or write around people's capacity to change their ways and better themselves. Additionally, Eberron has actually broken the trope entirely: alignment in that setting is canonically fluid by the rules given, so that evil-aligned clerics may worship/serve good-aligned deities, and vice versa (with a few exceptions; certain class-based restrictions, such as paladins having to be Lawful Good, remain).

It is telling that the grandfather of modern fantasy, [[J.R.R. Tolkien]] himself, presented orcs as the servants of evil 'overlords', but was uncomfortable with the notion of 'born evil' or 'always evil' due to the theological implications of being born with an inherently evil soul. As a devout Catholic, the idea that Eru Iluvatar (his stand in for the Christian God) would deliberately create people who were inherently evil was contrary to his depiction as a purely good being, but Morgoth (read: Satan) could not create life himself, and Tolkien believed that making Orcs soulless would have caused them to become mere animals.

The solution that Tolkien used (though even then he was never wholly satisfied, and settled for it only because the alternatives were worse) was that Orcs were effectively resurrectively immortal, and had been under the influence of Morgoth and later Sauron (the Evil Overlord of the setting) for thousands of years by the start of the story -- and even then, as soon as Sauron's will vanished, so did their desire to fight, meaning that they were probably under some form of mind control at the time as well.

This sort of behavior can easily go too far in the hands of a sloppy writer. Morality in humans is, at its roots, an extension of the fact that we are social animals that work better together. Parents raise their children, protecting them when they are small and vulnerable and teaching them how to do things so they don't have to figure out everything on their own and build on the knowledge of their fore-bearers. A tribe of humans pools its food so that those which are unlucky can get the calories they need to live and forage another day, when they will be lucky and bring in a surplus - to say nothing of the sick and injured, whom even the earliest tribes and societies valued and cared for. In an agrarian setting, several farmers till the land and raise livestock which they give to the local blacksmith, who forges iron tools so they can better till the land and produce more food per square meter; together they provide food, weapons and arms to a warrior who defends them from attack.

Those are are just two basic arrangements of which a medieval society needs to operate, let alone a modern one - all of which is predicated on people getting along, which we generally do more often than not. If everyone around you is liable to stab you in the back for momentary gain (or for a larf, if they are all dyed-in-the-wool self-centered sadistic sociopaths), the listed arrangements can't work. The lack of cooperation would prevent any such society they might dream of making from getting off the ground. The only rational thing for said creatures to do is to avoid others of their kind like the plague, unless of course they can mug them... and in the case of humans, subsequently die from a wide variety of circumstances (famine, crippling injuries leaving then unable to find food, etc.) which they would probably have avoided if they had just worked with others.

==Standards & Examples==
The usual standards for "entirely evil species" nowadays requires one or more of the following:
* Be reborn into that species or type of creature after a sufficient amount of evildoing. This is how it works for D&D for the most part: evil people die, and their souls are essentially tortured and/or warped by horrific powers to become the fiends of the Lower Planes (devils, demons, gehreleths, yugoloths, assorted others). The process used to create such beings is designed to utterly strip away every vestige of humanity remaining in a soul, basically "purify" the latent evil inside of it, and create something that is incapable of empathy as we would understand it. (Note that this absolutely does not mean that such beings might not turn stag on their alignment, so much as make it extremely unlikely they would do so on their own; this was actually one of the interesting points in Planescape, and there is astonishingly a good-aligned mind-rape spell in [[Book of Exalted Deeds]] that can reverse the process, forcing an evil being to confront its nature and reemerge as a good being).
* Have biological requirements incompatible with peaceful coexistence. The best and first example of these are the [[undead]], who absolutely require feeding on living, sapient beings to survive. Among these, the best two examples are [[ghoul]]s (who must consume living flesh) and [[vampire]]s (who must drink blood and/or lifeforce, depending on the setting). This is one of the biggest motives running through the World of Darkness vampire games: you are continually doing fucked-up stuff to just survive, and spend your time pitting your fleeting Humanity against the raving bloodlust of the Beast inside you (and this is all before you start sailing towards a moral event horizon, due to vampiric politics demanding even worse shit from you). Shadowrun also has a big moral quandry with their ghouls, who actually form a nation out in Africa and are always agitating for equal rights despite their diet.
* Constructed from certain dark/negative emotions or concepts. This is usually given as the reason why Frankenstein's Creature is violent and malicious: it is depicted in some media as having been made from the parts of convicted criminals, including the brain of an executed murderer, which reacts badly when other people see how fucked-up it looks and acts. Or take the Daemons of Warhammer, who are psychic entities made of emotions carried way too far; for example, "Bloodletters" are essentially endless anger given form.
* The creature is of such alien mentality and physiology that it is incompatible with human life as we know it. Good examples are things like the Orks and Tyranids of [[Warhammer 40,000]], who are genetically driven to destroy and/or consume all other species. This is distinct from the undead example given above; in particular, what is a biological imperative borne of an unnatural or cursed existence for the undead is simply a default way of life for the Orks, Tyranids and other similarly alien beings.
*A god is trying to force some kind of behavior- while some might argue that evil requires a choice in some form, there's nothing stopping a deity from making the "good" choice so unappealing that nobody picks it. This is the case for the Drow, which are almost entirely under Lolth's thumb- they could join with Elistraee, but in a culture that prizes individual survival above all very few people would attempt such a suicidal act.

Note that most games define good and evil through a human-survival morality, which denotes a fundamental respect for life (well, at least human life; we're pretty shitty toward other forms of life, to say nothing of how we treat our own kind). Morality as we know it doesn't really apply to non-human creatures who are as far above us as we consider ourselves above bacteria. They may see us as the same kind of vermin or parasites we ourselves routinely destroy to preserve our own survival, if they even acknowledge us as sentient at all. Even if their minds are similar enough to us to have some concept of morality, their moral codes might make absolutely no sense (as is the case with the True Fae in Changeling: The Lost).

==Modern Practices==
All that being said, goblins and orcs and the like are still sword and spell fodder, but nowadays the conflict is more likely to be cultural ("they want us off what they consider their land") or religious ("the Blood God demands Blood, and they think your little hamlet looks like it can supply a large quantity thereof"), and non-combatant orcs are likely to be treated as well as any other enemy non-combatants.

==See Also==
* [[Detect Evil]], for a closely related problem.
* [[Demon]], which may or may not qualify depending on gameline and/or setting
* [[Orc]], for the original "Always Chaotic Evil" race.
* [[The Orc Baby Dilemma]], a sub-problem specific to exploiting ''other'' rigid-alignment roles and races.
* [[Baatezu]], for a fairly standard case of "Recruited and Recreated from Already Evil People"

[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Alignment]][[Category:Gamer Slang]]

Always Chaotic Evil

2019-12-09T08:48:48Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:290B:BAAA:92F2:A623:

'''Always Chaotic Evil''' is a slang term that [[/tg/]] has picked up from our frenemies over on [[TVTropes]]. The term originates from [[Dungeons & Dragons]] and specifically its early use of the mechanics of [[alignment]]. In the [[Monster Manual]], creatures would always have their "alignment propensity", the specific alignment that the "average" member of their species would have, listed as part of their statblock.

It's mostly used as an easy placeholder term for the "typically villainous races" - [[orc]]s, [[goblinoid]]s, [[gnoll]]s, [[ogre]]s, etc. A handy way to refer to the usual "chuck 'em at the PCs and let them hack 'em down" cannon fodder races.

The term has gotten a little unwelcome on /tg/ in modern years, as the basic idea that thinking humanoid races are somehow inherently evil and deserve only extermination is seen as being... well, a little too [[/pol/]]-friendly. That, and what's the point of roleplaying if you can't go against type ([[Drizzt|''meaningfully'', mind you]])? These last years, focus has somewhat shifted to throwing people actively doing evil things ([[slavery|Slavers]], [[Nazi]]'s, etc...) as chaff to be exterminated to players instead of [[kobold]]s and their ilk, though for this to work people's capacity to change their ways and better themselves has to be overlooked. Additionally, Eberron has actually broken the trope entirely: alignment in that setting is canonically fluid by the rules given, so that evil-aligned clerics may worship/serve good-aligned deities, and vice versa (with a few exceptions; certain class-based restrictions, such as paladins having to be Lawful Good, remain).

It is telling that the grandfather of modern fantasy, [[J.R.R. Tolkien]] himself, presented orcs as the servants of evil 'overlords', but was uncomfortable with the notion of 'born evil' or 'always evil' due to the theological implications of being born with an inherently evil soul. As a devout Catholic, the idea that Eru Iluvatar (his stand in for the Christian God) would deliberately create people who were inherently evil was contrary to his depiction as a purely good being, but Morgoth (read: Satan) could not create life himself, and Tolkien believed that making Orcs soulless would have caused them to become mere animals.

The solution that Tolkien used (though even then he was never wholly satisfied, and settled for it only because the alternatives were worse) was that Orcs were effectively resurrectively immortal, and had been under the influence of Morgoth and later Sauron (the Evil Overlord of the setting) for thousands of years by the start of the story -- and even then, as soon as Sauron's will vanished, so did their desire to fight, meaning that they were probably under some form of mind control at the time as well.

This sort of behavior can easily go too far in the hands of a sloppy writer. Morality in humans is, at its roots, an extension of the fact that we are social animals that work better together. Parents raise their children, protecting them when they are small and vulnerable and teaching them how to do things so they don't have to figure out everything on their own and build on the knowledge of their fore-bearers. A tribe of humans pools its food so that those which are unlucky can get the calories they need to live and forage another day, when they will be lucky and bring in a surplus - to say nothing of the sick and injured, whom even the earliest tribes and societies valued and cared for. In an agrarian setting, several farmers till the land and raise livestock which they give to the local blacksmith, who forges iron tools so they can better till the land and produce more food per square meter; together they provide food, weapons and arms to a warrior who defends them from attack.

Those are are just two basic arrangements of which a medieval society needs to operate, let alone a modern one - all of which is predicated on people getting along, which we generally do more often than not. If everyone around you is liable to stab you in the back for momentary gain (or for a larf, if they are all dyed-in-the-wool self-centered sadistic sociopaths), the listed arrangements can't work. The lack of cooperation would prevent any such society they might dream of making from getting off the ground. The only rational thing for said creatures to do is to avoid others of their kind like the plague, unless of course they can mug them... and in the case of humans, subsequently die from a wide variety of circumstances (famine, crippling injuries leaving then unable to find food, etc.) which they would probably have avoided if they had just worked with others.

==Standards & Examples==
The usual standards for "entirely evil species" nowadays requires one or more of the following:
* Be reborn into that species or type of creature after a sufficient amount of evildoing. This is how it works for D&D for the most part: evil people die, and their souls are essentially tortured and/or warped by horrific powers to become the fiends of the Lower Planes (devils, demons, gehreleths, yugoloths, assorted others). The process used to create such beings is designed to utterly strip away every vestige of humanity remaining in a soul, basically "purify" the latent evil inside of it, and create something that is incapable of empathy as we would understand it. (Note that this absolutely does not mean that such beings might not turn stag on their alignment, so much as make it extremely unlikely they would do so on their own; this was actually one of the interesting points in Planescape, and there is astonishingly a good-aligned mind-rape spell in [[Book of Exalted Deeds]] that can reverse the process, forcing an evil being to confront its nature and reemerge as a good being).
* Have biological requirements incompatible with peaceful coexistence. The best and first example of these are the [[undead]], who absolutely require feeding on living, sapient beings to survive. Among these, the best two examples are [[ghoul]]s (who must consume living flesh) and [[vampire]]s (who must drink blood and/or lifeforce, depending on the setting). This is one of the biggest motives running through the World of Darkness vampire games: you are continually doing fucked-up stuff to just survive, and spend your time pitting your fleeting Humanity against the raving bloodlust of the Beast inside you (and this is all before you start sailing towards a moral event horizon, due to vampiric politics demanding even worse shit from you). Shadowrun also has a big moral quandry with their ghouls, who actually form a nation out in Africa and are always agitating for equal rights despite their diet.
* Constructed from certain dark/negative emotions or concepts. This is usually given as the reason why Frankenstein's Creature is violent and malicious: it is depicted in some media as having been made from the parts of convicted criminals, including the brain of an executed murderer, which reacts badly when other people see how fucked-up it looks and acts. Or take the Daemons of Warhammer, who are psychic entities made of emotions carried way too far; for example, "Bloodletters" are essentially endless anger given form.
* The creature is of such alien mentality and physiology that it is incompatible with human life as we know it. Good examples are things like the Orks and Tyranids of [[Warhammer 40,000]], who are genetically driven to destroy and/or consume all other species. This is distinct from the undead example given above; in particular, what is a biological imperative borne of an unnatural or cursed existence for the undead is simply a default way of life for the Orks, Tyranids and other similarly alien beings.
*A god is trying to force some kind of behavior- while some might argue that evil requires a choice in some form, there's nothing stopping a deity from making the "good" choice so unappealing that nobody picks it. This is the case for the Drow, which are almost entirely under Lolth's thumb- they could join with Elistraee, but in a culture that prizes individual survival above all very few people would attempt such a suicidal act.

Note that most games define good and evil through a human-survival morality, which denotes a fundamental respect for life (well, at least human life; we're pretty shitty toward other forms of life, to say nothing of how we treat our own kind). Morality as we know it doesn't really apply to non-human creatures who are as far above us as we consider ourselves above bacteria. They may see us as the same kind of vermin or parasites we ourselves routinely destroy to preserve our own survival, if they even acknowledge us as sentient at all. Even if their minds are similar enough to us to have some concept of morality, their moral codes might make absolutely no sense (as is the case with the True Fae in Changeling: The Lost).

==Modern Practices==
All that being said, goblins and orcs and the like are still sword and spell fodder, but nowadays the conflict is more likely to be cultural ("they want us off what they consider their land") or religious ("the Blood God demands Blood, and they think your little hamlet looks like it can supply a large quantity thereof"), and non-combatant orcs are likely to be treated as well as any other enemy non-combatants.

==See Also==
* [[Detect Evil]], for a closely related problem.
* [[Demon]], which may or may not qualify depending on gameline and/or setting
* [[Orc]], for the original "Always Chaotic Evil" race.
* [[The Orc Baby Dilemma]], a sub-problem specific to exploiting ''other'' rigid-alignment roles and races.
* [[Baatezu]], for a fairly standard case of "Recruited and Recreated from Already Evil People"

[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Alignment]][[Category:Gamer Slang]]

A Song of Ice and Fire

2019-12-09T08:39:27Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:290B:BAAA:92F2:A623: /* The appeal of A Song of Ice And Fire */

[[image:Game_of_Thrones_Title-DVD.png|300px|thumb|WIENER PARTY! WIENER PARTY!]]

{{Spoilers}}
'''Warning: This article contains so many spoilers we're ruining books that haven't even been released yet.'''

{{Topquote|If you think this story has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention.|Ramsay Bolton, nailing the grimdark theme of this series}}

'''''A Song of Ice and Fire''''' (more better known as '''''Game of Thrones''''') is a [[Grimdark]] fantasy book series for people who hate fantasy. Its central themes include [[Tzeentch|political Machiavellian scheming]], [[Khorne|ultraviolence]], [[Slaanesh|incest/sex with exposition]], and [[Nurgle|everyone trying to survive in such a Crapsack World of perpetual suffering]]. Thus it has become one of the most popular series of our generation and its author, [[George R. R. Martin]], has been praised for his highly realized world and gritty low fantasy style. He was even called "the American [[Tolkien]]" by <s>Time magazine</s> gormless idiots who lump diametrically different writers together for no other reason than that they're both fantasy authors, which would probably explains its sudden spike in popularity following the TV show (at least [[Skub|to a point, anyway.]])

The series itself is set on the [[Original character, do not steal|totally not medieval European ripoff]] realm of Westeros as it is wracked by a massive succession war drawing its realms into conflict. A bunch of dudes declare themselves kings (book two), they're burning the continent down in their scramble for power, and somehow all the fuck-ups managed to lose anyway (book three). Just when the guys who lost the least start thinking they get to rule over the remaining chaos, more fuck ups happen and more dudes show up (book four). Sadly, winter has finally come and, unbeknownst to most people, [[Thousand Sons|evil ice wizards leading soulless undead]] [[Alpha Legion|assumed to be only myths by most people]] are about to invade the continent from the north. By the fifth book, things are going and/or will go to shit even for the bad guys.

According to a leaked fan conversation, George R. R. Martin jokingly stated the series would end with an epic cock-slap fight between Samwell Tarly and Jaime Lannister.

TL;DR: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Roses War of Roses] redux, with a side helpin' of <s>cliched fantasy</s> George's old sci-fi writing plots and [[/d/]]-lite.

===Characters===
{{cleanup}}
Since these books have some thousand named characters, you won't remember most of them without an obsessive disorder over details.
Here's a relatively short list (mostly based on the TV series rather than the books, but seems to randomly switch between the two) for the characters you'll care about.

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Stark'''

''"Winter Is Coming"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Honourable, bro-tier northerners who always [[Space Wolves|compare themselves to direwolves]]. They have a tendency towards [[Lawful Stupid]] that proves to bite them in the ass due to naivete about how [[Tzeentch|Westerosi corrupt politics actually works]]. They're also arguably the protagonists of the setting. Basically Scotland and/or the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_york House of York].
* Eddard Stark, ''The Quiet Wolf'': Patriarch, lord and POV death-puppet. Not nearly as stupid as everyone tries to pretend, but still a dead man walking.
* Robb Stark, ''The Young Wolf'': Shiny, [[Lawful Stupid]] King Arthur-like hero. After waging a successful war to avenge his murdered father, he was betrothed to a noblewoman but he ended having comfort sex with a virgin noblewoman which may have been arranged by her scheming bitch mother, while in softcore porno he got the hots for a commoner. Cacks it nastily: he got his head cut off and his pet's wolf's head stuck on his body, which was paraded around while his enemies chanted "HERE COMES THE KING IN THE NORTH!" In other words, he's a Scottish [[Roman Empire|Hannibal Barca]].
* Sansa Stark: Useless teenage girl extraordinaire at the start of the series with dreams of marrying a prince and "having lots of babies", but gets shat on hard by reality. Becomes Littlefinger's replacement goldfish when Catelyn's no longer around, her father got killed and her best friend was sold as a sex slave, and ended up in the worst relationship we can possibly imagine with King Joffrey. [[Grimdark|Even got deflowered via rape by Ramsey Bolton]] and married to him before managing to escape with the help of others. Currently acting as a co-ruler to her brother/cousin Jon Snow, and has learned much from her suffering, allowing her to kick Littlefinger out of the Great Game via throat slitting. While in the book Littlefinger is/was setting her up at House Arryn to claim the Vale and the North, the show version becomes QUEEN IN DA NORF in the final episode.
* Arya Stark: Little tomboy assassin. Has a kill list, but doesn't get to use it so long as she is an amnesiac apprentice of [[Officio Assassinorum|the Friendly Neighborhood Assassins Guild]]. After breaking away (in the TV series) from the Faceless Men she heads back to Westeros to get revenge on a LOT of people, giving her one of the highest kill counts in the series. Is currently back with her sister Sansa, acting as a general "troubleshooter". Kills the Night King like a fucking champion [[Skub|(or, alternatively, in a nonsensical plot twist)]] in Season 8, and is now riding south to add Cersei to her killcount. Instead, the Hound talks her out of it and she decides to sail into the unknown west.
* Catelyn Stark (nee Tully): A woman who trusts the wrong people at the worst time, causing a lot of misery. Gets killed along with Robb, then comes back (books only) as an undead witch bent on killing all the Boltons, Freys, Greyjoys, Lannisters... pretty much everyone she thinks was tangentially involved in betraying her and her family, or somebody who just pissed her off.
* Bran Stark: Intelligent little boy, named after the founder of House Stark, Brandon the Builder (basically Tony Stark combined with [[Leman Russ]]). He was crippled in the first sign of major [[GrimDark]]. Has prophetic dreams and becomes a [[druid]]. In the TV series, fucks things up by alerting the Others to where he's hiding, which gets all of the Children, his loyal wolf, the Three-Eyed Crow and Hodor killed. For good measure, turns out to have accidentally ''caused'' Hodor to become, well, Hodor, as he was using his druid powers to figure out why Hodor is only able to say Hodor, resulting in Hodor's gruesome death-by-zombies being beamed directly into young!Hodor's brain. He's now the Three-Eyed Raven and likes going around being creepy as fuck and generally weirding people out. Becomes King of the Six Kingdoms in a hilariously nonsensical plot twist in the finale.
* Rickon Stark: Four years old at the start, turning into a real little [[Barbarian]] from not being raised properly, because everyone who would have raised him was dead or missing. In the show, he ends up hanging out at the Umbers, then is handed over to Ramsay as a prisoner when Smalljon becomes afraid of the Wildlings living north of him (who were invited by Jon Snow to fight the Zombie Apocalypse), and finally dies via arrow in a sick game of "dodge the missiles" courtesy of Ramsey.
* Jon Snow, ''The White Wolf'': A bastard living in the Stark household before leaving for the Night's Watch (basically [[The Last Chancers|Colonel Schaeffer]] with more convicted rapists under his command) and excels there because nearly every one of his fellow recruits are peasants who have never had a formal days training while Jon has had the serious training afforded to all lords. After he takes over by becoming the Watch Commander secures and alliance with the Wildlings, ancient barbarian enemies of the Night's Watch, because when the end of the world is coming you tend to think outside the box. Currently revived by R'hllor in the series after being stabbed to death by the senior members of the Watch. Isn't actually Eddard's bastard son, but rather the legitimate son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, meaning that he is in fact the rightful heir to the Iron Throne. The new KING IN DA NORF according to his supporters after he killed Ramsay Bolton and took back Winterfell, and is also currently hooking up with his own aunt. He turns on Daenerys once he realizes she's lost it and kills her in the throne room. The Unsullied want his head, but instead King Bran exiles him to the Night's Watch and he fucks off into the far north to live with the Free Folk.
* Hodor: Hodor. Hodor, Hodor, Hodor. <s>An enormous and possibly retarded stable boy, and Bran's faithful steed.</s> Hodor. Ok, in all actual seriousness, this guy is probably one of the most tragic figures in this series (and that's saying something). [[Grimdark|The guy basically received horrible visions of his own death fighting a horde of zombies, buying time for his friends to escape by literally holding the door shut as he was hacked apart]]. This causes him to suffer a psychiatric break, leading him to develop Immature Personality Disorder and his only speech is to repeat a garbled phrase of his friend's last request "hold the door" for all of his adult life; the logic here is that "hold the door" devolves into "hol' th' door" and eventually "Hodor". You now feel bad for at laughing at the guy.
* Osha: A Wildling woman who surrendered to the Starks and becomes their servant in exchange for not getting killed. Now dead in the show thanks to Ramsay's dickery.</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Targaryen'''

''"Fire and Blood"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">The former Dragon kings and rulers of Westeros, [[Eldar|fair-haired purple-eyed beautiful people]] who have descended from the [[Dark Age of Technology|ancient technologically-advanced superpower]] of [[Roman Empire|Valyria]], which collapsed because of [[Fall of the Eldar|their colossal hubris]]. After the anarchic [[Age of Strife|Century of Blood]], the Targaryen patriarch Aegon I, instead of reconquering the lost cause of Essos and of Valyria's former empire, looked towards the rather primitive continent of Westeros, and its squabbling Seven Kingdoms, [[Great Crusade|to establish his own Imperial dynasty and unify the Realm]]. Aegon I is essentially the Low Fantasy version of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_the_Conqueror William the Conqueror] and/or the [[God-Emperor of Mankind]], with a little dash of [[/d/|incest]].

[[Rules Lawyer|Thanks to a loophole]], the Targaryens were immune to the moral objections relating to incest. Common sense (and common decency) took back seat to a time-honored policy of [[/d/|catastrophic inbreeding]], which made a number of problems. Aegon I married his older and younger sisters and had several kids with each, which would be the start of another Targaryen tradition: the occasional succession crisis. The inbreeding would also lead to a line of almost alternatingly great and lunatic kings, culminating in Aerys "The Mad King" Targaryen and a palace coup. Eventually the lineage was banished to Essos after a brutal civil war, the remnants trying to gather armies to retake the Iron Throne which they see as rightfully theirs. Basically a family of inbreeding girly-men with a massive sense of superiority and as arrogant as they come, forgetting that most of what they accomplished was due to the fact that only they had dragons. Still, they occasionally did have genuinely good people like Aegon V (aka Egg), Jaeherys I the Conciliator, his wife Good Queen Alysanne and complete badasses like Brynden Bloodraven and Baelor Breakspear.
Pseudo-Romans and/or the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Normandy House of Normandy].

* Aerys II, ''The Mad King'': [[Kharn|A pretty fun guy to be around]]. Had a psychotic fascination for fire, which extended to being a psychotic fascination for burning traitors, a category of people that eventually grew to include anybody he disliked for any reason, anyone who disagreed with him, and a few people who were unlucky enough to be caught in the crossfire. [[Goge Vandire|Teamkilled by his bodyguard Jaime for planning to burn the city down with everyone inside it, and even refused to accept his death until he actually died]].
* [[Mary Sue|Daenerys Targaryen]], ''Stormborn'': She was sold by her brother to a barbarian leader [[Genghis motherfucking Khan|Khal (warlord) Drogo]] in exchange for the promise that he'd use his Khalassar (warband/tribe) to conquer Westeros. She found her self esteem as his wife, then her husband killed her idiot brother Viserys and promised to conquer the world for Daenerys, making her a full-fledged badass barbarian warqueen. Unfortunately, her husband died when [[Derp|Daenerys trusted one of the slaves whose town Drogo had pillaged and burnt to heal an infected wound of his]] and his horde fell apart (though the book is somewhat ambiguous as to whether the slave did kill Drogo). Then she hatched three dragons (completely by accident when she tried to commit suicide) bringing them back from extinction, and now everyone wants to marry her because she is now one of the most powerful people around due to said dragons and being good-looking (in the books this is by the age-of-consent in Westeros standards, where girls are women when they start getting their periods and boys are men at age 13). [[Gets shit done]] except the entire fifth book, in which she mopes around about wanting to marry an annoying, flamboyant mercenary instead of saving herself for political marriage. After banging the flamboyant mercenary, she later marries a Meereenese noble who guarantees he can get her some peace (more likely [[Just As Planned|just as he planned]]). She also does nothing while insurgents kill her men, a horde of plagued refugees spread disease to her city, and standing idly by while an enemy army besieges her walls, all for realistically political reasons because the world is a horrible place. Learns how to train her dragon. Is currently (TV series) in Westeros invading the place with an army of elite hoplites, a massive horde of Dothraki, one dragon (because the other two are dead) and fucking her nephew (Jon Snow). Has officially gone Mad Queen as of S8E5, wherein she burned most of King's Landing after the city attempted to surrender. Jon kills her in the series finale so that she won't go around burninating the rest of the world.
* The dragons: The three dragons that Daenerys hatched. They're wyverns that breathe fire, [[Awesome|have blood hot enough to melt steel]], and [[List of /tg/ Cuisine|cook their meat before eating it]]. Naturally, some of the coolest things in the story.
** Drogon; named for her late husband, Khal Drogo. Black and Red, the biggest and [[Gork|most aggressive dragon]]. Starts eating people and then escapes, leading to the other two getting imprisoned. Interrupts a gladiator tournament, killing a lot of people before being whipped by Daenerys into flying her to a Khalassar that broke off from her husband's after his death. Is now the last dragon standing after Viserion bites it at Winterfell and Rhaegal gets shot down over Dragonstone. Fucks off to who knows where after Dany is killed.
** Rhaegal; named for the first of her dead brothers, Rhaegar. Green and gold, the [[Mork|cunning one]]. Kills Quentyn Martell (see below). After breaking out of jail with Viserion they go "all your bases are belong to us" on Meereen, killing people and taking over the pyramid of a loyal family as his lair. Is now dead in the show thanks to Euron Greyjoy and some diabolus ex machina bullshit.
** Viserion; named for her other brother Viserys. White and gold, the [[Vulkan|friendliest]] (as dragons go, he still eats people) and the loudest. Dug cave for himself in his jail then moved into another pyramid after their great escape. Gets killed by the [[Vampire Counts|Night's King in the show via a magic spear, is reanimated to be his zombie dragon steed]] and blasts a hole in the famous Wall, allowing the armies of snow elves and zombies to start flooding Westeros. Now perma-dead thanks to the Night King biting it.
* Viserys Targaryen, ''The Beggar King'': Daenerys' physically abusive older brother. Best known for being a bully with incestuous lust for her, and an arrogant and incompetent fuck with a massive sense of entitlement. He eventually got himself killed for being an all-around jerk and whiny idiot, which culminated in him threatening his sister and unborn nephew with a sword while drunk in a sacred Dothraki place where weapons and bloodshed are forbidden on pain of death (execution is done by bloodless death - having a scarf wrapped tight around the neck and being drowned in a barrel). Daenerys' husband [[awesome|poured molten gold over his head and called it his promised crown]].
* Aegon Targaryen, ''Aegon VI'': Daenerys' nephew, the son of her brother Rhaegar. Been hiding in Essos for the entire length of the series, but recently raised an army of Westerosi exiles and threw them all a massive Welcome Home party with rape and pillage. Wants to marry his aunt because she has dragons, and might not actually be a member of House Targaryen if you believe some fans. He can actually count past 6, can multiply numbers, can read different language and has a minor understanding of geometry thus cementing him as one of the most educated people in this overwrought series. Can also do his own laundry.
* Brynden Rivers ''Bloodraven'': A Targaryen bastard who came to prominence about a hundred years before the series as sort of sorcerer, he later became known as the "Three-Eyed Raven/Crow" after encountering the Children of the Forest, and uses his powers to help advert the Long Night and train Bran. He's described as having long, white hair, missing an eye, bound to a tree, knows all and sees all, associated heavily with ravens and omens... [[Vikings|yeah, he's very much Odin, come to think of it.]]</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Lannister'''

''<s>"Hear Me Roar"</s> "A Lannister Always Pays His Debts"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">[[Monopoly|The world's richest family]], proud, pompous, selfish and fabulous assholes. Not much of a martial tradition but if you cross them [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7t7cnwlOgY they will fucking cut you]. You can tell they are the bad guys because they have an army of sick fucks, including a zebra-riding mercenary band and 7' 8" Khornate Champion <s>not-Goliath</s> Gregor Clegane. House Lancaster combined with the House of Rothschild and the Mafia.
* Tywin Lannister, ''The Lion of Lannister'': The Godfather, head of the house, and obsessed with his reputation as a Magnificent Bastard extraordinaire. He was a most feared general whose greatest achievement was nuking House Reyne out of existence, which was immortalised in his own sweet-yet-creepy-as-fuck theme song (The Rains of Castamere) that became used as a warning against anyone standing against him. During his tenure as Hand of the King (i.e. Prime Minister), he was a political genius who operates as the true power behind the Iron Throne, keeping the realm stable and prosperous despite the stupidity of Aerys II and Joffrey. However, despite all of his achievements, he was an [[Emperor|absolutely terrible father]], who treats his children as nothing more than tools to further his political agenda. He is completely blind to the incestuous relationship his two oldest children had, and hated Tyrion and made his life a living hell for very poor reasons. He humiliated Tyrion whenever it wouldn't threaten the family's reputation, berated Tyrion for being a whore-monger despite secretly being one himself, [[Grimdark|tried to get him killed multiple times]], and as the capstone of awful parenting, he taught Tyrion not to marry commoners after he married one called Tysha - by forcing Tyrion to watch Tysha get gangraped, forcing him to rape her too and then annulling their marriage. The only person Tywin truly loved was his wife. He eventually gets his comeuppance when Tyrion finds out the truth about the Tysha incident, and kills him with a crossbow, all while mentioning that out of all his children, Tyrion was the most alike to Tywin himself. He's based on [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Neville,_16th_Earl_of_Warwick Warwick the Kingmaker].
* Joanna Lannister: Tywin's late wife and first cousin, meaning the next three characters are inbred as well, ironically. Dies giving birth to Tyrion, which is part of why Tywin hates him, though Cersei hates him for other reasons. Caught wind of Cersei and Jaime's incestuous tendencies, but she died before she could tell Tywin. It is implied that her ghost visits Jaime in a dream and mourns the current state of her family.
* Cersei Lannister, ''Cunt Queen'': Tywin and Joanna's first child. Twin sister to Jaime Lannister and wife to King Robert Baratheon. She fucks her brother Jaime all the time and had three of his children, whom she passed off as Robert's to grab power. She is a massive narcissist who thinks of herself as "female Tywin" and hence seeks to rule Westeros as the Queen, and will do anything to keep her power... even when [[Abbadon the Despoiler|most of her plans end up becoming utter failures]]. Crazy as all fuck and prophesied to be killed by the "little brother." This is because of a prophecy a Gypsy made when Cersei was a child that she'd be a beautiful queen, lose everything, her children would die before her, and the "Valonqar" would kill her. Though that does explains why she hates Tyrion as hard as all fuck, [[Just As Planned|the exact translation of the term]] that was used is "younger sibling", and not necessarily her sibling, which opens the door to all sorts of characters who hate the fuck out of her. Since Jaime is technically younger by a few seconds, him killing Cersei would be an interesting twist not without buildup. Possibly the Gypsy was messing with her head because of what a bitch Cersei was being to her; something Cersei never grew out of. Cersei is currently alive only because Varys wants her to be, [[Just As Planned|as she's a terrible queen who'll destabilize the realm enough for him to bring back the Targaryens]]. She was completely shaved, stripped of power in all but her royal heritage and forced to do a nude walk of penance throughout the city by the High Sparrow (ASOIAF Pope equivalent) after he uncovered her crimes. Now she's waiting for her hair to grow back and may be thinking of revenge. She gets it in the show by blowing up the Sept (ASOIAF church) with everyone she doesn't like inside it, having her cousin killed near the Wildfire then capturing the nun who was her jailer and [[Grimdark|leaving her to be tortured to death by zombie Gregor Clegane]]. She is in short Thanquol disguised as a beautiful blonde woman. Gets anticlimactically squashed by a collapsing ceiling along with Jaime during Daenerys's assault on King's Landing.
* Jaime Lannister, ''The Kingslayer'': Younger twin brother (by about three seconds) to Cersei Lannister and commander of the Kingsguard. He loves his sister in every sense of the word and had three children with her. Killed the last king despite his oath, and is widely hated for it, even though everyone agrees that dying was a massive improvement for Aerys. The reason for this betrayal was that Aerys had a huge stockpile of Acme Brand Magic Napalm stockpiled under the city, ready to be set off the moment a siege broke through the town walls, and Jaime's options were to let it happen or kill Aerys before the crazy fuck got ''everybody'' killed. His desire to openly love his sister and win the respect he feels he deserves eventually causes Cersei to reject him. Starts off as an arrogant douche [[Grimdark|and tried to murder Bran Stark, but accidentally crippled him instead]]; he becomes otherwise quite bro-tier besides the whole wants-to-fuck-his-sister thing, though he grows out of ''that'' as well when he realizes what a bitch she is and that there's plenty of women who want his jock - even the hunky Brienne isn't that bad looking. Thoroughly humbled to boot after learning a few hard lessons, losing his sword hand, and having some time to rethink his life. Also the only person in his family who treats Tyrion well, along with one of his aunts and two dead uncles. Essentially, a more incestuous and douchey Blood Angel. In the books, he is currently being lured into a trap by Lady Stoneheart. In the show, he has finally told Cersei to get fucked after realizing that she has well and truly lost it, and is riding north to help fight the White Walkers. He survives the Battle of Winterfell, hooks up with Brienne, and then rides south [[Derp|because he just can't let Cersei go.]] Winds up getting shanked by Euron Greyjoy and dies [[Fail|via collapsing ceiling]].
* Tyrion Lannister, ''Halfman'': a very intelligent dwarf who is awesome, but hated by all of the civilized characters in the books, except his brother Jaime. He seems to do much better when getting drunk with whores, rogues, bastards and barbarians. His silver tongue is one of his greatest strengths (he's witty and good at persuading people) and weaknesses (he's quick with insults and the truth in a city ruled by sociopaths and liars). Tyrion is also one of the only characters with an actual sense of the bigger picture, and an interest toward steering the world toward an outcome that ''doesn't'' involve a [[The End Times|Warhammer End Times]] scenario. Unfortunately, the world's movers, shakers, and those who generally have the power to make a difference are increasingly either a) dead, b) scattered to the winds, or c) hate his dwarf guts. Despite the increasing difficulty and fruitlessness of his task, however, [[Awesome|Tyrion still fights]]. After being framed for killing Joffrey, he killed his own father and is currently in exile in the Free Cities, weaseling his way into leading a merc band and trying to sign them up with Daenerys' forces, recognizing her as one of the few chances Westeros has got of fixing its shit (provided she can get her own shit together, which she's having a bit of trouble with). Since characters in this series tend to either be walking tropes, rip-offs of other fantasy characters, or historical people with different names, Tyrion is probably based on the great [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_Vorkosigan Miles Vorkosigan] (who was himself based on a few people including Sir Winston Churchill) and is a nod to King Richard III (a deformed but competent king later demonized by historians of his era). Even if he is usually the smartest one in the room at any given time, though, Tyrion is still not above having some derp moments. Exhibit A, when Tyrion asked his father what happened to his first wife (right before killing him), he took an ''obvious'' "I don't know and I don't care," response ("Wherever whores go") as actual, literal directions. The show version meets Daenerys and becomes her Hand only to [[Fail|fuck up a bunch of stuff]] and lose her trust. Sells her out when he realizes that she's gone round the bend and winds up becoming Hand to King Bran.
* Kevan Lannister: Tywin's younger brother, considered "the reliable one". One of the few decent Lannisters, though saying that he is perfectly happy carrying out Tywin's bidding. Tried to talk sense into Cersei and was later called in to try and fix her mess. He did such a good job of it that Varys decided to personally thank him. With a crossbow. And a group of knife-wielding children.
* Cersei and Robert's (actually Jaime's) children:
** Joffrey Baratheon: "Heir" of the throne, and technical king of Westeros during the War of the Five Kings since he lives in King's Landing and sits on the throne. Turned out to be worse than Aerys. He died and there was much rejoicing. [[Fail|Except by his mother, who instead had sex on his corpse]]. Fourteen years old at time of death.
** Tommen Baratheon: The new king on the Iron Throne. Nine years old. Married to a teenaged shotacon wife who's (unknown to him) the granddaughter of his brother's true killer. Trying to litigate the criminalization of beets. Loves [[Cats|kittens]]. He's pretty well-rounded and non-fucked up, which is a miracle considering his parents, both putative and biological. Also seems to be trying to take kinging seriously, but his mom is trying to quash that in her subliminal attempt to hold power indefinitely, so whether it holds is another matter entirely. Prophesied to die before Cersei, which doubly tragic due to his age and being a much better person than her. He commits suicide after Cersei gets her revenge via killing his wife, godfather, great-uncle, and all his religious friends via blowing up the ASOIAF equivalent of St. Peter's Basilica, because of course her power hunger was more important than his happiness and well being.
** Mycella Baratheon: Princess, and Cersei and "Robert's" second oldest child. She had her face fucked up because of Arianne Martell's amateur intrigues, which overlapped with poor planning, general stupidity, and another guy's backstabbing. Ten years old. Before the maiming, she was quite decent and non-evil. Who knows how she'll turn out now with half of her face cut off. Also prophesied to die before Cersei. In the show she had a crush on Oberyn's surviving nephew, but was killed by Elia in revenge for Oberyn's death, but alive in the books though missing an ear. Also, the readership all got on George's balls for maiming this girl, mostly because it was a sign that he had run out of ideas and was basically just milking diabolus ex machina ([[Just As Planned|or that's what he wants us to think]]).
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Baratheon'''

''"Ours is the Fury"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Ascended to the Iron Throne after a successful rebellion against the Mad King Aerys II Targaryen. Produces no less than three claimants to the succession, each one very different from the other. Technically a cadet branch of House Targaryen as their founder Orys was allegedly a Targaryen bastard, who took the original Storm Kings (House Durrandon) deer sigil after killing the last one and fucking his only child Argella and then 200 odd years later, King Egg's daughter married their grandfather, they're pretty much the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Plantagenet House of Plantagenet].
* Robert Baratheon, ''The Usurper'': Fat, old, former badass who led the rebellion, and now the king who married Cersei Lannister. Then he fucked a bunch of other women and had lots of illegitimate kids. He was killed while mixing boar hunting and drinking, but whether this death was planned or not is uncertain. On the surface, a king with a thing for easy laughs and partying; right underneath the surface, he's irresponsible and leaves the actual ruling of a nation to his staff, deeper under the surface he's pretty much a sad, lonely old bro who would rather not have been king. Comparable to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_IV_of_England Edward IV], in that both were powerfully built military geniuses who overthrew the existing monarchy and later succumbed to an unhealthy lifestyle.
* Stannis '''The Mannis''' Baratheon: Robert's younger brother, all-around badass who swings between [[Lawful Stupid]] (moreso in the show than the books) and [[gets shit done|getting shit done]]. [[Judge Dredd|Believes so strongly in the rule of law]] that he feels compelled to take the Iron Throne for himself despite wanting nothing to do with it. Is advised by a priestess of the God of light, Melisandre, and a lowborn smuggler named Davos Seaworth raised to knighthood and nobility. [[C.S Goto|His character is ruined in the show into an incompetent pawn of Melisandre and gets killed off just because one of the showrunners didn't like him]].
** Shireen Baratheon: Stannis's kid daughter. Sweet, charming, and intelligent little lady who was left with a deformity on her face from a disease called greyscale. Teaches Davos how to read, and is probably the most innocent person in the series alongside Tommen, Myrcella and a few others. Being the grim and dark universe A Song of Ice and Fire is, however, this means that she's likely going to end up becoming fuel for a vicious fire god. In the show she does, but in the books she is safe and sound since Stannis isn't stupid enough to bring him with her while campaigning. His wife, on the other hand, being such an idiotic fanatical pyromaniac... well, her odds aren't exactly looking that great.
* Renly Baratheon, ''That Gay Guy'': Robert and Stannis's youngest brother. Took Loras Tyrell (a.k.a. Knight of Flowers, Pretty Boy, etc.) as his lover. Decided he was better suited to be king, though the bizarre and outdated laws of the land stated Stannis was next in line (though Joffrey and then Tommen were first since they were [[Pretend|officially]] Bobby B's legitimate kids). Was hugely popular since he had Robert's charisma, which led to him getting the most support, but he lacked Stannis's conviction and devotion to the duty of actually doing the work of a king, or even Robert's ability to wage war. Killed by Melisandre with some "help" by Stannis ''The Mannis'' for trying to steal his crown, though in the books Stannis may not have been completely aware of the role he played in Renly's death. He's basically [[That Guy]] of ASOIAF, since quite a lot of shit is his fault, indirectly or otherwise.
*Gendry Baratheon, the Bastard Son. One of Robert's many, many bastard children, and the one who gets the most page and screen time. He starts out as a humble blacksmith in King's Landing, who first comes to Ned's attention when Lord Stark is investigating the death of Jon Arryn. From there, he gets shipped off to the Night's Watch to avoid the imminent purge of Robert's bastards, and winds up becoming friends with Arya and Hot Pie. After some adventuring and sexual tension with Arya (at least in the show), he joins the Brotherhood Without Banners. In the show, they sell him to Melisandre so she can use him for a blood magic ritual, while in the books he just goes on being a smith and doesn't get involved in anything particularly weird or shady. He has yet to reappear in the books, but in the show Ser Davos sets him free and tells him to fuck off, which he does for a few seasons. He eventually turns up back in King's Landing, where Davos finds him and recruits him for Team Snow. He helps Jon capture a wight to show Cersei, makes dragonglass weapons for the Army of the Living, has sex with Arya, and fights in the Battle of Winterfell, after which Daenerys legitimizes him as the new lord of House Baratheon.</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Tully'''

''"Family, Duty, Honor"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content"> Lords of the central river lands. Being the obligatory central nation they spend a lot of the series being fought over like a cake in between fat kids. Basically Poland/Netherlands, given they have so many rivers and how hard they've been fucked over.
*Edmure Tully: Basically the SoIaF universe's eternal butt monkey (because he happens to be a decent fucking person). A useless ponce with a dense streak a mile wide and a bad habit of bragging about things he shouldn't be proud of. It took hanging in a stockade for a few months to make him experience some growth. When Jaime was brought in to unfuck the situation and end the siege at Tully's house in Riverrun, Jaime's "negotiation" pressured him into convincing his house to surrender, but he made sure [[Troll|that Brynden got out first]]. Currently spending his days at the Lannister house as a hostage to make sure that the Tullys don't try to ruin the situation again. Tries to make a case for himself as king in the final episode, only to get shut down by Sansa.
*Brynden Tully ''the Blackfish'': He didn't catch the memo that he was part of the joke faction, and proceeds to spend the entire series fucking Lannister shit up and generally being a boss. Thought to be the black sheep in a family of fish. (Thus "Blackfish", geddit?) Ended up holed up in Riverrun, and got the fuck out right before the end of the siege, so that the Lannisters couldn't dick him over as a prisoner (or so he can keep dicking them over before he became a prisoner). Also widely accepted by the fans to be a closeted homosexual. In the HBO show, he gets killed when resisting arrest from Tully forces by order of Edmure. [[Rage|And it happens offscreen.]]</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Arryn'''

''"As High as Honor"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Mountain lords turned [[NEET|neurotic shut ins]]. Goes through lords about as quickly as you would expect a castle equipped with a door that opens into empty air. Basically Switzerland/Afghanistan, seeing as how they stayed neutral in the War of Five Kings, their land is covered by nothing but mountains, and they're constantly fighting with the local tribes. They were being entertainingly screwed over by Littlefinger until his death.
*Jon Arryn: Only appears posthumously and is the catalyst for the whole plot. The true mastermind behind Robert's Rebellion, was killed by Littlefinger via Lysa when he figured out that Robert's kids are bastards of Cersei and Jaime. His death was blamed on the Lannisters to destabilize Westeros.
*Lysa Arryn: Loli bride turned Lady of the Vale after the Lannisters forcibly retired her husband from life, at least officially. In reality Littlefinger convinced her to poison her husband and blame the Lannisters [[Just As Planned|which pretty much started this whole clusterfuck to begin with]]. A closeted, crazy woman who spends the entire series in her castle "the Eyrie" being useless, breastfeeding her own son at age 10, obsessing over Littlefinger's cock, and [[Derp|refusing to help her sister and nephew in the war she and Littlefinger pretty much started]], which may have guaranteed their eventual horrific murders by their enemies. Finally gets her comeuppance when Littlefinger kicks her out the moon door (post-taunting, of course), putting her out of our collective misery. Long live the Lord Protector.
* Robert Arryn: ''Littlefuck'', Lysa's equally mentally unstable autistic son, who still sucks on his mom's tit, and enjoys seeing people "fly" out the moon door to their deaths. He actually seems to be a bit smarter than you would first think and is a really, really good judge of character, except with Sansa. Secretly being poisoned by Littlefinger and Sansa, so she can take over the Vale and North. Named Robin in the show because the showrunners were afraid that having two characters with the same name would be too confusing. The show version doesn't get poisoned, but turns up in the series finale as the Lord of the Vale.</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Greyjoy'''

''"We Do Not Sow"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">[[Awesome|A house founded by Cthulhu-worshipping Norscans]]. While not actual Vikings in any sense of the word, there is little other way to describe them. They live on some islands and almost their entire culture is based around raiding and the ocean. Their religion holds it shameful for a man to pay for personal possessions, and states they have to get things either by trade or The Iron Price; seizing something from the body or belongings of someone he defeated in conquest rather than paying or trading for it. Also only possessions acquired via The Iron Price command respect among the Ironborn.
*Balon Greyjoy: Asshole dad, crappy ruler and general shithead who rebelled against Robert Baratheon and failed miserably. All of his sons were killed, except for Theon, who was taken as a hostage to ensure his good behavior. Despite being in a position to join either the Lannisters or the Starks during the War of Five Kings and thereby get whatever he wanted from either (independence and the North, or independence and Casterly Rock, respectively), he does the absolute stupidest thing possible and declares himself independent without support from anyone, attacking the North and the rest of Westeros, thereby virtually guaranteeing that he'll be on the receiving end of another one-sided battle. Never got that far, though, since he was pushed off a bridge during a storm by an assassin his brother Euron sent.
*Victarion Greyjoy: Admiral of the Iron Fleet. [[Gets shit done]] while wearing [[Dark Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|Lokhir Fellheart's]] armor during boarding actions. Does it for vengeance, the lulz and as a ticket to Ironborn heaven (which they believe men can reach if they die in battle or by drowning). Worships both R'hllor and the Drowned God. For all his badassery, is far too stupid to realize that his black Red Priest sidekick's constant rambling about his "great destiny" is inevitably going to end in his burning to death on a sacrificial pyre. Said Red Priest impressed Victarion by surviving being marooned at sea for 3 weeks and turning Victarion's infected arm into a super-strong volcano arm. Seriously.
*Aeron Greyjoy ''Damphair'': A priestly Alan Moore who drank seawater. Once a fun-loving party animal, he nearly drowned during the Greyjoy Rebellion, and became a dour and devout priest of the Ironborn [[Cthulhu]] religion. Confirmed to have been raped by Euron when they were kids. Planned to overthrow Euron, who bribed and manipulated his way into becoming king of the Ironborn. [[Grimdark|Was captured by Euron and tortured to try and make him renounce his faith, including feeding him spoiled food, drugging him and burning him. Later Euron tied Aeron, naked, to the prow of Euron's ship alongside Euron's tortured, pregnant former lover because she showed Aeron kindness by once giving him proper food]]. He tried to console her by saying their suffering will end in underwater Valhalla, [[Awesome|showing Euron failed to make him deny his faith]].
*Theon Greyjoy: Son of the Lord/King of the Iron Islands. Had the personality of a stereotypical high school jock, being an excellent archer and womanizer and proud of it. He was given to Ned Stark by his father after Balon failed to successfully rebel against Robert Baratheon. Swore an oath to Robb, but then ditched him out of a desperate need to please his father. Ends up castrated and acts as the personal slave of Ramsay Bolton after Ramsay puts him through horrific torture to turn him into Reek. Rescued by his sister, but the psychological trauma meant it took awhile before he could stop calling himself Reek and start getting back to normal mentally (physically he's now missing a few parts that don't heal or grow back). Dead in the show, thanks to charging the Night King by himself while protecting Bran.
* Asha Greyjoy: Theon's older sister and a commander of some renown which is quite a feat - almost every man on the Iron Islands except her father either tried to get in her pants, or told her to [[-4 STR|stop playing around and go do some actual women's work]], before she kicked enough ass that they respected her. Rescues Theon after he escapes Ramsay but then loses him to Stannis. Is named Yara in the show because the showrunners thought her name sounded too similar to Osha the wildling chick, and is also apparently [[PROMOTIONS|bisexual]]. Eventually becomes Lady of the Iron Islands in the show because she's the last Greyjoy standing.
*Euron Greyjoy ''Crow's Eye'': A [[Chaos|sick fuck Lovecraftian pirate armed with unnatural sorcerous powers, so evil]] that Balon banished him from the Iron Islands. Every member of his crew is a mute, because Euron ripped all their tongues out. Many of them are also the illegitimate sons of women he's raped around the world during his raids. Uses an eyepatch to conceal a pitch-black eye, his personal "obviously a villain" mark. Raped his brother Victarion's wife, then claimed she wanted it so Victarion had to kill her. Raped his younger brother Aeron. Also showed back up in the Iron Islands the day after Balon died, despite having been raping and pillaging in Essos before that, which is suspicious as fuck. Now the new Iron King. Plans to conquer Westeros, and has some unknown plan to deal with Daenerys. Revealed in the book ''Winds of Winter'' to be [[Honsou|the sickest fuck in an entire setting of sick fucks (and that's saying something)]], including having a god complex while hating religion so much he [[Grimdark|tortures any clergymen he captures to try and make them give up their faiths using ironic tortures themed around their religions - such as preachers have their tongues cut out and burning priests of the fire god to death]]. Euron tried and failed to break his priest brother Aeron's faith so he lashed Aeron to the front of his ship to die [[Grimdark|alongside Euron's own pregnant lover Falia]]. Jaime kills him in the second-to-last episode of the show. </div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Tyrell'''

''"Growing Strong"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Lords of Highgarden and backstabbers par-excellence and owners of a lot of fertile land. Unlike the current lot of Lannisters they understand the value of good PR, balancing ruthlessness with being somewhat amicable, political savvy and not being stuck-up on honor. They're basically France. [[Fail|Unfortunately they've all been wiped out in the show]].
*Mace "The Ace" Tyrell: Lord of Highgarden. Massively fat and overweight, while being stupid, overreaching and constantly mocked by everyone else, he's otherwise known as a friendly man, a good Lord when it comes to management and a good father; unfortunately this isn't enough to save a man in the Game of Thrones. Gets killed with the rest of the noble houses when Cersei blows up the Great Sept of Baelor.
*Olenna Tyrell: The brains behind House Tyrell's schemes. Known as the ''Queen of Thorns'' for being an outspoken, prickly and venomous old lady. Schemed with Littlefinger to have Joffrey killed, but she carried it out with compressed powder "gems" that poisoned his wine. Now she keeps her family in line and is hailed as a more progressive version of Tywin. Became a fan favorite for constantly dropping awesome one-liners and telling the Sand Snakes to shut up. [[Fail|Later killed off in the show]], but not before revealing to Jaime that [[Awesome|she was the one who killed Joffrey]].
*Willas Tyrell: Mace Tyrell's eldest son and heir, crippled at a very young age when jousting against Oberyn Martell. Probably one of the most pleasant and sensible characters in the series, which might explain why he's yet to make an appearance. Very fond of breeding animals, especially horses.
*Garlan Tyrell ''The Gallant'': Second-born son. Badass extraordinaire, considered one of the best swords in Westeros, and one of the few people kind to Tyrion. Trains for real combat (often against multiple opponents by himself) unlike Loras, who's a tourney fighter. Single-handed wrecks many notable knights fighting for Stannis during the War of The Five Kings. And he is the only person other than Tywin to put Joffrey in his place, at his own wedding. Sadly no POV chapter yet and omitted from the TV series (Loras takes credit for his deeds).
*Loras Tyrell ''The Knight of Flowers'': The Tyrell who appears most in the series. Considered to be an example of the perfect knight, despite his youth. Is secretly Renly's gay lover and conspired to take the throne with him and his sister. Last seen badly injured in the books attempting to take Stannis' castle. In the show he ends up tortured by the members of the Faith for being gay [[C.S Goto|because the showrunners retconned them to hate gay people]], [[Protectorate of Menoth|later joins their ranks of questionable willingness]] then dies when Cersei blows up the Sept of Baelor.
*Margaery Tyrell: The would-be Queen of Westeros, she has married, in order, Renly Baratheon (gay), Joffrey Baratheon (evil), and Tommen Baratheon (8 years old) and has been crowned as queen three times. While she is nice, she is capable of manipulation. In the show she marries and uses sex to control Tommen. Was arrested by the resident Chamber Militant The Sparrow and asked for a trial by faith in the books. In the show this also happens but she tries to be pious in an attempt to save herself, but ended up getting killed when Cersei blew up the Sept of Baelor.
</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Bolton'''

''"Our Blades Are Sharp"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">The Starks' most important (and most despised) vassal, a former arch rival made of [[Grimdark]] because their entire theme [[Dark Eldar|revolves around Torture]]. Their sigil is a flayed man and their castle is [[Commorragh|a complex of eternal suffering called the Dreadfort]], which shows how stupid the Starks were for allying with them.
*Roose Bolton, ''The 'Leech Lord'': A Lawful Evil sociopathic health nut who's called the Leech Lord because he gets leeched regularly, believing they get rid of bad blood. Second-most powerful Lord in the North with ambitions to depose the Starks. Since the Starks are unable to think like crafty people and are blinded by honor this doesn't prove too difficult. He gets his wish when he stabs Robb Stark in the back, at his uncle's wedding no less, and has anyone associated with Robb killed. He then makes over Winterfell in his bloody image, and is currently trolling Stannis. Believes in the abolished practice of "[[Rape|Droit du seigneur]]" (a tradition that allowed a lord to have sex with subordinate women, whether they wanted to or not) and killed a man for trying to hide his wife from Roose. Believed that he and his son could be as evil as they wanted as long as no one found out. Killed by Ramsey in the show, which Ramsey tried to cover with a lie despite the witnesses to his actions.
*Ramsay Snow/Bolton: The bastard son of Roose Bolton and a woman he raped. He is arguably the most fucked up person in all of the Seven Kingdoms, because he [[Dark Eldar|loves to torture and kill people openly for the lulz]], such as Theon Greyjoy, who he crippled, knocked his teeth out and castrated too. He then sent the severed appendage to the foreshortened Theon's dad in a cutesy box with a letter mockingly detailing his evilness. Will torture anyone who points out his illegitimate heritage though now he's legally recognized as a Bolton. Also has a pack of hunting dogs he names after women he hunts, rapes and kills. Married a fake Arya Stark and regularly mistreats her, including forced bestiality. Not a fun guy to be around. Only reason he's gotten away with it for so long (as pointed out by his father) is because no one is strong enough to stand up to him yet, but when they are he's going to be killed. In the show he killed his father with a knife, fed his stepmother and newborn half-brother to his dogs, then married Sansa Stark and deflowered her via rape. Ramsay was such a monster even Iwan Rheon, THE ACTOR WHO PLAYED THE GUY, hoped he'd die horribly. He got his wish: The consequences of Ramsay's actions catch up with him when Jon Snow shows up with an army capable of threatening him, and after surprise reinforcements from Littlefinger and his own fucked-up teamkilling, the Starks crush the Bolton army, forcing Ramsay to flee back to Winterfell. Despite this, the gate is smashed down, he is disarmed, beaten rather brutally and detained to await trial. Before the trial Sansa sets his dogs on him, which he had deliberately starved so they would eat Jon. Apparently they found him quite tasty.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Martell'''

''"Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Desert dwelling survivalists who pride themselves on having never been conquered by the Targaryen dynasty (though they later married in). Moorish Spaniards, kinda. [[C.S Goto|Their story arc was completely FUBAR in the show, as Elia and Oberyn's daughters kill Oberyn's brother and nephew for taking too long to avenge him before being captured and killed themselves by Euron and Cersei]].
*Doran Martell: Lord of Sunspear and of royal descent. Still mad at the the Lannisters about that whole "murdered-my-sister-and-infant-niece thing". Playing the longest of long games with Varys while trying to keep the rest of his psychotic family members in check. Wheelchair bound due to his gout. [[What|Killed off in the show by Ellaria as part of her plan to avenge Oberyn]].
*Arianne Martell: One of GRRM's characters who seems to exists solely to fuck everything up at the worst conceivable moment. Still hot as Dornish girls come. Exists only in the books, where she is currently helping her dad get ready to topple the Lannisters after fucking everything up with her own stupid plan to crown Myrcella, which is what got the poor girl maimed.
*Oberyn Martell ''The Viper of Dorne'': Doran Martell's brother, a bisexual swinger, former mercenary, and a drunkard. His girlfriend is a spectacularly beautiful bastard named Ellaria Sand and he has many illegitimate children, mostly daughters, collectively called "The Sand Snakes". Crippled the Tyrell heir in a fight, causing a rift between the two houses; despite this, he's actually best mates with the aforementioned heir, due to Willas Tyrell being straight up the nicest and most balanced man in the series and Oberyn being a somewhat decent person. Known for poisoning his weapons, as well as his battle-cry. Died from a mutual kill, with Gregor Clegane crushing his skull in rather graphically, avenging his sister Elia who Gregor had raped and murdered. Though it's probably a win for Oberyn, since he got Clegane with a horribly painful and slow-acting venom which stretched his death over days or even weeks, during which time he was ruthlessly experimented upon by a mad scientist.
*Quentyn Martell: Didn't realize what series he was in, poor bastard. A member of House Martell, sent to marry Daenerys to secure an alliance between the families, since the original marriage plan to hook Arianne up with Viserys won't work with Viserys dead. Leaves Westeros and goes all the way to the city of Meereen to marry her, but he's too late, as she marries the Meereenese noble Hizdahr, and like Jorah he's not her type (Dany likes her bad boys). Tries to tame two of her dragons to impress her; the attempt goes wrong, he gets horribly burnt and gradually dies in agony from his wounds.
*The Sand Snakes: Oberyn's children. All daughters he had with various women throughout his travels (all consensual encounters, mind you). Mixed race and all hot with various skills including combat training and mastery of poisons. Working with Doran and Ellaria in the books. [[C.S Goto|Ruined in the show where they don't accomplish anything, are given atrocious dialogue (the "you need the bad pussy" line comes to mind), aren't great fighters]] and get killed by Euron's men, except for one who gets captured and poisoned by Cersei so an imprisoned Ellaria is forced to watch her die and decompose.</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''Night's Watch'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">The Night's Watch are an apolitical force in charge of manning The Wall, a giant ice wall that separates the relative tranquility of the south from the Lovecraftian fucked-up-itude of the true north. They are chronically undermanned and undersupplied since nobody believes their stories of a barbarian army or the impending zombie apocalypse. Basically everybody else thinks they're in a game of [[Diplomacy]] and the Night's Watch are the only ones who realize they're actually in [[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]], though it's been so long since the last snow elf invasion that even they had forgotten about the undead hordes and focused too much on barbarians. They've allied with the Wildings and the North, but in the TV show the Night's King used the undead dragon Viserion to burn a hole through The Wall.
*Jeor Mormont, ''The Old Bear'': 997th Lord Commander of the Night's Watch at the start of the series. Sees Jon Snow as something of a second son (since his own son Jorah was exiled for enslaving and refused to take the black for his crimes). Leads a ranging north of the Wall to investigate reports that the Others have returned. Ends up killed during a mutiny of survivors after the Others wiped out most of his force.
*Alliser Thorne: Prick of a knight who was favorite to be the next Watch Commander, but was passed over by Jon Snow. Unable to accept Jon Snow letting the Wildlings live on the other side of the wall in an alliance against the zombie hordes, he staged a coup against Jon. It failed because Jon was brought back to life. He is now dead in the show, having been executed for his treason by Jon Snow.
*Aemon Targaryen: Maester of the Citadel at Castle Black. Despite being the third born son of King Maekar I Targaryen, he declined the right to sit on the Iron Throne. One of the few people in the series to die of old age, at 102.
*Samwell Tarly, ''The Slayer'': Fat bookworm who was forced to take the black after his father Randyl threatened to murder him for being unmanly. Jon Snow's best friend among the Night's Watch, and knows everything because he "read it in a book". Despite being a self-professed coward, Sam became the first person in thousands of years to slay an Other with an obsidian dagger. George Martin himself said Sam's based on Samwise Gamgee from Lord of the Rings. Since then, he has started improving his combat skills and balls (in more ways than one for the latter, finding his spine and losing his virginity). He abandons the Night's Watch to help fight the dead and tell Jon who he really is, and winds up becoming the new Grand Maester by the end of the show.
*Eddison Tollett, ''Dolorous Edd'': Probably the most badass member of the Night's Watch. Responds to situations by making sarcastic jokes about them, and known for being a grim motherfucker in a setting of grim motherfuckers. In the show he [[Awesome|became the new Lord Commander]] while Jon was dead, but gave the title back to Jon when he was brought back to life, and then Jon handed it right back because he needed to go sort out Ramsay Bolton. Dies in Season 8 at the Battle of Winterfell. </div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">

'''Wildlings'''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Groups of nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes who live north of the Wall. Mostly First Men by blood, they have been heading toward the Wall for the past decade with the reputed reemergence of the Others. Nomadic, aggressive, and very much believing in "might makes right", they do not get along with anyone south of The Wall since they view them as "Kneeling weaklings". Basically every Celtic/Scandinavian/barbarian stereotype combined.
*Mance Rayder, ''The King Beyond The Wall'': A Wildling orphan who was taken in by the Night's Watch, he became their best Ranger before he deserted to join his people. He united the Wildlings and lead them south to escape the Others. Also a trained bard, but that was not enough to save him from death.
*Tormund Giantsbane: Claims to have a ten-inch penis, and invites his enemies to use their mouths if they want to clean it. Cool as fuck old guy who [[Furry|fucks mother-bears]] in his free time. Tough as nails motherfucker who preaches the merits of using one's cock for everything. He teams up with Jon Snow for the fight against the White Walkers, then fucks off back to the north once the Night King is dead, making him one of the most sensible people on the show. He and Jon go off to be bros at the end of the show.
*Ygritte: Wildling woman who Jon Snow ends up falling for and who returns his affections. Has red hair which is considered lucky among the Wildlings. This being ''A Song of Ice and Fire'', she ends up dying because her worldview is not compatible with Jon's.
*Craster: A sick bastard, formerly a member of the Night's Watch. [[Grimdark|Has lots of daughters who he marries and fucks regularly, giving him more children. So his wives are his daughters, granddaughters and so on... Girls grow up to become more wives, boys get sacrificed to the Others]]. This keeps them at bay, and that sanctuary is why the Night Watch barely tolerate him. Fortunately, he's been killed off in the story.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Frey'''

''"We Stand Together"''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content"> House of weasels who are always grumpy and have a thing for overreacting to perceived slights. Wouldn't be that important except for the fact that they own the only bridge over a strategically important river, and regularly extort anyone attempting to cross it.

*Walder Frey: The ancient, terrible, ornery old man in charge of the Twins. Hates everyone for "looking down on him", and will readily betray an important ally for immediate gain, or if he feels he has been slighted in some minor way. His descendants are literally so numerous that no one except GRRM himself have been able to count them all, so we aren't even going to attempt it. Now dead in the show due to getting his throat slit by a vengeful Arya after she serves him two of his sons as meat pies. </div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''Commoners, Knights, and Petty Lords'''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Basically any character not associated with any of the Great Houses.
* Varys, ''The Spider'': The eunuch spymaster of Westeros. You can't take a shit in the Seven Kingdoms without Varys finding out where, when, and how watery or dry it was. He does this through paid informants and his "little birds", a spy network of children who sneak through the castle's passageways and air flues to eavesdrop on everyone. Stabs everyone in the back because he's actually trying to bring the Targaryens back in order to strengthen the realm. Dead in the show, having decided to try and put Jon on the throne instead of Daenerys; Jon says no, Tyrion sells him out when he realizes Jon absolutely means it, and Dany has Drogon barbecue him.
* Petyr Baelish, ''Littlefinger'': The Master of Coin (the ASOIAF equivalent of a treasurer) and the closest person the Game of Thrones world has to a [[Daemon Prince]] of [[Tzeentch]], up to even declaring "[[Chaos]] is a Ladder". A dangerous manipulator who manages to trick and steal his way to positions of lordship and wealth because no one takes him seriously, and stabs all the Lannisters in the back when they become inconvenient. As a child he wanted Catelyn Stark, and was tricked into thinking she wanted him when her sister Lysa fucked him while he was drunk. Challenged Catelyn's betrothed Brandon Stark, Ned's older brother who was murdered by Aerys, for her hand in marriage and got his ass kicked because he was a small skinny boy and Brandon Stark was a big strapping man, making that his start of darkness. The guy responsible, directly or indirectly, for the War of the Five Kings because he was the mastermind behind poisoning Jon Arryn, the capture and execution of Ned Stark, feeding several half-truths to Catelyn to motivate her to arrest Tyrion, and eventually Joffrey's death by having Dontos and Olenna Tyrell carry out the plan to kill Joffrey and letting Tyrion take the fall; but no one in the story knows this, not even Varys. People think he can pull gold out of thin air, but he's really been buying debt while letting Robert Baratheon's extravagances and Cersei's dipshittery pull the country into a serious debt of its own. So he's pledged himself to [[Chaos]] and destroying Westeros all because he couldn't have Catelyn as his girlfriend, though he changed his focus to her daughter Sansa now, making him a paedophile. Hasn't yet got his comeuppance in the books, but is curently dead in the show after he was outgambitted by Sansa and killed by Arya. According to GRRM he's based on the title character from the Great Gatsby.
*Gregor Clegane, ''The Mountain'': A 7' 8" 400 pound mass of [[Khorne|testosterone, muscles, steroid overdose and murderous RAGE]], Gregor is Tywin Lannister's top muscle. Killed his own father and sister and permanently scarred his brother. Hobbies include rape, arson, murder, and random torture; he's also been married a few times but not now with the implication he kept killing his wives. He played an important part in destroying the Targaryens by killing a couple of Aerys's kids in rather brutal fashion, then raping and murdering his wife. Spends a few novels doing Tywin's dirty work before a Trial by Champion leads to him dying after being poisoned by Oberyn Martell. Qyburn later resurrected him as... something... called "Ser Robert Strong", and is now even stronger, less prone to psychotic rages, and is completely obedient. He's based on accounts of French knight Gilles de Rais and maybe also the scriptural giant Goliath. Kills Qyburn during the Siege of King's Landing and then nearly kills his little brother, only for Sandor to tackle him through a collapsing wall and into a gigantic inferno.
* Sandor Clegane, ''The Hound'': Younger brother to Gregor Clegane, called the Hound because of his hound-face helm, his family's heraldry, and being the king's hired muscle without being a knight. He hates knights due to the hypocrisy of being a professional "noble warrior" but mostly since his monstrous brother is a knight, showing it's not so much of a noble promotion. Terrified of fire after Gregor put his head against a brazier for playing with one of Gregor's old toys when they were children, burning half his face, but he's still the second-strongest person in Westeros. A brutal anti-hero with a soft spot for Sansa, but a better person than his brother. After falling sick from Biter's nasty teeth, he ends up being a silent monk burying people in the Silent Isles. In the show he joins the Brotherhood without Banners and goes north to help fuck up the White Walkers. As of Season 8 he's survived the Battle of Winterfell and is riding south with Arya to put the boots to Gregor. Dies killing his brother in a pretty epic fight amidst the crumbling ruins of the Red Keep.
*Grand Maester Pycelle: A shrewd, dangerous man putting on a "harmless old man act" and a high ranking scholar from the science/medical guild the Maesters. The longest serving member of the King's advisory staff, and is actually Tywin Lannister's biggest lackey. He convinced the Mad King to let Tywin in as Baratheon's armies were marching on the capital, where Tywin proceeded to sack the city and claim it for Robert. Gets his head bashed in by Varys in the books and murdered by Qyburn in the show.
* Qyburn: Formerly a maester, who was kicked out of the order for unethical experiments on the living. Introduced as a part of a mercenary company serving Roose Bolton, which should be a red flag. He moves up in the world when he's sent to escort Brienne and Jaime back to King's Landing, and ends with Cersei employing him to replace Pycelle as "science advisor" and eventually Varys's Spymaster. Serves Cersei loyally as long as she lets him indulge his sick experiments, serving as a black magic variety of the court mage. He has resurrected Gregor Clegane as... something. [[Fabius Bile]] if he traded his robot limbs, eugenics and power armor for necromancy. He overestimated his hold on Gregor and got his head caved in for it as of the second-to-last episode of the show.
*Barristan Selmy, ''The Bold'': Knight of the Kingsguard. Which Kingsguard? Take your pick. He's served pretty much every king since Aerys and understandably feels pretty bad about it. Another sad old man who pretty much just wants to die until he decides to go pledge his services to Daenerys. Even in his old age he is considered one of the most dangerous men in Westeros. [[Fail|Dead in the show]] (to be fair they gave him a huge last stand), but [[Awesome|alive and appointed himself Daenerys' steward in her absence to try and fix Meereen's situation in the books]].
*Melisandre, ''The Red Witch'': A priestess of R'hllor, the god of fire. Proclaimed Stannis to be the messiah-king and is doing everything in her power to make sure he wins (considerable given that she can scry, make shadow baby assassins and set things on fire with her mind). She'd be pretty bro-tier if her god wasn't so vicious. As it stands she's kind of in the gray (in the books, the show seems to zig-zag on her being evil 'cos the showrunners seem to hate religion). Most of the people she set on fire deserved it, and she hasn't ''succeeded'' in killing any babies yet. Show version now dead from suicide via rapid aging after ensuring the Living defeat the Dead.
*Jorah Mormont: A knight and son of Jeor Mormont, exiled for trying to sell poachers into slavery and eventually joining the exiles of House Targaryen. He is offered a pardon in exchange for spying on the Targaryens, but ultimately decides to stay with them after falling in love with Daenerys. Unfortunately, he gets friend-zoned hard. Despite saving her life from an assassin while she was pregnant, she still votes him off the Khalassar after learning he was a spy. He still loves her and follows her in secret, though. In the show he goes on a quest to prove himself to her and contracts the dangerous disease Greyscale (it's like the unholy lovechild of smallpox and leprosy), but he gets cured and is now back at her side. He dies protecting her at the Battle of Winterfell.
*Davos Seaworth, ''The Onion Knight'': A former smuggler and bannerman to House Baratheon. During Roberts Rebellion he ran a blockade with a cargo of contraband onions to a castle Stannis Baratheon was besieged in. In exchange for for the food he had, Stannis knighted Davos, but Stannis's law-worshiping mindset compelled him to remove four digits from his left hand. Despite this, Davos has served Stannis with unquestioning loyalty, because Stannis knighting him gave his children a future. The fact that Stannis's war for the throne has ended up killing several of his sons hasn't dented his loyalty at all. Doesn't like Melisandre because he sees her as a user and her beliefs as brutal. He's a devout follower of the Faith of the Seven in the books and the first season of the show [[C.S Goto|but is clumsily retconned into an anti-religious atheist in later show seasons]]. In the show, he's now pledged to DA NORF and is basically Jon's Hand of the King, except he doesn't get a fancy pin. He survives the Battle of Winterfell and the Second Sack of King's Landing, and becomes Master of Ships in the final episode of the show.
*Shae: A former camp follower and Tyrion Lannister's squeeze for most of the story. Fled from an abusive family and became a camp follower to earn a living. Seems to fall in love with Tyrion, but it turns out she's a gold-digging bitch. When Tyrion doesn't marry Shae she sells him out to Cersei for a better offer, then fucks Tywin when she realizes Cersei won't keep her promise. Tyrion found her in his father's bed and strangled her to death with a necklace for betraying him. The discovery of Shae's corpse in Tywin's bed - posthumously outing him as a whoremonger - upsets Cersei to the point she unpersons Shae.
*Bronn: A mercenary who acts as Tyrion's enforcer and personal killer until Cersei outbids him and he he settles down with a little wife and title. Routinely kills knights by exploiting how arrogant and stupid they are even after becoming one himself. Only in it for the money, which he'll happily tell you himself. The only character other than Littlefinger to end every book in a better position than he started it. In the show, he makes the very sensible decision to sit out the fighting and wait for his promised castle (Riverrun if Cersei wins, Highgarden if Daenerys wins). He gets Highgarden and is named Lord Paramount of the Reach and Master of Coin in the final episode.
* Brienne of Tarth, ''The Beauty'': Surprisingly badass lady knight wannabe (since no women can be knighted), legendarily unattractive but still pretty idealistic despite the shit she gets for her looks. Fate frequently gives her the shit end of the stick, because no matter how hard she tries to finish her quests, she ends up failing or stuff happens that makes it impossible. Secretly crushes on Renly and unaware he's gay. After he dies, Brienne switches her loyalty to Catelyn and helps her bring Jaime to King's Landing as Tyrion promised Sansa's return in exchange for Jaime. She later developed a crush on Jaime. Things don't go well because Jaime lost his hand and the Red Wedding happened. Next, Jaime sends her out to find and keep Sansa safe to make good on Tyrion's promise, since he isn't the complete dick everyone thinks he is. Brienne ends up getting captured by Cat, now known as Lady Stoneheart and an insane undead, who was going to hang Brienne for working with Jaime. Brienne was spared at the last moment to capture/manipulate Jaime. In the show she's now sworn to House Stark and gets knighted by Jaime just before the Battle of Winterfell and then she and Jaime hook up afterward, only for him to take off and break her heart. She is now Lady Commander of the Kingsguard as of the final episode.
* Lyanna Mormont: A badass ten year old girl who inherits Bear Island after her mother and older sister die horribly in the Riverlands - at least if we are going by the show; in the book, her mother is still alive somewhere in the Neck and her older sister Alysanne is de-facto head of House Mormont. Her activities include pimp-slapping bitches, leading men twice as old as her, and being completely loyal to the Starks despite all their misfortunes. [[Awesome|"Bear Island knows no king but the King in the North, whose name is STARK."]] She dies killing an undead giant at the Battle of Winterfell, which is pretty badass.
* Wyman Manderly, ''Lord Too-Fat-To-Sit-A-Horse'': The Lord of White Harbour and one of the few Northerners who worship the Seven. Fervently loyal to House Stark, he pays lip-service to the Iron Throne long enough for his eldest son to return home, all to mask a plan to restore the Starks to power, mostly by destabilising the Frey-Bolton alliance, building a navy, marshalling the forces of the lands east of the White Knife river, "losing" Freys in the wilderness and sending Lord Davos Seaworth to rescue Rickon Stark from Skagos. His favourite food is lamprey, although he has also developed a taste for Frey Pie. Also a remarkably graceful dancer, and can survive taking a knife to the throat.
** Wylla Manderly: Granddaughter to the above. Another badass little girl, her activities include openly declaring undying loyalty to House Stark and dying her hair green. She and Lyanna Mormont would probably be best friends if they met. [[Awesome|"The city is built upon the land [the Starks] gave us. In return, we swore that we should always be their men. Stark men!"]]
* Jon Umber, ''The Greatjon'': At first he seems to be your stereotypical, boisterous Northern Lord. However, he becomes one of Robb's most loyal supporters, being first to declare him as 'King in the North' after Ned's execution. Had his moment of awesome [[Awesome|when he killed and wounded four Freys at the Red Wedding, all the while being drunk and needing eight additional men to take him down.]]
* Beric Dondarrion, ''The Lightning Lord'': Minor lord who agreed to head an expedition to take out Gregor Clegane. This being Game of Thrones, however, his party is ambushed by the Mountain and is beaten rather badly, and he loses his life in the process. Thanks to his drunken Red Priest friend, however, he manages to come back not once, but eight times, and each time he comes back, he becomes more powerful, though at the cost of his memory. He now heads an outlaw faction of grimdark Robin Hood types called "The Brotherhood Without Banners", who are dedicated to punishing those who abuse and mistreat the smallfolk. Ironically, he's one of the few book characters to have died (permanently) in the books but remain alive in the show, except now he's dead for real as of the Battle of Winterfell.
* Thoros of Myr: Aforementioned drunken priest who is dedicated to R'hllor, though at first he doesn't really give a rat's ass about the Red God, as he prefers to party it up with wine and women, but after he 'accidentally' resurrects Beric, he becomes quite serious about his religion and vows to curb his excesses in drinking. Dies on a mission beyond the Wall to capture a wight (show-version).
</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''The Free Cities'''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Nine city states to the West of Westeros, for the most part the old colonies of the Valaryian Freehold. Mostly they are ruled by Merchant Princes. They look down on the Westerosi for being a bunch of up jumped backwards war-mongering morons who are only a few silverware sets and maesters away from absolute barbarism. In turn the Westerosi look down on the Free Cities as being money-grubbing effete cowards ruled by cheesemongers who use bribery, tall walls and dirty tricks to get ahead in the world.

* Illyrio Mopatis: A rich fat bastard and a Magister of Pentos. Old buddies with Varys and a bigtime schemer.
* [[Officio Assassinorum|The Faceless Men]]: A cult of shape-shifting assassins who worship The Many Faced God of death based in the free city of Braavos that give up personal identity. They claim descent from escaped Valyrian slaves whom considered death to be a better fate than perpetual slavery. Their mission hence became being servants of the Many Faced God of Death. You can hire them to off your rivals, but they request a steep and equivalent price. Their motto is "Valar Morghulis": All Men Must Die.
* Xaro Xhoan Daxos: One of the thirteen leaders of the city of Qarth. A flamboyant, languid, bald rich man who looks after Daenerys while she stays in Qarth and gives her many gifts. He wants her dragons as much as anyone else and even tries to marry her despite his homosexual tendencies. He stops wanting the dragons later in the book series after seeing [[RIP AND TEAR|their work in Astapor]], and no longer wants her around as her anti-slavery stance is hampering his wealth, so he offers Daenerys ships to leave the area and declares war on her when she refuses. In the show he's heterosexual, helps steal her dragons, fucks one of her handmaidens and gets locked in a vault for conspiring to have her killed. He's also black and fat in the show when he's white and lanky in the books, being Qartheen and all.
* Syrio Forel: The former First Sword of Braavos (aka the ruler's personal bodyguard) and later Arya's mentor in King's Landing. He teaches her the way of Braavosi fencing, called "Water Dancing", and sacrifices himself to save her from Lannister thugs, taking down at least six of them with a wooden sword. May have inadvertently set her on the path of becoming a badass assassin by telling her of his belief in the God of Death.

</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''The Dothraki'''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Horse people who live in a country of endless grass plains referred to by others as the Dothraki sea. They only have one city, called Vaes Dothrak, which is less of a city and more of a place they all meet when important things have to be discussed. Have traits borrowed from several cultures, including Mongols and Native Americans, all filtered through European misconceptions of those cultures of course, such as the Dothraki's antipathy for heavy armor, despite the fact that the Mongols were very heavily armored and also excelled as infantry, see the Battle of Leignitz. They fear the ocean because of its size and the fact that horses won't drink from it, calling it the "poison water".

* Khal Drogo: An expy of <s>Genghis Khan</s> Yesukhei Baatyr (his son would have been the equivalent to Chinggis Khaan). Leads the largest Khalassar among the Dothraki. Despite being a barbarian warlord, Drogo is surprisingly intelligent and treats Daenerys well. After an assassin tries to kill her he promises to conquer Westeros for her and their unborn son, and immediately starts raiding towns for slaves and ships. At one town he gets cut in a leadership challenge and Daenerys gets a captive wise woman to heal him. However, the woman hates him because his tribe destroyed her hometown, raped/slaughtered or enslaved her friends and raped her three times so she curses him to become catatonic (along with killing his unborn son), leading a devastated Daenerys to perform an arguable mercy kill by smothering him with a pillow. After, she burns herself, her stillborn child and the wise woman on his funeral pyre, Daenerys survives and it brings her dragons to life. GRRM named Drogo after [[The Lord of the Rings|Frodo's father]].
* Daenerys' handmaidens.
** Doreah: Daenerys' handmaiden and a wedding gift from Illyrio. A woman from Lysene brought by her brother to teach her how to pleasure a man. In the book she dies of fever and starvation crossing a desert, in the TV show she betrays Daenerys for [[Salamanders|Xaro's BBC]] and gets locked in a vault to starve to death.
** Irri: Daenerys' handmaiden who teaches Daenerys how to ride a horse. [[PROMOTIONS|Also pleasures Daenerys twice after catching her masturbating once]], yet this canonical girl-on-girl action was left out of the show. The character was even killed off there when she survived in the books, but in this case, it was because her actress' visa had expired rather than [[C.S. Goto|author railroading]].
** Jhiqui: Daenerys' handmaiden who teaches her the Dothraki language and squabbles with Irri over wanting one of Daenerys' bodyguards when he becomes a badass. Also dies in the TV show while staying alive so far in the books.

</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''Slavers Bay'''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">A civilization of [[Stupid Evil]] slavers. The remains of a previous civilization that was once the big powerful empire thanks to having phalanxes of obedient, pain-resistant soldiers which Valyria conquered a long while ago because phalanxes don't do too well against motherfucking dragons. They are ruled by wealthy slavemongers who buy slaves, train them up to do specific things and generally are a bunch of stuck up, decadent, puppy-eating (literally) assholes. Basically a civilization so repugnant even most hippies will be cheering when Dany decides to conquer them.

* The Unsullied: Eunuch phalanx fighting slave soldiers trained the Spartan way to produce totally obedient infantry that never break ranks. They also don't feel pain due to drinking a special drink daily, and each one has to take a new name from the name box each day so they can't develop a sense of identity. At least until Dany "bought" the lot of them, had them sack the city which trained them and freed them.
* Grey Worm: The Unsullied Commander and a no-nonsense badass. When given a chance to take a new name he keeps his slave name because it's the name he had when freed so he considers it lucky. He is completely loyal to Daenerys, considering her his savior, and in the show he falls in love with fellow freed-woman, Missandei. This being ASOIAF, however, he can only watch helplessly as his lover is beheaded in front of him by the Mountain. This drives him into a rage, and he eagerly takes part in the sacking of King's Landing in revenge for her death. After the war is over and both Daenerys and Cersei are dead, he takes the Unsullied forces to Naath, in order to fulfill his promise to Missandei that he'd protect her homeland.
* Strong Belwas: A fat but skilled eunuch gladiator. Loves liver and onions and referring to himself in the third person. Traveling companion/guide of Ser Barristan. Has an awesome scene where he beats the champion of Meereen then mocks the Meereenese by taking a shit in their direction and wiping his ass on their dead champion's cloak. Also saves Daenerys from eating poisoned sweets. [[FAIL|Left out of the show]].
* Daario Naharis: A Tyroshi mercenary captain who dyes his hair blue. Betrays his fellow commanders for Daenerys because he loves her as a queen. Fortunately for him, Daenerys loves him back and they pursue a romance for a time, though she doesn't marry him as she's still otherwise smart enough to know she has to save herself for a political marriage. Goes to Yunkai as a hostage in the war on Meereen. Also potentially a shapeshifter, if the show is to be believed.
*Missandei: A young slave woman with a remarkable talent for linguistics and one of the more empathetic people in this dark world, Missandei is freed by Daenerys during her campaign to liberate Slaver's Bay, eventually becoming one of her closest confidants and advisers. She falls in love with the Unsullied eunuch Grey Worm, but later is captured by Cersei and beheaded by the Mountain in front of all her friends, but not before telling her friends to burn the Lannisters to ashes.

</div></div>
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''The Others'''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">A mysterious race from beyond the Wall, known to [[newfag|HBO fans]] as "the White Walkers". Can be described as ice demons/snow elves with necromancy. Eight thousand years ago, they invaded Westeros during a decades-long winter known as "the Long Night". With an army of undead warriors, they proceeded to fuck Westeros up every which way to [[Sunday]] before the locals finally drove them out, established the Night's Watch, and built the Wall to keep them out. Like all fantasy aspects of ASOIAF, they are very cliched. In the TV series, it's revealed that they were created from human captives by "The Children", the pseudo-[[Elf]] fair folk race that lived in Westeros before humanity arrived, as an attempt to create a super-weapon. The idea was, since humanity bred faster than the Children could keep up with, they would create icy [[lich]]-creatures that could create [[undead]] soldiers, and these would then wipe out all human life. Instead, it went disastrously wrong because it turned out that the Children actually couldn't control what they'd created, so the Others [[Ork|just want to exterminate '''all''' life.]]
* Night's King: A long time ago, when the Night's Watch was just barely getting set up, its Lord Commander, the thirteenth in line, decided to climb over the Wall and explore some. While in the woods to the north of the Wall, he found a beautiful [[Monstergirls|Other female]]. He fell in love with her, had [[/d/|sex with her on top of the Wall]], which somehow changed him into an albino version of [[Star Wars|Darth Maul]], and set himself up as King of the Wall, making everyone in the Watch his slaves and sacrificial fodder. Naturally, this didn't sit too well with the Starks and the Wildlings, and so they banded together to free the Watch and kick his ass, which they managed to do successfully. Now everyone thinks him as dead or a myth. In the HBO version of the story, this whole backstory is basically dropped; he was the very first White Walker ever created by the Children, and he decided to get back at them by wiping out all life. Also, whilst he was apparently beaten in the ancient past and sealed away behind the Wall, he's still "alive" and well, [[Daemonculaba|turning infant human boys into new White Walkers]]. Also, he can apparently raise up entire legions of undead, just by raising his arms and looking completely smug about it; unlike regular Others, who can just raise up maybe a village at most. Given that he's the resident [[BBEG|Dark Lord]] of the series, it makes sense that he can take down a dragon with seemingly little effort (a simple throw of his spear), and resurrect it to be his personal steed a la Arthas. Used it to blow a hole in the Wall and begin [[The End Times]] for Westeros. Now dead thanks to Arya's magic ninja haxx letting her kill the BBEG and his entire race and army of zombies in one blow.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''Gods and their followers'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content"> The world of ASOIAF has various religions and faiths abound, just like in real life. Similarly, they range between fucking awesome to utterly useless.

*[[Ecclesiarchy|The Faith of the Seven]]: The Catholic Church stand-in, which gets both sympathetic (books only) and unsympathetic (books and show) characters associated with it. Holds an anti-slavery stance. The god/s are considered seven aspects of one deity with three male aspects (The Smith, the Father, the Warrior), three female aspects (The Maiden, the Mother, the Crone) and an asexual one representing Death. The places of worship are called Septs, and their system includes Septons, nun-equivalents called Septas and a Pope equivalent called a High Septon. The High Septons all give up their names when they become one to confuse future historians.
** High Septon 1: A fat, greedy man who used the position for personal gain. He ended up being [[Grimdark|torn apart in a riot]], because the people resented that he had enough food to stay fat while they were starving.
** High Septon 2: Successor of High Septon 1. Chosen by Tyrion so the Faith would be loyal to the Lannisters. Only ''slightly'' corrupt, being a pro-Lannister yes-man. Murdered on Cersei's order in the book, while in the show he's retconned into a whoremonger who gets deposed by the Sparrows (see below).
** High Septon 3/The High Sparrow: Successor of High Septon 2. After the second High Septon died, the smallfolk burst into the meeting to pick a successor and ordered their chosen candidate to be put in charge when his original successor was caught whoremongering. He'd been a wandering preacher beforehand, and his feet were dark and gnarled from lots of walking. When he reaches the position he starts [[gets shit done|getting things done]]. Since he was appointed by a smallfolk religious movement called Sparrows, he's given the moniker "The High Sparrow". The nobility underestimate him, either due to having other matters or disregard for religious people, but he turns out to be smart, well-meaning and somewhat ruthless. Under the High Sparrow, he and the other clergymen sell their fancy clothes and decorations [[Noblebright|replacing them with simple wool tunics, using the money to buy food and clothes for the poor in King's Landing]]. He also has their Knights-Templar-equivalent reformed to [[Inquisition|protect the faithful and help them root out]] [[heresy]] and sin. He also outwits Cersei and has her arrested and tried for all her evil deeds. While Cersei's scheming does lead to Margaery's arrest, Cersei confesses to some crimes while concealing others, leading to Cersei taking a nude walk of penance in front of the entire city. After this he somewhat reined in the nobles' politicking to actually look after the commoners and the Faith, though this does make some enemies. In the show he and the Sparrows are [[C.S Goto|retconned]] from assorted smallfolk and clergymen tired of the nobles' lawlessness and power plays into one-dimensional stereotypes and thinly-veiled jabs at the Catholic Church [[Imperial Truth|in a shoe-horned anti-religion message]]. While they do arrest Cersei and Margaery like in the books, during the trial most of the Faith, including the High Sparrow himself, get blown to kingdom come when Cersei has her agents ignite a massive amount of magical napalm underneath the Great Sept.
* [[Old Ones|Old Gods]]: Native American/Japanese Kame/Druid/nature spirits that reside in places called Godswoods. Their powers are limited to the North, where the last remaining Godswoods remain, but they can grant gifted individuals awesome psychic powers like Warging (mind-controlling animals) and Greensight (Time Travel). For some reason, Martin claims they're based off the Norse Gods. Probably has to do with the way the Vikings made sacrifices to their gods, by hanging them in Ash trees, a symbol for the World Tree Yggdrasil. The Weirwood trees are sacred to the followers of the Old Gods in a similar way. Mostly worship of them is quiet and informal.
* R'hllor: The God of Fire and Light, and like the Old Gods, actually shows evidence for existing. [[/tg/ gets shit done|He gets shit done]] such as fire magic and Resurrection. Has a nasty habit for burning heretics, though. GRRM said this faith is roughly based (read: poorly modeled after) upon Zoroastrianism and Gnosticism. His nemesis is The Great Other: the god of cold and darkness, the leader of the Others, and prophesied to be defeated by the chosen one, or messianic figure: [[Star Child|Azor Ahai/The Prince That Was Promised]], a figure who is the prophesied warrior that will fight with the Great Other/Night's King during the Apocalypse. Interestingly enough, the prophecy may not refer to a single person, but three (Jon, Tyrion/Bran, and Daenerys). Supposedly, one of these three will also receive an [[Emperor's Sword|awesome flaming sword called "Lightbringer"]].
* Him of Many Faces: The god of the Dead of the religion whose followers are the [[Officio Assassinorum|Faceless Men]]. According to his cult of assassins, whom Arya joins, every other god is him in a different form and he requires his assassins to utterly forget their past identities in service to him. Has a heyday during the Battle of King's Landing and the Red Wedding. His followers are granted shapeshifting abilities and powers to be the ultimate assassins.
* Drowned God: Cthulhu combined with Odin. Runs an underwater Valhalla were all Ironborn go whey they either if they drowned at sea, the men die a manly death or the women die in childbirth.

</div></div>

==The appeal of A Song of Ice And Fire==
Exactly what catches the eyes of [[Skub|a given fan/critic/lout who complains about how bad it is anytime the show is mentioned within earshot]] to ASOIAF and its TV adaptation varies from individual to individual. Still, there's a couple of major draws.

'''The Worldbuilding:''' The main reason why this series gets compared to [[The Lord of the Rings]], ASOIAF is literally ''drowning'' under the weight of its worldbuilding, being crammed as full of facts about fictitious regions, histories, cultures, dynasties and races as GRRM can fit it. Your mileage will vary on how ''good'' that info is, but there's plenty of info in it.

'''Mainstream [[Dark Fantasy]]:''' Dark Fantasy is not exactly a mainstream niche. ASOIAF stands out by deliberately trying to market itself to the mainstream, despite embracing an abundance of dark fantasy tropes; gratuitous violence, sexuality and sexual violence, moral ambiguity, political intrigue, and a willingness to suddenly kill off any character, even the most likable or heroic of them.

'''[[Low Fantasy]]:''' On the surface, ASOIAF is an old-school Low Fantasy setting, being a medieval-tech world with the story openly focused on the mundane lives of people struggling for political power.

'''[[High Fantasy]]:''' But if you scratch the surface, ASOIAF is also a High Fantasy setting, which is always the more marketable of the two, with the big backstory about how the world is facing impending doom from an army of wintery [[fey]] and their [[undead]] minions. There are also non-evil higher powers working against them, but they get swept under the rug in the show. Also, [[dragon]]s. As the more marketable genre, it's also inevitably the more skubby one, for whatever that's worth.

'''Gratuitous Sexuality:''' More a thing for the TV show than the book; the frequent scenes of nudity and sex in the early seasons were a ''big'' selling point for many people (the casting of actual porn stars for some of these scenes also helped).

==Oh Yeah, About The TV Show==
[[image:KnightsWhoSayFuck.jpg|150px|thumb|left|Yeah, pretty much.]]
After the first three books became hits, many Hollywood producers and directors had came to the sadistic neckbeard, asking him about making a movie adaptation. At first, he was reluctant, at best, due to the fact that a whole lot of his content would've been cut out to be fit into a movie trilogy (see the Lord of the Rings live action films). Then, a couple of dudes, David Benioff and D.B/Daniel Brett Weiss (AKA D&D, or more accurately as of the final season, Dumb & Dumber), decided to contact him, and asked him at a local restaurant about turning ASOIAF into a Television show produced by HBO, the top-rated soft-core porno channel. The story goes that George, before giving them his consent, ask them a very specific question (Who is Jon Snow's mother?). Satisfied with the response they gave, he gave them permission to start work on the show, which would be titled after the first book, ''Game of Thrones''.

The television show casts several well known performers, such as Sean Bean as Eddard, Peter Dinklage as Tyrion, Lena Headey as Cersei, and Charles Dance as Tywin. They have also cast some comparatively less well-known actors and even ones new to cinema, such as Sophie Turner (Sansa), Maisie Williams (Arya), Kit Harington (Jon), Iwan Rheon (Ramsay), Alfie Allen (Theon), and Richard Madden (Robb).

'''TL;DR'''

Producers Dumb&Dumber-style change characters and railroad the plot at a whim, the tits and ultraviolence spigot is opened even wider than the books, and most scenes are made for the actors to show off their skills at making their signature angry/murder/brooding/etc. faces.

Thus, book snobs seem to think that every episode post-season 3 is nothing more than Emmy-bait. Regardless of the fact Kit Harington still [[Fail|doesn't have an Emmy]], there's a valid contention in that regard, with the amount of liberties taken overshadowing the initial appeal.

The final season was eventually revealed to be such a train wreck because Dumb & Dumber did not want to work on the series anymore and had let the success with the earlier seasons go to their heads so they shut out any dissenting voices (including even George's eventually). In their arrogance, instead of handing the reins to someone else, they decided to plan out their own ending and use it as an audition to Disney so they could write for Star Wars. By then, they'd run out of books to adapt, there was no superior writing for them to leech off of and there was no one to gainsay them in their echo chamber/writer's room. The result was absolutely shit writing that caused a glorious breakage in the [[skub]] dam that left [[Butthurt|many a fan's anus weeping]] (provided they weren't early seasons fans, book series fans, or any of the other assorted onlookers [[Lulz|taking part in the mightiest of keks]]) and, if anything, proved <s>George's </s> Ramsay's quote at the beginning of the article true. Goddamn Dumb & Dumber, could you talentless faggots do any worse if you tried?

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''What about the final season?'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
Long story short, the Army of the Dead is destroyed in an epic battle, where the ancient and super-powerful BBEG gets killed by some slight-of-hand. Meanwhile Daenerys has spent the last two seasons being stripped of her plot armor; she's lost most of her supporters - including one of her dragons - and has been forced to confront the fact that nobody in Westeros wants her around. Especially not the Northerners, where Sansa is basically playing the "Northern Independence Now!" movement to try and get her own bum in a throne after seven seasons of being a plaything for people with actual power. The kicker is she's fallen in love with Jon Snow, but he learns he's actually her nephew - and the fruit of a legitimate marriage between her elder brother Rhaegar Targaryean and Lyanna Stark that was handled in secret. This discovery not only caused him to back away from her (because he's got Northerner values, so fucking his aunt squicks him out... not that it stopped him from doing it at least once), but also makes him a threat to her political standing, which is something Varys makes plans to exploit. When Tyrion found out Jon wouldn't back down, he told Danerys about it, for which she had Drogon burn Varys to ash. When she forces the survivors of the final battle to march on King's Landing, another of her dragons ends up dead and her only remaining friend captured and executed by Cersei. So she attacks King's Landing... and then, when her followers maneuver around her to get the city to surrender rather than die to the last, she snaps and burns most of the city to ashes. She then decides to continue ramming her head against the proverbial wall and embraces her personal narrative of herself as a divinely chosen hero-queen meant to "free" the world by conquering everybody, having lost interesting in just ruling Westeros around the same time she lost her fucking mind. Such is her insanity that Jon Snow ends up sticking a dagger in her heart rather than let her kill Sansa and Arya, who he knows will resist her.

Jon proceeds to somehow not get killed by her last surviving dragon who pretty much knows Jon killed his momma because plot reasons, and it destroys the Iron Throne ([[What|by accident, according to the showrunners]]) while chucking a tantrum over Dany's death before grabbing her body and flying off to parts unknown. This leaves everybody stuck trying to figure out what to do, [[The Empire (Warhammer Fantasy)|but ultimately they decide to replace a dynastic monarchy with an elective one]], and make Bran the new king because, hey, he's the 3-Eyed Raven and has the seer powers to see all of space and time, so he's the least worst option they have (he's also trying to find and take control of the aforementioned dragon). The North secedes from the Seven Kingdoms, but nobody gives a damn, and Jon Snow is formally banished to the Wall - where instead he wanders off into the wilderness with the surviving Wildlings, with the land showing signs of exiting its endless winter. [[The Lord of the Rings|Arya runs off to sail to the West,]] and Sansa is crowned Queen in the North.

</div></div>

==GRRM and [[Your Dudes]]==
Want to make your own ASoIF setting for a role playing game? Well, readers have enough room to fantasize about their own minor noble House (or kingdom during the Age of the Hundred Kingdoms).

A good example of what you could do is the House from the old [[/v/|"Telltale Game of Thrones"]], House Forrester. Their relationship to the canon is as follows:

House Forrester (lords of some place in the Wolfswood) '''-> is sworn to ->''' House Glover (overall lords of the entire Wolfswood) '''-> is sworn to ->''' House Stark (rulers of the North).

There's also an actual tie-in tabletop RPG now, which uses its own system and looks kind of like [[Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay]] with a heavy helping of resource-management strategy feel.
Players are assuming the role of a minor House to guide to glory, or, more accurately given the setting we're in, NOT to ruin utterly in a season or two, which would still be more than many A-list players mustered in canon. Each PC has a specific position within said House, and only the role of official Head is mandatory; the rest could be wife/children/brothers and sisters/all other kinds of siblings, bastards (with rules for obtaining the legitimate recognition), maesters, sworn/subservient knights, or most of anybody else. This naturally opens up near-infinite possibilities for families screwed up seven ways to high heavens, which would make Lannister's brand of infighting-slash-inbreeding look as sane as the High Septon.

The setting is also ill-suited for "adventures in Westeros" style of gaming for two reasons:
#In the grim darkness of low fantasy, a roaming nobody with no banner to talk about, no House allegiance, no nothing isn't generally treated to a Tavern With Quest Givers, but rather more to a Tavern Where You Are Shanked For Your Sword And Boots And Dumped At The Nearest Forest. Heck, even the big wheelers and dealers are routinely seen invited to the latter when they are slow to properly introduce themselves.
#Working on your initially-puny House will quite realistically involve thy neighbors first and foremost, then liege lords from the higher House yours is sworn to, and on occasion shopping around for an advantageous marriage - there simply ain't gonna be that much spare time to "travel to see places". Both of these are also why tourism wasn't a very popular pastime in medieval Europe and why those who were "living on the road" usually enjoyed the lowest social standing.

A note to aspiring Lords: do NOT, under any circumstances, allow your "combat-optimized" siblings an unsupervised minute in a social setting. Game's "social combat" system is a thing more brutal than the physical one, and it takes a socially-optimized character all of a few minutes to mindfuck one who is not (read: everyone but dedicated diplomats and Heads of the Houses, and not every one of the latter, to boot, as illustrated by several amazing boneheads in canon) into believing pretty much anything short of Grumpkins and Snarks. Stupid NPCs or a stupid GM will make said mindfuck obvious, allowing you to "mindfuck 'em back" without abuse of OOC info; cunning ones will not.

On a side-note; GRRM is said to take a dim view of fanfiction, saying it kills creative ability. This is kind of a double-edged statement, since a lot of George's characters here are either rehashes of his characters from previous works, references to other fictional characters (like Littlefinger and Samwell being based on Jay Gatsby and [[The Lord of the Rings|Samwise Gamgee]]), walking tropes (such as Ned Stark and Robb Stark being the "[[TVTropes|Honor Before ]] [[Lawful Stupid|Reason]]" characters) or historical references (such House Lannister ripping off House Lancaster and House Tyrell being totally-not-House-Tudor - to the point that Margaery Tyrell is played by Natalie Dormer from "The Tudors" TV show). While this makes everything he wrote just another...fanfiction, and his disapproval hypocritical, given the "creative" output of the average neckbeard, he does have a point. Ironically, however, he sold the rights to make a TV series of the books to HBO, who then went on to make a glorified fanfic.

==Games==
[[image:AGot-2nd-ed-cardfan.png|thumb|250px]]
Like any fantasy author who finds themselves unexpectedly in the warm embrace of commercial success Martin quickly licensed the shit out of his setting, spawning everything from resin miniatures to replica great swords. While most of this is worthless junk to foist on [[Neckbeard|obsessive fanboys]] /tg/ has agreed that a few of the games are made of win. The first two are a collectable [[CCG|card game]] put out in 2002 by [[Fantasy Flight Games]] and a [[risk]]-esque board game that followed shortly after in 2003. One of [[White Wolf]]'s subsidiaries also put out a d20 RPG in 2005 but it quickly tanked because, come on, White Wolf. Martin since wrested the rights back and developed a new version with Green Ronin games.

Now lets have some serious talks about the game of thrones games, because they have become some sort of endless source of amusement and frustration for the gaming fanbase. Game of thrones is roughly speaking the second franchise with the most licensed board games, after star wars, and some of them have adquired quite a legendary status and a fanbase that goes beyond the book or series fans.

The great juggernaut for all the ASOIAF based games is Fantasy Flight Games

First and foremost we have the game of thrones board game, a game that after two editions stillranks high in the BGG top 100 board games, and has recently had an expansion. The game of thrones board game has becomesomesort of meme for the modern board gamersand it could be consider the equivalent of a more advanced risk, in which dice and blank character got replacedby a very flavourful and brutalcombat system and a lot of thematical mechanics fueling the engine. Overall this game has been associated with concepts such as, requiring maximun player count to really be entertaining, having an amazing ammount of lenght and depth and being a very faithful representation of the political feeling the series inspire. Almost any boardgamer or wargamer worth his salt has played this game and enjoyed its highs,its lows and the amazing ammount of frustrations it brings. This is probably the most well known of all the ASOIAF games and it was released way before game of thrones was a cultural phenomenom back in 2003.

Another game that bears mention, both for it's excellent mechanics and its historical significance is the game of thrones card game.It is one of the most balanced card game experiences you can get,also full of flavour and with quite a great ammount of balance and non linear thinking. Best part is, unlike other card games,the game has a "living card game" release format,in which players know exactly what each booster pack brings and can buy cards in a more responsible manner rather than playing bingo and hoping to get a rare cards. Also the sole core set already provides more replayability than some fully fledged board games.

Finally the last game to mention in the FFG venerable trilogy of games is "Battles of Westeros", arguably the most ambitious and least succesful of the three. Battles of westeros was a fully fledged wargame that used the Memoir 44/battlelore rules as a base, but then evolved into its own by introducing mechanics such as commanders, tactic cards and very creative scenario rules. Miniatures were made in 15 mm and for their time and scale they were quite detailed, some commanders are real standouts(I´m looking at you Robb Stark(with his wolf jumping at his side) and Rickard Karstark). Thanks to it's scale, the game was able to provide players with a great ammount of options and units at a fraction of the price of other boardgames. With a core set that was already stacked with units and variety and then faction specific expansions that added several more units and commanders. The game also came with scenario books that provided narrative play with quite creative rule variants, such as storming palisades, having decoys in escort missions and bombarding enemies with catapults. One scenario even tried to bring to life the battle of the blackwater(the hibrid invation of kings landing by stannis the manis). The game was incredible and quite a creative wargame,its main issue was that the setup time was just terrible. Incredibly complex and tiresome when compared to the actual gameplay time.

And then the miniature producing kickstarter juggernaut CMON decided to produce its own wargame, with AMAZING miniatures.

As this is CMON the game began with a [[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cmon/a-song-of-ice-and-fire-tabletop-miniatures-game]kickstarter], and after that the game has had at least 2 dozen more releases with 3 more factions added.

The game has some mechanics taken from rank and file games such as KOW combining them with mechanics taken out of "battles of westeros" particularly the tactics deck.

==Books==
*''A Game of Thrones''
*''A Clash of Kings''
*''A Storm of Swords'': Split into 2
*''A Feast for Crows'': half the characters, the point where the series goes down the toilet
*''A Dance with Dragons'': split into 2 the first is about the other half of the characters
*''The Winds of Winter'': Most recent rumors say George could have it ready in late 2018. But will he ''really''?
** Nope, though he has shared chapters of the book.
** Official now set to release in summer 2020, but we've all heard that before.
**It might happen by 2030 if we're really lucky
*''A Dream of Spring'' : Unreleased and unlikely to ever be.
**GRRM will most likely die before writing this
*''The Dunk and Egg Series'': A story about a landless hedge knight traveling across Westeros with a Targaryen squire, so he can teach him how not to be an asshole to peasants.

==See Also==
*[[/tg/ Song of Ice and Fire Houses]]
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U7NpSubAJQ Weiner, weiner weiner]

[[category: Literature]]

A Song of Ice and Fire

2019-12-09T08:36:32Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:290B:BAAA:92F2:A623: /* Oh Yeah, About The TV Show */

[[image:Game_of_Thrones_Title-DVD.png|300px|thumb|WIENER PARTY! WIENER PARTY!]]

{{Spoilers}}
'''Warning: This article contains so many spoilers we're ruining books that haven't even been released yet.'''

{{Topquote|If you think this story has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention.|Ramsay Bolton, nailing the grimdark theme of this series}}

'''''A Song of Ice and Fire''''' (more better known as '''''Game of Thrones''''') is a [[Grimdark]] fantasy book series for people who hate fantasy. Its central themes include [[Tzeentch|political Machiavellian scheming]], [[Khorne|ultraviolence]], [[Slaanesh|incest/sex with exposition]], and [[Nurgle|everyone trying to survive in such a Crapsack World of perpetual suffering]]. Thus it has become one of the most popular series of our generation and its author, [[George R. R. Martin]], has been praised for his highly realized world and gritty low fantasy style. He was even called "the American [[Tolkien]]" by <s>Time magazine</s> gormless idiots who lump diametrically different writers together for no other reason than that they're both fantasy authors, which would probably explains its sudden spike in popularity following the TV show (at least [[Skub|to a point, anyway.]])

The series itself is set on the [[Original character, do not steal|totally not medieval European ripoff]] realm of Westeros as it is wracked by a massive succession war drawing its realms into conflict. A bunch of dudes declare themselves kings (book two), they're burning the continent down in their scramble for power, and somehow all the fuck-ups managed to lose anyway (book three). Just when the guys who lost the least start thinking they get to rule over the remaining chaos, more fuck ups happen and more dudes show up (book four). Sadly, winter has finally come and, unbeknownst to most people, [[Thousand Sons|evil ice wizards leading soulless undead]] [[Alpha Legion|assumed to be only myths by most people]] are about to invade the continent from the north. By the fifth book, things are going and/or will go to shit even for the bad guys.

According to a leaked fan conversation, George R. R. Martin jokingly stated the series would end with an epic cock-slap fight between Samwell Tarly and Jaime Lannister.

TL;DR: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Roses War of Roses] redux, with a side helpin' of <s>cliched fantasy</s> George's old sci-fi writing plots and [[/d/]]-lite.

===Characters===
{{cleanup}}
Since these books have some thousand named characters, you won't remember most of them without an obsessive disorder over details.
Here's a relatively short list (mostly based on the TV series rather than the books, but seems to randomly switch between the two) for the characters you'll care about.

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Stark'''

''"Winter Is Coming"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Honourable, bro-tier northerners who always [[Space Wolves|compare themselves to direwolves]]. They have a tendency towards [[Lawful Stupid]] that proves to bite them in the ass due to naivete about how [[Tzeentch|Westerosi corrupt politics actually works]]. They're also arguably the protagonists of the setting. Basically Scotland and/or the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_york House of York].
* Eddard Stark, ''The Quiet Wolf'': Patriarch, lord and POV death-puppet. Not nearly as stupid as everyone tries to pretend, but still a dead man walking.
* Robb Stark, ''The Young Wolf'': Shiny, [[Lawful Stupid]] King Arthur-like hero. After waging a successful war to avenge his murdered father, he was betrothed to a noblewoman but he ended having comfort sex with a virgin noblewoman which may have been arranged by her scheming bitch mother, while in softcore porno he got the hots for a commoner. Cacks it nastily: he got his head cut off and his pet's wolf's head stuck on his body, which was paraded around while his enemies chanted "HERE COMES THE KING IN THE NORTH!" In other words, he's a Scottish [[Roman Empire|Hannibal Barca]].
* Sansa Stark: Useless teenage girl extraordinaire at the start of the series with dreams of marrying a prince and "having lots of babies", but gets shat on hard by reality. Becomes Littlefinger's replacement goldfish when Catelyn's no longer around, her father got killed and her best friend was sold as a sex slave, and ended up in the worst relationship we can possibly imagine with King Joffrey. [[Grimdark|Even got deflowered via rape by Ramsey Bolton]] and married to him before managing to escape with the help of others. Currently acting as a co-ruler to her brother/cousin Jon Snow, and has learned much from her suffering, allowing her to kick Littlefinger out of the Great Game via throat slitting. While in the book Littlefinger is/was setting her up at House Arryn to claim the Vale and the North, the show version becomes QUEEN IN DA NORF in the final episode.
* Arya Stark: Little tomboy assassin. Has a kill list, but doesn't get to use it so long as she is an amnesiac apprentice of [[Officio Assassinorum|the Friendly Neighborhood Assassins Guild]]. After breaking away (in the TV series) from the Faceless Men she heads back to Westeros to get revenge on a LOT of people, giving her one of the highest kill counts in the series. Is currently back with her sister Sansa, acting as a general "troubleshooter". Kills the Night King like a fucking champion [[Skub|(or, alternatively, in a nonsensical plot twist)]] in Season 8, and is now riding south to add Cersei to her killcount. Instead, the Hound talks her out of it and she decides to sail into the unknown west.
* Catelyn Stark (nee Tully): A woman who trusts the wrong people at the worst time, causing a lot of misery. Gets killed along with Robb, then comes back (books only) as an undead witch bent on killing all the Boltons, Freys, Greyjoys, Lannisters... pretty much everyone she thinks was tangentially involved in betraying her and her family, or somebody who just pissed her off.
* Bran Stark: Intelligent little boy, named after the founder of House Stark, Brandon the Builder (basically Tony Stark combined with [[Leman Russ]]). He was crippled in the first sign of major [[GrimDark]]. Has prophetic dreams and becomes a [[druid]]. In the TV series, fucks things up by alerting the Others to where he's hiding, which gets all of the Children, his loyal wolf, the Three-Eyed Crow and Hodor killed. For good measure, turns out to have accidentally ''caused'' Hodor to become, well, Hodor, as he was using his druid powers to figure out why Hodor is only able to say Hodor, resulting in Hodor's gruesome death-by-zombies being beamed directly into young!Hodor's brain. He's now the Three-Eyed Raven and likes going around being creepy as fuck and generally weirding people out. Becomes King of the Six Kingdoms in a hilariously nonsensical plot twist in the finale.
* Rickon Stark: Four years old at the start, turning into a real little [[Barbarian]] from not being raised properly, because everyone who would have raised him was dead or missing. In the show, he ends up hanging out at the Umbers, then is handed over to Ramsay as a prisoner when Smalljon becomes afraid of the Wildlings living north of him (who were invited by Jon Snow to fight the Zombie Apocalypse), and finally dies via arrow in a sick game of "dodge the missiles" courtesy of Ramsey.
* Jon Snow, ''The White Wolf'': A bastard living in the Stark household before leaving for the Night's Watch (basically [[The Last Chancers|Colonel Schaeffer]] with more convicted rapists under his command) and excels there because nearly every one of his fellow recruits are peasants who have never had a formal days training while Jon has had the serious training afforded to all lords. After he takes over by becoming the Watch Commander secures and alliance with the Wildlings, ancient barbarian enemies of the Night's Watch, because when the end of the world is coming you tend to think outside the box. Currently revived by R'hllor in the series after being stabbed to death by the senior members of the Watch. Isn't actually Eddard's bastard son, but rather the legitimate son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, meaning that he is in fact the rightful heir to the Iron Throne. The new KING IN DA NORF according to his supporters after he killed Ramsay Bolton and took back Winterfell, and is also currently hooking up with his own aunt. He turns on Daenerys once he realizes she's lost it and kills her in the throne room. The Unsullied want his head, but instead King Bran exiles him to the Night's Watch and he fucks off into the far north to live with the Free Folk.
* Hodor: Hodor. Hodor, Hodor, Hodor. <s>An enormous and possibly retarded stable boy, and Bran's faithful steed.</s> Hodor. Ok, in all actual seriousness, this guy is probably one of the most tragic figures in this series (and that's saying something). [[Grimdark|The guy basically received horrible visions of his own death fighting a horde of zombies, buying time for his friends to escape by literally holding the door shut as he was hacked apart]]. This causes him to suffer a psychiatric break, leading him to develop Immature Personality Disorder and his only speech is to repeat a garbled phrase of his friend's last request "hold the door" for all of his adult life; the logic here is that "hold the door" devolves into "hol' th' door" and eventually "Hodor". You now feel bad for at laughing at the guy.
* Osha: A Wildling woman who surrendered to the Starks and becomes their servant in exchange for not getting killed. Now dead in the show thanks to Ramsay's dickery.</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Targaryen'''

''"Fire and Blood"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">The former Dragon kings and rulers of Westeros, [[Eldar|fair-haired purple-eyed beautiful people]] who have descended from the [[Dark Age of Technology|ancient technologically-advanced superpower]] of [[Roman Empire|Valyria]], which collapsed because of [[Fall of the Eldar|their colossal hubris]]. After the anarchic [[Age of Strife|Century of Blood]], the Targaryen patriarch Aegon I, instead of reconquering the lost cause of Essos and of Valyria's former empire, looked towards the rather primitive continent of Westeros, and its squabbling Seven Kingdoms, [[Great Crusade|to establish his own Imperial dynasty and unify the Realm]]. Aegon I is essentially the Low Fantasy version of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_the_Conqueror William the Conqueror] and/or the [[God-Emperor of Mankind]], with a little dash of [[/d/|incest]].

[[Rules Lawyer|Thanks to a loophole]], the Targaryens were immune to the moral objections relating to incest. Common sense (and common decency) took back seat to a time-honored policy of [[/d/|catastrophic inbreeding]], which made a number of problems. Aegon I married his older and younger sisters and had several kids with each, which would be the start of another Targaryen tradition: the occasional succession crisis. The inbreeding would also lead to a line of almost alternatingly great and lunatic kings, culminating in Aerys "The Mad King" Targaryen and a palace coup. Eventually the lineage was banished to Essos after a brutal civil war, the remnants trying to gather armies to retake the Iron Throne which they see as rightfully theirs. Basically a family of inbreeding girly-men with a massive sense of superiority and as arrogant as they come, forgetting that most of what they accomplished was due to the fact that only they had dragons. Still, they occasionally did have genuinely good people like Aegon V (aka Egg), Jaeherys I the Conciliator, his wife Good Queen Alysanne and complete badasses like Brynden Bloodraven and Baelor Breakspear.
Pseudo-Romans and/or the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Normandy House of Normandy].

* Aerys II, ''The Mad King'': [[Kharn|A pretty fun guy to be around]]. Had a psychotic fascination for fire, which extended to being a psychotic fascination for burning traitors, a category of people that eventually grew to include anybody he disliked for any reason, anyone who disagreed with him, and a few people who were unlucky enough to be caught in the crossfire. [[Goge Vandire|Teamkilled by his bodyguard Jaime for planning to burn the city down with everyone inside it, and even refused to accept his death until he actually died]].
* [[Mary Sue|Daenerys Targaryen]], ''Stormborn'': She was sold by her brother to a barbarian leader [[Genghis motherfucking Khan|Khal (warlord) Drogo]] in exchange for the promise that he'd use his Khalassar (warband/tribe) to conquer Westeros. She found her self esteem as his wife, then her husband killed her idiot brother Viserys and promised to conquer the world for Daenerys, making her a full-fledged badass barbarian warqueen. Unfortunately, her husband died when [[Derp|Daenerys trusted one of the slaves whose town Drogo had pillaged and burnt to heal an infected wound of his]] and his horde fell apart (though the book is somewhat ambiguous as to whether the slave did kill Drogo). Then she hatched three dragons (completely by accident when she tried to commit suicide) bringing them back from extinction, and now everyone wants to marry her because she is now one of the most powerful people around due to said dragons and being good-looking (in the books this is by the age-of-consent in Westeros standards, where girls are women when they start getting their periods and boys are men at age 13). [[Gets shit done]] except the entire fifth book, in which she mopes around about wanting to marry an annoying, flamboyant mercenary instead of saving herself for political marriage. After banging the flamboyant mercenary, she later marries a Meereenese noble who guarantees he can get her some peace (more likely [[Just As Planned|just as he planned]]). She also does nothing while insurgents kill her men, a horde of plagued refugees spread disease to her city, and standing idly by while an enemy army besieges her walls, all for realistically political reasons because the world is a horrible place. Learns how to train her dragon. Is currently (TV series) in Westeros invading the place with an army of elite hoplites, a massive horde of Dothraki, one dragon (because the other two are dead) and fucking her nephew (Jon Snow). Has officially gone Mad Queen as of S8E5, wherein she burned most of King's Landing after the city attempted to surrender. Jon kills her in the series finale so that she won't go around burninating the rest of the world.
* The dragons: The three dragons that Daenerys hatched. They're wyverns that breathe fire, [[Awesome|have blood hot enough to melt steel]], and [[List of /tg/ Cuisine|cook their meat before eating it]]. Naturally, some of the coolest things in the story.
** Drogon; named for her late husband, Khal Drogo. Black and Red, the biggest and [[Gork|most aggressive dragon]]. Starts eating people and then escapes, leading to the other two getting imprisoned. Interrupts a gladiator tournament, killing a lot of people before being whipped by Daenerys into flying her to a Khalassar that broke off from her husband's after his death. Is now the last dragon standing after Viserion bites it at Winterfell and Rhaegal gets shot down over Dragonstone. Fucks off to who knows where after Dany is killed.
** Rhaegal; named for the first of her dead brothers, Rhaegar. Green and gold, the [[Mork|cunning one]]. Kills Quentyn Martell (see below). After breaking out of jail with Viserion they go "all your bases are belong to us" on Meereen, killing people and taking over the pyramid of a loyal family as his lair. Is now dead in the show thanks to Euron Greyjoy and some diabolus ex machina bullshit.
** Viserion; named for her other brother Viserys. White and gold, the [[Vulkan|friendliest]] (as dragons go, he still eats people) and the loudest. Dug cave for himself in his jail then moved into another pyramid after their great escape. Gets killed by the [[Vampire Counts|Night's King in the show via a magic spear, is reanimated to be his zombie dragon steed]] and blasts a hole in the famous Wall, allowing the armies of snow elves and zombies to start flooding Westeros. Now perma-dead thanks to the Night King biting it.
* Viserys Targaryen, ''The Beggar King'': Daenerys' physically abusive older brother. Best known for being a bully with incestuous lust for her, and an arrogant and incompetent fuck with a massive sense of entitlement. He eventually got himself killed for being an all-around jerk and whiny idiot, which culminated in him threatening his sister and unborn nephew with a sword while drunk in a sacred Dothraki place where weapons and bloodshed are forbidden on pain of death (execution is done by bloodless death - having a scarf wrapped tight around the neck and being drowned in a barrel). Daenerys' husband [[awesome|poured molten gold over his head and called it his promised crown]].
* Aegon Targaryen, ''Aegon VI'': Daenerys' nephew, the son of her brother Rhaegar. Been hiding in Essos for the entire length of the series, but recently raised an army of Westerosi exiles and threw them all a massive Welcome Home party with rape and pillage. Wants to marry his aunt because she has dragons, and might not actually be a member of House Targaryen if you believe some fans. He can actually count past 6, can multiply numbers, can read different language and has a minor understanding of geometry thus cementing him as one of the most educated people in this overwrought series. Can also do his own laundry.
* Brynden Rivers ''Bloodraven'': A Targaryen bastard who came to prominence about a hundred years before the series as sort of sorcerer, he later became known as the "Three-Eyed Raven/Crow" after encountering the Children of the Forest, and uses his powers to help advert the Long Night and train Bran. He's described as having long, white hair, missing an eye, bound to a tree, knows all and sees all, associated heavily with ravens and omens... [[Vikings|yeah, he's very much Odin, come to think of it.]]</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Lannister'''

''<s>"Hear Me Roar"</s> "A Lannister Always Pays His Debts"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">[[Monopoly|The world's richest family]], proud, pompous, selfish and fabulous assholes. Not much of a martial tradition but if you cross them [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7t7cnwlOgY they will fucking cut you]. You can tell they are the bad guys because they have an army of sick fucks, including a zebra-riding mercenary band and 7' 8" Khornate Champion <s>not-Goliath</s> Gregor Clegane. House Lancaster combined with the House of Rothschild and the Mafia.
* Tywin Lannister, ''The Lion of Lannister'': The Godfather, head of the house, and obsessed with his reputation as a Magnificent Bastard extraordinaire. He was a most feared general whose greatest achievement was nuking House Reyne out of existence, which was immortalised in his own sweet-yet-creepy-as-fuck theme song (The Rains of Castamere) that became used as a warning against anyone standing against him. During his tenure as Hand of the King (i.e. Prime Minister), he was a political genius who operates as the true power behind the Iron Throne, keeping the realm stable and prosperous despite the stupidity of Aerys II and Joffrey. However, despite all of his achievements, he was an [[Emperor|absolutely terrible father]], who treats his children as nothing more than tools to further his political agenda. He is completely blind to the incestuous relationship his two oldest children had, and hated Tyrion and made his life a living hell for very poor reasons. He humiliated Tyrion whenever it wouldn't threaten the family's reputation, berated Tyrion for being a whore-monger despite secretly being one himself, [[Grimdark|tried to get him killed multiple times]], and as the capstone of awful parenting, he taught Tyrion not to marry commoners after he married one called Tysha - by forcing Tyrion to watch Tysha get gangraped, forcing him to rape her too and then annulling their marriage. The only person Tywin truly loved was his wife. He eventually gets his comeuppance when Tyrion finds out the truth about the Tysha incident, and kills him with a crossbow, all while mentioning that out of all his children, Tyrion was the most alike to Tywin himself. He's based on [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Neville,_16th_Earl_of_Warwick Warwick the Kingmaker].
* Joanna Lannister: Tywin's late wife and first cousin, meaning the next three characters are inbred as well, ironically. Dies giving birth to Tyrion, which is part of why Tywin hates him, though Cersei hates him for other reasons. Caught wind of Cersei and Jaime's incestuous tendencies, but she died before she could tell Tywin. It is implied that her ghost visits Jaime in a dream and mourns the current state of her family.
* Cersei Lannister, ''Cunt Queen'': Tywin and Joanna's first child. Twin sister to Jaime Lannister and wife to King Robert Baratheon. She fucks her brother Jaime all the time and had three of his children, whom she passed off as Robert's to grab power. She is a massive narcissist who thinks of herself as "female Tywin" and hence seeks to rule Westeros as the Queen, and will do anything to keep her power... even when [[Abbadon the Despoiler|most of her plans end up becoming utter failures]]. Crazy as all fuck and prophesied to be killed by the "little brother." This is because of a prophecy a Gypsy made when Cersei was a child that she'd be a beautiful queen, lose everything, her children would die before her, and the "Valonqar" would kill her. Though that does explains why she hates Tyrion as hard as all fuck, [[Just As Planned|the exact translation of the term]] that was used is "younger sibling", and not necessarily her sibling, which opens the door to all sorts of characters who hate the fuck out of her. Since Jaime is technically younger by a few seconds, him killing Cersei would be an interesting twist not without buildup. Possibly the Gypsy was messing with her head because of what a bitch Cersei was being to her; something Cersei never grew out of. Cersei is currently alive only because Varys wants her to be, [[Just As Planned|as she's a terrible queen who'll destabilize the realm enough for him to bring back the Targaryens]]. She was completely shaved, stripped of power in all but her royal heritage and forced to do a nude walk of penance throughout the city by the High Sparrow (ASOIAF Pope equivalent) after he uncovered her crimes. Now she's waiting for her hair to grow back and may be thinking of revenge. She gets it in the show by blowing up the Sept (ASOIAF church) with everyone she doesn't like inside it, having her cousin killed near the Wildfire then capturing the nun who was her jailer and [[Grimdark|leaving her to be tortured to death by zombie Gregor Clegane]]. She is in short Thanquol disguised as a beautiful blonde woman. Gets anticlimactically squashed by a collapsing ceiling along with Jaime during Daenerys's assault on King's Landing.
* Jaime Lannister, ''The Kingslayer'': Younger twin brother (by about three seconds) to Cersei Lannister and commander of the Kingsguard. He loves his sister in every sense of the word and had three children with her. Killed the last king despite his oath, and is widely hated for it, even though everyone agrees that dying was a massive improvement for Aerys. The reason for this betrayal was that Aerys had a huge stockpile of Acme Brand Magic Napalm stockpiled under the city, ready to be set off the moment a siege broke through the town walls, and Jaime's options were to let it happen or kill Aerys before the crazy fuck got ''everybody'' killed. His desire to openly love his sister and win the respect he feels he deserves eventually causes Cersei to reject him. Starts off as an arrogant douche [[Grimdark|and tried to murder Bran Stark, but accidentally crippled him instead]]; he becomes otherwise quite bro-tier besides the whole wants-to-fuck-his-sister thing, though he grows out of ''that'' as well when he realizes what a bitch she is and that there's plenty of women who want his jock - even the hunky Brienne isn't that bad looking. Thoroughly humbled to boot after learning a few hard lessons, losing his sword hand, and having some time to rethink his life. Also the only person in his family who treats Tyrion well, along with one of his aunts and two dead uncles. Essentially, a more incestuous and douchey Blood Angel. In the books, he is currently being lured into a trap by Lady Stoneheart. In the show, he has finally told Cersei to get fucked after realizing that she has well and truly lost it, and is riding north to help fight the White Walkers. He survives the Battle of Winterfell, hooks up with Brienne, and then rides south [[Derp|because he just can't let Cersei go.]] Winds up getting shanked by Euron Greyjoy and dies [[Fail|via collapsing ceiling]].
* Tyrion Lannister, ''Halfman'': a very intelligent dwarf who is awesome, but hated by all of the civilized characters in the books, except his brother Jaime. He seems to do much better when getting drunk with whores, rogues, bastards and barbarians. His silver tongue is one of his greatest strengths (he's witty and good at persuading people) and weaknesses (he's quick with insults and the truth in a city ruled by sociopaths and liars). Tyrion is also one of the only characters with an actual sense of the bigger picture, and an interest toward steering the world toward an outcome that ''doesn't'' involve a [[The End Times|Warhammer End Times]] scenario. Unfortunately, the world's movers, shakers, and those who generally have the power to make a difference are increasingly either a) dead, b) scattered to the winds, or c) hate his dwarf guts. Despite the increasing difficulty and fruitlessness of his task, however, [[Awesome|Tyrion still fights]]. After being framed for killing Joffrey, he killed his own father and is currently in exile in the Free Cities, weaseling his way into leading a merc band and trying to sign them up with Daenerys' forces, recognizing her as one of the few chances Westeros has got of fixing its shit (provided she can get her own shit together, which she's having a bit of trouble with). Since characters in this series tend to either be walking tropes, rip-offs of other fantasy characters, or historical people with different names, Tyrion is probably based on the great [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_Vorkosigan Miles Vorkosigan] (who was himself based on a few people including Sir Winston Churchill) and is a nod to King Richard III (a deformed but competent king later demonized by historians of his era). Even if he is usually the smartest one in the room at any given time, though, Tyrion is still not above having some derp moments. Exhibit A, when Tyrion asked his father what happened to his first wife (right before killing him), he took an ''obvious'' "I don't know and I don't care," response ("Wherever whores go") as actual, literal directions. The show version meets Daenerys and becomes her Hand only to [[Fail|fuck up a bunch of stuff]] and lose her trust. Sells her out when he realizes that she's gone round the bend and winds up becoming Hand to King Bran.
* Kevan Lannister: Tywin's younger brother, considered "the reliable one". One of the few decent Lannisters, though saying that he is perfectly happy carrying out Tywin's bidding. Tried to talk sense into Cersei and was later called in to try and fix her mess. He did such a good job of it that Varys decided to personally thank him. With a crossbow. And a group of knife-wielding children.
* Cersei and Robert's (actually Jaime's) children:
** Joffrey Baratheon: "Heir" of the throne, and technical king of Westeros during the War of the Five Kings since he lives in King's Landing and sits on the throne. Turned out to be worse than Aerys. He died and there was much rejoicing. [[Fail|Except by his mother, who instead had sex on his corpse]]. Fourteen years old at time of death.
** Tommen Baratheon: The new king on the Iron Throne. Nine years old. Married to a teenaged shotacon wife who's (unknown to him) the granddaughter of his brother's true killer. Trying to litigate the criminalization of beets. Loves [[Cats|kittens]]. He's pretty well-rounded and non-fucked up, which is a miracle considering his parents, both putative and biological. Also seems to be trying to take kinging seriously, but his mom is trying to quash that in her subliminal attempt to hold power indefinitely, so whether it holds is another matter entirely. Prophesied to die before Cersei, which doubly tragic due to his age and being a much better person than her. He commits suicide after Cersei gets her revenge via killing his wife, godfather, great-uncle, and all his religious friends via blowing up the ASOIAF equivalent of St. Peter's Basilica, because of course her power hunger was more important than his happiness and well being.
** Mycella Baratheon: Princess, and Cersei and "Robert's" second oldest child. She had her face fucked up because of Arianne Martell's amateur intrigues, which overlapped with poor planning, general stupidity, and another guy's backstabbing. Ten years old. Before the maiming, she was quite decent and non-evil. Who knows how she'll turn out now with half of her face cut off. Also prophesied to die before Cersei. In the show she had a crush on Oberyn's surviving nephew, but was killed by Elia in revenge for Oberyn's death, but alive in the books though missing an ear. Also, the readership all got on George's balls for maiming this girl, mostly because it was a sign that he had run out of ideas and was basically just milking diabolus ex machina ([[Just As Planned|or that's what he wants us to think]]).
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Baratheon'''

''"Ours is the Fury"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Ascended to the Iron Throne after a successful rebellion against the Mad King Aerys II Targaryen. Produces no less than three claimants to the succession, each one very different from the other. Technically a cadet branch of House Targaryen as their founder Orys was allegedly a Targaryen bastard, who took the original Storm Kings (House Durrandon) deer sigil after killing the last one and fucking his only child Argella and then 200 odd years later, King Egg's daughter married their grandfather, they're pretty much the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Plantagenet House of Plantagenet].
* Robert Baratheon, ''The Usurper'': Fat, old, former badass who led the rebellion, and now the king who married Cersei Lannister. Then he fucked a bunch of other women and had lots of illegitimate kids. He was killed while mixing boar hunting and drinking, but whether this death was planned or not is uncertain. On the surface, a king with a thing for easy laughs and partying; right underneath the surface, he's irresponsible and leaves the actual ruling of a nation to his staff, deeper under the surface he's pretty much a sad, lonely old bro who would rather not have been king. Comparable to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_IV_of_England Edward IV], in that both were powerfully built military geniuses who overthrew the existing monarchy and later succumbed to an unhealthy lifestyle.
* Stannis '''The Mannis''' Baratheon: Robert's younger brother, all-around badass who swings between [[Lawful Stupid]] (moreso in the show than the books) and [[gets shit done|getting shit done]]. [[Judge Dredd|Believes so strongly in the rule of law]] that he feels compelled to take the Iron Throne for himself despite wanting nothing to do with it. Is advised by a priestess of the God of light, Melisandre, and a lowborn smuggler named Davos Seaworth raised to knighthood and nobility. [[C.S Goto|His character is ruined in the show into an incompetent pawn of Melisandre and gets killed off just because one of the showrunners didn't like him]].
** Shireen Baratheon: Stannis's kid daughter. Sweet, charming, and intelligent little lady who was left with a deformity on her face from a disease called greyscale. Teaches Davos how to read, and is probably the most innocent person in the series alongside Tommen, Myrcella and a few others. Being the grim and dark universe A Song of Ice and Fire is, however, this means that she's likely going to end up becoming fuel for a vicious fire god. In the show she does, but in the books she is safe and sound since Stannis isn't stupid enough to bring him with her while campaigning. His wife, on the other hand, being such an idiotic fanatical pyromaniac... well, her odds aren't exactly looking that great.
* Renly Baratheon, ''That Gay Guy'': Robert and Stannis's youngest brother. Took Loras Tyrell (a.k.a. Knight of Flowers, Pretty Boy, etc.) as his lover. Decided he was better suited to be king, though the bizarre and outdated laws of the land stated Stannis was next in line (though Joffrey and then Tommen were first since they were [[Pretend|officially]] Bobby B's legitimate kids). Was hugely popular since he had Robert's charisma, which led to him getting the most support, but he lacked Stannis's conviction and devotion to the duty of actually doing the work of a king, or even Robert's ability to wage war. Killed by Melisandre with some "help" by Stannis ''The Mannis'' for trying to steal his crown, though in the books Stannis may not have been completely aware of the role he played in Renly's death. He's basically [[That Guy]] of ASOIAF, since quite a lot of shit is his fault, indirectly or otherwise.
*Gendry Baratheon, the Bastard Son. One of Robert's many, many bastard children, and the one who gets the most page and screen time. He starts out as a humble blacksmith in King's Landing, who first comes to Ned's attention when Lord Stark is investigating the death of Jon Arryn. From there, he gets shipped off to the Night's Watch to avoid the imminent purge of Robert's bastards, and winds up becoming friends with Arya and Hot Pie. After some adventuring and sexual tension with Arya (at least in the show), he joins the Brotherhood Without Banners. In the show, they sell him to Melisandre so she can use him for a blood magic ritual, while in the books he just goes on being a smith and doesn't get involved in anything particularly weird or shady. He has yet to reappear in the books, but in the show Ser Davos sets him free and tells him to fuck off, which he does for a few seasons. He eventually turns up back in King's Landing, where Davos finds him and recruits him for Team Snow. He helps Jon capture a wight to show Cersei, makes dragonglass weapons for the Army of the Living, has sex with Arya, and fights in the Battle of Winterfell, after which Daenerys legitimizes him as the new lord of House Baratheon.</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Tully'''

''"Family, Duty, Honor"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content"> Lords of the central river lands. Being the obligatory central nation they spend a lot of the series being fought over like a cake in between fat kids. Basically Poland/Netherlands, given they have so many rivers and how hard they've been fucked over.
*Edmure Tully: Basically the SoIaF universe's eternal butt monkey (because he happens to be a decent fucking person). A useless ponce with a dense streak a mile wide and a bad habit of bragging about things he shouldn't be proud of. It took hanging in a stockade for a few months to make him experience some growth. When Jaime was brought in to unfuck the situation and end the siege at Tully's house in Riverrun, Jaime's "negotiation" pressured him into convincing his house to surrender, but he made sure [[Troll|that Brynden got out first]]. Currently spending his days at the Lannister house as a hostage to make sure that the Tullys don't try to ruin the situation again. Tries to make a case for himself as king in the final episode, only to get shut down by Sansa.
*Brynden Tully ''the Blackfish'': He didn't catch the memo that he was part of the joke faction, and proceeds to spend the entire series fucking Lannister shit up and generally being a boss. Thought to be the black sheep in a family of fish. (Thus "Blackfish", geddit?) Ended up holed up in Riverrun, and got the fuck out right before the end of the siege, so that the Lannisters couldn't dick him over as a prisoner (or so he can keep dicking them over before he became a prisoner). Also widely accepted by the fans to be a closeted homosexual. In the HBO show, he gets killed when resisting arrest from Tully forces by order of Edmure. [[Rage|And it happens offscreen.]]</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Arryn'''

''"As High as Honor"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Mountain lords turned [[NEET|neurotic shut ins]]. Goes through lords about as quickly as you would expect a castle equipped with a door that opens into empty air. Basically Switzerland/Afghanistan, seeing as how they stayed neutral in the War of Five Kings, their land is covered by nothing but mountains, and they're constantly fighting with the local tribes. They were being entertainingly screwed over by Littlefinger until his death.
*Jon Arryn: Only appears posthumously and is the catalyst for the whole plot. The true mastermind behind Robert's Rebellion, was killed by Littlefinger via Lysa when he figured out that Robert's kids are bastards of Cersei and Jaime. His death was blamed on the Lannisters to destabilize Westeros.
*Lysa Arryn: Loli bride turned Lady of the Vale after the Lannisters forcibly retired her husband from life, at least officially. In reality Littlefinger convinced her to poison her husband and blame the Lannisters [[Just As Planned|which pretty much started this whole clusterfuck to begin with]]. A closeted, crazy woman who spends the entire series in her castle "the Eyrie" being useless, breastfeeding her own son at age 10, obsessing over Littlefinger's cock, and [[Derp|refusing to help her sister and nephew in the war she and Littlefinger pretty much started]], which may have guaranteed their eventual horrific murders by their enemies. Finally gets her comeuppance when Littlefinger kicks her out the moon door (post-taunting, of course), putting her out of our collective misery. Long live the Lord Protector.
* Robert Arryn: ''Littlefuck'', Lysa's equally mentally unstable autistic son, who still sucks on his mom's tit, and enjoys seeing people "fly" out the moon door to their deaths. He actually seems to be a bit smarter than you would first think and is a really, really good judge of character, except with Sansa. Secretly being poisoned by Littlefinger and Sansa, so she can take over the Vale and North. Named Robin in the show because the showrunners were afraid that having two characters with the same name would be too confusing. The show version doesn't get poisoned, but turns up in the series finale as the Lord of the Vale.</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Greyjoy'''

''"We Do Not Sow"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">[[Awesome|A house founded by Cthulhu-worshipping Norscans]]. While not actual Vikings in any sense of the word, there is little other way to describe them. They live on some islands and almost their entire culture is based around raiding and the ocean. Their religion holds it shameful for a man to pay for personal possessions, and states they have to get things either by trade or The Iron Price; seizing something from the body or belongings of someone he defeated in conquest rather than paying or trading for it. Also only possessions acquired via The Iron Price command respect among the Ironborn.
*Balon Greyjoy: Asshole dad, crappy ruler and general shithead who rebelled against Robert Baratheon and failed miserably. All of his sons were killed, except for Theon, who was taken as a hostage to ensure his good behavior. Despite being in a position to join either the Lannisters or the Starks during the War of Five Kings and thereby get whatever he wanted from either (independence and the North, or independence and Casterly Rock, respectively), he does the absolute stupidest thing possible and declares himself independent without support from anyone, attacking the North and the rest of Westeros, thereby virtually guaranteeing that he'll be on the receiving end of another one-sided battle. Never got that far, though, since he was pushed off a bridge during a storm by an assassin his brother Euron sent.
*Victarion Greyjoy: Admiral of the Iron Fleet. [[Gets shit done]] while wearing [[Dark Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|Lokhir Fellheart's]] armor during boarding actions. Does it for vengeance, the lulz and as a ticket to Ironborn heaven (which they believe men can reach if they die in battle or by drowning). Worships both R'hllor and the Drowned God. For all his badassery, is far too stupid to realize that his black Red Priest sidekick's constant rambling about his "great destiny" is inevitably going to end in his burning to death on a sacrificial pyre. Said Red Priest impressed Victarion by surviving being marooned at sea for 3 weeks and turning Victarion's infected arm into a super-strong volcano arm. Seriously.
*Aeron Greyjoy ''Damphair'': A priestly Alan Moore who drank seawater. Once a fun-loving party animal, he nearly drowned during the Greyjoy Rebellion, and became a dour and devout priest of the Ironborn [[Cthulhu]] religion. Confirmed to have been raped by Euron when they were kids. Planned to overthrow Euron, who bribed and manipulated his way into becoming king of the Ironborn. [[Grimdark|Was captured by Euron and tortured to try and make him renounce his faith, including feeding him spoiled food, drugging him and burning him. Later Euron tied Aeron, naked, to the prow of Euron's ship alongside Euron's tortured, pregnant former lover because she showed Aeron kindness by once giving him proper food]]. He tried to console her by saying their suffering will end in underwater Valhalla, [[Awesome|showing Euron failed to make him deny his faith]].
*Theon Greyjoy: Son of the Lord/King of the Iron Islands. Had the personality of a stereotypical high school jock, being an excellent archer and womanizer and proud of it. He was given to Ned Stark by his father after Balon failed to successfully rebel against Robert Baratheon. Swore an oath to Robb, but then ditched him out of a desperate need to please his father. Ends up castrated and acts as the personal slave of Ramsay Bolton after Ramsay puts him through horrific torture to turn him into Reek. Rescued by his sister, but the psychological trauma meant it took awhile before he could stop calling himself Reek and start getting back to normal mentally (physically he's now missing a few parts that don't heal or grow back). Dead in the show, thanks to charging the Night King by himself while protecting Bran.
* Asha Greyjoy: Theon's older sister and a commander of some renown which is quite a feat - almost every man on the Iron Islands except her father either tried to get in her pants, or told her to [[-4 STR|stop playing around and go do some actual women's work]], before she kicked enough ass that they respected her. Rescues Theon after he escapes Ramsay but then loses him to Stannis. Is named Yara in the show because the showrunners thought her name sounded too similar to Osha the wildling chick, and is also apparently [[PROMOTIONS|bisexual]]. Eventually becomes Lady of the Iron Islands in the show because she's the last Greyjoy standing.
*Euron Greyjoy ''Crow's Eye'': A [[Chaos|sick fuck Lovecraftian pirate armed with unnatural sorcerous powers, so evil]] that Balon banished him from the Iron Islands. Every member of his crew is a mute, because Euron ripped all their tongues out. Many of them are also the illegitimate sons of women he's raped around the world during his raids. Uses an eyepatch to conceal a pitch-black eye, his personal "obviously a villain" mark. Raped his brother Victarion's wife, then claimed she wanted it so Victarion had to kill her. Raped his younger brother Aeron. Also showed back up in the Iron Islands the day after Balon died, despite having been raping and pillaging in Essos before that, which is suspicious as fuck. Now the new Iron King. Plans to conquer Westeros, and has some unknown plan to deal with Daenerys. Revealed in the book ''Winds of Winter'' to be [[Honsou|the sickest fuck in an entire setting of sick fucks (and that's saying something)]], including having a god complex while hating religion so much he [[Grimdark|tortures any clergymen he captures to try and make them give up their faiths using ironic tortures themed around their religions - such as preachers have their tongues cut out and burning priests of the fire god to death]]. Euron tried and failed to break his priest brother Aeron's faith so he lashed Aeron to the front of his ship to die [[Grimdark|alongside Euron's own pregnant lover Falia]]. Jaime kills him in the second-to-last episode of the show. </div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Tyrell'''

''"Growing Strong"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Lords of Highgarden and backstabbers par-excellence and owners of a lot of fertile land. Unlike the current lot of Lannisters they understand the value of good PR, balancing ruthlessness with being somewhat amicable, political savvy and not being stuck-up on honor. They're basically France. [[Fail|Unfortunately they've all been wiped out in the show]].
*Mace "The Ace" Tyrell: Lord of Highgarden. Massively fat and overweight, while being stupid, overreaching and constantly mocked by everyone else, he's otherwise known as a friendly man, a good Lord when it comes to management and a good father; unfortunately this isn't enough to save a man in the Game of Thrones. Gets killed with the rest of the noble houses when Cersei blows up the Great Sept of Baelor.
*Olenna Tyrell: The brains behind House Tyrell's schemes. Known as the ''Queen of Thorns'' for being an outspoken, prickly and venomous old lady. Schemed with Littlefinger to have Joffrey killed, but she carried it out with compressed powder "gems" that poisoned his wine. Now she keeps her family in line and is hailed as a more progressive version of Tywin. Became a fan favorite for constantly dropping awesome one-liners and telling the Sand Snakes to shut up. [[Fail|Later killed off in the show]], but not before revealing to Jaime that [[Awesome|she was the one who killed Joffrey]].
*Willas Tyrell: Mace Tyrell's eldest son and heir, crippled at a very young age when jousting against Oberyn Martell. Probably one of the most pleasant and sensible characters in the series, which might explain why he's yet to make an appearance. Very fond of breeding animals, especially horses.
*Garlan Tyrell ''The Gallant'': Second-born son. Badass extraordinaire, considered one of the best swords in Westeros, and one of the few people kind to Tyrion. Trains for real combat (often against multiple opponents by himself) unlike Loras, who's a tourney fighter. Single-handed wrecks many notable knights fighting for Stannis during the War of The Five Kings. And he is the only person other than Tywin to put Joffrey in his place, at his own wedding. Sadly no POV chapter yet and omitted from the TV series (Loras takes credit for his deeds).
*Loras Tyrell ''The Knight of Flowers'': The Tyrell who appears most in the series. Considered to be an example of the perfect knight, despite his youth. Is secretly Renly's gay lover and conspired to take the throne with him and his sister. Last seen badly injured in the books attempting to take Stannis' castle. In the show he ends up tortured by the members of the Faith for being gay [[C.S Goto|because the showrunners retconned them to hate gay people]], [[Protectorate of Menoth|later joins their ranks of questionable willingness]] then dies when Cersei blows up the Sept of Baelor.
*Margaery Tyrell: The would-be Queen of Westeros, she has married, in order, Renly Baratheon (gay), Joffrey Baratheon (evil), and Tommen Baratheon (8 years old) and has been crowned as queen three times. While she is nice, she is capable of manipulation. In the show she marries and uses sex to control Tommen. Was arrested by the resident Chamber Militant The Sparrow and asked for a trial by faith in the books. In the show this also happens but she tries to be pious in an attempt to save herself, but ended up getting killed when Cersei blew up the Sept of Baelor.
</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Bolton'''

''"Our Blades Are Sharp"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">The Starks' most important (and most despised) vassal, a former arch rival made of [[Grimdark]] because their entire theme [[Dark Eldar|revolves around Torture]]. Their sigil is a flayed man and their castle is [[Commorragh|a complex of eternal suffering called the Dreadfort]], which shows how stupid the Starks were for allying with them.
*Roose Bolton, ''The 'Leech Lord'': A Lawful Evil sociopathic health nut who's called the Leech Lord because he gets leeched regularly, believing they get rid of bad blood. Second-most powerful Lord in the North with ambitions to depose the Starks. Since the Starks are unable to think like crafty people and are blinded by honor this doesn't prove too difficult. He gets his wish when he stabs Robb Stark in the back, at his uncle's wedding no less, and has anyone associated with Robb killed. He then makes over Winterfell in his bloody image, and is currently trolling Stannis. Believes in the abolished practice of "[[Rape|Droit du seigneur]]" (a tradition that allowed a lord to have sex with subordinate women, whether they wanted to or not) and killed a man for trying to hide his wife from Roose. Believed that he and his son could be as evil as they wanted as long as no one found out. Killed by Ramsey in the show, which Ramsey tried to cover with a lie despite the witnesses to his actions.
*Ramsay Snow/Bolton: The bastard son of Roose Bolton and a woman he raped. He is arguably the most fucked up person in all of the Seven Kingdoms, because he [[Dark Eldar|loves to torture and kill people openly for the lulz]], such as Theon Greyjoy, who he crippled, knocked his teeth out and castrated too. He then sent the severed appendage to the foreshortened Theon's dad in a cutesy box with a letter mockingly detailing his evilness. Will torture anyone who points out his illegitimate heritage though now he's legally recognized as a Bolton. Also has a pack of hunting dogs he names after women he hunts, rapes and kills. Married a fake Arya Stark and regularly mistreats her, including forced bestiality. Not a fun guy to be around. Only reason he's gotten away with it for so long (as pointed out by his father) is because no one is strong enough to stand up to him yet, but when they are he's going to be killed. In the show he killed his father with a knife, fed his stepmother and newborn half-brother to his dogs, then married Sansa Stark and deflowered her via rape. Ramsay was such a monster even Iwan Rheon, THE ACTOR WHO PLAYED THE GUY, hoped he'd die horribly. He got his wish: The consequences of Ramsay's actions catch up with him when Jon Snow shows up with an army capable of threatening him, and after surprise reinforcements from Littlefinger and his own fucked-up teamkilling, the Starks crush the Bolton army, forcing Ramsay to flee back to Winterfell. Despite this, the gate is smashed down, he is disarmed, beaten rather brutally and detained to await trial. Before the trial Sansa sets his dogs on him, which he had deliberately starved so they would eat Jon. Apparently they found him quite tasty.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Martell'''

''"Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Desert dwelling survivalists who pride themselves on having never been conquered by the Targaryen dynasty (though they later married in). Moorish Spaniards, kinda. [[C.S Goto|Their story arc was completely FUBAR in the show, as Elia and Oberyn's daughters kill Oberyn's brother and nephew for taking too long to avenge him before being captured and killed themselves by Euron and Cersei]].
*Doran Martell: Lord of Sunspear and of royal descent. Still mad at the the Lannisters about that whole "murdered-my-sister-and-infant-niece thing". Playing the longest of long games with Varys while trying to keep the rest of his psychotic family members in check. Wheelchair bound due to his gout. [[What|Killed off in the show by Ellaria as part of her plan to avenge Oberyn]].
*Arianne Martell: One of GRRM's characters who seems to exists solely to fuck everything up at the worst conceivable moment. Still hot as Dornish girls come. Exists only in the books, where she is currently helping her dad get ready to topple the Lannisters after fucking everything up with her own stupid plan to crown Myrcella, which is what got the poor girl maimed.
*Oberyn Martell ''The Viper of Dorne'': Doran Martell's brother, a bisexual swinger, former mercenary, and a drunkard. His girlfriend is a spectacularly beautiful bastard named Ellaria Sand and he has many illegitimate children, mostly daughters, collectively called "The Sand Snakes". Crippled the Tyrell heir in a fight, causing a rift between the two houses; despite this, he's actually best mates with the aforementioned heir, due to Willas Tyrell being straight up the nicest and most balanced man in the series and Oberyn being a somewhat decent person. Known for poisoning his weapons, as well as his battle-cry. Died from a mutual kill, with Gregor Clegane crushing his skull in rather graphically, avenging his sister Elia who Gregor had raped and murdered. Though it's probably a win for Oberyn, since he got Clegane with a horribly painful and slow-acting venom which stretched his death over days or even weeks, during which time he was ruthlessly experimented upon by a mad scientist.
*Quentyn Martell: Didn't realize what series he was in, poor bastard. A member of House Martell, sent to marry Daenerys to secure an alliance between the families, since the original marriage plan to hook Arianne up with Viserys won't work with Viserys dead. Leaves Westeros and goes all the way to the city of Meereen to marry her, but he's too late, as she marries the Meereenese noble Hizdahr, and like Jorah he's not her type (Dany likes her bad boys). Tries to tame two of her dragons to impress her; the attempt goes wrong, he gets horribly burnt and gradually dies in agony from his wounds.
*The Sand Snakes: Oberyn's children. All daughters he had with various women throughout his travels (all consensual encounters, mind you). Mixed race and all hot with various skills including combat training and mastery of poisons. Working with Doran and Ellaria in the books. [[C.S Goto|Ruined in the show where they don't accomplish anything, are given atrocious dialogue (the "you need the bad pussy" line comes to mind), aren't great fighters]] and get killed by Euron's men, except for one who gets captured and poisoned by Cersei so an imprisoned Ellaria is forced to watch her die and decompose.</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''Night's Watch'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">The Night's Watch are an apolitical force in charge of manning The Wall, a giant ice wall that separates the relative tranquility of the south from the Lovecraftian fucked-up-itude of the true north. They are chronically undermanned and undersupplied since nobody believes their stories of a barbarian army or the impending zombie apocalypse. Basically everybody else thinks they're in a game of [[Diplomacy]] and the Night's Watch are the only ones who realize they're actually in [[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]], though it's been so long since the last snow elf invasion that even they had forgotten about the undead hordes and focused too much on barbarians. They've allied with the Wildings and the North, but in the TV show the Night's King used the undead dragon Viserion to burn a hole through The Wall.
*Jeor Mormont, ''The Old Bear'': 997th Lord Commander of the Night's Watch at the start of the series. Sees Jon Snow as something of a second son (since his own son Jorah was exiled for enslaving and refused to take the black for his crimes). Leads a ranging north of the Wall to investigate reports that the Others have returned. Ends up killed during a mutiny of survivors after the Others wiped out most of his force.
*Alliser Thorne: Prick of a knight who was favorite to be the next Watch Commander, but was passed over by Jon Snow. Unable to accept Jon Snow letting the Wildlings live on the other side of the wall in an alliance against the zombie hordes, he staged a coup against Jon. It failed because Jon was brought back to life. He is now dead in the show, having been executed for his treason by Jon Snow.
*Aemon Targaryen: Maester of the Citadel at Castle Black. Despite being the third born son of King Maekar I Targaryen, he declined the right to sit on the Iron Throne. One of the few people in the series to die of old age, at 102.
*Samwell Tarly, ''The Slayer'': Fat bookworm who was forced to take the black after his father Randyl threatened to murder him for being unmanly. Jon Snow's best friend among the Night's Watch, and knows everything because he "read it in a book". Despite being a self-professed coward, Sam became the first person in thousands of years to slay an Other with an obsidian dagger. George Martin himself said Sam's based on Samwise Gamgee from Lord of the Rings. Since then, he has started improving his combat skills and balls (in more ways than one for the latter, finding his spine and losing his virginity). He abandons the Night's Watch to help fight the dead and tell Jon who he really is, and winds up becoming the new Grand Maester by the end of the show.
*Eddison Tollett, ''Dolorous Edd'': Probably the most badass member of the Night's Watch. Responds to situations by making sarcastic jokes about them, and known for being a grim motherfucker in a setting of grim motherfuckers. In the show he [[Awesome|became the new Lord Commander]] while Jon was dead, but gave the title back to Jon when he was brought back to life, and then Jon handed it right back because he needed to go sort out Ramsay Bolton. Dies in Season 8 at the Battle of Winterfell. </div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">

'''Wildlings'''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Groups of nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes who live north of the Wall. Mostly First Men by blood, they have been heading toward the Wall for the past decade with the reputed reemergence of the Others. Nomadic, aggressive, and very much believing in "might makes right", they do not get along with anyone south of The Wall since they view them as "Kneeling weaklings". Basically every Celtic/Scandinavian/barbarian stereotype combined.
*Mance Rayder, ''The King Beyond The Wall'': A Wildling orphan who was taken in by the Night's Watch, he became their best Ranger before he deserted to join his people. He united the Wildlings and lead them south to escape the Others. Also a trained bard, but that was not enough to save him from death.
*Tormund Giantsbane: Claims to have a ten-inch penis, and invites his enemies to use their mouths if they want to clean it. Cool as fuck old guy who [[Furry|fucks mother-bears]] in his free time. Tough as nails motherfucker who preaches the merits of using one's cock for everything. He teams up with Jon Snow for the fight against the White Walkers, then fucks off back to the north once the Night King is dead, making him one of the most sensible people on the show. He and Jon go off to be bros at the end of the show.
*Ygritte: Wildling woman who Jon Snow ends up falling for and who returns his affections. Has red hair which is considered lucky among the Wildlings. This being ''A Song of Ice and Fire'', she ends up dying because her worldview is not compatible with Jon's.
*Craster: A sick bastard, formerly a member of the Night's Watch. [[Grimdark|Has lots of daughters who he marries and fucks regularly, giving him more children. So his wives are his daughters, granddaughters and so on... Girls grow up to become more wives, boys get sacrificed to the Others]]. This keeps them at bay, and that sanctuary is why the Night Watch barely tolerate him. Fortunately, he's been killed off in the story.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Frey'''

''"We Stand Together"''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content"> House of weasels who are always grumpy and have a thing for overreacting to perceived slights. Wouldn't be that important except for the fact that they own the only bridge over a strategically important river, and regularly extort anyone attempting to cross it.

*Walder Frey: The ancient, terrible, ornery old man in charge of the Twins. Hates everyone for "looking down on him", and will readily betray an important ally for immediate gain, or if he feels he has been slighted in some minor way. His descendants are literally so numerous that no one except GRRM himself have been able to count them all, so we aren't even going to attempt it. Now dead in the show due to getting his throat slit by a vengeful Arya after she serves him two of his sons as meat pies. </div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''Commoners, Knights, and Petty Lords'''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Basically any character not associated with any of the Great Houses.
* Varys, ''The Spider'': The eunuch spymaster of Westeros. You can't take a shit in the Seven Kingdoms without Varys finding out where, when, and how watery or dry it was. He does this through paid informants and his "little birds", a spy network of children who sneak through the castle's passageways and air flues to eavesdrop on everyone. Stabs everyone in the back because he's actually trying to bring the Targaryens back in order to strengthen the realm. Dead in the show, having decided to try and put Jon on the throne instead of Daenerys; Jon says no, Tyrion sells him out when he realizes Jon absolutely means it, and Dany has Drogon barbecue him.
* Petyr Baelish, ''Littlefinger'': The Master of Coin (the ASOIAF equivalent of a treasurer) and the closest person the Game of Thrones world has to a [[Daemon Prince]] of [[Tzeentch]], up to even declaring "[[Chaos]] is a Ladder". A dangerous manipulator who manages to trick and steal his way to positions of lordship and wealth because no one takes him seriously, and stabs all the Lannisters in the back when they become inconvenient. As a child he wanted Catelyn Stark, and was tricked into thinking she wanted him when her sister Lysa fucked him while he was drunk. Challenged Catelyn's betrothed Brandon Stark, Ned's older brother who was murdered by Aerys, for her hand in marriage and got his ass kicked because he was a small skinny boy and Brandon Stark was a big strapping man, making that his start of darkness. The guy responsible, directly or indirectly, for the War of the Five Kings because he was the mastermind behind poisoning Jon Arryn, the capture and execution of Ned Stark, feeding several half-truths to Catelyn to motivate her to arrest Tyrion, and eventually Joffrey's death by having Dontos and Olenna Tyrell carry out the plan to kill Joffrey and letting Tyrion take the fall; but no one in the story knows this, not even Varys. People think he can pull gold out of thin air, but he's really been buying debt while letting Robert Baratheon's extravagances and Cersei's dipshittery pull the country into a serious debt of its own. So he's pledged himself to [[Chaos]] and destroying Westeros all because he couldn't have Catelyn as his girlfriend, though he changed his focus to her daughter Sansa now, making him a paedophile. Hasn't yet got his comeuppance in the books, but is curently dead in the show after he was outgambitted by Sansa and killed by Arya. According to GRRM he's based on the title character from the Great Gatsby.
*Gregor Clegane, ''The Mountain'': A 7' 8" 400 pound mass of [[Khorne|testosterone, muscles, steroid overdose and murderous RAGE]], Gregor is Tywin Lannister's top muscle. Killed his own father and sister and permanently scarred his brother. Hobbies include rape, arson, murder, and random torture; he's also been married a few times but not now with the implication he kept killing his wives. He played an important part in destroying the Targaryens by killing a couple of Aerys's kids in rather brutal fashion, then raping and murdering his wife. Spends a few novels doing Tywin's dirty work before a Trial by Champion leads to him dying after being poisoned by Oberyn Martell. Qyburn later resurrected him as... something... called "Ser Robert Strong", and is now even stronger, less prone to psychotic rages, and is completely obedient. He's based on accounts of French knight Gilles de Rais and maybe also the scriptural giant Goliath. Kills Qyburn during the Siege of King's Landing and then nearly kills his little brother, only for Sandor to tackle him through a collapsing wall and into a gigantic inferno.
* Sandor Clegane, ''The Hound'': Younger brother to Gregor Clegane, called the Hound because of his hound-face helm, his family's heraldry, and being the king's hired muscle without being a knight. He hates knights due to the hypocrisy of being a professional "noble warrior" but mostly since his monstrous brother is a knight, showing it's not so much of a noble promotion. Terrified of fire after Gregor put his head against a brazier for playing with one of Gregor's old toys when they were children, burning half his face, but he's still the second-strongest person in Westeros. A brutal anti-hero with a soft spot for Sansa, but a better person than his brother. After falling sick from Biter's nasty teeth, he ends up being a silent monk burying people in the Silent Isles. In the show he joins the Brotherhood without Banners and goes north to help fuck up the White Walkers. As of Season 8 he's survived the Battle of Winterfell and is riding south with Arya to put the boots to Gregor. Dies killing his brother in a pretty epic fight amidst the crumbling ruins of the Red Keep.
*Grand Maester Pycelle: A shrewd, dangerous man putting on a "harmless old man act" and a high ranking scholar from the science/medical guild the Maesters. The longest serving member of the King's advisory staff, and is actually Tywin Lannister's biggest lackey. He convinced the Mad King to let Tywin in as Baratheon's armies were marching on the capital, where Tywin proceeded to sack the city and claim it for Robert. Gets his head bashed in by Varys in the books and murdered by Qyburn in the show.
* Qyburn: Formerly a maester, who was kicked out of the order for unethical experiments on the living. Introduced as a part of a mercenary company serving Roose Bolton, which should be a red flag. He moves up in the world when he's sent to escort Brienne and Jaime back to King's Landing, and ends with Cersei employing him to replace Pycelle as "science advisor" and eventually Varys's Spymaster. Serves Cersei loyally as long as she lets him indulge his sick experiments, serving as a black magic variety of the court mage. He has resurrected Gregor Clegane as... something. [[Fabius Bile]] if he traded his robot limbs, eugenics and power armor for necromancy. He overestimated his hold on Gregor and got his head caved in for it as of the second-to-last episode of the show.
*Barristan Selmy, ''The Bold'': Knight of the Kingsguard. Which Kingsguard? Take your pick. He's served pretty much every king since Aerys and understandably feels pretty bad about it. Another sad old man who pretty much just wants to die until he decides to go pledge his services to Daenerys. Even in his old age he is considered one of the most dangerous men in Westeros. [[Fail|Dead in the show]] (to be fair they gave him a huge last stand), but [[Awesome|alive and appointed himself Daenerys' steward in her absence to try and fix Meereen's situation in the books]].
*Melisandre, ''The Red Witch'': A priestess of R'hllor, the god of fire. Proclaimed Stannis to be the messiah-king and is doing everything in her power to make sure he wins (considerable given that she can scry, make shadow baby assassins and set things on fire with her mind). She'd be pretty bro-tier if her god wasn't so vicious. As it stands she's kind of in the gray (in the books, the show seems to zig-zag on her being evil 'cos the showrunners seem to hate religion). Most of the people she set on fire deserved it, and she hasn't ''succeeded'' in killing any babies yet. Show version now dead from suicide via rapid aging after ensuring the Living defeat the Dead.
*Jorah Mormont: A knight and son of Jeor Mormont, exiled for trying to sell poachers into slavery and eventually joining the exiles of House Targaryen. He is offered a pardon in exchange for spying on the Targaryens, but ultimately decides to stay with them after falling in love with Daenerys. Unfortunately, he gets friend-zoned hard. Despite saving her life from an assassin while she was pregnant, she still votes him off the Khalassar after learning he was a spy. He still loves her and follows her in secret, though. In the show he goes on a quest to prove himself to her and contracts the dangerous disease Greyscale (it's like the unholy lovechild of smallpox and leprosy), but he gets cured and is now back at her side. He dies protecting her at the Battle of Winterfell.
*Davos Seaworth, ''The Onion Knight'': A former smuggler and bannerman to House Baratheon. During Roberts Rebellion he ran a blockade with a cargo of contraband onions to a castle Stannis Baratheon was besieged in. In exchange for for the food he had, Stannis knighted Davos, but Stannis's law-worshiping mindset compelled him to remove four digits from his left hand. Despite this, Davos has served Stannis with unquestioning loyalty, because Stannis knighting him gave his children a future. The fact that Stannis's war for the throne has ended up killing several of his sons hasn't dented his loyalty at all. Doesn't like Melisandre because he sees her as a user and her beliefs as brutal. He's a devout follower of the Faith of the Seven in the books and the first season of the show [[C.S Goto|but is clumsily retconned into an anti-religious atheist in later show seasons]]. In the show, he's now pledged to DA NORF and is basically Jon's Hand of the King, except he doesn't get a fancy pin. He survives the Battle of Winterfell and the Second Sack of King's Landing, and becomes Master of Ships in the final episode of the show.
*Shae: A former camp follower and Tyrion Lannister's squeeze for most of the story. Fled from an abusive family and became a camp follower to earn a living. Seems to fall in love with Tyrion, but it turns out she's a gold-digging bitch. When Tyrion doesn't marry Shae she sells him out to Cersei for a better offer, then fucks Tywin when she realizes Cersei won't keep her promise. Tyrion found her in his father's bed and strangled her to death with a necklace for betraying him. The discovery of Shae's corpse in Tywin's bed - posthumously outing him as a whoremonger - upsets Cersei to the point she unpersons Shae.
*Bronn: A mercenary who acts as Tyrion's enforcer and personal killer until Cersei outbids him and he he settles down with a little wife and title. Routinely kills knights by exploiting how arrogant and stupid they are even after becoming one himself. Only in it for the money, which he'll happily tell you himself. The only character other than Littlefinger to end every book in a better position than he started it. In the show, he makes the very sensible decision to sit out the fighting and wait for his promised castle (Riverrun if Cersei wins, Highgarden if Daenerys wins). He gets Highgarden and is named Lord Paramount of the Reach and Master of Coin in the final episode.
* Brienne of Tarth, ''The Beauty'': Surprisingly badass lady knight wannabe (since no women can be knighted), legendarily unattractive but still pretty idealistic despite the shit she gets for her looks. Fate frequently gives her the shit end of the stick, because no matter how hard she tries to finish her quests, she ends up failing or stuff happens that makes it impossible. Secretly crushes on Renly and unaware he's gay. After he dies, Brienne switches her loyalty to Catelyn and helps her bring Jaime to King's Landing as Tyrion promised Sansa's return in exchange for Jaime. She later developed a crush on Jaime. Things don't go well because Jaime lost his hand and the Red Wedding happened. Next, Jaime sends her out to find and keep Sansa safe to make good on Tyrion's promise, since he isn't the complete dick everyone thinks he is. Brienne ends up getting captured by Cat, now known as Lady Stoneheart and an insane undead, who was going to hang Brienne for working with Jaime. Brienne was spared at the last moment to capture/manipulate Jaime. In the show she's now sworn to House Stark and gets knighted by Jaime just before the Battle of Winterfell and then she and Jaime hook up afterward, only for him to take off and break her heart. She is now Lady Commander of the Kingsguard as of the final episode.
* Lyanna Mormont: A badass ten year old girl who inherits Bear Island after her mother and older sister die horribly in the Riverlands - at least if we are going by the show; in the book, her mother is still alive somewhere in the Neck and her older sister Alysanne is de-facto head of House Mormont. Her activities include pimp-slapping bitches, leading men twice as old as her, and being completely loyal to the Starks despite all their misfortunes. [[Awesome|"Bear Island knows no king but the King in the North, whose name is STARK."]] She dies killing an undead giant at the Battle of Winterfell, which is pretty badass.
* Wyman Manderly, ''Lord Too-Fat-To-Sit-A-Horse'': The Lord of White Harbour and one of the few Northerners who worship the Seven. Fervently loyal to House Stark, he pays lip-service to the Iron Throne long enough for his eldest son to return home, all to mask a plan to restore the Starks to power, mostly by destabilising the Frey-Bolton alliance, building a navy, marshalling the forces of the lands east of the White Knife river, "losing" Freys in the wilderness and sending Lord Davos Seaworth to rescue Rickon Stark from Skagos. His favourite food is lamprey, although he has also developed a taste for Frey Pie. Also a remarkably graceful dancer, and can survive taking a knife to the throat.
** Wylla Manderly: Granddaughter to the above. Another badass little girl, her activities include openly declaring undying loyalty to House Stark and dying her hair green. She and Lyanna Mormont would probably be best friends if they met. [[Awesome|"The city is built upon the land [the Starks] gave us. In return, we swore that we should always be their men. Stark men!"]]
* Jon Umber, ''The Greatjon'': At first he seems to be your stereotypical, boisterous Northern Lord. However, he becomes one of Robb's most loyal supporters, being first to declare him as 'King in the North' after Ned's execution. Had his moment of awesome [[Awesome|when he killed and wounded four Freys at the Red Wedding, all the while being drunk and needing eight additional men to take him down.]]
* Beric Dondarrion, ''The Lightning Lord'': Minor lord who agreed to head an expedition to take out Gregor Clegane. This being Game of Thrones, however, his party is ambushed by the Mountain and is beaten rather badly, and he loses his life in the process. Thanks to his drunken Red Priest friend, however, he manages to come back not once, but eight times, and each time he comes back, he becomes more powerful, though at the cost of his memory. He now heads an outlaw faction of grimdark Robin Hood types called "The Brotherhood Without Banners", who are dedicated to punishing those who abuse and mistreat the smallfolk. Ironically, he's one of the few book characters to have died (permanently) in the books but remain alive in the show, except now he's dead for real as of the Battle of Winterfell.
* Thoros of Myr: Aforementioned drunken priest who is dedicated to R'hllor, though at first he doesn't really give a rat's ass about the Red God, as he prefers to party it up with wine and women, but after he 'accidentally' resurrects Beric, he becomes quite serious about his religion and vows to curb his excesses in drinking. Dies on a mission beyond the Wall to capture a wight (show-version).
</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''The Free Cities'''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Nine city states to the West of Westeros, for the most part the old colonies of the Valaryian Freehold. Mostly they are ruled by Merchant Princes. They look down on the Westerosi for being a bunch of up jumped backwards war-mongering morons who are only a few silverware sets and maesters away from absolute barbarism. In turn the Westerosi look down on the Free Cities as being money-grubbing effete cowards ruled by cheesemongers who use bribery, tall walls and dirty tricks to get ahead in the world.

* Illyrio Mopatis: A rich fat bastard and a Magister of Pentos. Old buddies with Varys and a bigtime schemer.
* [[Officio Assassinorum|The Faceless Men]]: A cult of shape-shifting assassins who worship The Many Faced God of death based in the free city of Braavos that give up personal identity. They claim descent from escaped Valyrian slaves whom considered death to be a better fate than perpetual slavery. Their mission hence became being servants of the Many Faced God of Death. You can hire them to off your rivals, but they request a steep and equivalent price. Their motto is "Valar Morghulis": All Men Must Die.
* Xaro Xhoan Daxos: One of the thirteen leaders of the city of Qarth. A flamboyant, languid, bald rich man who looks after Daenerys while she stays in Qarth and gives her many gifts. He wants her dragons as much as anyone else and even tries to marry her despite his homosexual tendencies. He stops wanting the dragons later in the book series after seeing [[RIP AND TEAR|their work in Astapor]], and no longer wants her around as her anti-slavery stance is hampering his wealth, so he offers Daenerys ships to leave the area and declares war on her when she refuses. In the show he's heterosexual, helps steal her dragons, fucks one of her handmaidens and gets locked in a vault for conspiring to have her killed. He's also black and fat in the show when he's white and lanky in the books, being Qartheen and all.
* Syrio Forel: The former First Sword of Braavos (aka the ruler's personal bodyguard) and later Arya's mentor in King's Landing. He teaches her the way of Braavosi fencing, called "Water Dancing", and sacrifices himself to save her from Lannister thugs, taking down at least six of them with a wooden sword. May have inadvertently set her on the path of becoming a badass assassin by telling her of his belief in the God of Death.

</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''The Dothraki'''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Horse people who live in a country of endless grass plains referred to by others as the Dothraki sea. They only have one city, called Vaes Dothrak, which is less of a city and more of a place they all meet when important things have to be discussed. Have traits borrowed from several cultures, including Mongols and Native Americans, all filtered through European misconceptions of those cultures of course, such as the Dothraki's antipathy for heavy armor, despite the fact that the Mongols were very heavily armored and also excelled as infantry, see the Battle of Leignitz. They fear the ocean because of its size and the fact that horses won't drink from it, calling it the "poison water".

* Khal Drogo: An expy of <s>Genghis Khan</s> Yesukhei Baatyr (his son would have been the equivalent to Chinggis Khaan). Leads the largest Khalassar among the Dothraki. Despite being a barbarian warlord, Drogo is surprisingly intelligent and treats Daenerys well. After an assassin tries to kill her he promises to conquer Westeros for her and their unborn son, and immediately starts raiding towns for slaves and ships. At one town he gets cut in a leadership challenge and Daenerys gets a captive wise woman to heal him. However, the woman hates him because his tribe destroyed her hometown, raped/slaughtered or enslaved her friends and raped her three times so she curses him to become catatonic (along with killing his unborn son), leading a devastated Daenerys to perform an arguable mercy kill by smothering him with a pillow. After, she burns herself, her stillborn child and the wise woman on his funeral pyre, Daenerys survives and it brings her dragons to life. GRRM named Drogo after [[The Lord of the Rings|Frodo's father]].
* Daenerys' handmaidens.
** Doreah: Daenerys' handmaiden and a wedding gift from Illyrio. A woman from Lysene brought by her brother to teach her how to pleasure a man. In the book she dies of fever and starvation crossing a desert, in the TV show she betrays Daenerys for [[Salamanders|Xaro's BBC]] and gets locked in a vault to starve to death.
** Irri: Daenerys' handmaiden who teaches Daenerys how to ride a horse. [[PROMOTIONS|Also pleasures Daenerys twice after catching her masturbating once]], yet this canonical girl-on-girl action was left out of the show. The character was even killed off there when she survived in the books, but in this case, it was because her actress' visa had expired rather than [[C.S. Goto|author railroading]].
** Jhiqui: Daenerys' handmaiden who teaches her the Dothraki language and squabbles with Irri over wanting one of Daenerys' bodyguards when he becomes a badass. Also dies in the TV show while staying alive so far in the books.

</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''Slavers Bay'''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">A civilization of [[Stupid Evil]] slavers. The remains of a previous civilization that was once the big powerful empire thanks to having phalanxes of obedient, pain-resistant soldiers which Valyria conquered a long while ago because phalanxes don't do too well against motherfucking dragons. They are ruled by wealthy slavemongers who buy slaves, train them up to do specific things and generally are a bunch of stuck up, decadent, puppy-eating (literally) assholes. Basically a civilization so repugnant even most hippies will be cheering when Dany decides to conquer them.

* The Unsullied: Eunuch phalanx fighting slave soldiers trained the Spartan way to produce totally obedient infantry that never break ranks. They also don't feel pain due to drinking a special drink daily, and each one has to take a new name from the name box each day so they can't develop a sense of identity. At least until Dany "bought" the lot of them, had them sack the city which trained them and freed them.
* Grey Worm: The Unsullied Commander and a no-nonsense badass. When given a chance to take a new name he keeps his slave name because it's the name he had when freed so he considers it lucky. He is completely loyal to Daenerys, considering her his savior, and in the show he falls in love with fellow freed-woman, Missandei. This being ASOIAF, however, he can only watch helplessly as his lover is beheaded in front of him by the Mountain. This drives him into a rage, and he eagerly takes part in the sacking of King's Landing in revenge for her death. After the war is over and both Daenerys and Cersei are dead, he takes the Unsullied forces to Naath, in order to fulfill his promise to Missandei that he'd protect her homeland.
* Strong Belwas: A fat but skilled eunuch gladiator. Loves liver and onions and referring to himself in the third person. Traveling companion/guide of Ser Barristan. Has an awesome scene where he beats the champion of Meereen then mocks the Meereenese by taking a shit in their direction and wiping his ass on their dead champion's cloak. Also saves Daenerys from eating poisoned sweets. [[FAIL|Left out of the show]].
* Daario Naharis: A Tyroshi mercenary captain who dyes his hair blue. Betrays his fellow commanders for Daenerys because he loves her as a queen. Fortunately for him, Daenerys loves him back and they pursue a romance for a time, though she doesn't marry him as she's still otherwise smart enough to know she has to save herself for a political marriage. Goes to Yunkai as a hostage in the war on Meereen. Also potentially a shapeshifter, if the show is to be believed.
*Missandei: A young slave woman with a remarkable talent for linguistics and one of the more empathetic people in this dark world, Missandei is freed by Daenerys during her campaign to liberate Slaver's Bay, eventually becoming one of her closest confidants and advisers. She falls in love with the Unsullied eunuch Grey Worm, but later is captured by Cersei and beheaded by the Mountain in front of all her friends, but not before telling her friends to burn the Lannisters to ashes.

</div></div>
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''The Others'''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">A mysterious race from beyond the Wall, known to [[newfag|HBO fans]] as "the White Walkers". Can be described as ice demons/snow elves with necromancy. Eight thousand years ago, they invaded Westeros during a decades-long winter known as "the Long Night". With an army of undead warriors, they proceeded to fuck Westeros up every which way to [[Sunday]] before the locals finally drove them out, established the Night's Watch, and built the Wall to keep them out. Like all fantasy aspects of ASOIAF, they are very cliched. In the TV series, it's revealed that they were created from human captives by "The Children", the pseudo-[[Elf]] fair folk race that lived in Westeros before humanity arrived, as an attempt to create a super-weapon. The idea was, since humanity bred faster than the Children could keep up with, they would create icy [[lich]]-creatures that could create [[undead]] soldiers, and these would then wipe out all human life. Instead, it went disastrously wrong because it turned out that the Children actually couldn't control what they'd created, so the Others [[Ork|just want to exterminate '''all''' life.]]
* Night's King: A long time ago, when the Night's Watch was just barely getting set up, its Lord Commander, the thirteenth in line, decided to climb over the Wall and explore some. While in the woods to the north of the Wall, he found a beautiful [[Monstergirls|Other female]]. He fell in love with her, had [[/d/|sex with her on top of the Wall]], which somehow changed him into an albino version of [[Star Wars|Darth Maul]], and set himself up as King of the Wall, making everyone in the Watch his slaves and sacrificial fodder. Naturally, this didn't sit too well with the Starks and the Wildlings, and so they banded together to free the Watch and kick his ass, which they managed to do successfully. Now everyone thinks him as dead or a myth. In the HBO version of the story, this whole backstory is basically dropped; he was the very first White Walker ever created by the Children, and he decided to get back at them by wiping out all life. Also, whilst he was apparently beaten in the ancient past and sealed away behind the Wall, he's still "alive" and well, [[Daemonculaba|turning infant human boys into new White Walkers]]. Also, he can apparently raise up entire legions of undead, just by raising his arms and looking completely smug about it; unlike regular Others, who can just raise up maybe a village at most. Given that he's the resident [[BBEG|Dark Lord]] of the series, it makes sense that he can take down a dragon with seemingly little effort (a simple throw of his spear), and resurrect it to be his personal steed a la Arthas. Used it to blow a hole in the Wall and begin [[The End Times]] for Westeros. Now dead thanks to Arya's magic ninja haxx letting her kill the BBEG and his entire race and army of zombies in one blow.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''Gods and their followers'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content"> The world of ASOIAF has various religions and faiths abound, just like in real life. Similarly, they range between fucking awesome to utterly useless.

*[[Ecclesiarchy|The Faith of the Seven]]: The Catholic Church stand-in, which gets both sympathetic (books only) and unsympathetic (books and show) characters associated with it. Holds an anti-slavery stance. The god/s are considered seven aspects of one deity with three male aspects (The Smith, the Father, the Warrior), three female aspects (The Maiden, the Mother, the Crone) and an asexual one representing Death. The places of worship are called Septs, and their system includes Septons, nun-equivalents called Septas and a Pope equivalent called a High Septon. The High Septons all give up their names when they become one to confuse future historians.
** High Septon 1: A fat, greedy man who used the position for personal gain. He ended up being [[Grimdark|torn apart in a riot]], because the people resented that he had enough food to stay fat while they were starving.
** High Septon 2: Successor of High Septon 1. Chosen by Tyrion so the Faith would be loyal to the Lannisters. Only ''slightly'' corrupt, being a pro-Lannister yes-man. Murdered on Cersei's order in the book, while in the show he's retconned into a whoremonger who gets deposed by the Sparrows (see below).
** High Septon 3/The High Sparrow: Successor of High Septon 2. After the second High Septon died, the smallfolk burst into the meeting to pick a successor and ordered their chosen candidate to be put in charge when his original successor was caught whoremongering. He'd been a wandering preacher beforehand, and his feet were dark and gnarled from lots of walking. When he reaches the position he starts [[gets shit done|getting things done]]. Since he was appointed by a smallfolk religious movement called Sparrows, he's given the moniker "The High Sparrow". The nobility underestimate him, either due to having other matters or disregard for religious people, but he turns out to be smart, well-meaning and somewhat ruthless. Under the High Sparrow, he and the other clergymen sell their fancy clothes and decorations [[Noblebright|replacing them with simple wool tunics, using the money to buy food and clothes for the poor in King's Landing]]. He also has their Knights-Templar-equivalent reformed to [[Inquisition|protect the faithful and help them root out]] [[heresy]] and sin. He also outwits Cersei and has her arrested and tried for all her evil deeds. While Cersei's scheming does lead to Margaery's arrest, Cersei confesses to some crimes while concealing others, leading to Cersei taking a nude walk of penance in front of the entire city. After this he somewhat reined in the nobles' politicking to actually look after the commoners and the Faith, though this does make some enemies. In the show he and the Sparrows are [[C.S Goto|retconned]] from assorted smallfolk and clergymen tired of the nobles' lawlessness and power plays into one-dimensional stereotypes and thinly-veiled jabs at the Catholic Church [[Imperial Truth|in a shoe-horned anti-religion message]]. While they do arrest Cersei and Margaery like in the books, during the trial most of the Faith, including the High Sparrow himself, get blown to kingdom come when Cersei has her agents ignite a massive amount of magical napalm underneath the Great Sept.
* [[Old Ones|Old Gods]]: Native American/Japanese Kame/Druid/nature spirits that reside in places called Godswoods. Their powers are limited to the North, where the last remaining Godswoods remain, but they can grant gifted individuals awesome psychic powers like Warging (mind-controlling animals) and Greensight (Time Travel). For some reason, Martin claims they're based off the Norse Gods. Probably has to do with the way the Vikings made sacrifices to their gods, by hanging them in Ash trees, a symbol for the World Tree Yggdrasil. The Weirwood trees are sacred to the followers of the Old Gods in a similar way. Mostly worship of them is quiet and informal.
* R'hllor: The God of Fire and Light, and like the Old Gods, actually shows evidence for existing. [[/tg/ gets shit done|He gets shit done]] such as fire magic and Resurrection. Has a nasty habit for burning heretics, though. GRRM said this faith is roughly based (read: poorly modeled after) upon Zoroastrianism and Gnosticism. His nemesis is The Great Other: the god of cold and darkness, the leader of the Others, and prophesied to be defeated by the chosen one, or messianic figure: [[Star Child|Azor Ahai/The Prince That Was Promised]], a figure who is the prophesied warrior that will fight with the Great Other/Night's King during the Apocalypse. Interestingly enough, the prophecy may not refer to a single person, but three (Jon, Tyrion/Bran, and Daenerys). Supposedly, one of these three will also receive an [[Emperor's Sword|awesome flaming sword called "Lightbringer"]].
* Him of Many Faces: The god of the Dead of the religion whose followers are the [[Officio Assassinorum|Faceless Men]]. According to his cult of assassins, whom Arya joins, every other god is him in a different form and he requires his assassins to utterly forget their past identities in service to him. Has a heyday during the Battle of King's Landing and the Red Wedding. His followers are granted shapeshifting abilities and powers to be the ultimate assassins.
* Drowned God: Cthulhu combined with Odin. Runs an underwater Valhalla were all Ironborn go whey they either if they drowned at sea, the men die a manly death or the women die in childbirth.

</div></div>

==The appeal of A Song of Ice And Fire==
Exactly what catches the eyes of [[Skub|a given fan/critic/lout who complains about how bad it is anytime the show is mentioned within earshot]] to ASOIAF and its TV adaptation varies from individual to individual. Still, there's a couple of major draws.

'''The Worldbuilding:''' The main reason why this series gets compared to [[The Lord of the Rings]], ASOIAF is literally ''drowning'' under the weight of its worldbuilding, being crammed as full of facts about fictitious regions, histories, cultures, dynasties and races as GRRM can fit it. Your mileage will vary on how ''good'' that info is, but there's plenty of info in it.

'''Mainstream [[Dark Fantasy]]:''' Dark Fantasy is not exactly a mainstream niche. ASOIAF stands out by deliberately trying to market itself to the mainstream, despite embracing an abundance of dark fantasy tropes; gratuitous violence, sexuality and sexual violence, moral ambiguity, political intrigue, and a willingness to suddenly kill off any character, even the most likable or heroic of them.

'''[[Low Fantasy]]:''' On the surface, ASOIAF is an old-school Low Fantasy setting, being a medieval-tech world with the story openly focused on the mundane lives of people struggling for political power.

'''[[High Fantasy]]:''' But if you scratch the surface, ASOIAF is also a High Fantasy setting, which is always the more marketable of the two, with the big backstory about how the world is facing impending doom from an army of wintery [[fey]] and their [[undead]] minions. There are also non-evil higher powers working against them, but they get swept under the rug in the show. Also, [[dragon]]s. As the more marketable genre, it's also inevitably the more skubby one, for whatever that's worth.

'''Gratuitous Sexuality:''' More a thing for the TV show than the book; the frequent scenes of nudity and sex in the early seasons were a ''big'' selling point for many people.

==Oh Yeah, About The TV Show==
[[image:KnightsWhoSayFuck.jpg|150px|thumb|left|Yeah, pretty much.]]
After the first three books became hits, many Hollywood producers and directors had came to the sadistic neckbeard, asking him about making a movie adaptation. At first, he was reluctant, at best, due to the fact that a whole lot of his content would've been cut out to be fit into a movie trilogy (see the Lord of the Rings live action films). Then, a couple of dudes, David Benioff and D.B/Daniel Brett Weiss (AKA D&D, or more accurately as of the final season, Dumb & Dumber), decided to contact him, and asked him at a local restaurant about turning ASOIAF into a Television show produced by HBO, the top-rated soft-core porno channel. The story goes that George, before giving them his consent, ask them a very specific question (Who is Jon Snow's mother?). Satisfied with the response they gave, he gave them permission to start work on the show, which would be titled after the first book, ''Game of Thrones''.

The television show casts several well known performers, such as Sean Bean as Eddard, Peter Dinklage as Tyrion, Lena Headey as Cersei, and Charles Dance as Tywin. They have also cast some comparatively less well-known actors and even ones new to cinema, such as Sophie Turner (Sansa), Maisie Williams (Arya), Kit Harington (Jon), Iwan Rheon (Ramsay), Alfie Allen (Theon), and Richard Madden (Robb).

'''TL;DR'''

Producers Dumb&Dumber-style change characters and railroad the plot at a whim, the tits and ultraviolence spigot is opened even wider than the books, and most scenes are made for the actors to show off their skills at making their signature angry/murder/brooding/etc. faces.

Thus, book snobs seem to think that every episode post-season 3 is nothing more than Emmy-bait. Regardless of the fact Kit Harington still [[Fail|doesn't have an Emmy]], there's a valid contention in that regard, with the amount of liberties taken overshadowing the initial appeal.

The final season was eventually revealed to be such a train wreck because Dumb & Dumber did not want to work on the series anymore and had let the success with the earlier seasons go to their heads so they shut out any dissenting voices (including even George's eventually). In their arrogance, instead of handing the reins to someone else, they decided to plan out their own ending and use it as an audition to Disney so they could write for Star Wars. By then, they'd run out of books to adapt, there was no superior writing for them to leech off of and there was no one to gainsay them in their echo chamber/writer's room. The result was absolutely shit writing that caused a glorious breakage in the [[skub]] dam that left [[Butthurt|many a fan's anus weeping]] (provided they weren't early seasons fans, book series fans, or any of the other assorted onlookers [[Lulz|taking part in the mightiest of keks]]) and, if anything, proved <s>George's </s> Ramsay's quote at the beginning of the article true. Goddamn Dumb & Dumber, could you talentless faggots do any worse if you tried?

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''What about the final season?'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
Long story short, the Army of the Dead is destroyed in an epic battle, where the ancient and super-powerful BBEG gets killed by some slight-of-hand. Meanwhile Daenerys has spent the last two seasons being stripped of her plot armor; she's lost most of her supporters - including one of her dragons - and has been forced to confront the fact that nobody in Westeros wants her around. Especially not the Northerners, where Sansa is basically playing the "Northern Independence Now!" movement to try and get her own bum in a throne after seven seasons of being a plaything for people with actual power. The kicker is she's fallen in love with Jon Snow, but he learns he's actually her nephew - and the fruit of a legitimate marriage between her elder brother Rhaegar Targaryean and Lyanna Stark that was handled in secret. This discovery not only caused him to back away from her (because he's got Northerner values, so fucking his aunt squicks him out... not that it stopped him from doing it at least once), but also makes him a threat to her political standing, which is something Varys makes plans to exploit. When Tyrion found out Jon wouldn't back down, he told Danerys about it, for which she had Drogon burn Varys to ash. When she forces the survivors of the final battle to march on King's Landing, another of her dragons ends up dead and her only remaining friend captured and executed by Cersei. So she attacks King's Landing... and then, when her followers maneuver around her to get the city to surrender rather than die to the last, she snaps and burns most of the city to ashes. She then decides to continue ramming her head against the proverbial wall and embraces her personal narrative of herself as a divinely chosen hero-queen meant to "free" the world by conquering everybody, having lost interesting in just ruling Westeros around the same time she lost her fucking mind. Such is her insanity that Jon Snow ends up sticking a dagger in her heart rather than let her kill Sansa and Arya, who he knows will resist her.

Jon proceeds to somehow not get killed by her last surviving dragon who pretty much knows Jon killed his momma because plot reasons, and it destroys the Iron Throne ([[What|by accident, according to the showrunners]]) while chucking a tantrum over Dany's death before grabbing her body and flying off to parts unknown. This leaves everybody stuck trying to figure out what to do, [[The Empire (Warhammer Fantasy)|but ultimately they decide to replace a dynastic monarchy with an elective one]], and make Bran the new king because, hey, he's the 3-Eyed Raven and has the seer powers to see all of space and time, so he's the least worst option they have (he's also trying to find and take control of the aforementioned dragon). The North secedes from the Seven Kingdoms, but nobody gives a damn, and Jon Snow is formally banished to the Wall - where instead he wanders off into the wilderness with the surviving Wildlings, with the land showing signs of exiting its endless winter. [[The Lord of the Rings|Arya runs off to sail to the West,]] and Sansa is crowned Queen in the North.

</div></div>

==GRRM and [[Your Dudes]]==
Want to make your own ASoIF setting for a role playing game? Well, readers have enough room to fantasize about their own minor noble House (or kingdom during the Age of the Hundred Kingdoms).

A good example of what you could do is the House from the old [[/v/|"Telltale Game of Thrones"]], House Forrester. Their relationship to the canon is as follows:

House Forrester (lords of some place in the Wolfswood) '''-> is sworn to ->''' House Glover (overall lords of the entire Wolfswood) '''-> is sworn to ->''' House Stark (rulers of the North).

There's also an actual tie-in tabletop RPG now, which uses its own system and looks kind of like [[Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay]] with a heavy helping of resource-management strategy feel.
Players are assuming the role of a minor House to guide to glory, or, more accurately given the setting we're in, NOT to ruin utterly in a season or two, which would still be more than many A-list players mustered in canon. Each PC has a specific position within said House, and only the role of official Head is mandatory; the rest could be wife/children/brothers and sisters/all other kinds of siblings, bastards (with rules for obtaining the legitimate recognition), maesters, sworn/subservient knights, or most of anybody else. This naturally opens up near-infinite possibilities for families screwed up seven ways to high heavens, which would make Lannister's brand of infighting-slash-inbreeding look as sane as the High Septon.

The setting is also ill-suited for "adventures in Westeros" style of gaming for two reasons:
#In the grim darkness of low fantasy, a roaming nobody with no banner to talk about, no House allegiance, no nothing isn't generally treated to a Tavern With Quest Givers, but rather more to a Tavern Where You Are Shanked For Your Sword And Boots And Dumped At The Nearest Forest. Heck, even the big wheelers and dealers are routinely seen invited to the latter when they are slow to properly introduce themselves.
#Working on your initially-puny House will quite realistically involve thy neighbors first and foremost, then liege lords from the higher House yours is sworn to, and on occasion shopping around for an advantageous marriage - there simply ain't gonna be that much spare time to "travel to see places". Both of these are also why tourism wasn't a very popular pastime in medieval Europe and why those who were "living on the road" usually enjoyed the lowest social standing.

A note to aspiring Lords: do NOT, under any circumstances, allow your "combat-optimized" siblings an unsupervised minute in a social setting. Game's "social combat" system is a thing more brutal than the physical one, and it takes a socially-optimized character all of a few minutes to mindfuck one who is not (read: everyone but dedicated diplomats and Heads of the Houses, and not every one of the latter, to boot, as illustrated by several amazing boneheads in canon) into believing pretty much anything short of Grumpkins and Snarks. Stupid NPCs or a stupid GM will make said mindfuck obvious, allowing you to "mindfuck 'em back" without abuse of OOC info; cunning ones will not.

On a side-note; GRRM is said to take a dim view of fanfiction, saying it kills creative ability. This is kind of a double-edged statement, since a lot of George's characters here are either rehashes of his characters from previous works, references to other fictional characters (like Littlefinger and Samwell being based on Jay Gatsby and [[The Lord of the Rings|Samwise Gamgee]]), walking tropes (such as Ned Stark and Robb Stark being the "[[TVTropes|Honor Before ]] [[Lawful Stupid|Reason]]" characters) or historical references (such House Lannister ripping off House Lancaster and House Tyrell being totally-not-House-Tudor - to the point that Margaery Tyrell is played by Natalie Dormer from "The Tudors" TV show). While this makes everything he wrote just another...fanfiction, and his disapproval hypocritical, given the "creative" output of the average neckbeard, he does have a point. Ironically, however, he sold the rights to make a TV series of the books to HBO, who then went on to make a glorified fanfic.

==Games==
[[image:AGot-2nd-ed-cardfan.png|thumb|250px]]
Like any fantasy author who finds themselves unexpectedly in the warm embrace of commercial success Martin quickly licensed the shit out of his setting, spawning everything from resin miniatures to replica great swords. While most of this is worthless junk to foist on [[Neckbeard|obsessive fanboys]] /tg/ has agreed that a few of the games are made of win. The first two are a collectable [[CCG|card game]] put out in 2002 by [[Fantasy Flight Games]] and a [[risk]]-esque board game that followed shortly after in 2003. One of [[White Wolf]]'s subsidiaries also put out a d20 RPG in 2005 but it quickly tanked because, come on, White Wolf. Martin since wrested the rights back and developed a new version with Green Ronin games.

Now lets have some serious talks about the game of thrones games, because they have become some sort of endless source of amusement and frustration for the gaming fanbase. Game of thrones is roughly speaking the second franchise with the most licensed board games, after star wars, and some of them have adquired quite a legendary status and a fanbase that goes beyond the book or series fans.

The great juggernaut for all the ASOIAF based games is Fantasy Flight Games

First and foremost we have the game of thrones board game, a game that after two editions stillranks high in the BGG top 100 board games, and has recently had an expansion. The game of thrones board game has becomesomesort of meme for the modern board gamersand it could be consider the equivalent of a more advanced risk, in which dice and blank character got replacedby a very flavourful and brutalcombat system and a lot of thematical mechanics fueling the engine. Overall this game has been associated with concepts such as, requiring maximun player count to really be entertaining, having an amazing ammount of lenght and depth and being a very faithful representation of the political feeling the series inspire. Almost any boardgamer or wargamer worth his salt has played this game and enjoyed its highs,its lows and the amazing ammount of frustrations it brings. This is probably the most well known of all the ASOIAF games and it was released way before game of thrones was a cultural phenomenom back in 2003.

Another game that bears mention, both for it's excellent mechanics and its historical significance is the game of thrones card game.It is one of the most balanced card game experiences you can get,also full of flavour and with quite a great ammount of balance and non linear thinking. Best part is, unlike other card games,the game has a "living card game" release format,in which players know exactly what each booster pack brings and can buy cards in a more responsible manner rather than playing bingo and hoping to get a rare cards. Also the sole core set already provides more replayability than some fully fledged board games.

Finally the last game to mention in the FFG venerable trilogy of games is "Battles of Westeros", arguably the most ambitious and least succesful of the three. Battles of westeros was a fully fledged wargame that used the Memoir 44/battlelore rules as a base, but then evolved into its own by introducing mechanics such as commanders, tactic cards and very creative scenario rules. Miniatures were made in 15 mm and for their time and scale they were quite detailed, some commanders are real standouts(I´m looking at you Robb Stark(with his wolf jumping at his side) and Rickard Karstark). Thanks to it's scale, the game was able to provide players with a great ammount of options and units at a fraction of the price of other boardgames. With a core set that was already stacked with units and variety and then faction specific expansions that added several more units and commanders. The game also came with scenario books that provided narrative play with quite creative rule variants, such as storming palisades, having decoys in escort missions and bombarding enemies with catapults. One scenario even tried to bring to life the battle of the blackwater(the hibrid invation of kings landing by stannis the manis). The game was incredible and quite a creative wargame,its main issue was that the setup time was just terrible. Incredibly complex and tiresome when compared to the actual gameplay time.

And then the miniature producing kickstarter juggernaut CMON decided to produce its own wargame, with AMAZING miniatures.

As this is CMON the game began with a [[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cmon/a-song-of-ice-and-fire-tabletop-miniatures-game]kickstarter], and after that the game has had at least 2 dozen more releases with 3 more factions added.

The game has some mechanics taken from rank and file games such as KOW combining them with mechanics taken out of "battles of westeros" particularly the tactics deck.

==Books==
*''A Game of Thrones''
*''A Clash of Kings''
*''A Storm of Swords'': Split into 2
*''A Feast for Crows'': half the characters, the point where the series goes down the toilet
*''A Dance with Dragons'': split into 2 the first is about the other half of the characters
*''The Winds of Winter'': Most recent rumors say George could have it ready in late 2018. But will he ''really''?
** Nope, though he has shared chapters of the book.
** Official now set to release in summer 2020, but we've all heard that before.
**It might happen by 2030 if we're really lucky
*''A Dream of Spring'' : Unreleased and unlikely to ever be.
**GRRM will most likely die before writing this
*''The Dunk and Egg Series'': A story about a landless hedge knight traveling across Westeros with a Targaryen squire, so he can teach him how not to be an asshole to peasants.

==See Also==
*[[/tg/ Song of Ice and Fire Houses]]
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U7NpSubAJQ Weiner, weiner weiner]

[[category: Literature]]

A Song of Ice and Fire

2019-12-09T08:32:18Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:290B:BAAA:92F2:A623: /* GRRM and Your Dudes */

[[image:Game_of_Thrones_Title-DVD.png|300px|thumb|WIENER PARTY! WIENER PARTY!]]

{{Spoilers}}
'''Warning: This article contains so many spoilers we're ruining books that haven't even been released yet.'''

{{Topquote|If you think this story has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention.|Ramsay Bolton, nailing the grimdark theme of this series}}

'''''A Song of Ice and Fire''''' (more better known as '''''Game of Thrones''''') is a [[Grimdark]] fantasy book series for people who hate fantasy. Its central themes include [[Tzeentch|political Machiavellian scheming]], [[Khorne|ultraviolence]], [[Slaanesh|incest/sex with exposition]], and [[Nurgle|everyone trying to survive in such a Crapsack World of perpetual suffering]]. Thus it has become one of the most popular series of our generation and its author, [[George R. R. Martin]], has been praised for his highly realized world and gritty low fantasy style. He was even called "the American [[Tolkien]]" by <s>Time magazine</s> gormless idiots who lump diametrically different writers together for no other reason than that they're both fantasy authors, which would probably explains its sudden spike in popularity following the TV show (at least [[Skub|to a point, anyway.]])

The series itself is set on the [[Original character, do not steal|totally not medieval European ripoff]] realm of Westeros as it is wracked by a massive succession war drawing its realms into conflict. A bunch of dudes declare themselves kings (book two), they're burning the continent down in their scramble for power, and somehow all the fuck-ups managed to lose anyway (book three). Just when the guys who lost the least start thinking they get to rule over the remaining chaos, more fuck ups happen and more dudes show up (book four). Sadly, winter has finally come and, unbeknownst to most people, [[Thousand Sons|evil ice wizards leading soulless undead]] [[Alpha Legion|assumed to be only myths by most people]] are about to invade the continent from the north. By the fifth book, things are going and/or will go to shit even for the bad guys.

According to a leaked fan conversation, George R. R. Martin jokingly stated the series would end with an epic cock-slap fight between Samwell Tarly and Jaime Lannister.

TL;DR: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Roses War of Roses] redux, with a side helpin' of <s>cliched fantasy</s> George's old sci-fi writing plots and [[/d/]]-lite.

===Characters===
{{cleanup}}
Since these books have some thousand named characters, you won't remember most of them without an obsessive disorder over details.
Here's a relatively short list (mostly based on the TV series rather than the books, but seems to randomly switch between the two) for the characters you'll care about.

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Stark'''

''"Winter Is Coming"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Honourable, bro-tier northerners who always [[Space Wolves|compare themselves to direwolves]]. They have a tendency towards [[Lawful Stupid]] that proves to bite them in the ass due to naivete about how [[Tzeentch|Westerosi corrupt politics actually works]]. They're also arguably the protagonists of the setting. Basically Scotland and/or the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_york House of York].
* Eddard Stark, ''The Quiet Wolf'': Patriarch, lord and POV death-puppet. Not nearly as stupid as everyone tries to pretend, but still a dead man walking.
* Robb Stark, ''The Young Wolf'': Shiny, [[Lawful Stupid]] King Arthur-like hero. After waging a successful war to avenge his murdered father, he was betrothed to a noblewoman but he ended having comfort sex with a virgin noblewoman which may have been arranged by her scheming bitch mother, while in softcore porno he got the hots for a commoner. Cacks it nastily: he got his head cut off and his pet's wolf's head stuck on his body, which was paraded around while his enemies chanted "HERE COMES THE KING IN THE NORTH!" In other words, he's a Scottish [[Roman Empire|Hannibal Barca]].
* Sansa Stark: Useless teenage girl extraordinaire at the start of the series with dreams of marrying a prince and "having lots of babies", but gets shat on hard by reality. Becomes Littlefinger's replacement goldfish when Catelyn's no longer around, her father got killed and her best friend was sold as a sex slave, and ended up in the worst relationship we can possibly imagine with King Joffrey. [[Grimdark|Even got deflowered via rape by Ramsey Bolton]] and married to him before managing to escape with the help of others. Currently acting as a co-ruler to her brother/cousin Jon Snow, and has learned much from her suffering, allowing her to kick Littlefinger out of the Great Game via throat slitting. While in the book Littlefinger is/was setting her up at House Arryn to claim the Vale and the North, the show version becomes QUEEN IN DA NORF in the final episode.
* Arya Stark: Little tomboy assassin. Has a kill list, but doesn't get to use it so long as she is an amnesiac apprentice of [[Officio Assassinorum|the Friendly Neighborhood Assassins Guild]]. After breaking away (in the TV series) from the Faceless Men she heads back to Westeros to get revenge on a LOT of people, giving her one of the highest kill counts in the series. Is currently back with her sister Sansa, acting as a general "troubleshooter". Kills the Night King like a fucking champion [[Skub|(or, alternatively, in a nonsensical plot twist)]] in Season 8, and is now riding south to add Cersei to her killcount. Instead, the Hound talks her out of it and she decides to sail into the unknown west.
* Catelyn Stark (nee Tully): A woman who trusts the wrong people at the worst time, causing a lot of misery. Gets killed along with Robb, then comes back (books only) as an undead witch bent on killing all the Boltons, Freys, Greyjoys, Lannisters... pretty much everyone she thinks was tangentially involved in betraying her and her family, or somebody who just pissed her off.
* Bran Stark: Intelligent little boy, named after the founder of House Stark, Brandon the Builder (basically Tony Stark combined with [[Leman Russ]]). He was crippled in the first sign of major [[GrimDark]]. Has prophetic dreams and becomes a [[druid]]. In the TV series, fucks things up by alerting the Others to where he's hiding, which gets all of the Children, his loyal wolf, the Three-Eyed Crow and Hodor killed. For good measure, turns out to have accidentally ''caused'' Hodor to become, well, Hodor, as he was using his druid powers to figure out why Hodor is only able to say Hodor, resulting in Hodor's gruesome death-by-zombies being beamed directly into young!Hodor's brain. He's now the Three-Eyed Raven and likes going around being creepy as fuck and generally weirding people out. Becomes King of the Six Kingdoms in a hilariously nonsensical plot twist in the finale.
* Rickon Stark: Four years old at the start, turning into a real little [[Barbarian]] from not being raised properly, because everyone who would have raised him was dead or missing. In the show, he ends up hanging out at the Umbers, then is handed over to Ramsay as a prisoner when Smalljon becomes afraid of the Wildlings living north of him (who were invited by Jon Snow to fight the Zombie Apocalypse), and finally dies via arrow in a sick game of "dodge the missiles" courtesy of Ramsey.
* Jon Snow, ''The White Wolf'': A bastard living in the Stark household before leaving for the Night's Watch (basically [[The Last Chancers|Colonel Schaeffer]] with more convicted rapists under his command) and excels there because nearly every one of his fellow recruits are peasants who have never had a formal days training while Jon has had the serious training afforded to all lords. After he takes over by becoming the Watch Commander secures and alliance with the Wildlings, ancient barbarian enemies of the Night's Watch, because when the end of the world is coming you tend to think outside the box. Currently revived by R'hllor in the series after being stabbed to death by the senior members of the Watch. Isn't actually Eddard's bastard son, but rather the legitimate son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, meaning that he is in fact the rightful heir to the Iron Throne. The new KING IN DA NORF according to his supporters after he killed Ramsay Bolton and took back Winterfell, and is also currently hooking up with his own aunt. He turns on Daenerys once he realizes she's lost it and kills her in the throne room. The Unsullied want his head, but instead King Bran exiles him to the Night's Watch and he fucks off into the far north to live with the Free Folk.
* Hodor: Hodor. Hodor, Hodor, Hodor. <s>An enormous and possibly retarded stable boy, and Bran's faithful steed.</s> Hodor. Ok, in all actual seriousness, this guy is probably one of the most tragic figures in this series (and that's saying something). [[Grimdark|The guy basically received horrible visions of his own death fighting a horde of zombies, buying time for his friends to escape by literally holding the door shut as he was hacked apart]]. This causes him to suffer a psychiatric break, leading him to develop Immature Personality Disorder and his only speech is to repeat a garbled phrase of his friend's last request "hold the door" for all of his adult life; the logic here is that "hold the door" devolves into "hol' th' door" and eventually "Hodor". You now feel bad for at laughing at the guy.
* Osha: A Wildling woman who surrendered to the Starks and becomes their servant in exchange for not getting killed. Now dead in the show thanks to Ramsay's dickery.</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Targaryen'''

''"Fire and Blood"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">The former Dragon kings and rulers of Westeros, [[Eldar|fair-haired purple-eyed beautiful people]] who have descended from the [[Dark Age of Technology|ancient technologically-advanced superpower]] of [[Roman Empire|Valyria]], which collapsed because of [[Fall of the Eldar|their colossal hubris]]. After the anarchic [[Age of Strife|Century of Blood]], the Targaryen patriarch Aegon I, instead of reconquering the lost cause of Essos and of Valyria's former empire, looked towards the rather primitive continent of Westeros, and its squabbling Seven Kingdoms, [[Great Crusade|to establish his own Imperial dynasty and unify the Realm]]. Aegon I is essentially the Low Fantasy version of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_the_Conqueror William the Conqueror] and/or the [[God-Emperor of Mankind]], with a little dash of [[/d/|incest]].

[[Rules Lawyer|Thanks to a loophole]], the Targaryens were immune to the moral objections relating to incest. Common sense (and common decency) took back seat to a time-honored policy of [[/d/|catastrophic inbreeding]], which made a number of problems. Aegon I married his older and younger sisters and had several kids with each, which would be the start of another Targaryen tradition: the occasional succession crisis. The inbreeding would also lead to a line of almost alternatingly great and lunatic kings, culminating in Aerys "The Mad King" Targaryen and a palace coup. Eventually the lineage was banished to Essos after a brutal civil war, the remnants trying to gather armies to retake the Iron Throne which they see as rightfully theirs. Basically a family of inbreeding girly-men with a massive sense of superiority and as arrogant as they come, forgetting that most of what they accomplished was due to the fact that only they had dragons. Still, they occasionally did have genuinely good people like Aegon V (aka Egg), Jaeherys I the Conciliator, his wife Good Queen Alysanne and complete badasses like Brynden Bloodraven and Baelor Breakspear.
Pseudo-Romans and/or the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Normandy House of Normandy].

* Aerys II, ''The Mad King'': [[Kharn|A pretty fun guy to be around]]. Had a psychotic fascination for fire, which extended to being a psychotic fascination for burning traitors, a category of people that eventually grew to include anybody he disliked for any reason, anyone who disagreed with him, and a few people who were unlucky enough to be caught in the crossfire. [[Goge Vandire|Teamkilled by his bodyguard Jaime for planning to burn the city down with everyone inside it, and even refused to accept his death until he actually died]].
* [[Mary Sue|Daenerys Targaryen]], ''Stormborn'': She was sold by her brother to a barbarian leader [[Genghis motherfucking Khan|Khal (warlord) Drogo]] in exchange for the promise that he'd use his Khalassar (warband/tribe) to conquer Westeros. She found her self esteem as his wife, then her husband killed her idiot brother Viserys and promised to conquer the world for Daenerys, making her a full-fledged badass barbarian warqueen. Unfortunately, her husband died when [[Derp|Daenerys trusted one of the slaves whose town Drogo had pillaged and burnt to heal an infected wound of his]] and his horde fell apart (though the book is somewhat ambiguous as to whether the slave did kill Drogo). Then she hatched three dragons (completely by accident when she tried to commit suicide) bringing them back from extinction, and now everyone wants to marry her because she is now one of the most powerful people around due to said dragons and being good-looking (in the books this is by the age-of-consent in Westeros standards, where girls are women when they start getting their periods and boys are men at age 13). [[Gets shit done]] except the entire fifth book, in which she mopes around about wanting to marry an annoying, flamboyant mercenary instead of saving herself for political marriage. After banging the flamboyant mercenary, she later marries a Meereenese noble who guarantees he can get her some peace (more likely [[Just As Planned|just as he planned]]). She also does nothing while insurgents kill her men, a horde of plagued refugees spread disease to her city, and standing idly by while an enemy army besieges her walls, all for realistically political reasons because the world is a horrible place. Learns how to train her dragon. Is currently (TV series) in Westeros invading the place with an army of elite hoplites, a massive horde of Dothraki, one dragon (because the other two are dead) and fucking her nephew (Jon Snow). Has officially gone Mad Queen as of S8E5, wherein she burned most of King's Landing after the city attempted to surrender. Jon kills her in the series finale so that she won't go around burninating the rest of the world.
* The dragons: The three dragons that Daenerys hatched. They're wyverns that breathe fire, [[Awesome|have blood hot enough to melt steel]], and [[List of /tg/ Cuisine|cook their meat before eating it]]. Naturally, some of the coolest things in the story.
** Drogon; named for her late husband, Khal Drogo. Black and Red, the biggest and [[Gork|most aggressive dragon]]. Starts eating people and then escapes, leading to the other two getting imprisoned. Interrupts a gladiator tournament, killing a lot of people before being whipped by Daenerys into flying her to a Khalassar that broke off from her husband's after his death. Is now the last dragon standing after Viserion bites it at Winterfell and Rhaegal gets shot down over Dragonstone. Fucks off to who knows where after Dany is killed.
** Rhaegal; named for the first of her dead brothers, Rhaegar. Green and gold, the [[Mork|cunning one]]. Kills Quentyn Martell (see below). After breaking out of jail with Viserion they go "all your bases are belong to us" on Meereen, killing people and taking over the pyramid of a loyal family as his lair. Is now dead in the show thanks to Euron Greyjoy and some diabolus ex machina bullshit.
** Viserion; named for her other brother Viserys. White and gold, the [[Vulkan|friendliest]] (as dragons go, he still eats people) and the loudest. Dug cave for himself in his jail then moved into another pyramid after their great escape. Gets killed by the [[Vampire Counts|Night's King in the show via a magic spear, is reanimated to be his zombie dragon steed]] and blasts a hole in the famous Wall, allowing the armies of snow elves and zombies to start flooding Westeros. Now perma-dead thanks to the Night King biting it.
* Viserys Targaryen, ''The Beggar King'': Daenerys' physically abusive older brother. Best known for being a bully with incestuous lust for her, and an arrogant and incompetent fuck with a massive sense of entitlement. He eventually got himself killed for being an all-around jerk and whiny idiot, which culminated in him threatening his sister and unborn nephew with a sword while drunk in a sacred Dothraki place where weapons and bloodshed are forbidden on pain of death (execution is done by bloodless death - having a scarf wrapped tight around the neck and being drowned in a barrel). Daenerys' husband [[awesome|poured molten gold over his head and called it his promised crown]].
* Aegon Targaryen, ''Aegon VI'': Daenerys' nephew, the son of her brother Rhaegar. Been hiding in Essos for the entire length of the series, but recently raised an army of Westerosi exiles and threw them all a massive Welcome Home party with rape and pillage. Wants to marry his aunt because she has dragons, and might not actually be a member of House Targaryen if you believe some fans. He can actually count past 6, can multiply numbers, can read different language and has a minor understanding of geometry thus cementing him as one of the most educated people in this overwrought series. Can also do his own laundry.
* Brynden Rivers ''Bloodraven'': A Targaryen bastard who came to prominence about a hundred years before the series as sort of sorcerer, he later became known as the "Three-Eyed Raven/Crow" after encountering the Children of the Forest, and uses his powers to help advert the Long Night and train Bran. He's described as having long, white hair, missing an eye, bound to a tree, knows all and sees all, associated heavily with ravens and omens... [[Vikings|yeah, he's very much Odin, come to think of it.]]</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Lannister'''

''<s>"Hear Me Roar"</s> "A Lannister Always Pays His Debts"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">[[Monopoly|The world's richest family]], proud, pompous, selfish and fabulous assholes. Not much of a martial tradition but if you cross them [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7t7cnwlOgY they will fucking cut you]. You can tell they are the bad guys because they have an army of sick fucks, including a zebra-riding mercenary band and 7' 8" Khornate Champion <s>not-Goliath</s> Gregor Clegane. House Lancaster combined with the House of Rothschild and the Mafia.
* Tywin Lannister, ''The Lion of Lannister'': The Godfather, head of the house, and obsessed with his reputation as a Magnificent Bastard extraordinaire. He was a most feared general whose greatest achievement was nuking House Reyne out of existence, which was immortalised in his own sweet-yet-creepy-as-fuck theme song (The Rains of Castamere) that became used as a warning against anyone standing against him. During his tenure as Hand of the King (i.e. Prime Minister), he was a political genius who operates as the true power behind the Iron Throne, keeping the realm stable and prosperous despite the stupidity of Aerys II and Joffrey. However, despite all of his achievements, he was an [[Emperor|absolutely terrible father]], who treats his children as nothing more than tools to further his political agenda. He is completely blind to the incestuous relationship his two oldest children had, and hated Tyrion and made his life a living hell for very poor reasons. He humiliated Tyrion whenever it wouldn't threaten the family's reputation, berated Tyrion for being a whore-monger despite secretly being one himself, [[Grimdark|tried to get him killed multiple times]], and as the capstone of awful parenting, he taught Tyrion not to marry commoners after he married one called Tysha - by forcing Tyrion to watch Tysha get gangraped, forcing him to rape her too and then annulling their marriage. The only person Tywin truly loved was his wife. He eventually gets his comeuppance when Tyrion finds out the truth about the Tysha incident, and kills him with a crossbow, all while mentioning that out of all his children, Tyrion was the most alike to Tywin himself. He's based on [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Neville,_16th_Earl_of_Warwick Warwick the Kingmaker].
* Joanna Lannister: Tywin's late wife and first cousin, meaning the next three characters are inbred as well, ironically. Dies giving birth to Tyrion, which is part of why Tywin hates him, though Cersei hates him for other reasons. Caught wind of Cersei and Jaime's incestuous tendencies, but she died before she could tell Tywin. It is implied that her ghost visits Jaime in a dream and mourns the current state of her family.
* Cersei Lannister, ''Cunt Queen'': Tywin and Joanna's first child. Twin sister to Jaime Lannister and wife to King Robert Baratheon. She fucks her brother Jaime all the time and had three of his children, whom she passed off as Robert's to grab power. She is a massive narcissist who thinks of herself as "female Tywin" and hence seeks to rule Westeros as the Queen, and will do anything to keep her power... even when [[Abbadon the Despoiler|most of her plans end up becoming utter failures]]. Crazy as all fuck and prophesied to be killed by the "little brother." This is because of a prophecy a Gypsy made when Cersei was a child that she'd be a beautiful queen, lose everything, her children would die before her, and the "Valonqar" would kill her. Though that does explains why she hates Tyrion as hard as all fuck, [[Just As Planned|the exact translation of the term]] that was used is "younger sibling", and not necessarily her sibling, which opens the door to all sorts of characters who hate the fuck out of her. Since Jaime is technically younger by a few seconds, him killing Cersei would be an interesting twist not without buildup. Possibly the Gypsy was messing with her head because of what a bitch Cersei was being to her; something Cersei never grew out of. Cersei is currently alive only because Varys wants her to be, [[Just As Planned|as she's a terrible queen who'll destabilize the realm enough for him to bring back the Targaryens]]. She was completely shaved, stripped of power in all but her royal heritage and forced to do a nude walk of penance throughout the city by the High Sparrow (ASOIAF Pope equivalent) after he uncovered her crimes. Now she's waiting for her hair to grow back and may be thinking of revenge. She gets it in the show by blowing up the Sept (ASOIAF church) with everyone she doesn't like inside it, having her cousin killed near the Wildfire then capturing the nun who was her jailer and [[Grimdark|leaving her to be tortured to death by zombie Gregor Clegane]]. She is in short Thanquol disguised as a beautiful blonde woman. Gets anticlimactically squashed by a collapsing ceiling along with Jaime during Daenerys's assault on King's Landing.
* Jaime Lannister, ''The Kingslayer'': Younger twin brother (by about three seconds) to Cersei Lannister and commander of the Kingsguard. He loves his sister in every sense of the word and had three children with her. Killed the last king despite his oath, and is widely hated for it, even though everyone agrees that dying was a massive improvement for Aerys. The reason for this betrayal was that Aerys had a huge stockpile of Acme Brand Magic Napalm stockpiled under the city, ready to be set off the moment a siege broke through the town walls, and Jaime's options were to let it happen or kill Aerys before the crazy fuck got ''everybody'' killed. His desire to openly love his sister and win the respect he feels he deserves eventually causes Cersei to reject him. Starts off as an arrogant douche [[Grimdark|and tried to murder Bran Stark, but accidentally crippled him instead]]; he becomes otherwise quite bro-tier besides the whole wants-to-fuck-his-sister thing, though he grows out of ''that'' as well when he realizes what a bitch she is and that there's plenty of women who want his jock - even the hunky Brienne isn't that bad looking. Thoroughly humbled to boot after learning a few hard lessons, losing his sword hand, and having some time to rethink his life. Also the only person in his family who treats Tyrion well, along with one of his aunts and two dead uncles. Essentially, a more incestuous and douchey Blood Angel. In the books, he is currently being lured into a trap by Lady Stoneheart. In the show, he has finally told Cersei to get fucked after realizing that she has well and truly lost it, and is riding north to help fight the White Walkers. He survives the Battle of Winterfell, hooks up with Brienne, and then rides south [[Derp|because he just can't let Cersei go.]] Winds up getting shanked by Euron Greyjoy and dies [[Fail|via collapsing ceiling]].
* Tyrion Lannister, ''Halfman'': a very intelligent dwarf who is awesome, but hated by all of the civilized characters in the books, except his brother Jaime. He seems to do much better when getting drunk with whores, rogues, bastards and barbarians. His silver tongue is one of his greatest strengths (he's witty and good at persuading people) and weaknesses (he's quick with insults and the truth in a city ruled by sociopaths and liars). Tyrion is also one of the only characters with an actual sense of the bigger picture, and an interest toward steering the world toward an outcome that ''doesn't'' involve a [[The End Times|Warhammer End Times]] scenario. Unfortunately, the world's movers, shakers, and those who generally have the power to make a difference are increasingly either a) dead, b) scattered to the winds, or c) hate his dwarf guts. Despite the increasing difficulty and fruitlessness of his task, however, [[Awesome|Tyrion still fights]]. After being framed for killing Joffrey, he killed his own father and is currently in exile in the Free Cities, weaseling his way into leading a merc band and trying to sign them up with Daenerys' forces, recognizing her as one of the few chances Westeros has got of fixing its shit (provided she can get her own shit together, which she's having a bit of trouble with). Since characters in this series tend to either be walking tropes, rip-offs of other fantasy characters, or historical people with different names, Tyrion is probably based on the great [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_Vorkosigan Miles Vorkosigan] (who was himself based on a few people including Sir Winston Churchill) and is a nod to King Richard III (a deformed but competent king later demonized by historians of his era). Even if he is usually the smartest one in the room at any given time, though, Tyrion is still not above having some derp moments. Exhibit A, when Tyrion asked his father what happened to his first wife (right before killing him), he took an ''obvious'' "I don't know and I don't care," response ("Wherever whores go") as actual, literal directions. The show version meets Daenerys and becomes her Hand only to [[Fail|fuck up a bunch of stuff]] and lose her trust. Sells her out when he realizes that she's gone round the bend and winds up becoming Hand to King Bran.
* Kevan Lannister: Tywin's younger brother, considered "the reliable one". One of the few decent Lannisters, though saying that he is perfectly happy carrying out Tywin's bidding. Tried to talk sense into Cersei and was later called in to try and fix her mess. He did such a good job of it that Varys decided to personally thank him. With a crossbow. And a group of knife-wielding children.
* Cersei and Robert's (actually Jaime's) children:
** Joffrey Baratheon: "Heir" of the throne, and technical king of Westeros during the War of the Five Kings since he lives in King's Landing and sits on the throne. Turned out to be worse than Aerys. He died and there was much rejoicing. [[Fail|Except by his mother, who instead had sex on his corpse]]. Fourteen years old at time of death.
** Tommen Baratheon: The new king on the Iron Throne. Nine years old. Married to a teenaged shotacon wife who's (unknown to him) the granddaughter of his brother's true killer. Trying to litigate the criminalization of beets. Loves [[Cats|kittens]]. He's pretty well-rounded and non-fucked up, which is a miracle considering his parents, both putative and biological. Also seems to be trying to take kinging seriously, but his mom is trying to quash that in her subliminal attempt to hold power indefinitely, so whether it holds is another matter entirely. Prophesied to die before Cersei, which doubly tragic due to his age and being a much better person than her. He commits suicide after Cersei gets her revenge via killing his wife, godfather, great-uncle, and all his religious friends via blowing up the ASOIAF equivalent of St. Peter's Basilica, because of course her power hunger was more important than his happiness and well being.
** Mycella Baratheon: Princess, and Cersei and "Robert's" second oldest child. She had her face fucked up because of Arianne Martell's amateur intrigues, which overlapped with poor planning, general stupidity, and another guy's backstabbing. Ten years old. Before the maiming, she was quite decent and non-evil. Who knows how she'll turn out now with half of her face cut off. Also prophesied to die before Cersei. In the show she had a crush on Oberyn's surviving nephew, but was killed by Elia in revenge for Oberyn's death, but alive in the books though missing an ear. Also, the readership all got on George's balls for maiming this girl, mostly because it was a sign that he had run out of ideas and was basically just milking diabolus ex machina ([[Just As Planned|or that's what he wants us to think]]).
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Baratheon'''

''"Ours is the Fury"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Ascended to the Iron Throne after a successful rebellion against the Mad King Aerys II Targaryen. Produces no less than three claimants to the succession, each one very different from the other. Technically a cadet branch of House Targaryen as their founder Orys was allegedly a Targaryen bastard, who took the original Storm Kings (House Durrandon) deer sigil after killing the last one and fucking his only child Argella and then 200 odd years later, King Egg's daughter married their grandfather, they're pretty much the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Plantagenet House of Plantagenet].
* Robert Baratheon, ''The Usurper'': Fat, old, former badass who led the rebellion, and now the king who married Cersei Lannister. Then he fucked a bunch of other women and had lots of illegitimate kids. He was killed while mixing boar hunting and drinking, but whether this death was planned or not is uncertain. On the surface, a king with a thing for easy laughs and partying; right underneath the surface, he's irresponsible and leaves the actual ruling of a nation to his staff, deeper under the surface he's pretty much a sad, lonely old bro who would rather not have been king. Comparable to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_IV_of_England Edward IV], in that both were powerfully built military geniuses who overthrew the existing monarchy and later succumbed to an unhealthy lifestyle.
* Stannis '''The Mannis''' Baratheon: Robert's younger brother, all-around badass who swings between [[Lawful Stupid]] (moreso in the show than the books) and [[gets shit done|getting shit done]]. [[Judge Dredd|Believes so strongly in the rule of law]] that he feels compelled to take the Iron Throne for himself despite wanting nothing to do with it. Is advised by a priestess of the God of light, Melisandre, and a lowborn smuggler named Davos Seaworth raised to knighthood and nobility. [[C.S Goto|His character is ruined in the show into an incompetent pawn of Melisandre and gets killed off just because one of the showrunners didn't like him]].
** Shireen Baratheon: Stannis's kid daughter. Sweet, charming, and intelligent little lady who was left with a deformity on her face from a disease called greyscale. Teaches Davos how to read, and is probably the most innocent person in the series alongside Tommen, Myrcella and a few others. Being the grim and dark universe A Song of Ice and Fire is, however, this means that she's likely going to end up becoming fuel for a vicious fire god. In the show she does, but in the books she is safe and sound since Stannis isn't stupid enough to bring him with her while campaigning. His wife, on the other hand, being such an idiotic fanatical pyromaniac... well, her odds aren't exactly looking that great.
* Renly Baratheon, ''That Gay Guy'': Robert and Stannis's youngest brother. Took Loras Tyrell (a.k.a. Knight of Flowers, Pretty Boy, etc.) as his lover. Decided he was better suited to be king, though the bizarre and outdated laws of the land stated Stannis was next in line (though Joffrey and then Tommen were first since they were [[Pretend|officially]] Bobby B's legitimate kids). Was hugely popular since he had Robert's charisma, which led to him getting the most support, but he lacked Stannis's conviction and devotion to the duty of actually doing the work of a king, or even Robert's ability to wage war. Killed by Melisandre with some "help" by Stannis ''The Mannis'' for trying to steal his crown, though in the books Stannis may not have been completely aware of the role he played in Renly's death. He's basically [[That Guy]] of ASOIAF, since quite a lot of shit is his fault, indirectly or otherwise.
*Gendry Baratheon, the Bastard Son. One of Robert's many, many bastard children, and the one who gets the most page and screen time. He starts out as a humble blacksmith in King's Landing, who first comes to Ned's attention when Lord Stark is investigating the death of Jon Arryn. From there, he gets shipped off to the Night's Watch to avoid the imminent purge of Robert's bastards, and winds up becoming friends with Arya and Hot Pie. After some adventuring and sexual tension with Arya (at least in the show), he joins the Brotherhood Without Banners. In the show, they sell him to Melisandre so she can use him for a blood magic ritual, while in the books he just goes on being a smith and doesn't get involved in anything particularly weird or shady. He has yet to reappear in the books, but in the show Ser Davos sets him free and tells him to fuck off, which he does for a few seasons. He eventually turns up back in King's Landing, where Davos finds him and recruits him for Team Snow. He helps Jon capture a wight to show Cersei, makes dragonglass weapons for the Army of the Living, has sex with Arya, and fights in the Battle of Winterfell, after which Daenerys legitimizes him as the new lord of House Baratheon.</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Tully'''

''"Family, Duty, Honor"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content"> Lords of the central river lands. Being the obligatory central nation they spend a lot of the series being fought over like a cake in between fat kids. Basically Poland/Netherlands, given they have so many rivers and how hard they've been fucked over.
*Edmure Tully: Basically the SoIaF universe's eternal butt monkey (because he happens to be a decent fucking person). A useless ponce with a dense streak a mile wide and a bad habit of bragging about things he shouldn't be proud of. It took hanging in a stockade for a few months to make him experience some growth. When Jaime was brought in to unfuck the situation and end the siege at Tully's house in Riverrun, Jaime's "negotiation" pressured him into convincing his house to surrender, but he made sure [[Troll|that Brynden got out first]]. Currently spending his days at the Lannister house as a hostage to make sure that the Tullys don't try to ruin the situation again. Tries to make a case for himself as king in the final episode, only to get shut down by Sansa.
*Brynden Tully ''the Blackfish'': He didn't catch the memo that he was part of the joke faction, and proceeds to spend the entire series fucking Lannister shit up and generally being a boss. Thought to be the black sheep in a family of fish. (Thus "Blackfish", geddit?) Ended up holed up in Riverrun, and got the fuck out right before the end of the siege, so that the Lannisters couldn't dick him over as a prisoner (or so he can keep dicking them over before he became a prisoner). Also widely accepted by the fans to be a closeted homosexual. In the HBO show, he gets killed when resisting arrest from Tully forces by order of Edmure. [[Rage|And it happens offscreen.]]</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Arryn'''

''"As High as Honor"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Mountain lords turned [[NEET|neurotic shut ins]]. Goes through lords about as quickly as you would expect a castle equipped with a door that opens into empty air. Basically Switzerland/Afghanistan, seeing as how they stayed neutral in the War of Five Kings, their land is covered by nothing but mountains, and they're constantly fighting with the local tribes. They were being entertainingly screwed over by Littlefinger until his death.
*Jon Arryn: Only appears posthumously and is the catalyst for the whole plot. The true mastermind behind Robert's Rebellion, was killed by Littlefinger via Lysa when he figured out that Robert's kids are bastards of Cersei and Jaime. His death was blamed on the Lannisters to destabilize Westeros.
*Lysa Arryn: Loli bride turned Lady of the Vale after the Lannisters forcibly retired her husband from life, at least officially. In reality Littlefinger convinced her to poison her husband and blame the Lannisters [[Just As Planned|which pretty much started this whole clusterfuck to begin with]]. A closeted, crazy woman who spends the entire series in her castle "the Eyrie" being useless, breastfeeding her own son at age 10, obsessing over Littlefinger's cock, and [[Derp|refusing to help her sister and nephew in the war she and Littlefinger pretty much started]], which may have guaranteed their eventual horrific murders by their enemies. Finally gets her comeuppance when Littlefinger kicks her out the moon door (post-taunting, of course), putting her out of our collective misery. Long live the Lord Protector.
* Robert Arryn: ''Littlefuck'', Lysa's equally mentally unstable autistic son, who still sucks on his mom's tit, and enjoys seeing people "fly" out the moon door to their deaths. He actually seems to be a bit smarter than you would first think and is a really, really good judge of character, except with Sansa. Secretly being poisoned by Littlefinger and Sansa, so she can take over the Vale and North. Named Robin in the show because the showrunners were afraid that having two characters with the same name would be too confusing. The show version doesn't get poisoned, but turns up in the series finale as the Lord of the Vale.</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Greyjoy'''

''"We Do Not Sow"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">[[Awesome|A house founded by Cthulhu-worshipping Norscans]]. While not actual Vikings in any sense of the word, there is little other way to describe them. They live on some islands and almost their entire culture is based around raiding and the ocean. Their religion holds it shameful for a man to pay for personal possessions, and states they have to get things either by trade or The Iron Price; seizing something from the body or belongings of someone he defeated in conquest rather than paying or trading for it. Also only possessions acquired via The Iron Price command respect among the Ironborn.
*Balon Greyjoy: Asshole dad, crappy ruler and general shithead who rebelled against Robert Baratheon and failed miserably. All of his sons were killed, except for Theon, who was taken as a hostage to ensure his good behavior. Despite being in a position to join either the Lannisters or the Starks during the War of Five Kings and thereby get whatever he wanted from either (independence and the North, or independence and Casterly Rock, respectively), he does the absolute stupidest thing possible and declares himself independent without support from anyone, attacking the North and the rest of Westeros, thereby virtually guaranteeing that he'll be on the receiving end of another one-sided battle. Never got that far, though, since he was pushed off a bridge during a storm by an assassin his brother Euron sent.
*Victarion Greyjoy: Admiral of the Iron Fleet. [[Gets shit done]] while wearing [[Dark Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|Lokhir Fellheart's]] armor during boarding actions. Does it for vengeance, the lulz and as a ticket to Ironborn heaven (which they believe men can reach if they die in battle or by drowning). Worships both R'hllor and the Drowned God. For all his badassery, is far too stupid to realize that his black Red Priest sidekick's constant rambling about his "great destiny" is inevitably going to end in his burning to death on a sacrificial pyre. Said Red Priest impressed Victarion by surviving being marooned at sea for 3 weeks and turning Victarion's infected arm into a super-strong volcano arm. Seriously.
*Aeron Greyjoy ''Damphair'': A priestly Alan Moore who drank seawater. Once a fun-loving party animal, he nearly drowned during the Greyjoy Rebellion, and became a dour and devout priest of the Ironborn [[Cthulhu]] religion. Confirmed to have been raped by Euron when they were kids. Planned to overthrow Euron, who bribed and manipulated his way into becoming king of the Ironborn. [[Grimdark|Was captured by Euron and tortured to try and make him renounce his faith, including feeding him spoiled food, drugging him and burning him. Later Euron tied Aeron, naked, to the prow of Euron's ship alongside Euron's tortured, pregnant former lover because she showed Aeron kindness by once giving him proper food]]. He tried to console her by saying their suffering will end in underwater Valhalla, [[Awesome|showing Euron failed to make him deny his faith]].
*Theon Greyjoy: Son of the Lord/King of the Iron Islands. Had the personality of a stereotypical high school jock, being an excellent archer and womanizer and proud of it. He was given to Ned Stark by his father after Balon failed to successfully rebel against Robert Baratheon. Swore an oath to Robb, but then ditched him out of a desperate need to please his father. Ends up castrated and acts as the personal slave of Ramsay Bolton after Ramsay puts him through horrific torture to turn him into Reek. Rescued by his sister, but the psychological trauma meant it took awhile before he could stop calling himself Reek and start getting back to normal mentally (physically he's now missing a few parts that don't heal or grow back). Dead in the show, thanks to charging the Night King by himself while protecting Bran.
* Asha Greyjoy: Theon's older sister and a commander of some renown which is quite a feat - almost every man on the Iron Islands except her father either tried to get in her pants, or told her to [[-4 STR|stop playing around and go do some actual women's work]], before she kicked enough ass that they respected her. Rescues Theon after he escapes Ramsay but then loses him to Stannis. Is named Yara in the show because the showrunners thought her name sounded too similar to Osha the wildling chick, and is also apparently [[PROMOTIONS|bisexual]]. Eventually becomes Lady of the Iron Islands in the show because she's the last Greyjoy standing.
*Euron Greyjoy ''Crow's Eye'': A [[Chaos|sick fuck Lovecraftian pirate armed with unnatural sorcerous powers, so evil]] that Balon banished him from the Iron Islands. Every member of his crew is a mute, because Euron ripped all their tongues out. Many of them are also the illegitimate sons of women he's raped around the world during his raids. Uses an eyepatch to conceal a pitch-black eye, his personal "obviously a villain" mark. Raped his brother Victarion's wife, then claimed she wanted it so Victarion had to kill her. Raped his younger brother Aeron. Also showed back up in the Iron Islands the day after Balon died, despite having been raping and pillaging in Essos before that, which is suspicious as fuck. Now the new Iron King. Plans to conquer Westeros, and has some unknown plan to deal with Daenerys. Revealed in the book ''Winds of Winter'' to be [[Honsou|the sickest fuck in an entire setting of sick fucks (and that's saying something)]], including having a god complex while hating religion so much he [[Grimdark|tortures any clergymen he captures to try and make them give up their faiths using ironic tortures themed around their religions - such as preachers have their tongues cut out and burning priests of the fire god to death]]. Euron tried and failed to break his priest brother Aeron's faith so he lashed Aeron to the front of his ship to die [[Grimdark|alongside Euron's own pregnant lover Falia]]. Jaime kills him in the second-to-last episode of the show. </div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Tyrell'''

''"Growing Strong"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Lords of Highgarden and backstabbers par-excellence and owners of a lot of fertile land. Unlike the current lot of Lannisters they understand the value of good PR, balancing ruthlessness with being somewhat amicable, political savvy and not being stuck-up on honor. They're basically France. [[Fail|Unfortunately they've all been wiped out in the show]].
*Mace "The Ace" Tyrell: Lord of Highgarden. Massively fat and overweight, while being stupid, overreaching and constantly mocked by everyone else, he's otherwise known as a friendly man, a good Lord when it comes to management and a good father; unfortunately this isn't enough to save a man in the Game of Thrones. Gets killed with the rest of the noble houses when Cersei blows up the Great Sept of Baelor.
*Olenna Tyrell: The brains behind House Tyrell's schemes. Known as the ''Queen of Thorns'' for being an outspoken, prickly and venomous old lady. Schemed with Littlefinger to have Joffrey killed, but she carried it out with compressed powder "gems" that poisoned his wine. Now she keeps her family in line and is hailed as a more progressive version of Tywin. Became a fan favorite for constantly dropping awesome one-liners and telling the Sand Snakes to shut up. [[Fail|Later killed off in the show]], but not before revealing to Jaime that [[Awesome|she was the one who killed Joffrey]].
*Willas Tyrell: Mace Tyrell's eldest son and heir, crippled at a very young age when jousting against Oberyn Martell. Probably one of the most pleasant and sensible characters in the series, which might explain why he's yet to make an appearance. Very fond of breeding animals, especially horses.
*Garlan Tyrell ''The Gallant'': Second-born son. Badass extraordinaire, considered one of the best swords in Westeros, and one of the few people kind to Tyrion. Trains for real combat (often against multiple opponents by himself) unlike Loras, who's a tourney fighter. Single-handed wrecks many notable knights fighting for Stannis during the War of The Five Kings. And he is the only person other than Tywin to put Joffrey in his place, at his own wedding. Sadly no POV chapter yet and omitted from the TV series (Loras takes credit for his deeds).
*Loras Tyrell ''The Knight of Flowers'': The Tyrell who appears most in the series. Considered to be an example of the perfect knight, despite his youth. Is secretly Renly's gay lover and conspired to take the throne with him and his sister. Last seen badly injured in the books attempting to take Stannis' castle. In the show he ends up tortured by the members of the Faith for being gay [[C.S Goto|because the showrunners retconned them to hate gay people]], [[Protectorate of Menoth|later joins their ranks of questionable willingness]] then dies when Cersei blows up the Sept of Baelor.
*Margaery Tyrell: The would-be Queen of Westeros, she has married, in order, Renly Baratheon (gay), Joffrey Baratheon (evil), and Tommen Baratheon (8 years old) and has been crowned as queen three times. While she is nice, she is capable of manipulation. In the show she marries and uses sex to control Tommen. Was arrested by the resident Chamber Militant The Sparrow and asked for a trial by faith in the books. In the show this also happens but she tries to be pious in an attempt to save herself, but ended up getting killed when Cersei blew up the Sept of Baelor.
</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Bolton'''

''"Our Blades Are Sharp"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">The Starks' most important (and most despised) vassal, a former arch rival made of [[Grimdark]] because their entire theme [[Dark Eldar|revolves around Torture]]. Their sigil is a flayed man and their castle is [[Commorragh|a complex of eternal suffering called the Dreadfort]], which shows how stupid the Starks were for allying with them.
*Roose Bolton, ''The 'Leech Lord'': A Lawful Evil sociopathic health nut who's called the Leech Lord because he gets leeched regularly, believing they get rid of bad blood. Second-most powerful Lord in the North with ambitions to depose the Starks. Since the Starks are unable to think like crafty people and are blinded by honor this doesn't prove too difficult. He gets his wish when he stabs Robb Stark in the back, at his uncle's wedding no less, and has anyone associated with Robb killed. He then makes over Winterfell in his bloody image, and is currently trolling Stannis. Believes in the abolished practice of "[[Rape|Droit du seigneur]]" (a tradition that allowed a lord to have sex with subordinate women, whether they wanted to or not) and killed a man for trying to hide his wife from Roose. Believed that he and his son could be as evil as they wanted as long as no one found out. Killed by Ramsey in the show, which Ramsey tried to cover with a lie despite the witnesses to his actions.
*Ramsay Snow/Bolton: The bastard son of Roose Bolton and a woman he raped. He is arguably the most fucked up person in all of the Seven Kingdoms, because he [[Dark Eldar|loves to torture and kill people openly for the lulz]], such as Theon Greyjoy, who he crippled, knocked his teeth out and castrated too. He then sent the severed appendage to the foreshortened Theon's dad in a cutesy box with a letter mockingly detailing his evilness. Will torture anyone who points out his illegitimate heritage though now he's legally recognized as a Bolton. Also has a pack of hunting dogs he names after women he hunts, rapes and kills. Married a fake Arya Stark and regularly mistreats her, including forced bestiality. Not a fun guy to be around. Only reason he's gotten away with it for so long (as pointed out by his father) is because no one is strong enough to stand up to him yet, but when they are he's going to be killed. In the show he killed his father with a knife, fed his stepmother and newborn half-brother to his dogs, then married Sansa Stark and deflowered her via rape. Ramsay was such a monster even Iwan Rheon, THE ACTOR WHO PLAYED THE GUY, hoped he'd die horribly. He got his wish: The consequences of Ramsay's actions catch up with him when Jon Snow shows up with an army capable of threatening him, and after surprise reinforcements from Littlefinger and his own fucked-up teamkilling, the Starks crush the Bolton army, forcing Ramsay to flee back to Winterfell. Despite this, the gate is smashed down, he is disarmed, beaten rather brutally and detained to await trial. Before the trial Sansa sets his dogs on him, which he had deliberately starved so they would eat Jon. Apparently they found him quite tasty.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Martell'''

''"Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Desert dwelling survivalists who pride themselves on having never been conquered by the Targaryen dynasty (though they later married in). Moorish Spaniards, kinda. [[C.S Goto|Their story arc was completely FUBAR in the show, as Elia and Oberyn's daughters kill Oberyn's brother and nephew for taking too long to avenge him before being captured and killed themselves by Euron and Cersei]].
*Doran Martell: Lord of Sunspear and of royal descent. Still mad at the the Lannisters about that whole "murdered-my-sister-and-infant-niece thing". Playing the longest of long games with Varys while trying to keep the rest of his psychotic family members in check. Wheelchair bound due to his gout. [[What|Killed off in the show by Ellaria as part of her plan to avenge Oberyn]].
*Arianne Martell: One of GRRM's characters who seems to exists solely to fuck everything up at the worst conceivable moment. Still hot as Dornish girls come. Exists only in the books, where she is currently helping her dad get ready to topple the Lannisters after fucking everything up with her own stupid plan to crown Myrcella, which is what got the poor girl maimed.
*Oberyn Martell ''The Viper of Dorne'': Doran Martell's brother, a bisexual swinger, former mercenary, and a drunkard. His girlfriend is a spectacularly beautiful bastard named Ellaria Sand and he has many illegitimate children, mostly daughters, collectively called "The Sand Snakes". Crippled the Tyrell heir in a fight, causing a rift between the two houses; despite this, he's actually best mates with the aforementioned heir, due to Willas Tyrell being straight up the nicest and most balanced man in the series and Oberyn being a somewhat decent person. Known for poisoning his weapons, as well as his battle-cry. Died from a mutual kill, with Gregor Clegane crushing his skull in rather graphically, avenging his sister Elia who Gregor had raped and murdered. Though it's probably a win for Oberyn, since he got Clegane with a horribly painful and slow-acting venom which stretched his death over days or even weeks, during which time he was ruthlessly experimented upon by a mad scientist.
*Quentyn Martell: Didn't realize what series he was in, poor bastard. A member of House Martell, sent to marry Daenerys to secure an alliance between the families, since the original marriage plan to hook Arianne up with Viserys won't work with Viserys dead. Leaves Westeros and goes all the way to the city of Meereen to marry her, but he's too late, as she marries the Meereenese noble Hizdahr, and like Jorah he's not her type (Dany likes her bad boys). Tries to tame two of her dragons to impress her; the attempt goes wrong, he gets horribly burnt and gradually dies in agony from his wounds.
*The Sand Snakes: Oberyn's children. All daughters he had with various women throughout his travels (all consensual encounters, mind you). Mixed race and all hot with various skills including combat training and mastery of poisons. Working with Doran and Ellaria in the books. [[C.S Goto|Ruined in the show where they don't accomplish anything, are given atrocious dialogue (the "you need the bad pussy" line comes to mind), aren't great fighters]] and get killed by Euron's men, except for one who gets captured and poisoned by Cersei so an imprisoned Ellaria is forced to watch her die and decompose.</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''Night's Watch'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">The Night's Watch are an apolitical force in charge of manning The Wall, a giant ice wall that separates the relative tranquility of the south from the Lovecraftian fucked-up-itude of the true north. They are chronically undermanned and undersupplied since nobody believes their stories of a barbarian army or the impending zombie apocalypse. Basically everybody else thinks they're in a game of [[Diplomacy]] and the Night's Watch are the only ones who realize they're actually in [[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]], though it's been so long since the last snow elf invasion that even they had forgotten about the undead hordes and focused too much on barbarians. They've allied with the Wildings and the North, but in the TV show the Night's King used the undead dragon Viserion to burn a hole through The Wall.
*Jeor Mormont, ''The Old Bear'': 997th Lord Commander of the Night's Watch at the start of the series. Sees Jon Snow as something of a second son (since his own son Jorah was exiled for enslaving and refused to take the black for his crimes). Leads a ranging north of the Wall to investigate reports that the Others have returned. Ends up killed during a mutiny of survivors after the Others wiped out most of his force.
*Alliser Thorne: Prick of a knight who was favorite to be the next Watch Commander, but was passed over by Jon Snow. Unable to accept Jon Snow letting the Wildlings live on the other side of the wall in an alliance against the zombie hordes, he staged a coup against Jon. It failed because Jon was brought back to life. He is now dead in the show, having been executed for his treason by Jon Snow.
*Aemon Targaryen: Maester of the Citadel at Castle Black. Despite being the third born son of King Maekar I Targaryen, he declined the right to sit on the Iron Throne. One of the few people in the series to die of old age, at 102.
*Samwell Tarly, ''The Slayer'': Fat bookworm who was forced to take the black after his father Randyl threatened to murder him for being unmanly. Jon Snow's best friend among the Night's Watch, and knows everything because he "read it in a book". Despite being a self-professed coward, Sam became the first person in thousands of years to slay an Other with an obsidian dagger. George Martin himself said Sam's based on Samwise Gamgee from Lord of the Rings. Since then, he has started improving his combat skills and balls (in more ways than one for the latter, finding his spine and losing his virginity). He abandons the Night's Watch to help fight the dead and tell Jon who he really is, and winds up becoming the new Grand Maester by the end of the show.
*Eddison Tollett, ''Dolorous Edd'': Probably the most badass member of the Night's Watch. Responds to situations by making sarcastic jokes about them, and known for being a grim motherfucker in a setting of grim motherfuckers. In the show he [[Awesome|became the new Lord Commander]] while Jon was dead, but gave the title back to Jon when he was brought back to life, and then Jon handed it right back because he needed to go sort out Ramsay Bolton. Dies in Season 8 at the Battle of Winterfell. </div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">

'''Wildlings'''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Groups of nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes who live north of the Wall. Mostly First Men by blood, they have been heading toward the Wall for the past decade with the reputed reemergence of the Others. Nomadic, aggressive, and very much believing in "might makes right", they do not get along with anyone south of The Wall since they view them as "Kneeling weaklings". Basically every Celtic/Scandinavian/barbarian stereotype combined.
*Mance Rayder, ''The King Beyond The Wall'': A Wildling orphan who was taken in by the Night's Watch, he became their best Ranger before he deserted to join his people. He united the Wildlings and lead them south to escape the Others. Also a trained bard, but that was not enough to save him from death.
*Tormund Giantsbane: Claims to have a ten-inch penis, and invites his enemies to use their mouths if they want to clean it. Cool as fuck old guy who [[Furry|fucks mother-bears]] in his free time. Tough as nails motherfucker who preaches the merits of using one's cock for everything. He teams up with Jon Snow for the fight against the White Walkers, then fucks off back to the north once the Night King is dead, making him one of the most sensible people on the show. He and Jon go off to be bros at the end of the show.
*Ygritte: Wildling woman who Jon Snow ends up falling for and who returns his affections. Has red hair which is considered lucky among the Wildlings. This being ''A Song of Ice and Fire'', she ends up dying because her worldview is not compatible with Jon's.
*Craster: A sick bastard, formerly a member of the Night's Watch. [[Grimdark|Has lots of daughters who he marries and fucks regularly, giving him more children. So his wives are his daughters, granddaughters and so on... Girls grow up to become more wives, boys get sacrificed to the Others]]. This keeps them at bay, and that sanctuary is why the Night Watch barely tolerate him. Fortunately, he's been killed off in the story.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Frey'''

''"We Stand Together"''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content"> House of weasels who are always grumpy and have a thing for overreacting to perceived slights. Wouldn't be that important except for the fact that they own the only bridge over a strategically important river, and regularly extort anyone attempting to cross it.

*Walder Frey: The ancient, terrible, ornery old man in charge of the Twins. Hates everyone for "looking down on him", and will readily betray an important ally for immediate gain, or if he feels he has been slighted in some minor way. His descendants are literally so numerous that no one except GRRM himself have been able to count them all, so we aren't even going to attempt it. Now dead in the show due to getting his throat slit by a vengeful Arya after she serves him two of his sons as meat pies. </div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''Commoners, Knights, and Petty Lords'''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Basically any character not associated with any of the Great Houses.
* Varys, ''The Spider'': The eunuch spymaster of Westeros. You can't take a shit in the Seven Kingdoms without Varys finding out where, when, and how watery or dry it was. He does this through paid informants and his "little birds", a spy network of children who sneak through the castle's passageways and air flues to eavesdrop on everyone. Stabs everyone in the back because he's actually trying to bring the Targaryens back in order to strengthen the realm. Dead in the show, having decided to try and put Jon on the throne instead of Daenerys; Jon says no, Tyrion sells him out when he realizes Jon absolutely means it, and Dany has Drogon barbecue him.
* Petyr Baelish, ''Littlefinger'': The Master of Coin (the ASOIAF equivalent of a treasurer) and the closest person the Game of Thrones world has to a [[Daemon Prince]] of [[Tzeentch]], up to even declaring "[[Chaos]] is a Ladder". A dangerous manipulator who manages to trick and steal his way to positions of lordship and wealth because no one takes him seriously, and stabs all the Lannisters in the back when they become inconvenient. As a child he wanted Catelyn Stark, and was tricked into thinking she wanted him when her sister Lysa fucked him while he was drunk. Challenged Catelyn's betrothed Brandon Stark, Ned's older brother who was murdered by Aerys, for her hand in marriage and got his ass kicked because he was a small skinny boy and Brandon Stark was a big strapping man, making that his start of darkness. The guy responsible, directly or indirectly, for the War of the Five Kings because he was the mastermind behind poisoning Jon Arryn, the capture and execution of Ned Stark, feeding several half-truths to Catelyn to motivate her to arrest Tyrion, and eventually Joffrey's death by having Dontos and Olenna Tyrell carry out the plan to kill Joffrey and letting Tyrion take the fall; but no one in the story knows this, not even Varys. People think he can pull gold out of thin air, but he's really been buying debt while letting Robert Baratheon's extravagances and Cersei's dipshittery pull the country into a serious debt of its own. So he's pledged himself to [[Chaos]] and destroying Westeros all because he couldn't have Catelyn as his girlfriend, though he changed his focus to her daughter Sansa now, making him a paedophile. Hasn't yet got his comeuppance in the books, but is curently dead in the show after he was outgambitted by Sansa and killed by Arya. According to GRRM he's based on the title character from the Great Gatsby.
*Gregor Clegane, ''The Mountain'': A 7' 8" 400 pound mass of [[Khorne|testosterone, muscles, steroid overdose and murderous RAGE]], Gregor is Tywin Lannister's top muscle. Killed his own father and sister and permanently scarred his brother. Hobbies include rape, arson, murder, and random torture; he's also been married a few times but not now with the implication he kept killing his wives. He played an important part in destroying the Targaryens by killing a couple of Aerys's kids in rather brutal fashion, then raping and murdering his wife. Spends a few novels doing Tywin's dirty work before a Trial by Champion leads to him dying after being poisoned by Oberyn Martell. Qyburn later resurrected him as... something... called "Ser Robert Strong", and is now even stronger, less prone to psychotic rages, and is completely obedient. He's based on accounts of French knight Gilles de Rais and maybe also the scriptural giant Goliath. Kills Qyburn during the Siege of King's Landing and then nearly kills his little brother, only for Sandor to tackle him through a collapsing wall and into a gigantic inferno.
* Sandor Clegane, ''The Hound'': Younger brother to Gregor Clegane, called the Hound because of his hound-face helm, his family's heraldry, and being the king's hired muscle without being a knight. He hates knights due to the hypocrisy of being a professional "noble warrior" but mostly since his monstrous brother is a knight, showing it's not so much of a noble promotion. Terrified of fire after Gregor put his head against a brazier for playing with one of Gregor's old toys when they were children, burning half his face, but he's still the second-strongest person in Westeros. A brutal anti-hero with a soft spot for Sansa, but a better person than his brother. After falling sick from Biter's nasty teeth, he ends up being a silent monk burying people in the Silent Isles. In the show he joins the Brotherhood without Banners and goes north to help fuck up the White Walkers. As of Season 8 he's survived the Battle of Winterfell and is riding south with Arya to put the boots to Gregor. Dies killing his brother in a pretty epic fight amidst the crumbling ruins of the Red Keep.
*Grand Maester Pycelle: A shrewd, dangerous man putting on a "harmless old man act" and a high ranking scholar from the science/medical guild the Maesters. The longest serving member of the King's advisory staff, and is actually Tywin Lannister's biggest lackey. He convinced the Mad King to let Tywin in as Baratheon's armies were marching on the capital, where Tywin proceeded to sack the city and claim it for Robert. Gets his head bashed in by Varys in the books and murdered by Qyburn in the show.
* Qyburn: Formerly a maester, who was kicked out of the order for unethical experiments on the living. Introduced as a part of a mercenary company serving Roose Bolton, which should be a red flag. He moves up in the world when he's sent to escort Brienne and Jaime back to King's Landing, and ends with Cersei employing him to replace Pycelle as "science advisor" and eventually Varys's Spymaster. Serves Cersei loyally as long as she lets him indulge his sick experiments, serving as a black magic variety of the court mage. He has resurrected Gregor Clegane as... something. [[Fabius Bile]] if he traded his robot limbs, eugenics and power armor for necromancy. He overestimated his hold on Gregor and got his head caved in for it as of the second-to-last episode of the show.
*Barristan Selmy, ''The Bold'': Knight of the Kingsguard. Which Kingsguard? Take your pick. He's served pretty much every king since Aerys and understandably feels pretty bad about it. Another sad old man who pretty much just wants to die until he decides to go pledge his services to Daenerys. Even in his old age he is considered one of the most dangerous men in Westeros. [[Fail|Dead in the show]] (to be fair they gave him a huge last stand), but [[Awesome|alive and appointed himself Daenerys' steward in her absence to try and fix Meereen's situation in the books]].
*Melisandre, ''The Red Witch'': A priestess of R'hllor, the god of fire. Proclaimed Stannis to be the messiah-king and is doing everything in her power to make sure he wins (considerable given that she can scry, make shadow baby assassins and set things on fire with her mind). She'd be pretty bro-tier if her god wasn't so vicious. As it stands she's kind of in the gray (in the books, the show seems to zig-zag on her being evil 'cos the showrunners seem to hate religion). Most of the people she set on fire deserved it, and she hasn't ''succeeded'' in killing any babies yet. Show version now dead from suicide via rapid aging after ensuring the Living defeat the Dead.
*Jorah Mormont: A knight and son of Jeor Mormont, exiled for trying to sell poachers into slavery and eventually joining the exiles of House Targaryen. He is offered a pardon in exchange for spying on the Targaryens, but ultimately decides to stay with them after falling in love with Daenerys. Unfortunately, he gets friend-zoned hard. Despite saving her life from an assassin while she was pregnant, she still votes him off the Khalassar after learning he was a spy. He still loves her and follows her in secret, though. In the show he goes on a quest to prove himself to her and contracts the dangerous disease Greyscale (it's like the unholy lovechild of smallpox and leprosy), but he gets cured and is now back at her side. He dies protecting her at the Battle of Winterfell.
*Davos Seaworth, ''The Onion Knight'': A former smuggler and bannerman to House Baratheon. During Roberts Rebellion he ran a blockade with a cargo of contraband onions to a castle Stannis Baratheon was besieged in. In exchange for for the food he had, Stannis knighted Davos, but Stannis's law-worshiping mindset compelled him to remove four digits from his left hand. Despite this, Davos has served Stannis with unquestioning loyalty, because Stannis knighting him gave his children a future. The fact that Stannis's war for the throne has ended up killing several of his sons hasn't dented his loyalty at all. Doesn't like Melisandre because he sees her as a user and her beliefs as brutal. He's a devout follower of the Faith of the Seven in the books and the first season of the show [[C.S Goto|but is clumsily retconned into an anti-religious atheist in later show seasons]]. In the show, he's now pledged to DA NORF and is basically Jon's Hand of the King, except he doesn't get a fancy pin. He survives the Battle of Winterfell and the Second Sack of King's Landing, and becomes Master of Ships in the final episode of the show.
*Shae: A former camp follower and Tyrion Lannister's squeeze for most of the story. Fled from an abusive family and became a camp follower to earn a living. Seems to fall in love with Tyrion, but it turns out she's a gold-digging bitch. When Tyrion doesn't marry Shae she sells him out to Cersei for a better offer, then fucks Tywin when she realizes Cersei won't keep her promise. Tyrion found her in his father's bed and strangled her to death with a necklace for betraying him. The discovery of Shae's corpse in Tywin's bed - posthumously outing him as a whoremonger - upsets Cersei to the point she unpersons Shae.
*Bronn: A mercenary who acts as Tyrion's enforcer and personal killer until Cersei outbids him and he he settles down with a little wife and title. Routinely kills knights by exploiting how arrogant and stupid they are even after becoming one himself. Only in it for the money, which he'll happily tell you himself. The only character other than Littlefinger to end every book in a better position than he started it. In the show, he makes the very sensible decision to sit out the fighting and wait for his promised castle (Riverrun if Cersei wins, Highgarden if Daenerys wins). He gets Highgarden and is named Lord Paramount of the Reach and Master of Coin in the final episode.
* Brienne of Tarth, ''The Beauty'': Surprisingly badass lady knight wannabe (since no women can be knighted), legendarily unattractive but still pretty idealistic despite the shit she gets for her looks. Fate frequently gives her the shit end of the stick, because no matter how hard she tries to finish her quests, she ends up failing or stuff happens that makes it impossible. Secretly crushes on Renly and unaware he's gay. After he dies, Brienne switches her loyalty to Catelyn and helps her bring Jaime to King's Landing as Tyrion promised Sansa's return in exchange for Jaime. She later developed a crush on Jaime. Things don't go well because Jaime lost his hand and the Red Wedding happened. Next, Jaime sends her out to find and keep Sansa safe to make good on Tyrion's promise, since he isn't the complete dick everyone thinks he is. Brienne ends up getting captured by Cat, now known as Lady Stoneheart and an insane undead, who was going to hang Brienne for working with Jaime. Brienne was spared at the last moment to capture/manipulate Jaime. In the show she's now sworn to House Stark and gets knighted by Jaime just before the Battle of Winterfell and then she and Jaime hook up afterward, only for him to take off and break her heart. She is now Lady Commander of the Kingsguard as of the final episode.
* Lyanna Mormont: A badass ten year old girl who inherits Bear Island after her mother and older sister die horribly in the Riverlands - at least if we are going by the show; in the book, her mother is still alive somewhere in the Neck and her older sister Alysanne is de-facto head of House Mormont. Her activities include pimp-slapping bitches, leading men twice as old as her, and being completely loyal to the Starks despite all their misfortunes. [[Awesome|"Bear Island knows no king but the King in the North, whose name is STARK."]] She dies killing an undead giant at the Battle of Winterfell, which is pretty badass.
* Wyman Manderly, ''Lord Too-Fat-To-Sit-A-Horse'': The Lord of White Harbour and one of the few Northerners who worship the Seven. Fervently loyal to House Stark, he pays lip-service to the Iron Throne long enough for his eldest son to return home, all to mask a plan to restore the Starks to power, mostly by destabilising the Frey-Bolton alliance, building a navy, marshalling the forces of the lands east of the White Knife river, "losing" Freys in the wilderness and sending Lord Davos Seaworth to rescue Rickon Stark from Skagos. His favourite food is lamprey, although he has also developed a taste for Frey Pie. Also a remarkably graceful dancer, and can survive taking a knife to the throat.
** Wylla Manderly: Granddaughter to the above. Another badass little girl, her activities include openly declaring undying loyalty to House Stark and dying her hair green. She and Lyanna Mormont would probably be best friends if they met. [[Awesome|"The city is built upon the land [the Starks] gave us. In return, we swore that we should always be their men. Stark men!"]]
* Jon Umber, ''The Greatjon'': At first he seems to be your stereotypical, boisterous Northern Lord. However, he becomes one of Robb's most loyal supporters, being first to declare him as 'King in the North' after Ned's execution. Had his moment of awesome [[Awesome|when he killed and wounded four Freys at the Red Wedding, all the while being drunk and needing eight additional men to take him down.]]
* Beric Dondarrion, ''The Lightning Lord'': Minor lord who agreed to head an expedition to take out Gregor Clegane. This being Game of Thrones, however, his party is ambushed by the Mountain and is beaten rather badly, and he loses his life in the process. Thanks to his drunken Red Priest friend, however, he manages to come back not once, but eight times, and each time he comes back, he becomes more powerful, though at the cost of his memory. He now heads an outlaw faction of grimdark Robin Hood types called "The Brotherhood Without Banners", who are dedicated to punishing those who abuse and mistreat the smallfolk. Ironically, he's one of the few book characters to have died (permanently) in the books but remain alive in the show, except now he's dead for real as of the Battle of Winterfell.
* Thoros of Myr: Aforementioned drunken priest who is dedicated to R'hllor, though at first he doesn't really give a rat's ass about the Red God, as he prefers to party it up with wine and women, but after he 'accidentally' resurrects Beric, he becomes quite serious about his religion and vows to curb his excesses in drinking. Dies on a mission beyond the Wall to capture a wight (show-version).
</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''The Free Cities'''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Nine city states to the West of Westeros, for the most part the old colonies of the Valaryian Freehold. Mostly they are ruled by Merchant Princes. They look down on the Westerosi for being a bunch of up jumped backwards war-mongering morons who are only a few silverware sets and maesters away from absolute barbarism. In turn the Westerosi look down on the Free Cities as being money-grubbing effete cowards ruled by cheesemongers who use bribery, tall walls and dirty tricks to get ahead in the world.

* Illyrio Mopatis: A rich fat bastard and a Magister of Pentos. Old buddies with Varys and a bigtime schemer.
* [[Officio Assassinorum|The Faceless Men]]: A cult of shape-shifting assassins who worship The Many Faced God of death based in the free city of Braavos that give up personal identity. They claim descent from escaped Valyrian slaves whom considered death to be a better fate than perpetual slavery. Their mission hence became being servants of the Many Faced God of Death. You can hire them to off your rivals, but they request a steep and equivalent price. Their motto is "Valar Morghulis": All Men Must Die.
* Xaro Xhoan Daxos: One of the thirteen leaders of the city of Qarth. A flamboyant, languid, bald rich man who looks after Daenerys while she stays in Qarth and gives her many gifts. He wants her dragons as much as anyone else and even tries to marry her despite his homosexual tendencies. He stops wanting the dragons later in the book series after seeing [[RIP AND TEAR|their work in Astapor]], and no longer wants her around as her anti-slavery stance is hampering his wealth, so he offers Daenerys ships to leave the area and declares war on her when she refuses. In the show he's heterosexual, helps steal her dragons, fucks one of her handmaidens and gets locked in a vault for conspiring to have her killed. He's also black and fat in the show when he's white and lanky in the books, being Qartheen and all.
* Syrio Forel: The former First Sword of Braavos (aka the ruler's personal bodyguard) and later Arya's mentor in King's Landing. He teaches her the way of Braavosi fencing, called "Water Dancing", and sacrifices himself to save her from Lannister thugs, taking down at least six of them with a wooden sword. May have inadvertently set her on the path of becoming a badass assassin by telling her of his belief in the God of Death.

</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''The Dothraki'''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Horse people who live in a country of endless grass plains referred to by others as the Dothraki sea. They only have one city, called Vaes Dothrak, which is less of a city and more of a place they all meet when important things have to be discussed. Have traits borrowed from several cultures, including Mongols and Native Americans, all filtered through European misconceptions of those cultures of course, such as the Dothraki's antipathy for heavy armor, despite the fact that the Mongols were very heavily armored and also excelled as infantry, see the Battle of Leignitz. They fear the ocean because of its size and the fact that horses won't drink from it, calling it the "poison water".

* Khal Drogo: An expy of <s>Genghis Khan</s> Yesukhei Baatyr (his son would have been the equivalent to Chinggis Khaan). Leads the largest Khalassar among the Dothraki. Despite being a barbarian warlord, Drogo is surprisingly intelligent and treats Daenerys well. After an assassin tries to kill her he promises to conquer Westeros for her and their unborn son, and immediately starts raiding towns for slaves and ships. At one town he gets cut in a leadership challenge and Daenerys gets a captive wise woman to heal him. However, the woman hates him because his tribe destroyed her hometown, raped/slaughtered or enslaved her friends and raped her three times so she curses him to become catatonic (along with killing his unborn son), leading a devastated Daenerys to perform an arguable mercy kill by smothering him with a pillow. After, she burns herself, her stillborn child and the wise woman on his funeral pyre, Daenerys survives and it brings her dragons to life. GRRM named Drogo after [[The Lord of the Rings|Frodo's father]].
* Daenerys' handmaidens.
** Doreah: Daenerys' handmaiden and a wedding gift from Illyrio. A woman from Lysene brought by her brother to teach her how to pleasure a man. In the book she dies of fever and starvation crossing a desert, in the TV show she betrays Daenerys for [[Salamanders|Xaro's BBC]] and gets locked in a vault to starve to death.
** Irri: Daenerys' handmaiden who teaches Daenerys how to ride a horse. [[PROMOTIONS|Also pleasures Daenerys twice after catching her masturbating once]], yet this canonical girl-on-girl action was left out of the show. The character was even killed off there when she survived in the books, but in this case, it was because her actress' visa had expired rather than [[C.S. Goto|author railroading]].
** Jhiqui: Daenerys' handmaiden who teaches her the Dothraki language and squabbles with Irri over wanting one of Daenerys' bodyguards when he becomes a badass. Also dies in the TV show while staying alive so far in the books.

</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''Slavers Bay'''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">A civilization of [[Stupid Evil]] slavers. The remains of a previous civilization that was once the big powerful empire thanks to having phalanxes of obedient, pain-resistant soldiers which Valyria conquered a long while ago because phalanxes don't do too well against motherfucking dragons. They are ruled by wealthy slavemongers who buy slaves, train them up to do specific things and generally are a bunch of stuck up, decadent, puppy-eating (literally) assholes. Basically a civilization so repugnant even most hippies will be cheering when Dany decides to conquer them.

* The Unsullied: Eunuch phalanx fighting slave soldiers trained the Spartan way to produce totally obedient infantry that never break ranks. They also don't feel pain due to drinking a special drink daily, and each one has to take a new name from the name box each day so they can't develop a sense of identity. At least until Dany "bought" the lot of them, had them sack the city which trained them and freed them.
* Grey Worm: The Unsullied Commander and a no-nonsense badass. When given a chance to take a new name he keeps his slave name because it's the name he had when freed so he considers it lucky. He is completely loyal to Daenerys, considering her his savior, and in the show he falls in love with fellow freed-woman, Missandei. This being ASOIAF, however, he can only watch helplessly as his lover is beheaded in front of him by the Mountain. This drives him into a rage, and he eagerly takes part in the sacking of King's Landing in revenge for her death. After the war is over and both Daenerys and Cersei are dead, he takes the Unsullied forces to Naath, in order to fulfill his promise to Missandei that he'd protect her homeland.
* Strong Belwas: A fat but skilled eunuch gladiator. Loves liver and onions and referring to himself in the third person. Traveling companion/guide of Ser Barristan. Has an awesome scene where he beats the champion of Meereen then mocks the Meereenese by taking a shit in their direction and wiping his ass on their dead champion's cloak. Also saves Daenerys from eating poisoned sweets. [[FAIL|Left out of the show]].
* Daario Naharis: A Tyroshi mercenary captain who dyes his hair blue. Betrays his fellow commanders for Daenerys because he loves her as a queen. Fortunately for him, Daenerys loves him back and they pursue a romance for a time, though she doesn't marry him as she's still otherwise smart enough to know she has to save herself for a political marriage. Goes to Yunkai as a hostage in the war on Meereen. Also potentially a shapeshifter, if the show is to be believed.
*Missandei: A young slave woman with a remarkable talent for linguistics and one of the more empathetic people in this dark world, Missandei is freed by Daenerys during her campaign to liberate Slaver's Bay, eventually becoming one of her closest confidants and advisers. She falls in love with the Unsullied eunuch Grey Worm, but later is captured by Cersei and beheaded by the Mountain in front of all her friends, but not before telling her friends to burn the Lannisters to ashes.

</div></div>
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''The Others'''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">A mysterious race from beyond the Wall, known to [[newfag|HBO fans]] as "the White Walkers". Can be described as ice demons/snow elves with necromancy. Eight thousand years ago, they invaded Westeros during a decades-long winter known as "the Long Night". With an army of undead warriors, they proceeded to fuck Westeros up every which way to [[Sunday]] before the locals finally drove them out, established the Night's Watch, and built the Wall to keep them out. Like all fantasy aspects of ASOIAF, they are very cliched. In the TV series, it's revealed that they were created from human captives by "The Children", the pseudo-[[Elf]] fair folk race that lived in Westeros before humanity arrived, as an attempt to create a super-weapon. The idea was, since humanity bred faster than the Children could keep up with, they would create icy [[lich]]-creatures that could create [[undead]] soldiers, and these would then wipe out all human life. Instead, it went disastrously wrong because it turned out that the Children actually couldn't control what they'd created, so the Others [[Ork|just want to exterminate '''all''' life.]]
* Night's King: A long time ago, when the Night's Watch was just barely getting set up, its Lord Commander, the thirteenth in line, decided to climb over the Wall and explore some. While in the woods to the north of the Wall, he found a beautiful [[Monstergirls|Other female]]. He fell in love with her, had [[/d/|sex with her on top of the Wall]], which somehow changed him into an albino version of [[Star Wars|Darth Maul]], and set himself up as King of the Wall, making everyone in the Watch his slaves and sacrificial fodder. Naturally, this didn't sit too well with the Starks and the Wildlings, and so they banded together to free the Watch and kick his ass, which they managed to do successfully. Now everyone thinks him as dead or a myth. In the HBO version of the story, this whole backstory is basically dropped; he was the very first White Walker ever created by the Children, and he decided to get back at them by wiping out all life. Also, whilst he was apparently beaten in the ancient past and sealed away behind the Wall, he's still "alive" and well, [[Daemonculaba|turning infant human boys into new White Walkers]]. Also, he can apparently raise up entire legions of undead, just by raising his arms and looking completely smug about it; unlike regular Others, who can just raise up maybe a village at most. Given that he's the resident [[BBEG|Dark Lord]] of the series, it makes sense that he can take down a dragon with seemingly little effort (a simple throw of his spear), and resurrect it to be his personal steed a la Arthas. Used it to blow a hole in the Wall and begin [[The End Times]] for Westeros. Now dead thanks to Arya's magic ninja haxx letting her kill the BBEG and his entire race and army of zombies in one blow.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''Gods and their followers'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content"> The world of ASOIAF has various religions and faiths abound, just like in real life. Similarly, they range between fucking awesome to utterly useless.

*[[Ecclesiarchy|The Faith of the Seven]]: The Catholic Church stand-in, which gets both sympathetic (books only) and unsympathetic (books and show) characters associated with it. Holds an anti-slavery stance. The god/s are considered seven aspects of one deity with three male aspects (The Smith, the Father, the Warrior), three female aspects (The Maiden, the Mother, the Crone) and an asexual one representing Death. The places of worship are called Septs, and their system includes Septons, nun-equivalents called Septas and a Pope equivalent called a High Septon. The High Septons all give up their names when they become one to confuse future historians.
** High Septon 1: A fat, greedy man who used the position for personal gain. He ended up being [[Grimdark|torn apart in a riot]], because the people resented that he had enough food to stay fat while they were starving.
** High Septon 2: Successor of High Septon 1. Chosen by Tyrion so the Faith would be loyal to the Lannisters. Only ''slightly'' corrupt, being a pro-Lannister yes-man. Murdered on Cersei's order in the book, while in the show he's retconned into a whoremonger who gets deposed by the Sparrows (see below).
** High Septon 3/The High Sparrow: Successor of High Septon 2. After the second High Septon died, the smallfolk burst into the meeting to pick a successor and ordered their chosen candidate to be put in charge when his original successor was caught whoremongering. He'd been a wandering preacher beforehand, and his feet were dark and gnarled from lots of walking. When he reaches the position he starts [[gets shit done|getting things done]]. Since he was appointed by a smallfolk religious movement called Sparrows, he's given the moniker "The High Sparrow". The nobility underestimate him, either due to having other matters or disregard for religious people, but he turns out to be smart, well-meaning and somewhat ruthless. Under the High Sparrow, he and the other clergymen sell their fancy clothes and decorations [[Noblebright|replacing them with simple wool tunics, using the money to buy food and clothes for the poor in King's Landing]]. He also has their Knights-Templar-equivalent reformed to [[Inquisition|protect the faithful and help them root out]] [[heresy]] and sin. He also outwits Cersei and has her arrested and tried for all her evil deeds. While Cersei's scheming does lead to Margaery's arrest, Cersei confesses to some crimes while concealing others, leading to Cersei taking a nude walk of penance in front of the entire city. After this he somewhat reined in the nobles' politicking to actually look after the commoners and the Faith, though this does make some enemies. In the show he and the Sparrows are [[C.S Goto|retconned]] from assorted smallfolk and clergymen tired of the nobles' lawlessness and power plays into one-dimensional stereotypes and thinly-veiled jabs at the Catholic Church [[Imperial Truth|in a shoe-horned anti-religion message]]. While they do arrest Cersei and Margaery like in the books, during the trial most of the Faith, including the High Sparrow himself, get blown to kingdom come when Cersei has her agents ignite a massive amount of magical napalm underneath the Great Sept.
* [[Old Ones|Old Gods]]: Native American/Japanese Kame/Druid/nature spirits that reside in places called Godswoods. Their powers are limited to the North, where the last remaining Godswoods remain, but they can grant gifted individuals awesome psychic powers like Warging (mind-controlling animals) and Greensight (Time Travel). For some reason, Martin claims they're based off the Norse Gods. Probably has to do with the way the Vikings made sacrifices to their gods, by hanging them in Ash trees, a symbol for the World Tree Yggdrasil. The Weirwood trees are sacred to the followers of the Old Gods in a similar way. Mostly worship of them is quiet and informal.
* R'hllor: The God of Fire and Light, and like the Old Gods, actually shows evidence for existing. [[/tg/ gets shit done|He gets shit done]] such as fire magic and Resurrection. Has a nasty habit for burning heretics, though. GRRM said this faith is roughly based (read: poorly modeled after) upon Zoroastrianism and Gnosticism. His nemesis is The Great Other: the god of cold and darkness, the leader of the Others, and prophesied to be defeated by the chosen one, or messianic figure: [[Star Child|Azor Ahai/The Prince That Was Promised]], a figure who is the prophesied warrior that will fight with the Great Other/Night's King during the Apocalypse. Interestingly enough, the prophecy may not refer to a single person, but three (Jon, Tyrion/Bran, and Daenerys). Supposedly, one of these three will also receive an [[Emperor's Sword|awesome flaming sword called "Lightbringer"]].
* Him of Many Faces: The god of the Dead of the religion whose followers are the [[Officio Assassinorum|Faceless Men]]. According to his cult of assassins, whom Arya joins, every other god is him in a different form and he requires his assassins to utterly forget their past identities in service to him. Has a heyday during the Battle of King's Landing and the Red Wedding. His followers are granted shapeshifting abilities and powers to be the ultimate assassins.
* Drowned God: Cthulhu combined with Odin. Runs an underwater Valhalla were all Ironborn go whey they either if they drowned at sea, the men die a manly death or the women die in childbirth.

</div></div>

==The appeal of A Song of Ice And Fire==
Exactly what catches the eyes of [[Skub|a given fan/critic/lout who complains about how bad it is anytime the show is mentioned within earshot]] to ASOIAF and its TV adaptation varies from individual to individual. Still, there's a couple of major draws.

'''The Worldbuilding:''' The main reason why this series gets compared to [[The Lord of the Rings]], ASOIAF is literally ''drowning'' under the weight of its worldbuilding, being crammed as full of facts about fictitious regions, histories, cultures, dynasties and races as GRRM can fit it. Your mileage will vary on how ''good'' that info is, but there's plenty of info in it.

'''Mainstream [[Dark Fantasy]]:''' Dark Fantasy is not exactly a mainstream niche. ASOIAF stands out by deliberately trying to market itself to the mainstream, despite embracing an abundance of dark fantasy tropes; gratuitous violence, sexuality and sexual violence, moral ambiguity, political intrigue, and a willingness to suddenly kill off any character, even the most likable or heroic of them.

'''[[Low Fantasy]]:''' On the surface, ASOIAF is an old-school Low Fantasy setting, being a medieval-tech world with the story openly focused on the mundane lives of people struggling for political power.

'''[[High Fantasy]]:''' But if you scratch the surface, ASOIAF is also a High Fantasy setting, which is always the more marketable of the two, with the big backstory about how the world is facing impending doom from an army of wintery [[fey]] and their [[undead]] minions. There are also non-evil higher powers working against them, but they get swept under the rug in the show. Also, [[dragon]]s. As the more marketable genre, it's also inevitably the more skubby one, for whatever that's worth.

'''Gratuitous Sexuality:''' More a thing for the TV show than the book; the frequent scenes of nudity and sex in the early seasons were a ''big'' selling point for many people.

==Oh Yeah, About The TV Show==
[[image:KnightsWhoSayFuck.jpg|150px|thumb|left|Yeah, pretty much.]]
After the first three books became hits, many Hollywood producers and directors had came to the sadistic neckbeard, asking him about making a movie adaptation. At first, he was reluctant, at best, due to the fact that a whole lot of his content would've been cut out to be fit into a movie trilogy (see the Lord of the Rings live action films). Then, a couple of dudes, David Benioff and D.B Weiss (AKA D&D, or more accurately as of the final season, Dumb & Dumber), decided to contact him, and asked him at a local restaurant about turning ASOIAF into a Television show produced by HBO, the top-rated soft-core porno channel. The story goes that George, before giving them his consent, ask them a very specific question (Who is Jon Snow's mother?). Satisfied with the response they gave, he gave them permission to start work on the show, which would be titled after the first book, ''Game of Thrones''.

The television show casts several well known performers, such as Sean Bean as Eddard, Peter Dinklage as Tyrion, Lena Headey as Cersei, and Charles Dance as Tywin. They have also cast some comparatively less well-known actors and even ones new to cinema, such as Sophie Turner (Sansa), Maisie Williams (Arya), Kit Harington (Jon), Iwan Rheon (Ramsay), Alfie Allen (Theon), and Richard Madden (Robb).

'''TL;DR'''

Producers Dumb&Dumber-style change characters and railroad the plot at a whim, the tits and ultraviolence spigot is opened even wider than the books, and most scenes are made for the actors to show off their skills at making their signature angry/murder/brooding/etc. faces.

Thus, book snobs seem to think that every episode post-season 3 is nothing more than Emmy-bait. Regardless of the fact Kit Harington still [[Fail|doesn't have an Emmy]], there's a valid contention in that regard, with the amount of liberties taken overshadowing the initial appeal.

The final season was eventually revealed to be such a train wreck because Dumb & Dumber did not want to work on the series anymore and had let the success with the earlier seasons go to their heads so they shut out any dissenting voices (including even George's eventually). In their arrogance, instead of handing the reins to someone else, they decided to plan out their own ending and use it as an audition to Disney so they could write for Star Wars. By then, they'd run out of books to adapt, there was no superior writing for them to leech off of and there was no one to gainsay them in their echo chamber/writer's room. The result was absolutely shit writing that caused a glorious breakage in the [[skub]] dam that left [[Butthurt|many a fan's anus weeping]] (provided they weren't early seasons fans, book series fans, or any of the other assorted onlookers [[Lulz|taking part in the mightiest of keks]]) and, if anything, proved <s>George's </s> Ramsay's quote at the beginning of the article true. Goddamn Dumb & Dumber, could you talentless faggots do any worse if you tried?

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''What about the final season?'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
Long story short, the Army of the Dead is destroyed in an epic battle, where the ancient and super-powerful BBEG gets killed by some slight-of-hand. Meanwhile Daenerys has spent the last two seasons being stripped of her plot armor; she's lost most of her supporters - including one of her dragons - and has been forced to confront the fact that nobody in Westeros wants her around. Especially not the Northerners, where Sansa is basically playing the "Northern Independence Now!" movement to try and get her own bum in a throne after seven seasons of being a plaything for people with actual power. The kicker is she's fallen in love with Jon Snow, but he learns he's actually her nephew - and the fruit of a legitimate marriage between her elder brother Rhaegar Targaryean and Lyanna Stark that was handled in secret. This discovery not only caused him to back away from her (because he's got Northerner values, so fucking his aunt squicks him out... not that it stopped him from doing it at least once), but also makes him a threat to her political standing, which is something Varys makes plans to exploit. When Tyrion found out Jon wouldn't back down, he told Danerys about it, for which she had Drogon burn Varys to ash. When she forces the survivors of the final battle to march on King's Landing, another of her dragons ends up dead and her only remaining friend captured and executed by Cersei. So she attacks King's Landing... and then, when her followers maneuver around her to get the city to surrender rather than die to the last, she snaps and burns most of the city to ashes. She then decides to continue ramming her head against the proverbial wall and embraces her personal narrative of herself as a divinely chosen hero-queen meant to "free" the world by conquering everybody, having lost interesting in just ruling Westeros around the same time she lost her fucking mind. Such is her insanity that Jon Snow ends up sticking a dagger in her heart rather than let her kill Sansa and Arya, who he knows will resist her.

Jon proceeds to somehow not get killed by her last surviving dragon who pretty much knows Jon killed his momma because plot reasons, and it destroys the Iron Throne ([[What|by accident, according to the showrunners]]) while chucking a tantrum over Dany's death before grabbing her body and flying off to parts unknown. This leaves everybody stuck trying to figure out what to do, [[The Empire (Warhammer Fantasy)|but ultimately they decide to replace a dynastic monarchy with an elective one]], and make Bran the new king because, hey, he's the 3-Eyed Raven and has the seer powers to see all of space and time, so he's the least worst option they have (he's also trying to find and take control of the aforementioned dragon). The North secedes from the Seven Kingdoms, but nobody gives a damn, and Jon Snow is formally banished to the Wall - where instead he wanders off into the wilderness with the surviving Wildlings, with the land showing signs of exiting its endless winter. [[The Lord of the Rings|Arya runs off to sail to the West,]] and Sansa is crowned Queen in the North.

</div></div>

==GRRM and [[Your Dudes]]==
Want to make your own ASoIF setting for a role playing game? Well, readers have enough room to fantasize about their own minor noble House (or kingdom during the Age of the Hundred Kingdoms).

A good example of what you could do is the House from the old [[/v/|"Telltale Game of Thrones"]], House Forrester. Their relationship to the canon is as follows:

House Forrester (lords of some place in the Wolfswood) '''-> is sworn to ->''' House Glover (overall lords of the entire Wolfswood) '''-> is sworn to ->''' House Stark (rulers of the North).

There's also an actual tie-in tabletop RPG now, which uses its own system and looks kind of like [[Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay]] with a heavy helping of resource-management strategy feel.
Players are assuming the role of a minor House to guide to glory, or, more accurately given the setting we're in, NOT to ruin utterly in a season or two, which would still be more than many A-list players mustered in canon. Each PC has a specific position within said House, and only the role of official Head is mandatory; the rest could be wife/children/brothers and sisters/all other kinds of siblings, bastards (with rules for obtaining the legitimate recognition), maesters, sworn/subservient knights, or most of anybody else. This naturally opens up near-infinite possibilities for families screwed up seven ways to high heavens, which would make Lannister's brand of infighting-slash-inbreeding look as sane as the High Septon.

The setting is also ill-suited for "adventures in Westeros" style of gaming for two reasons:
#In the grim darkness of low fantasy, a roaming nobody with no banner to talk about, no House allegiance, no nothing isn't generally treated to a Tavern With Quest Givers, but rather more to a Tavern Where You Are Shanked For Your Sword And Boots And Dumped At The Nearest Forest. Heck, even the big wheelers and dealers are routinely seen invited to the latter when they are slow to properly introduce themselves.
#Working on your initially-puny House will quite realistically involve thy neighbors first and foremost, then liege lords from the higher House yours is sworn to, and on occasion shopping around for an advantageous marriage - there simply ain't gonna be that much spare time to "travel to see places". Both of these are also why tourism wasn't a very popular pastime in medieval Europe and why those who were "living on the road" usually enjoyed the lowest social standing.

A note to aspiring Lords: do NOT, under any circumstances, allow your "combat-optimized" siblings an unsupervised minute in a social setting. Game's "social combat" system is a thing more brutal than the physical one, and it takes a socially-optimized character all of a few minutes to mindfuck one who is not (read: everyone but dedicated diplomats and Heads of the Houses, and not every one of the latter, to boot, as illustrated by several amazing boneheads in canon) into believing pretty much anything short of Grumpkins and Snarks. Stupid NPCs or a stupid GM will make said mindfuck obvious, allowing you to "mindfuck 'em back" without abuse of OOC info; cunning ones will not.

On a side-note; GRRM is said to take a dim view of fanfiction, saying it kills creative ability. This is kind of a double-edged statement, since a lot of George's characters here are either rehashes of his characters from previous works, references to other fictional characters (like Littlefinger and Samwell being based on Jay Gatsby and [[The Lord of the Rings|Samwise Gamgee]]), walking tropes (such as Ned Stark and Robb Stark being the "[[TVTropes|Honor Before ]] [[Lawful Stupid|Reason]]" characters) or historical references (such House Lannister ripping off House Lancaster and House Tyrell being totally-not-House-Tudor - to the point that Margaery Tyrell is played by Natalie Dormer from "The Tudors" TV show). While this makes everything he wrote just another...fanfiction, and his disapproval hypocritical, given the "creative" output of the average neckbeard, he does have a point. Ironically, however, he sold the rights to make a TV series of the books to HBO, who then went on to make a glorified fanfic.

==Games==
[[image:AGot-2nd-ed-cardfan.png|thumb|250px]]
Like any fantasy author who finds themselves unexpectedly in the warm embrace of commercial success Martin quickly licensed the shit out of his setting, spawning everything from resin miniatures to replica great swords. While most of this is worthless junk to foist on [[Neckbeard|obsessive fanboys]] /tg/ has agreed that a few of the games are made of win. The first two are a collectable [[CCG|card game]] put out in 2002 by [[Fantasy Flight Games]] and a [[risk]]-esque board game that followed shortly after in 2003. One of [[White Wolf]]'s subsidiaries also put out a d20 RPG in 2005 but it quickly tanked because, come on, White Wolf. Martin since wrested the rights back and developed a new version with Green Ronin games.

Now lets have some serious talks about the game of thrones games, because they have become some sort of endless source of amusement and frustration for the gaming fanbase. Game of thrones is roughly speaking the second franchise with the most licensed board games, after star wars, and some of them have adquired quite a legendary status and a fanbase that goes beyond the book or series fans.

The great juggernaut for all the ASOIAF based games is Fantasy Flight Games

First and foremost we have the game of thrones board game, a game that after two editions stillranks high in the BGG top 100 board games, and has recently had an expansion. The game of thrones board game has becomesomesort of meme for the modern board gamersand it could be consider the equivalent of a more advanced risk, in which dice and blank character got replacedby a very flavourful and brutalcombat system and a lot of thematical mechanics fueling the engine. Overall this game has been associated with concepts such as, requiring maximun player count to really be entertaining, having an amazing ammount of lenght and depth and being a very faithful representation of the political feeling the series inspire. Almost any boardgamer or wargamer worth his salt has played this game and enjoyed its highs,its lows and the amazing ammount of frustrations it brings. This is probably the most well known of all the ASOIAF games and it was released way before game of thrones was a cultural phenomenom back in 2003.

Another game that bears mention, both for it's excellent mechanics and its historical significance is the game of thrones card game.It is one of the most balanced card game experiences you can get,also full of flavour and with quite a great ammount of balance and non linear thinking. Best part is, unlike other card games,the game has a "living card game" release format,in which players know exactly what each booster pack brings and can buy cards in a more responsible manner rather than playing bingo and hoping to get a rare cards. Also the sole core set already provides more replayability than some fully fledged board games.

Finally the last game to mention in the FFG venerable trilogy of games is "Battles of Westeros", arguably the most ambitious and least succesful of the three. Battles of westeros was a fully fledged wargame that used the Memoir 44/battlelore rules as a base, but then evolved into its own by introducing mechanics such as commanders, tactic cards and very creative scenario rules. Miniatures were made in 15 mm and for their time and scale they were quite detailed, some commanders are real standouts(I´m looking at you Robb Stark(with his wolf jumping at his side) and Rickard Karstark). Thanks to it's scale, the game was able to provide players with a great ammount of options and units at a fraction of the price of other boardgames. With a core set that was already stacked with units and variety and then faction specific expansions that added several more units and commanders. The game also came with scenario books that provided narrative play with quite creative rule variants, such as storming palisades, having decoys in escort missions and bombarding enemies with catapults. One scenario even tried to bring to life the battle of the blackwater(the hibrid invation of kings landing by stannis the manis). The game was incredible and quite a creative wargame,its main issue was that the setup time was just terrible. Incredibly complex and tiresome when compared to the actual gameplay time.

And then the miniature producing kickstarter juggernaut CMON decided to produce its own wargame, with AMAZING miniatures.

As this is CMON the game began with a [[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cmon/a-song-of-ice-and-fire-tabletop-miniatures-game]kickstarter], and after that the game has had at least 2 dozen more releases with 3 more factions added.

The game has some mechanics taken from rank and file games such as KOW combining them with mechanics taken out of "battles of westeros" particularly the tactics deck.

==Books==
*''A Game of Thrones''
*''A Clash of Kings''
*''A Storm of Swords'': Split into 2
*''A Feast for Crows'': half the characters, the point where the series goes down the toilet
*''A Dance with Dragons'': split into 2 the first is about the other half of the characters
*''The Winds of Winter'': Most recent rumors say George could have it ready in late 2018. But will he ''really''?
** Nope, though he has shared chapters of the book.
** Official now set to release in summer 2020, but we've all heard that before.
**It might happen by 2030 if we're really lucky
*''A Dream of Spring'' : Unreleased and unlikely to ever be.
**GRRM will most likely die before writing this
*''The Dunk and Egg Series'': A story about a landless hedge knight traveling across Westeros with a Targaryen squire, so he can teach him how not to be an asshole to peasants.

==See Also==
*[[/tg/ Song of Ice and Fire Houses]]
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U7NpSubAJQ Weiner, weiner weiner]

[[category: Literature]]

A Song of Ice and Fire

2019-12-09T08:29:47Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:290B:BAAA:92F2:A623: /* GRRM and Your Dudes */

[[image:Game_of_Thrones_Title-DVD.png|300px|thumb|WIENER PARTY! WIENER PARTY!]]

{{Spoilers}}
'''Warning: This article contains so many spoilers we're ruining books that haven't even been released yet.'''

{{Topquote|If you think this story has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention.|Ramsay Bolton, nailing the grimdark theme of this series}}

'''''A Song of Ice and Fire''''' (more better known as '''''Game of Thrones''''') is a [[Grimdark]] fantasy book series for people who hate fantasy. Its central themes include [[Tzeentch|political Machiavellian scheming]], [[Khorne|ultraviolence]], [[Slaanesh|incest/sex with exposition]], and [[Nurgle|everyone trying to survive in such a Crapsack World of perpetual suffering]]. Thus it has become one of the most popular series of our generation and its author, [[George R. R. Martin]], has been praised for his highly realized world and gritty low fantasy style. He was even called "the American [[Tolkien]]" by <s>Time magazine</s> gormless idiots who lump diametrically different writers together for no other reason than that they're both fantasy authors, which would probably explains its sudden spike in popularity following the TV show (at least [[Skub|to a point, anyway.]])

The series itself is set on the [[Original character, do not steal|totally not medieval European ripoff]] realm of Westeros as it is wracked by a massive succession war drawing its realms into conflict. A bunch of dudes declare themselves kings (book two), they're burning the continent down in their scramble for power, and somehow all the fuck-ups managed to lose anyway (book three). Just when the guys who lost the least start thinking they get to rule over the remaining chaos, more fuck ups happen and more dudes show up (book four). Sadly, winter has finally come and, unbeknownst to most people, [[Thousand Sons|evil ice wizards leading soulless undead]] [[Alpha Legion|assumed to be only myths by most people]] are about to invade the continent from the north. By the fifth book, things are going and/or will go to shit even for the bad guys.

According to a leaked fan conversation, George R. R. Martin jokingly stated the series would end with an epic cock-slap fight between Samwell Tarly and Jaime Lannister.

TL;DR: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Roses War of Roses] redux, with a side helpin' of <s>cliched fantasy</s> George's old sci-fi writing plots and [[/d/]]-lite.

===Characters===
{{cleanup}}
Since these books have some thousand named characters, you won't remember most of them without an obsessive disorder over details.
Here's a relatively short list (mostly based on the TV series rather than the books, but seems to randomly switch between the two) for the characters you'll care about.

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Stark'''

''"Winter Is Coming"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Honourable, bro-tier northerners who always [[Space Wolves|compare themselves to direwolves]]. They have a tendency towards [[Lawful Stupid]] that proves to bite them in the ass due to naivete about how [[Tzeentch|Westerosi corrupt politics actually works]]. They're also arguably the protagonists of the setting. Basically Scotland and/or the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_york House of York].
* Eddard Stark, ''The Quiet Wolf'': Patriarch, lord and POV death-puppet. Not nearly as stupid as everyone tries to pretend, but still a dead man walking.
* Robb Stark, ''The Young Wolf'': Shiny, [[Lawful Stupid]] King Arthur-like hero. After waging a successful war to avenge his murdered father, he was betrothed to a noblewoman but he ended having comfort sex with a virgin noblewoman which may have been arranged by her scheming bitch mother, while in softcore porno he got the hots for a commoner. Cacks it nastily: he got his head cut off and his pet's wolf's head stuck on his body, which was paraded around while his enemies chanted "HERE COMES THE KING IN THE NORTH!" In other words, he's a Scottish [[Roman Empire|Hannibal Barca]].
* Sansa Stark: Useless teenage girl extraordinaire at the start of the series with dreams of marrying a prince and "having lots of babies", but gets shat on hard by reality. Becomes Littlefinger's replacement goldfish when Catelyn's no longer around, her father got killed and her best friend was sold as a sex slave, and ended up in the worst relationship we can possibly imagine with King Joffrey. [[Grimdark|Even got deflowered via rape by Ramsey Bolton]] and married to him before managing to escape with the help of others. Currently acting as a co-ruler to her brother/cousin Jon Snow, and has learned much from her suffering, allowing her to kick Littlefinger out of the Great Game via throat slitting. While in the book Littlefinger is/was setting her up at House Arryn to claim the Vale and the North, the show version becomes QUEEN IN DA NORF in the final episode.
* Arya Stark: Little tomboy assassin. Has a kill list, but doesn't get to use it so long as she is an amnesiac apprentice of [[Officio Assassinorum|the Friendly Neighborhood Assassins Guild]]. After breaking away (in the TV series) from the Faceless Men she heads back to Westeros to get revenge on a LOT of people, giving her one of the highest kill counts in the series. Is currently back with her sister Sansa, acting as a general "troubleshooter". Kills the Night King like a fucking champion [[Skub|(or, alternatively, in a nonsensical plot twist)]] in Season 8, and is now riding south to add Cersei to her killcount. Instead, the Hound talks her out of it and she decides to sail into the unknown west.
* Catelyn Stark (nee Tully): A woman who trusts the wrong people at the worst time, causing a lot of misery. Gets killed along with Robb, then comes back (books only) as an undead witch bent on killing all the Boltons, Freys, Greyjoys, Lannisters... pretty much everyone she thinks was tangentially involved in betraying her and her family, or somebody who just pissed her off.
* Bran Stark: Intelligent little boy, named after the founder of House Stark, Brandon the Builder (basically Tony Stark combined with [[Leman Russ]]). He was crippled in the first sign of major [[GrimDark]]. Has prophetic dreams and becomes a [[druid]]. In the TV series, fucks things up by alerting the Others to where he's hiding, which gets all of the Children, his loyal wolf, the Three-Eyed Crow and Hodor killed. For good measure, turns out to have accidentally ''caused'' Hodor to become, well, Hodor, as he was using his druid powers to figure out why Hodor is only able to say Hodor, resulting in Hodor's gruesome death-by-zombies being beamed directly into young!Hodor's brain. He's now the Three-Eyed Raven and likes going around being creepy as fuck and generally weirding people out. Becomes King of the Six Kingdoms in a hilariously nonsensical plot twist in the finale.
* Rickon Stark: Four years old at the start, turning into a real little [[Barbarian]] from not being raised properly, because everyone who would have raised him was dead or missing. In the show, he ends up hanging out at the Umbers, then is handed over to Ramsay as a prisoner when Smalljon becomes afraid of the Wildlings living north of him (who were invited by Jon Snow to fight the Zombie Apocalypse), and finally dies via arrow in a sick game of "dodge the missiles" courtesy of Ramsey.
* Jon Snow, ''The White Wolf'': A bastard living in the Stark household before leaving for the Night's Watch (basically [[The Last Chancers|Colonel Schaeffer]] with more convicted rapists under his command) and excels there because nearly every one of his fellow recruits are peasants who have never had a formal days training while Jon has had the serious training afforded to all lords. After he takes over by becoming the Watch Commander secures and alliance with the Wildlings, ancient barbarian enemies of the Night's Watch, because when the end of the world is coming you tend to think outside the box. Currently revived by R'hllor in the series after being stabbed to death by the senior members of the Watch. Isn't actually Eddard's bastard son, but rather the legitimate son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, meaning that he is in fact the rightful heir to the Iron Throne. The new KING IN DA NORF according to his supporters after he killed Ramsay Bolton and took back Winterfell, and is also currently hooking up with his own aunt. He turns on Daenerys once he realizes she's lost it and kills her in the throne room. The Unsullied want his head, but instead King Bran exiles him to the Night's Watch and he fucks off into the far north to live with the Free Folk.
* Hodor: Hodor. Hodor, Hodor, Hodor. <s>An enormous and possibly retarded stable boy, and Bran's faithful steed.</s> Hodor. Ok, in all actual seriousness, this guy is probably one of the most tragic figures in this series (and that's saying something). [[Grimdark|The guy basically received horrible visions of his own death fighting a horde of zombies, buying time for his friends to escape by literally holding the door shut as he was hacked apart]]. This causes him to suffer a psychiatric break, leading him to develop Immature Personality Disorder and his only speech is to repeat a garbled phrase of his friend's last request "hold the door" for all of his adult life; the logic here is that "hold the door" devolves into "hol' th' door" and eventually "Hodor". You now feel bad for at laughing at the guy.
* Osha: A Wildling woman who surrendered to the Starks and becomes their servant in exchange for not getting killed. Now dead in the show thanks to Ramsay's dickery.</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Targaryen'''

''"Fire and Blood"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">The former Dragon kings and rulers of Westeros, [[Eldar|fair-haired purple-eyed beautiful people]] who have descended from the [[Dark Age of Technology|ancient technologically-advanced superpower]] of [[Roman Empire|Valyria]], which collapsed because of [[Fall of the Eldar|their colossal hubris]]. After the anarchic [[Age of Strife|Century of Blood]], the Targaryen patriarch Aegon I, instead of reconquering the lost cause of Essos and of Valyria's former empire, looked towards the rather primitive continent of Westeros, and its squabbling Seven Kingdoms, [[Great Crusade|to establish his own Imperial dynasty and unify the Realm]]. Aegon I is essentially the Low Fantasy version of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_the_Conqueror William the Conqueror] and/or the [[God-Emperor of Mankind]], with a little dash of [[/d/|incest]].

[[Rules Lawyer|Thanks to a loophole]], the Targaryens were immune to the moral objections relating to incest. Common sense (and common decency) took back seat to a time-honored policy of [[/d/|catastrophic inbreeding]], which made a number of problems. Aegon I married his older and younger sisters and had several kids with each, which would be the start of another Targaryen tradition: the occasional succession crisis. The inbreeding would also lead to a line of almost alternatingly great and lunatic kings, culminating in Aerys "The Mad King" Targaryen and a palace coup. Eventually the lineage was banished to Essos after a brutal civil war, the remnants trying to gather armies to retake the Iron Throne which they see as rightfully theirs. Basically a family of inbreeding girly-men with a massive sense of superiority and as arrogant as they come, forgetting that most of what they accomplished was due to the fact that only they had dragons. Still, they occasionally did have genuinely good people like Aegon V (aka Egg), Jaeherys I the Conciliator, his wife Good Queen Alysanne and complete badasses like Brynden Bloodraven and Baelor Breakspear.
Pseudo-Romans and/or the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Normandy House of Normandy].

* Aerys II, ''The Mad King'': [[Kharn|A pretty fun guy to be around]]. Had a psychotic fascination for fire, which extended to being a psychotic fascination for burning traitors, a category of people that eventually grew to include anybody he disliked for any reason, anyone who disagreed with him, and a few people who were unlucky enough to be caught in the crossfire. [[Goge Vandire|Teamkilled by his bodyguard Jaime for planning to burn the city down with everyone inside it, and even refused to accept his death until he actually died]].
* [[Mary Sue|Daenerys Targaryen]], ''Stormborn'': She was sold by her brother to a barbarian leader [[Genghis motherfucking Khan|Khal (warlord) Drogo]] in exchange for the promise that he'd use his Khalassar (warband/tribe) to conquer Westeros. She found her self esteem as his wife, then her husband killed her idiot brother Viserys and promised to conquer the world for Daenerys, making her a full-fledged badass barbarian warqueen. Unfortunately, her husband died when [[Derp|Daenerys trusted one of the slaves whose town Drogo had pillaged and burnt to heal an infected wound of his]] and his horde fell apart (though the book is somewhat ambiguous as to whether the slave did kill Drogo). Then she hatched three dragons (completely by accident when she tried to commit suicide) bringing them back from extinction, and now everyone wants to marry her because she is now one of the most powerful people around due to said dragons and being good-looking (in the books this is by the age-of-consent in Westeros standards, where girls are women when they start getting their periods and boys are men at age 13). [[Gets shit done]] except the entire fifth book, in which she mopes around about wanting to marry an annoying, flamboyant mercenary instead of saving herself for political marriage. After banging the flamboyant mercenary, she later marries a Meereenese noble who guarantees he can get her some peace (more likely [[Just As Planned|just as he planned]]). She also does nothing while insurgents kill her men, a horde of plagued refugees spread disease to her city, and standing idly by while an enemy army besieges her walls, all for realistically political reasons because the world is a horrible place. Learns how to train her dragon. Is currently (TV series) in Westeros invading the place with an army of elite hoplites, a massive horde of Dothraki, one dragon (because the other two are dead) and fucking her nephew (Jon Snow). Has officially gone Mad Queen as of S8E5, wherein she burned most of King's Landing after the city attempted to surrender. Jon kills her in the series finale so that she won't go around burninating the rest of the world.
* The dragons: The three dragons that Daenerys hatched. They're wyverns that breathe fire, [[Awesome|have blood hot enough to melt steel]], and [[List of /tg/ Cuisine|cook their meat before eating it]]. Naturally, some of the coolest things in the story.
** Drogon; named for her late husband, Khal Drogo. Black and Red, the biggest and [[Gork|most aggressive dragon]]. Starts eating people and then escapes, leading to the other two getting imprisoned. Interrupts a gladiator tournament, killing a lot of people before being whipped by Daenerys into flying her to a Khalassar that broke off from her husband's after his death. Is now the last dragon standing after Viserion bites it at Winterfell and Rhaegal gets shot down over Dragonstone. Fucks off to who knows where after Dany is killed.
** Rhaegal; named for the first of her dead brothers, Rhaegar. Green and gold, the [[Mork|cunning one]]. Kills Quentyn Martell (see below). After breaking out of jail with Viserion they go "all your bases are belong to us" on Meereen, killing people and taking over the pyramid of a loyal family as his lair. Is now dead in the show thanks to Euron Greyjoy and some diabolus ex machina bullshit.
** Viserion; named for her other brother Viserys. White and gold, the [[Vulkan|friendliest]] (as dragons go, he still eats people) and the loudest. Dug cave for himself in his jail then moved into another pyramid after their great escape. Gets killed by the [[Vampire Counts|Night's King in the show via a magic spear, is reanimated to be his zombie dragon steed]] and blasts a hole in the famous Wall, allowing the armies of snow elves and zombies to start flooding Westeros. Now perma-dead thanks to the Night King biting it.
* Viserys Targaryen, ''The Beggar King'': Daenerys' physically abusive older brother. Best known for being a bully with incestuous lust for her, and an arrogant and incompetent fuck with a massive sense of entitlement. He eventually got himself killed for being an all-around jerk and whiny idiot, which culminated in him threatening his sister and unborn nephew with a sword while drunk in a sacred Dothraki place where weapons and bloodshed are forbidden on pain of death (execution is done by bloodless death - having a scarf wrapped tight around the neck and being drowned in a barrel). Daenerys' husband [[awesome|poured molten gold over his head and called it his promised crown]].
* Aegon Targaryen, ''Aegon VI'': Daenerys' nephew, the son of her brother Rhaegar. Been hiding in Essos for the entire length of the series, but recently raised an army of Westerosi exiles and threw them all a massive Welcome Home party with rape and pillage. Wants to marry his aunt because she has dragons, and might not actually be a member of House Targaryen if you believe some fans. He can actually count past 6, can multiply numbers, can read different language and has a minor understanding of geometry thus cementing him as one of the most educated people in this overwrought series. Can also do his own laundry.
* Brynden Rivers ''Bloodraven'': A Targaryen bastard who came to prominence about a hundred years before the series as sort of sorcerer, he later became known as the "Three-Eyed Raven/Crow" after encountering the Children of the Forest, and uses his powers to help advert the Long Night and train Bran. He's described as having long, white hair, missing an eye, bound to a tree, knows all and sees all, associated heavily with ravens and omens... [[Vikings|yeah, he's very much Odin, come to think of it.]]</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Lannister'''

''<s>"Hear Me Roar"</s> "A Lannister Always Pays His Debts"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">[[Monopoly|The world's richest family]], proud, pompous, selfish and fabulous assholes. Not much of a martial tradition but if you cross them [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7t7cnwlOgY they will fucking cut you]. You can tell they are the bad guys because they have an army of sick fucks, including a zebra-riding mercenary band and 7' 8" Khornate Champion <s>not-Goliath</s> Gregor Clegane. House Lancaster combined with the House of Rothschild and the Mafia.
* Tywin Lannister, ''The Lion of Lannister'': The Godfather, head of the house, and obsessed with his reputation as a Magnificent Bastard extraordinaire. He was a most feared general whose greatest achievement was nuking House Reyne out of existence, which was immortalised in his own sweet-yet-creepy-as-fuck theme song (The Rains of Castamere) that became used as a warning against anyone standing against him. During his tenure as Hand of the King (i.e. Prime Minister), he was a political genius who operates as the true power behind the Iron Throne, keeping the realm stable and prosperous despite the stupidity of Aerys II and Joffrey. However, despite all of his achievements, he was an [[Emperor|absolutely terrible father]], who treats his children as nothing more than tools to further his political agenda. He is completely blind to the incestuous relationship his two oldest children had, and hated Tyrion and made his life a living hell for very poor reasons. He humiliated Tyrion whenever it wouldn't threaten the family's reputation, berated Tyrion for being a whore-monger despite secretly being one himself, [[Grimdark|tried to get him killed multiple times]], and as the capstone of awful parenting, he taught Tyrion not to marry commoners after he married one called Tysha - by forcing Tyrion to watch Tysha get gangraped, forcing him to rape her too and then annulling their marriage. The only person Tywin truly loved was his wife. He eventually gets his comeuppance when Tyrion finds out the truth about the Tysha incident, and kills him with a crossbow, all while mentioning that out of all his children, Tyrion was the most alike to Tywin himself. He's based on [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Neville,_16th_Earl_of_Warwick Warwick the Kingmaker].
* Joanna Lannister: Tywin's late wife and first cousin, meaning the next three characters are inbred as well, ironically. Dies giving birth to Tyrion, which is part of why Tywin hates him, though Cersei hates him for other reasons. Caught wind of Cersei and Jaime's incestuous tendencies, but she died before she could tell Tywin. It is implied that her ghost visits Jaime in a dream and mourns the current state of her family.
* Cersei Lannister, ''Cunt Queen'': Tywin and Joanna's first child. Twin sister to Jaime Lannister and wife to King Robert Baratheon. She fucks her brother Jaime all the time and had three of his children, whom she passed off as Robert's to grab power. She is a massive narcissist who thinks of herself as "female Tywin" and hence seeks to rule Westeros as the Queen, and will do anything to keep her power... even when [[Abbadon the Despoiler|most of her plans end up becoming utter failures]]. Crazy as all fuck and prophesied to be killed by the "little brother." This is because of a prophecy a Gypsy made when Cersei was a child that she'd be a beautiful queen, lose everything, her children would die before her, and the "Valonqar" would kill her. Though that does explains why she hates Tyrion as hard as all fuck, [[Just As Planned|the exact translation of the term]] that was used is "younger sibling", and not necessarily her sibling, which opens the door to all sorts of characters who hate the fuck out of her. Since Jaime is technically younger by a few seconds, him killing Cersei would be an interesting twist not without buildup. Possibly the Gypsy was messing with her head because of what a bitch Cersei was being to her; something Cersei never grew out of. Cersei is currently alive only because Varys wants her to be, [[Just As Planned|as she's a terrible queen who'll destabilize the realm enough for him to bring back the Targaryens]]. She was completely shaved, stripped of power in all but her royal heritage and forced to do a nude walk of penance throughout the city by the High Sparrow (ASOIAF Pope equivalent) after he uncovered her crimes. Now she's waiting for her hair to grow back and may be thinking of revenge. She gets it in the show by blowing up the Sept (ASOIAF church) with everyone she doesn't like inside it, having her cousin killed near the Wildfire then capturing the nun who was her jailer and [[Grimdark|leaving her to be tortured to death by zombie Gregor Clegane]]. She is in short Thanquol disguised as a beautiful blonde woman. Gets anticlimactically squashed by a collapsing ceiling along with Jaime during Daenerys's assault on King's Landing.
* Jaime Lannister, ''The Kingslayer'': Younger twin brother (by about three seconds) to Cersei Lannister and commander of the Kingsguard. He loves his sister in every sense of the word and had three children with her. Killed the last king despite his oath, and is widely hated for it, even though everyone agrees that dying was a massive improvement for Aerys. The reason for this betrayal was that Aerys had a huge stockpile of Acme Brand Magic Napalm stockpiled under the city, ready to be set off the moment a siege broke through the town walls, and Jaime's options were to let it happen or kill Aerys before the crazy fuck got ''everybody'' killed. His desire to openly love his sister and win the respect he feels he deserves eventually causes Cersei to reject him. Starts off as an arrogant douche [[Grimdark|and tried to murder Bran Stark, but accidentally crippled him instead]]; he becomes otherwise quite bro-tier besides the whole wants-to-fuck-his-sister thing, though he grows out of ''that'' as well when he realizes what a bitch she is and that there's plenty of women who want his jock - even the hunky Brienne isn't that bad looking. Thoroughly humbled to boot after learning a few hard lessons, losing his sword hand, and having some time to rethink his life. Also the only person in his family who treats Tyrion well, along with one of his aunts and two dead uncles. Essentially, a more incestuous and douchey Blood Angel. In the books, he is currently being lured into a trap by Lady Stoneheart. In the show, he has finally told Cersei to get fucked after realizing that she has well and truly lost it, and is riding north to help fight the White Walkers. He survives the Battle of Winterfell, hooks up with Brienne, and then rides south [[Derp|because he just can't let Cersei go.]] Winds up getting shanked by Euron Greyjoy and dies [[Fail|via collapsing ceiling]].
* Tyrion Lannister, ''Halfman'': a very intelligent dwarf who is awesome, but hated by all of the civilized characters in the books, except his brother Jaime. He seems to do much better when getting drunk with whores, rogues, bastards and barbarians. His silver tongue is one of his greatest strengths (he's witty and good at persuading people) and weaknesses (he's quick with insults and the truth in a city ruled by sociopaths and liars). Tyrion is also one of the only characters with an actual sense of the bigger picture, and an interest toward steering the world toward an outcome that ''doesn't'' involve a [[The End Times|Warhammer End Times]] scenario. Unfortunately, the world's movers, shakers, and those who generally have the power to make a difference are increasingly either a) dead, b) scattered to the winds, or c) hate his dwarf guts. Despite the increasing difficulty and fruitlessness of his task, however, [[Awesome|Tyrion still fights]]. After being framed for killing Joffrey, he killed his own father and is currently in exile in the Free Cities, weaseling his way into leading a merc band and trying to sign them up with Daenerys' forces, recognizing her as one of the few chances Westeros has got of fixing its shit (provided she can get her own shit together, which she's having a bit of trouble with). Since characters in this series tend to either be walking tropes, rip-offs of other fantasy characters, or historical people with different names, Tyrion is probably based on the great [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_Vorkosigan Miles Vorkosigan] (who was himself based on a few people including Sir Winston Churchill) and is a nod to King Richard III (a deformed but competent king later demonized by historians of his era). Even if he is usually the smartest one in the room at any given time, though, Tyrion is still not above having some derp moments. Exhibit A, when Tyrion asked his father what happened to his first wife (right before killing him), he took an ''obvious'' "I don't know and I don't care," response ("Wherever whores go") as actual, literal directions. The show version meets Daenerys and becomes her Hand only to [[Fail|fuck up a bunch of stuff]] and lose her trust. Sells her out when he realizes that she's gone round the bend and winds up becoming Hand to King Bran.
* Kevan Lannister: Tywin's younger brother, considered "the reliable one". One of the few decent Lannisters, though saying that he is perfectly happy carrying out Tywin's bidding. Tried to talk sense into Cersei and was later called in to try and fix her mess. He did such a good job of it that Varys decided to personally thank him. With a crossbow. And a group of knife-wielding children.
* Cersei and Robert's (actually Jaime's) children:
** Joffrey Baratheon: "Heir" of the throne, and technical king of Westeros during the War of the Five Kings since he lives in King's Landing and sits on the throne. Turned out to be worse than Aerys. He died and there was much rejoicing. [[Fail|Except by his mother, who instead had sex on his corpse]]. Fourteen years old at time of death.
** Tommen Baratheon: The new king on the Iron Throne. Nine years old. Married to a teenaged shotacon wife who's (unknown to him) the granddaughter of his brother's true killer. Trying to litigate the criminalization of beets. Loves [[Cats|kittens]]. He's pretty well-rounded and non-fucked up, which is a miracle considering his parents, both putative and biological. Also seems to be trying to take kinging seriously, but his mom is trying to quash that in her subliminal attempt to hold power indefinitely, so whether it holds is another matter entirely. Prophesied to die before Cersei, which doubly tragic due to his age and being a much better person than her. He commits suicide after Cersei gets her revenge via killing his wife, godfather, great-uncle, and all his religious friends via blowing up the ASOIAF equivalent of St. Peter's Basilica, because of course her power hunger was more important than his happiness and well being.
** Mycella Baratheon: Princess, and Cersei and "Robert's" second oldest child. She had her face fucked up because of Arianne Martell's amateur intrigues, which overlapped with poor planning, general stupidity, and another guy's backstabbing. Ten years old. Before the maiming, she was quite decent and non-evil. Who knows how she'll turn out now with half of her face cut off. Also prophesied to die before Cersei. In the show she had a crush on Oberyn's surviving nephew, but was killed by Elia in revenge for Oberyn's death, but alive in the books though missing an ear. Also, the readership all got on George's balls for maiming this girl, mostly because it was a sign that he had run out of ideas and was basically just milking diabolus ex machina ([[Just As Planned|or that's what he wants us to think]]).
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Baratheon'''

''"Ours is the Fury"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Ascended to the Iron Throne after a successful rebellion against the Mad King Aerys II Targaryen. Produces no less than three claimants to the succession, each one very different from the other. Technically a cadet branch of House Targaryen as their founder Orys was allegedly a Targaryen bastard, who took the original Storm Kings (House Durrandon) deer sigil after killing the last one and fucking his only child Argella and then 200 odd years later, King Egg's daughter married their grandfather, they're pretty much the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Plantagenet House of Plantagenet].
* Robert Baratheon, ''The Usurper'': Fat, old, former badass who led the rebellion, and now the king who married Cersei Lannister. Then he fucked a bunch of other women and had lots of illegitimate kids. He was killed while mixing boar hunting and drinking, but whether this death was planned or not is uncertain. On the surface, a king with a thing for easy laughs and partying; right underneath the surface, he's irresponsible and leaves the actual ruling of a nation to his staff, deeper under the surface he's pretty much a sad, lonely old bro who would rather not have been king. Comparable to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_IV_of_England Edward IV], in that both were powerfully built military geniuses who overthrew the existing monarchy and later succumbed to an unhealthy lifestyle.
* Stannis '''The Mannis''' Baratheon: Robert's younger brother, all-around badass who swings between [[Lawful Stupid]] (moreso in the show than the books) and [[gets shit done|getting shit done]]. [[Judge Dredd|Believes so strongly in the rule of law]] that he feels compelled to take the Iron Throne for himself despite wanting nothing to do with it. Is advised by a priestess of the God of light, Melisandre, and a lowborn smuggler named Davos Seaworth raised to knighthood and nobility. [[C.S Goto|His character is ruined in the show into an incompetent pawn of Melisandre and gets killed off just because one of the showrunners didn't like him]].
** Shireen Baratheon: Stannis's kid daughter. Sweet, charming, and intelligent little lady who was left with a deformity on her face from a disease called greyscale. Teaches Davos how to read, and is probably the most innocent person in the series alongside Tommen, Myrcella and a few others. Being the grim and dark universe A Song of Ice and Fire is, however, this means that she's likely going to end up becoming fuel for a vicious fire god. In the show she does, but in the books she is safe and sound since Stannis isn't stupid enough to bring him with her while campaigning. His wife, on the other hand, being such an idiotic fanatical pyromaniac... well, her odds aren't exactly looking that great.
* Renly Baratheon, ''That Gay Guy'': Robert and Stannis's youngest brother. Took Loras Tyrell (a.k.a. Knight of Flowers, Pretty Boy, etc.) as his lover. Decided he was better suited to be king, though the bizarre and outdated laws of the land stated Stannis was next in line (though Joffrey and then Tommen were first since they were [[Pretend|officially]] Bobby B's legitimate kids). Was hugely popular since he had Robert's charisma, which led to him getting the most support, but he lacked Stannis's conviction and devotion to the duty of actually doing the work of a king, or even Robert's ability to wage war. Killed by Melisandre with some "help" by Stannis ''The Mannis'' for trying to steal his crown, though in the books Stannis may not have been completely aware of the role he played in Renly's death. He's basically [[That Guy]] of ASOIAF, since quite a lot of shit is his fault, indirectly or otherwise.
*Gendry Baratheon, the Bastard Son. One of Robert's many, many bastard children, and the one who gets the most page and screen time. He starts out as a humble blacksmith in King's Landing, who first comes to Ned's attention when Lord Stark is investigating the death of Jon Arryn. From there, he gets shipped off to the Night's Watch to avoid the imminent purge of Robert's bastards, and winds up becoming friends with Arya and Hot Pie. After some adventuring and sexual tension with Arya (at least in the show), he joins the Brotherhood Without Banners. In the show, they sell him to Melisandre so she can use him for a blood magic ritual, while in the books he just goes on being a smith and doesn't get involved in anything particularly weird or shady. He has yet to reappear in the books, but in the show Ser Davos sets him free and tells him to fuck off, which he does for a few seasons. He eventually turns up back in King's Landing, where Davos finds him and recruits him for Team Snow. He helps Jon capture a wight to show Cersei, makes dragonglass weapons for the Army of the Living, has sex with Arya, and fights in the Battle of Winterfell, after which Daenerys legitimizes him as the new lord of House Baratheon.</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Tully'''

''"Family, Duty, Honor"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content"> Lords of the central river lands. Being the obligatory central nation they spend a lot of the series being fought over like a cake in between fat kids. Basically Poland/Netherlands, given they have so many rivers and how hard they've been fucked over.
*Edmure Tully: Basically the SoIaF universe's eternal butt monkey (because he happens to be a decent fucking person). A useless ponce with a dense streak a mile wide and a bad habit of bragging about things he shouldn't be proud of. It took hanging in a stockade for a few months to make him experience some growth. When Jaime was brought in to unfuck the situation and end the siege at Tully's house in Riverrun, Jaime's "negotiation" pressured him into convincing his house to surrender, but he made sure [[Troll|that Brynden got out first]]. Currently spending his days at the Lannister house as a hostage to make sure that the Tullys don't try to ruin the situation again. Tries to make a case for himself as king in the final episode, only to get shut down by Sansa.
*Brynden Tully ''the Blackfish'': He didn't catch the memo that he was part of the joke faction, and proceeds to spend the entire series fucking Lannister shit up and generally being a boss. Thought to be the black sheep in a family of fish. (Thus "Blackfish", geddit?) Ended up holed up in Riverrun, and got the fuck out right before the end of the siege, so that the Lannisters couldn't dick him over as a prisoner (or so he can keep dicking them over before he became a prisoner). Also widely accepted by the fans to be a closeted homosexual. In the HBO show, he gets killed when resisting arrest from Tully forces by order of Edmure. [[Rage|And it happens offscreen.]]</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Arryn'''

''"As High as Honor"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Mountain lords turned [[NEET|neurotic shut ins]]. Goes through lords about as quickly as you would expect a castle equipped with a door that opens into empty air. Basically Switzerland/Afghanistan, seeing as how they stayed neutral in the War of Five Kings, their land is covered by nothing but mountains, and they're constantly fighting with the local tribes. They were being entertainingly screwed over by Littlefinger until his death.
*Jon Arryn: Only appears posthumously and is the catalyst for the whole plot. The true mastermind behind Robert's Rebellion, was killed by Littlefinger via Lysa when he figured out that Robert's kids are bastards of Cersei and Jaime. His death was blamed on the Lannisters to destabilize Westeros.
*Lysa Arryn: Loli bride turned Lady of the Vale after the Lannisters forcibly retired her husband from life, at least officially. In reality Littlefinger convinced her to poison her husband and blame the Lannisters [[Just As Planned|which pretty much started this whole clusterfuck to begin with]]. A closeted, crazy woman who spends the entire series in her castle "the Eyrie" being useless, breastfeeding her own son at age 10, obsessing over Littlefinger's cock, and [[Derp|refusing to help her sister and nephew in the war she and Littlefinger pretty much started]], which may have guaranteed their eventual horrific murders by their enemies. Finally gets her comeuppance when Littlefinger kicks her out the moon door (post-taunting, of course), putting her out of our collective misery. Long live the Lord Protector.
* Robert Arryn: ''Littlefuck'', Lysa's equally mentally unstable autistic son, who still sucks on his mom's tit, and enjoys seeing people "fly" out the moon door to their deaths. He actually seems to be a bit smarter than you would first think and is a really, really good judge of character, except with Sansa. Secretly being poisoned by Littlefinger and Sansa, so she can take over the Vale and North. Named Robin in the show because the showrunners were afraid that having two characters with the same name would be too confusing. The show version doesn't get poisoned, but turns up in the series finale as the Lord of the Vale.</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Greyjoy'''

''"We Do Not Sow"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">[[Awesome|A house founded by Cthulhu-worshipping Norscans]]. While not actual Vikings in any sense of the word, there is little other way to describe them. They live on some islands and almost their entire culture is based around raiding and the ocean. Their religion holds it shameful for a man to pay for personal possessions, and states they have to get things either by trade or The Iron Price; seizing something from the body or belongings of someone he defeated in conquest rather than paying or trading for it. Also only possessions acquired via The Iron Price command respect among the Ironborn.
*Balon Greyjoy: Asshole dad, crappy ruler and general shithead who rebelled against Robert Baratheon and failed miserably. All of his sons were killed, except for Theon, who was taken as a hostage to ensure his good behavior. Despite being in a position to join either the Lannisters or the Starks during the War of Five Kings and thereby get whatever he wanted from either (independence and the North, or independence and Casterly Rock, respectively), he does the absolute stupidest thing possible and declares himself independent without support from anyone, attacking the North and the rest of Westeros, thereby virtually guaranteeing that he'll be on the receiving end of another one-sided battle. Never got that far, though, since he was pushed off a bridge during a storm by an assassin his brother Euron sent.
*Victarion Greyjoy: Admiral of the Iron Fleet. [[Gets shit done]] while wearing [[Dark Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|Lokhir Fellheart's]] armor during boarding actions. Does it for vengeance, the lulz and as a ticket to Ironborn heaven (which they believe men can reach if they die in battle or by drowning). Worships both R'hllor and the Drowned God. For all his badassery, is far too stupid to realize that his black Red Priest sidekick's constant rambling about his "great destiny" is inevitably going to end in his burning to death on a sacrificial pyre. Said Red Priest impressed Victarion by surviving being marooned at sea for 3 weeks and turning Victarion's infected arm into a super-strong volcano arm. Seriously.
*Aeron Greyjoy ''Damphair'': A priestly Alan Moore who drank seawater. Once a fun-loving party animal, he nearly drowned during the Greyjoy Rebellion, and became a dour and devout priest of the Ironborn [[Cthulhu]] religion. Confirmed to have been raped by Euron when they were kids. Planned to overthrow Euron, who bribed and manipulated his way into becoming king of the Ironborn. [[Grimdark|Was captured by Euron and tortured to try and make him renounce his faith, including feeding him spoiled food, drugging him and burning him. Later Euron tied Aeron, naked, to the prow of Euron's ship alongside Euron's tortured, pregnant former lover because she showed Aeron kindness by once giving him proper food]]. He tried to console her by saying their suffering will end in underwater Valhalla, [[Awesome|showing Euron failed to make him deny his faith]].
*Theon Greyjoy: Son of the Lord/King of the Iron Islands. Had the personality of a stereotypical high school jock, being an excellent archer and womanizer and proud of it. He was given to Ned Stark by his father after Balon failed to successfully rebel against Robert Baratheon. Swore an oath to Robb, but then ditched him out of a desperate need to please his father. Ends up castrated and acts as the personal slave of Ramsay Bolton after Ramsay puts him through horrific torture to turn him into Reek. Rescued by his sister, but the psychological trauma meant it took awhile before he could stop calling himself Reek and start getting back to normal mentally (physically he's now missing a few parts that don't heal or grow back). Dead in the show, thanks to charging the Night King by himself while protecting Bran.
* Asha Greyjoy: Theon's older sister and a commander of some renown which is quite a feat - almost every man on the Iron Islands except her father either tried to get in her pants, or told her to [[-4 STR|stop playing around and go do some actual women's work]], before she kicked enough ass that they respected her. Rescues Theon after he escapes Ramsay but then loses him to Stannis. Is named Yara in the show because the showrunners thought her name sounded too similar to Osha the wildling chick, and is also apparently [[PROMOTIONS|bisexual]]. Eventually becomes Lady of the Iron Islands in the show because she's the last Greyjoy standing.
*Euron Greyjoy ''Crow's Eye'': A [[Chaos|sick fuck Lovecraftian pirate armed with unnatural sorcerous powers, so evil]] that Balon banished him from the Iron Islands. Every member of his crew is a mute, because Euron ripped all their tongues out. Many of them are also the illegitimate sons of women he's raped around the world during his raids. Uses an eyepatch to conceal a pitch-black eye, his personal "obviously a villain" mark. Raped his brother Victarion's wife, then claimed she wanted it so Victarion had to kill her. Raped his younger brother Aeron. Also showed back up in the Iron Islands the day after Balon died, despite having been raping and pillaging in Essos before that, which is suspicious as fuck. Now the new Iron King. Plans to conquer Westeros, and has some unknown plan to deal with Daenerys. Revealed in the book ''Winds of Winter'' to be [[Honsou|the sickest fuck in an entire setting of sick fucks (and that's saying something)]], including having a god complex while hating religion so much he [[Grimdark|tortures any clergymen he captures to try and make them give up their faiths using ironic tortures themed around their religions - such as preachers have their tongues cut out and burning priests of the fire god to death]]. Euron tried and failed to break his priest brother Aeron's faith so he lashed Aeron to the front of his ship to die [[Grimdark|alongside Euron's own pregnant lover Falia]]. Jaime kills him in the second-to-last episode of the show. </div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Tyrell'''

''"Growing Strong"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Lords of Highgarden and backstabbers par-excellence and owners of a lot of fertile land. Unlike the current lot of Lannisters they understand the value of good PR, balancing ruthlessness with being somewhat amicable, political savvy and not being stuck-up on honor. They're basically France. [[Fail|Unfortunately they've all been wiped out in the show]].
*Mace "The Ace" Tyrell: Lord of Highgarden. Massively fat and overweight, while being stupid, overreaching and constantly mocked by everyone else, he's otherwise known as a friendly man, a good Lord when it comes to management and a good father; unfortunately this isn't enough to save a man in the Game of Thrones. Gets killed with the rest of the noble houses when Cersei blows up the Great Sept of Baelor.
*Olenna Tyrell: The brains behind House Tyrell's schemes. Known as the ''Queen of Thorns'' for being an outspoken, prickly and venomous old lady. Schemed with Littlefinger to have Joffrey killed, but she carried it out with compressed powder "gems" that poisoned his wine. Now she keeps her family in line and is hailed as a more progressive version of Tywin. Became a fan favorite for constantly dropping awesome one-liners and telling the Sand Snakes to shut up. [[Fail|Later killed off in the show]], but not before revealing to Jaime that [[Awesome|she was the one who killed Joffrey]].
*Willas Tyrell: Mace Tyrell's eldest son and heir, crippled at a very young age when jousting against Oberyn Martell. Probably one of the most pleasant and sensible characters in the series, which might explain why he's yet to make an appearance. Very fond of breeding animals, especially horses.
*Garlan Tyrell ''The Gallant'': Second-born son. Badass extraordinaire, considered one of the best swords in Westeros, and one of the few people kind to Tyrion. Trains for real combat (often against multiple opponents by himself) unlike Loras, who's a tourney fighter. Single-handed wrecks many notable knights fighting for Stannis during the War of The Five Kings. And he is the only person other than Tywin to put Joffrey in his place, at his own wedding. Sadly no POV chapter yet and omitted from the TV series (Loras takes credit for his deeds).
*Loras Tyrell ''The Knight of Flowers'': The Tyrell who appears most in the series. Considered to be an example of the perfect knight, despite his youth. Is secretly Renly's gay lover and conspired to take the throne with him and his sister. Last seen badly injured in the books attempting to take Stannis' castle. In the show he ends up tortured by the members of the Faith for being gay [[C.S Goto|because the showrunners retconned them to hate gay people]], [[Protectorate of Menoth|later joins their ranks of questionable willingness]] then dies when Cersei blows up the Sept of Baelor.
*Margaery Tyrell: The would-be Queen of Westeros, she has married, in order, Renly Baratheon (gay), Joffrey Baratheon (evil), and Tommen Baratheon (8 years old) and has been crowned as queen three times. While she is nice, she is capable of manipulation. In the show she marries and uses sex to control Tommen. Was arrested by the resident Chamber Militant The Sparrow and asked for a trial by faith in the books. In the show this also happens but she tries to be pious in an attempt to save herself, but ended up getting killed when Cersei blew up the Sept of Baelor.
</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Bolton'''

''"Our Blades Are Sharp"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">The Starks' most important (and most despised) vassal, a former arch rival made of [[Grimdark]] because their entire theme [[Dark Eldar|revolves around Torture]]. Their sigil is a flayed man and their castle is [[Commorragh|a complex of eternal suffering called the Dreadfort]], which shows how stupid the Starks were for allying with them.
*Roose Bolton, ''The 'Leech Lord'': A Lawful Evil sociopathic health nut who's called the Leech Lord because he gets leeched regularly, believing they get rid of bad blood. Second-most powerful Lord in the North with ambitions to depose the Starks. Since the Starks are unable to think like crafty people and are blinded by honor this doesn't prove too difficult. He gets his wish when he stabs Robb Stark in the back, at his uncle's wedding no less, and has anyone associated with Robb killed. He then makes over Winterfell in his bloody image, and is currently trolling Stannis. Believes in the abolished practice of "[[Rape|Droit du seigneur]]" (a tradition that allowed a lord to have sex with subordinate women, whether they wanted to or not) and killed a man for trying to hide his wife from Roose. Believed that he and his son could be as evil as they wanted as long as no one found out. Killed by Ramsey in the show, which Ramsey tried to cover with a lie despite the witnesses to his actions.
*Ramsay Snow/Bolton: The bastard son of Roose Bolton and a woman he raped. He is arguably the most fucked up person in all of the Seven Kingdoms, because he [[Dark Eldar|loves to torture and kill people openly for the lulz]], such as Theon Greyjoy, who he crippled, knocked his teeth out and castrated too. He then sent the severed appendage to the foreshortened Theon's dad in a cutesy box with a letter mockingly detailing his evilness. Will torture anyone who points out his illegitimate heritage though now he's legally recognized as a Bolton. Also has a pack of hunting dogs he names after women he hunts, rapes and kills. Married a fake Arya Stark and regularly mistreats her, including forced bestiality. Not a fun guy to be around. Only reason he's gotten away with it for so long (as pointed out by his father) is because no one is strong enough to stand up to him yet, but when they are he's going to be killed. In the show he killed his father with a knife, fed his stepmother and newborn half-brother to his dogs, then married Sansa Stark and deflowered her via rape. Ramsay was such a monster even Iwan Rheon, THE ACTOR WHO PLAYED THE GUY, hoped he'd die horribly. He got his wish: The consequences of Ramsay's actions catch up with him when Jon Snow shows up with an army capable of threatening him, and after surprise reinforcements from Littlefinger and his own fucked-up teamkilling, the Starks crush the Bolton army, forcing Ramsay to flee back to Winterfell. Despite this, the gate is smashed down, he is disarmed, beaten rather brutally and detained to await trial. Before the trial Sansa sets his dogs on him, which he had deliberately starved so they would eat Jon. Apparently they found him quite tasty.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Martell'''

''"Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Desert dwelling survivalists who pride themselves on having never been conquered by the Targaryen dynasty (though they later married in). Moorish Spaniards, kinda. [[C.S Goto|Their story arc was completely FUBAR in the show, as Elia and Oberyn's daughters kill Oberyn's brother and nephew for taking too long to avenge him before being captured and killed themselves by Euron and Cersei]].
*Doran Martell: Lord of Sunspear and of royal descent. Still mad at the the Lannisters about that whole "murdered-my-sister-and-infant-niece thing". Playing the longest of long games with Varys while trying to keep the rest of his psychotic family members in check. Wheelchair bound due to his gout. [[What|Killed off in the show by Ellaria as part of her plan to avenge Oberyn]].
*Arianne Martell: One of GRRM's characters who seems to exists solely to fuck everything up at the worst conceivable moment. Still hot as Dornish girls come. Exists only in the books, where she is currently helping her dad get ready to topple the Lannisters after fucking everything up with her own stupid plan to crown Myrcella, which is what got the poor girl maimed.
*Oberyn Martell ''The Viper of Dorne'': Doran Martell's brother, a bisexual swinger, former mercenary, and a drunkard. His girlfriend is a spectacularly beautiful bastard named Ellaria Sand and he has many illegitimate children, mostly daughters, collectively called "The Sand Snakes". Crippled the Tyrell heir in a fight, causing a rift between the two houses; despite this, he's actually best mates with the aforementioned heir, due to Willas Tyrell being straight up the nicest and most balanced man in the series and Oberyn being a somewhat decent person. Known for poisoning his weapons, as well as his battle-cry. Died from a mutual kill, with Gregor Clegane crushing his skull in rather graphically, avenging his sister Elia who Gregor had raped and murdered. Though it's probably a win for Oberyn, since he got Clegane with a horribly painful and slow-acting venom which stretched his death over days or even weeks, during which time he was ruthlessly experimented upon by a mad scientist.
*Quentyn Martell: Didn't realize what series he was in, poor bastard. A member of House Martell, sent to marry Daenerys to secure an alliance between the families, since the original marriage plan to hook Arianne up with Viserys won't work with Viserys dead. Leaves Westeros and goes all the way to the city of Meereen to marry her, but he's too late, as she marries the Meereenese noble Hizdahr, and like Jorah he's not her type (Dany likes her bad boys). Tries to tame two of her dragons to impress her; the attempt goes wrong, he gets horribly burnt and gradually dies in agony from his wounds.
*The Sand Snakes: Oberyn's children. All daughters he had with various women throughout his travels (all consensual encounters, mind you). Mixed race and all hot with various skills including combat training and mastery of poisons. Working with Doran and Ellaria in the books. [[C.S Goto|Ruined in the show where they don't accomplish anything, are given atrocious dialogue (the "you need the bad pussy" line comes to mind), aren't great fighters]] and get killed by Euron's men, except for one who gets captured and poisoned by Cersei so an imprisoned Ellaria is forced to watch her die and decompose.</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''Night's Watch'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">The Night's Watch are an apolitical force in charge of manning The Wall, a giant ice wall that separates the relative tranquility of the south from the Lovecraftian fucked-up-itude of the true north. They are chronically undermanned and undersupplied since nobody believes their stories of a barbarian army or the impending zombie apocalypse. Basically everybody else thinks they're in a game of [[Diplomacy]] and the Night's Watch are the only ones who realize they're actually in [[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]], though it's been so long since the last snow elf invasion that even they had forgotten about the undead hordes and focused too much on barbarians. They've allied with the Wildings and the North, but in the TV show the Night's King used the undead dragon Viserion to burn a hole through The Wall.
*Jeor Mormont, ''The Old Bear'': 997th Lord Commander of the Night's Watch at the start of the series. Sees Jon Snow as something of a second son (since his own son Jorah was exiled for enslaving and refused to take the black for his crimes). Leads a ranging north of the Wall to investigate reports that the Others have returned. Ends up killed during a mutiny of survivors after the Others wiped out most of his force.
*Alliser Thorne: Prick of a knight who was favorite to be the next Watch Commander, but was passed over by Jon Snow. Unable to accept Jon Snow letting the Wildlings live on the other side of the wall in an alliance against the zombie hordes, he staged a coup against Jon. It failed because Jon was brought back to life. He is now dead in the show, having been executed for his treason by Jon Snow.
*Aemon Targaryen: Maester of the Citadel at Castle Black. Despite being the third born son of King Maekar I Targaryen, he declined the right to sit on the Iron Throne. One of the few people in the series to die of old age, at 102.
*Samwell Tarly, ''The Slayer'': Fat bookworm who was forced to take the black after his father Randyl threatened to murder him for being unmanly. Jon Snow's best friend among the Night's Watch, and knows everything because he "read it in a book". Despite being a self-professed coward, Sam became the first person in thousands of years to slay an Other with an obsidian dagger. George Martin himself said Sam's based on Samwise Gamgee from Lord of the Rings. Since then, he has started improving his combat skills and balls (in more ways than one for the latter, finding his spine and losing his virginity). He abandons the Night's Watch to help fight the dead and tell Jon who he really is, and winds up becoming the new Grand Maester by the end of the show.
*Eddison Tollett, ''Dolorous Edd'': Probably the most badass member of the Night's Watch. Responds to situations by making sarcastic jokes about them, and known for being a grim motherfucker in a setting of grim motherfuckers. In the show he [[Awesome|became the new Lord Commander]] while Jon was dead, but gave the title back to Jon when he was brought back to life, and then Jon handed it right back because he needed to go sort out Ramsay Bolton. Dies in Season 8 at the Battle of Winterfell. </div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">

'''Wildlings'''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Groups of nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes who live north of the Wall. Mostly First Men by blood, they have been heading toward the Wall for the past decade with the reputed reemergence of the Others. Nomadic, aggressive, and very much believing in "might makes right", they do not get along with anyone south of The Wall since they view them as "Kneeling weaklings". Basically every Celtic/Scandinavian/barbarian stereotype combined.
*Mance Rayder, ''The King Beyond The Wall'': A Wildling orphan who was taken in by the Night's Watch, he became their best Ranger before he deserted to join his people. He united the Wildlings and lead them south to escape the Others. Also a trained bard, but that was not enough to save him from death.
*Tormund Giantsbane: Claims to have a ten-inch penis, and invites his enemies to use their mouths if they want to clean it. Cool as fuck old guy who [[Furry|fucks mother-bears]] in his free time. Tough as nails motherfucker who preaches the merits of using one's cock for everything. He teams up with Jon Snow for the fight against the White Walkers, then fucks off back to the north once the Night King is dead, making him one of the most sensible people on the show. He and Jon go off to be bros at the end of the show.
*Ygritte: Wildling woman who Jon Snow ends up falling for and who returns his affections. Has red hair which is considered lucky among the Wildlings. This being ''A Song of Ice and Fire'', she ends up dying because her worldview is not compatible with Jon's.
*Craster: A sick bastard, formerly a member of the Night's Watch. [[Grimdark|Has lots of daughters who he marries and fucks regularly, giving him more children. So his wives are his daughters, granddaughters and so on... Girls grow up to become more wives, boys get sacrificed to the Others]]. This keeps them at bay, and that sanctuary is why the Night Watch barely tolerate him. Fortunately, he's been killed off in the story.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Frey'''

''"We Stand Together"''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content"> House of weasels who are always grumpy and have a thing for overreacting to perceived slights. Wouldn't be that important except for the fact that they own the only bridge over a strategically important river, and regularly extort anyone attempting to cross it.

*Walder Frey: The ancient, terrible, ornery old man in charge of the Twins. Hates everyone for "looking down on him", and will readily betray an important ally for immediate gain, or if he feels he has been slighted in some minor way. His descendants are literally so numerous that no one except GRRM himself have been able to count them all, so we aren't even going to attempt it. Now dead in the show due to getting his throat slit by a vengeful Arya after she serves him two of his sons as meat pies. </div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''Commoners, Knights, and Petty Lords'''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Basically any character not associated with any of the Great Houses.
* Varys, ''The Spider'': The eunuch spymaster of Westeros. You can't take a shit in the Seven Kingdoms without Varys finding out where, when, and how watery or dry it was. He does this through paid informants and his "little birds", a spy network of children who sneak through the castle's passageways and air flues to eavesdrop on everyone. Stabs everyone in the back because he's actually trying to bring the Targaryens back in order to strengthen the realm. Dead in the show, having decided to try and put Jon on the throne instead of Daenerys; Jon says no, Tyrion sells him out when he realizes Jon absolutely means it, and Dany has Drogon barbecue him.
* Petyr Baelish, ''Littlefinger'': The Master of Coin (the ASOIAF equivalent of a treasurer) and the closest person the Game of Thrones world has to a [[Daemon Prince]] of [[Tzeentch]], up to even declaring "[[Chaos]] is a Ladder". A dangerous manipulator who manages to trick and steal his way to positions of lordship and wealth because no one takes him seriously, and stabs all the Lannisters in the back when they become inconvenient. As a child he wanted Catelyn Stark, and was tricked into thinking she wanted him when her sister Lysa fucked him while he was drunk. Challenged Catelyn's betrothed Brandon Stark, Ned's older brother who was murdered by Aerys, for her hand in marriage and got his ass kicked because he was a small skinny boy and Brandon Stark was a big strapping man, making that his start of darkness. The guy responsible, directly or indirectly, for the War of the Five Kings because he was the mastermind behind poisoning Jon Arryn, the capture and execution of Ned Stark, feeding several half-truths to Catelyn to motivate her to arrest Tyrion, and eventually Joffrey's death by having Dontos and Olenna Tyrell carry out the plan to kill Joffrey and letting Tyrion take the fall; but no one in the story knows this, not even Varys. People think he can pull gold out of thin air, but he's really been buying debt while letting Robert Baratheon's extravagances and Cersei's dipshittery pull the country into a serious debt of its own. So he's pledged himself to [[Chaos]] and destroying Westeros all because he couldn't have Catelyn as his girlfriend, though he changed his focus to her daughter Sansa now, making him a paedophile. Hasn't yet got his comeuppance in the books, but is curently dead in the show after he was outgambitted by Sansa and killed by Arya. According to GRRM he's based on the title character from the Great Gatsby.
*Gregor Clegane, ''The Mountain'': A 7' 8" 400 pound mass of [[Khorne|testosterone, muscles, steroid overdose and murderous RAGE]], Gregor is Tywin Lannister's top muscle. Killed his own father and sister and permanently scarred his brother. Hobbies include rape, arson, murder, and random torture; he's also been married a few times but not now with the implication he kept killing his wives. He played an important part in destroying the Targaryens by killing a couple of Aerys's kids in rather brutal fashion, then raping and murdering his wife. Spends a few novels doing Tywin's dirty work before a Trial by Champion leads to him dying after being poisoned by Oberyn Martell. Qyburn later resurrected him as... something... called "Ser Robert Strong", and is now even stronger, less prone to psychotic rages, and is completely obedient. He's based on accounts of French knight Gilles de Rais and maybe also the scriptural giant Goliath. Kills Qyburn during the Siege of King's Landing and then nearly kills his little brother, only for Sandor to tackle him through a collapsing wall and into a gigantic inferno.
* Sandor Clegane, ''The Hound'': Younger brother to Gregor Clegane, called the Hound because of his hound-face helm, his family's heraldry, and being the king's hired muscle without being a knight. He hates knights due to the hypocrisy of being a professional "noble warrior" but mostly since his monstrous brother is a knight, showing it's not so much of a noble promotion. Terrified of fire after Gregor put his head against a brazier for playing with one of Gregor's old toys when they were children, burning half his face, but he's still the second-strongest person in Westeros. A brutal anti-hero with a soft spot for Sansa, but a better person than his brother. After falling sick from Biter's nasty teeth, he ends up being a silent monk burying people in the Silent Isles. In the show he joins the Brotherhood without Banners and goes north to help fuck up the White Walkers. As of Season 8 he's survived the Battle of Winterfell and is riding south with Arya to put the boots to Gregor. Dies killing his brother in a pretty epic fight amidst the crumbling ruins of the Red Keep.
*Grand Maester Pycelle: A shrewd, dangerous man putting on a "harmless old man act" and a high ranking scholar from the science/medical guild the Maesters. The longest serving member of the King's advisory staff, and is actually Tywin Lannister's biggest lackey. He convinced the Mad King to let Tywin in as Baratheon's armies were marching on the capital, where Tywin proceeded to sack the city and claim it for Robert. Gets his head bashed in by Varys in the books and murdered by Qyburn in the show.
* Qyburn: Formerly a maester, who was kicked out of the order for unethical experiments on the living. Introduced as a part of a mercenary company serving Roose Bolton, which should be a red flag. He moves up in the world when he's sent to escort Brienne and Jaime back to King's Landing, and ends with Cersei employing him to replace Pycelle as "science advisor" and eventually Varys's Spymaster. Serves Cersei loyally as long as she lets him indulge his sick experiments, serving as a black magic variety of the court mage. He has resurrected Gregor Clegane as... something. [[Fabius Bile]] if he traded his robot limbs, eugenics and power armor for necromancy. He overestimated his hold on Gregor and got his head caved in for it as of the second-to-last episode of the show.
*Barristan Selmy, ''The Bold'': Knight of the Kingsguard. Which Kingsguard? Take your pick. He's served pretty much every king since Aerys and understandably feels pretty bad about it. Another sad old man who pretty much just wants to die until he decides to go pledge his services to Daenerys. Even in his old age he is considered one of the most dangerous men in Westeros. [[Fail|Dead in the show]] (to be fair they gave him a huge last stand), but [[Awesome|alive and appointed himself Daenerys' steward in her absence to try and fix Meereen's situation in the books]].
*Melisandre, ''The Red Witch'': A priestess of R'hllor, the god of fire. Proclaimed Stannis to be the messiah-king and is doing everything in her power to make sure he wins (considerable given that she can scry, make shadow baby assassins and set things on fire with her mind). She'd be pretty bro-tier if her god wasn't so vicious. As it stands she's kind of in the gray (in the books, the show seems to zig-zag on her being evil 'cos the showrunners seem to hate religion). Most of the people she set on fire deserved it, and she hasn't ''succeeded'' in killing any babies yet. Show version now dead from suicide via rapid aging after ensuring the Living defeat the Dead.
*Jorah Mormont: A knight and son of Jeor Mormont, exiled for trying to sell poachers into slavery and eventually joining the exiles of House Targaryen. He is offered a pardon in exchange for spying on the Targaryens, but ultimately decides to stay with them after falling in love with Daenerys. Unfortunately, he gets friend-zoned hard. Despite saving her life from an assassin while she was pregnant, she still votes him off the Khalassar after learning he was a spy. He still loves her and follows her in secret, though. In the show he goes on a quest to prove himself to her and contracts the dangerous disease Greyscale (it's like the unholy lovechild of smallpox and leprosy), but he gets cured and is now back at her side. He dies protecting her at the Battle of Winterfell.
*Davos Seaworth, ''The Onion Knight'': A former smuggler and bannerman to House Baratheon. During Roberts Rebellion he ran a blockade with a cargo of contraband onions to a castle Stannis Baratheon was besieged in. In exchange for for the food he had, Stannis knighted Davos, but Stannis's law-worshiping mindset compelled him to remove four digits from his left hand. Despite this, Davos has served Stannis with unquestioning loyalty, because Stannis knighting him gave his children a future. The fact that Stannis's war for the throne has ended up killing several of his sons hasn't dented his loyalty at all. Doesn't like Melisandre because he sees her as a user and her beliefs as brutal. He's a devout follower of the Faith of the Seven in the books and the first season of the show [[C.S Goto|but is clumsily retconned into an anti-religious atheist in later show seasons]]. In the show, he's now pledged to DA NORF and is basically Jon's Hand of the King, except he doesn't get a fancy pin. He survives the Battle of Winterfell and the Second Sack of King's Landing, and becomes Master of Ships in the final episode of the show.
*Shae: A former camp follower and Tyrion Lannister's squeeze for most of the story. Fled from an abusive family and became a camp follower to earn a living. Seems to fall in love with Tyrion, but it turns out she's a gold-digging bitch. When Tyrion doesn't marry Shae she sells him out to Cersei for a better offer, then fucks Tywin when she realizes Cersei won't keep her promise. Tyrion found her in his father's bed and strangled her to death with a necklace for betraying him. The discovery of Shae's corpse in Tywin's bed - posthumously outing him as a whoremonger - upsets Cersei to the point she unpersons Shae.
*Bronn: A mercenary who acts as Tyrion's enforcer and personal killer until Cersei outbids him and he he settles down with a little wife and title. Routinely kills knights by exploiting how arrogant and stupid they are even after becoming one himself. Only in it for the money, which he'll happily tell you himself. The only character other than Littlefinger to end every book in a better position than he started it. In the show, he makes the very sensible decision to sit out the fighting and wait for his promised castle (Riverrun if Cersei wins, Highgarden if Daenerys wins). He gets Highgarden and is named Lord Paramount of the Reach and Master of Coin in the final episode.
* Brienne of Tarth, ''The Beauty'': Surprisingly badass lady knight wannabe (since no women can be knighted), legendarily unattractive but still pretty idealistic despite the shit she gets for her looks. Fate frequently gives her the shit end of the stick, because no matter how hard she tries to finish her quests, she ends up failing or stuff happens that makes it impossible. Secretly crushes on Renly and unaware he's gay. After he dies, Brienne switches her loyalty to Catelyn and helps her bring Jaime to King's Landing as Tyrion promised Sansa's return in exchange for Jaime. She later developed a crush on Jaime. Things don't go well because Jaime lost his hand and the Red Wedding happened. Next, Jaime sends her out to find and keep Sansa safe to make good on Tyrion's promise, since he isn't the complete dick everyone thinks he is. Brienne ends up getting captured by Cat, now known as Lady Stoneheart and an insane undead, who was going to hang Brienne for working with Jaime. Brienne was spared at the last moment to capture/manipulate Jaime. In the show she's now sworn to House Stark and gets knighted by Jaime just before the Battle of Winterfell and then she and Jaime hook up afterward, only for him to take off and break her heart. She is now Lady Commander of the Kingsguard as of the final episode.
* Lyanna Mormont: A badass ten year old girl who inherits Bear Island after her mother and older sister die horribly in the Riverlands - at least if we are going by the show; in the book, her mother is still alive somewhere in the Neck and her older sister Alysanne is de-facto head of House Mormont. Her activities include pimp-slapping bitches, leading men twice as old as her, and being completely loyal to the Starks despite all their misfortunes. [[Awesome|"Bear Island knows no king but the King in the North, whose name is STARK."]] She dies killing an undead giant at the Battle of Winterfell, which is pretty badass.
* Wyman Manderly, ''Lord Too-Fat-To-Sit-A-Horse'': The Lord of White Harbour and one of the few Northerners who worship the Seven. Fervently loyal to House Stark, he pays lip-service to the Iron Throne long enough for his eldest son to return home, all to mask a plan to restore the Starks to power, mostly by destabilising the Frey-Bolton alliance, building a navy, marshalling the forces of the lands east of the White Knife river, "losing" Freys in the wilderness and sending Lord Davos Seaworth to rescue Rickon Stark from Skagos. His favourite food is lamprey, although he has also developed a taste for Frey Pie. Also a remarkably graceful dancer, and can survive taking a knife to the throat.
** Wylla Manderly: Granddaughter to the above. Another badass little girl, her activities include openly declaring undying loyalty to House Stark and dying her hair green. She and Lyanna Mormont would probably be best friends if they met. [[Awesome|"The city is built upon the land [the Starks] gave us. In return, we swore that we should always be their men. Stark men!"]]
* Jon Umber, ''The Greatjon'': At first he seems to be your stereotypical, boisterous Northern Lord. However, he becomes one of Robb's most loyal supporters, being first to declare him as 'King in the North' after Ned's execution. Had his moment of awesome [[Awesome|when he killed and wounded four Freys at the Red Wedding, all the while being drunk and needing eight additional men to take him down.]]
* Beric Dondarrion, ''The Lightning Lord'': Minor lord who agreed to head an expedition to take out Gregor Clegane. This being Game of Thrones, however, his party is ambushed by the Mountain and is beaten rather badly, and he loses his life in the process. Thanks to his drunken Red Priest friend, however, he manages to come back not once, but eight times, and each time he comes back, he becomes more powerful, though at the cost of his memory. He now heads an outlaw faction of grimdark Robin Hood types called "The Brotherhood Without Banners", who are dedicated to punishing those who abuse and mistreat the smallfolk. Ironically, he's one of the few book characters to have died (permanently) in the books but remain alive in the show, except now he's dead for real as of the Battle of Winterfell.
* Thoros of Myr: Aforementioned drunken priest who is dedicated to R'hllor, though at first he doesn't really give a rat's ass about the Red God, as he prefers to party it up with wine and women, but after he 'accidentally' resurrects Beric, he becomes quite serious about his religion and vows to curb his excesses in drinking. Dies on a mission beyond the Wall to capture a wight (show-version).
</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''The Free Cities'''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Nine city states to the West of Westeros, for the most part the old colonies of the Valaryian Freehold. Mostly they are ruled by Merchant Princes. They look down on the Westerosi for being a bunch of up jumped backwards war-mongering morons who are only a few silverware sets and maesters away from absolute barbarism. In turn the Westerosi look down on the Free Cities as being money-grubbing effete cowards ruled by cheesemongers who use bribery, tall walls and dirty tricks to get ahead in the world.

* Illyrio Mopatis: A rich fat bastard and a Magister of Pentos. Old buddies with Varys and a bigtime schemer.
* [[Officio Assassinorum|The Faceless Men]]: A cult of shape-shifting assassins who worship The Many Faced God of death based in the free city of Braavos that give up personal identity. They claim descent from escaped Valyrian slaves whom considered death to be a better fate than perpetual slavery. Their mission hence became being servants of the Many Faced God of Death. You can hire them to off your rivals, but they request a steep and equivalent price. Their motto is "Valar Morghulis": All Men Must Die.
* Xaro Xhoan Daxos: One of the thirteen leaders of the city of Qarth. A flamboyant, languid, bald rich man who looks after Daenerys while she stays in Qarth and gives her many gifts. He wants her dragons as much as anyone else and even tries to marry her despite his homosexual tendencies. He stops wanting the dragons later in the book series after seeing [[RIP AND TEAR|their work in Astapor]], and no longer wants her around as her anti-slavery stance is hampering his wealth, so he offers Daenerys ships to leave the area and declares war on her when she refuses. In the show he's heterosexual, helps steal her dragons, fucks one of her handmaidens and gets locked in a vault for conspiring to have her killed. He's also black and fat in the show when he's white and lanky in the books, being Qartheen and all.
* Syrio Forel: The former First Sword of Braavos (aka the ruler's personal bodyguard) and later Arya's mentor in King's Landing. He teaches her the way of Braavosi fencing, called "Water Dancing", and sacrifices himself to save her from Lannister thugs, taking down at least six of them with a wooden sword. May have inadvertently set her on the path of becoming a badass assassin by telling her of his belief in the God of Death.

</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''The Dothraki'''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Horse people who live in a country of endless grass plains referred to by others as the Dothraki sea. They only have one city, called Vaes Dothrak, which is less of a city and more of a place they all meet when important things have to be discussed. Have traits borrowed from several cultures, including Mongols and Native Americans, all filtered through European misconceptions of those cultures of course, such as the Dothraki's antipathy for heavy armor, despite the fact that the Mongols were very heavily armored and also excelled as infantry, see the Battle of Leignitz. They fear the ocean because of its size and the fact that horses won't drink from it, calling it the "poison water".

* Khal Drogo: An expy of <s>Genghis Khan</s> Yesukhei Baatyr (his son would have been the equivalent to Chinggis Khaan). Leads the largest Khalassar among the Dothraki. Despite being a barbarian warlord, Drogo is surprisingly intelligent and treats Daenerys well. After an assassin tries to kill her he promises to conquer Westeros for her and their unborn son, and immediately starts raiding towns for slaves and ships. At one town he gets cut in a leadership challenge and Daenerys gets a captive wise woman to heal him. However, the woman hates him because his tribe destroyed her hometown, raped/slaughtered or enslaved her friends and raped her three times so she curses him to become catatonic (along with killing his unborn son), leading a devastated Daenerys to perform an arguable mercy kill by smothering him with a pillow. After, she burns herself, her stillborn child and the wise woman on his funeral pyre, Daenerys survives and it brings her dragons to life. GRRM named Drogo after [[The Lord of the Rings|Frodo's father]].
* Daenerys' handmaidens.
** Doreah: Daenerys' handmaiden and a wedding gift from Illyrio. A woman from Lysene brought by her brother to teach her how to pleasure a man. In the book she dies of fever and starvation crossing a desert, in the TV show she betrays Daenerys for [[Salamanders|Xaro's BBC]] and gets locked in a vault to starve to death.
** Irri: Daenerys' handmaiden who teaches Daenerys how to ride a horse. [[PROMOTIONS|Also pleasures Daenerys twice after catching her masturbating once]], yet this canonical girl-on-girl action was left out of the show. The character was even killed off there when she survived in the books, but in this case, it was because her actress' visa had expired rather than [[C.S. Goto|author railroading]].
** Jhiqui: Daenerys' handmaiden who teaches her the Dothraki language and squabbles with Irri over wanting one of Daenerys' bodyguards when he becomes a badass. Also dies in the TV show while staying alive so far in the books.

</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''Slavers Bay'''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">A civilization of [[Stupid Evil]] slavers. The remains of a previous civilization that was once the big powerful empire thanks to having phalanxes of obedient, pain-resistant soldiers which Valyria conquered a long while ago because phalanxes don't do too well against motherfucking dragons. They are ruled by wealthy slavemongers who buy slaves, train them up to do specific things and generally are a bunch of stuck up, decadent, puppy-eating (literally) assholes. Basically a civilization so repugnant even most hippies will be cheering when Dany decides to conquer them.

* The Unsullied: Eunuch phalanx fighting slave soldiers trained the Spartan way to produce totally obedient infantry that never break ranks. They also don't feel pain due to drinking a special drink daily, and each one has to take a new name from the name box each day so they can't develop a sense of identity. At least until Dany "bought" the lot of them, had them sack the city which trained them and freed them.
* Grey Worm: The Unsullied Commander and a no-nonsense badass. When given a chance to take a new name he keeps his slave name because it's the name he had when freed so he considers it lucky. He is completely loyal to Daenerys, considering her his savior, and in the show he falls in love with fellow freed-woman, Missandei. This being ASOIAF, however, he can only watch helplessly as his lover is beheaded in front of him by the Mountain. This drives him into a rage, and he eagerly takes part in the sacking of King's Landing in revenge for her death. After the war is over and both Daenerys and Cersei are dead, he takes the Unsullied forces to Naath, in order to fulfill his promise to Missandei that he'd protect her homeland.
* Strong Belwas: A fat but skilled eunuch gladiator. Loves liver and onions and referring to himself in the third person. Traveling companion/guide of Ser Barristan. Has an awesome scene where he beats the champion of Meereen then mocks the Meereenese by taking a shit in their direction and wiping his ass on their dead champion's cloak. Also saves Daenerys from eating poisoned sweets. [[FAIL|Left out of the show]].
* Daario Naharis: A Tyroshi mercenary captain who dyes his hair blue. Betrays his fellow commanders for Daenerys because he loves her as a queen. Fortunately for him, Daenerys loves him back and they pursue a romance for a time, though she doesn't marry him as she's still otherwise smart enough to know she has to save herself for a political marriage. Goes to Yunkai as a hostage in the war on Meereen. Also potentially a shapeshifter, if the show is to be believed.
*Missandei: A young slave woman with a remarkable talent for linguistics and one of the more empathetic people in this dark world, Missandei is freed by Daenerys during her campaign to liberate Slaver's Bay, eventually becoming one of her closest confidants and advisers. She falls in love with the Unsullied eunuch Grey Worm, but later is captured by Cersei and beheaded by the Mountain in front of all her friends, but not before telling her friends to burn the Lannisters to ashes.

</div></div>
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''The Others'''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">A mysterious race from beyond the Wall, known to [[newfag|HBO fans]] as "the White Walkers". Can be described as ice demons/snow elves with necromancy. Eight thousand years ago, they invaded Westeros during a decades-long winter known as "the Long Night". With an army of undead warriors, they proceeded to fuck Westeros up every which way to [[Sunday]] before the locals finally drove them out, established the Night's Watch, and built the Wall to keep them out. Like all fantasy aspects of ASOIAF, they are very cliched. In the TV series, it's revealed that they were created from human captives by "The Children", the pseudo-[[Elf]] fair folk race that lived in Westeros before humanity arrived, as an attempt to create a super-weapon. The idea was, since humanity bred faster than the Children could keep up with, they would create icy [[lich]]-creatures that could create [[undead]] soldiers, and these would then wipe out all human life. Instead, it went disastrously wrong because it turned out that the Children actually couldn't control what they'd created, so the Others [[Ork|just want to exterminate '''all''' life.]]
* Night's King: A long time ago, when the Night's Watch was just barely getting set up, its Lord Commander, the thirteenth in line, decided to climb over the Wall and explore some. While in the woods to the north of the Wall, he found a beautiful [[Monstergirls|Other female]]. He fell in love with her, had [[/d/|sex with her on top of the Wall]], which somehow changed him into an albino version of [[Star Wars|Darth Maul]], and set himself up as King of the Wall, making everyone in the Watch his slaves and sacrificial fodder. Naturally, this didn't sit too well with the Starks and the Wildlings, and so they banded together to free the Watch and kick his ass, which they managed to do successfully. Now everyone thinks him as dead or a myth. In the HBO version of the story, this whole backstory is basically dropped; he was the very first White Walker ever created by the Children, and he decided to get back at them by wiping out all life. Also, whilst he was apparently beaten in the ancient past and sealed away behind the Wall, he's still "alive" and well, [[Daemonculaba|turning infant human boys into new White Walkers]]. Also, he can apparently raise up entire legions of undead, just by raising his arms and looking completely smug about it; unlike regular Others, who can just raise up maybe a village at most. Given that he's the resident [[BBEG|Dark Lord]] of the series, it makes sense that he can take down a dragon with seemingly little effort (a simple throw of his spear), and resurrect it to be his personal steed a la Arthas. Used it to blow a hole in the Wall and begin [[The End Times]] for Westeros. Now dead thanks to Arya's magic ninja haxx letting her kill the BBEG and his entire race and army of zombies in one blow.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''Gods and their followers'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content"> The world of ASOIAF has various religions and faiths abound, just like in real life. Similarly, they range between fucking awesome to utterly useless.

*[[Ecclesiarchy|The Faith of the Seven]]: The Catholic Church stand-in, which gets both sympathetic (books only) and unsympathetic (books and show) characters associated with it. Holds an anti-slavery stance. The god/s are considered seven aspects of one deity with three male aspects (The Smith, the Father, the Warrior), three female aspects (The Maiden, the Mother, the Crone) and an asexual one representing Death. The places of worship are called Septs, and their system includes Septons, nun-equivalents called Septas and a Pope equivalent called a High Septon. The High Septons all give up their names when they become one to confuse future historians.
** High Septon 1: A fat, greedy man who used the position for personal gain. He ended up being [[Grimdark|torn apart in a riot]], because the people resented that he had enough food to stay fat while they were starving.
** High Septon 2: Successor of High Septon 1. Chosen by Tyrion so the Faith would be loyal to the Lannisters. Only ''slightly'' corrupt, being a pro-Lannister yes-man. Murdered on Cersei's order in the book, while in the show he's retconned into a whoremonger who gets deposed by the Sparrows (see below).
** High Septon 3/The High Sparrow: Successor of High Septon 2. After the second High Septon died, the smallfolk burst into the meeting to pick a successor and ordered their chosen candidate to be put in charge when his original successor was caught whoremongering. He'd been a wandering preacher beforehand, and his feet were dark and gnarled from lots of walking. When he reaches the position he starts [[gets shit done|getting things done]]. Since he was appointed by a smallfolk religious movement called Sparrows, he's given the moniker "The High Sparrow". The nobility underestimate him, either due to having other matters or disregard for religious people, but he turns out to be smart, well-meaning and somewhat ruthless. Under the High Sparrow, he and the other clergymen sell their fancy clothes and decorations [[Noblebright|replacing them with simple wool tunics, using the money to buy food and clothes for the poor in King's Landing]]. He also has their Knights-Templar-equivalent reformed to [[Inquisition|protect the faithful and help them root out]] [[heresy]] and sin. He also outwits Cersei and has her arrested and tried for all her evil deeds. While Cersei's scheming does lead to Margaery's arrest, Cersei confesses to some crimes while concealing others, leading to Cersei taking a nude walk of penance in front of the entire city. After this he somewhat reined in the nobles' politicking to actually look after the commoners and the Faith, though this does make some enemies. In the show he and the Sparrows are [[C.S Goto|retconned]] from assorted smallfolk and clergymen tired of the nobles' lawlessness and power plays into one-dimensional stereotypes and thinly-veiled jabs at the Catholic Church [[Imperial Truth|in a shoe-horned anti-religion message]]. While they do arrest Cersei and Margaery like in the books, during the trial most of the Faith, including the High Sparrow himself, get blown to kingdom come when Cersei has her agents ignite a massive amount of magical napalm underneath the Great Sept.
* [[Old Ones|Old Gods]]: Native American/Japanese Kame/Druid/nature spirits that reside in places called Godswoods. Their powers are limited to the North, where the last remaining Godswoods remain, but they can grant gifted individuals awesome psychic powers like Warging (mind-controlling animals) and Greensight (Time Travel). For some reason, Martin claims they're based off the Norse Gods. Probably has to do with the way the Vikings made sacrifices to their gods, by hanging them in Ash trees, a symbol for the World Tree Yggdrasil. The Weirwood trees are sacred to the followers of the Old Gods in a similar way. Mostly worship of them is quiet and informal.
* R'hllor: The God of Fire and Light, and like the Old Gods, actually shows evidence for existing. [[/tg/ gets shit done|He gets shit done]] such as fire magic and Resurrection. Has a nasty habit for burning heretics, though. GRRM said this faith is roughly based (read: poorly modeled after) upon Zoroastrianism and Gnosticism. His nemesis is The Great Other: the god of cold and darkness, the leader of the Others, and prophesied to be defeated by the chosen one, or messianic figure: [[Star Child|Azor Ahai/The Prince That Was Promised]], a figure who is the prophesied warrior that will fight with the Great Other/Night's King during the Apocalypse. Interestingly enough, the prophecy may not refer to a single person, but three (Jon, Tyrion/Bran, and Daenerys). Supposedly, one of these three will also receive an [[Emperor's Sword|awesome flaming sword called "Lightbringer"]].
* Him of Many Faces: The god of the Dead of the religion whose followers are the [[Officio Assassinorum|Faceless Men]]. According to his cult of assassins, whom Arya joins, every other god is him in a different form and he requires his assassins to utterly forget their past identities in service to him. Has a heyday during the Battle of King's Landing and the Red Wedding. His followers are granted shapeshifting abilities and powers to be the ultimate assassins.
* Drowned God: Cthulhu combined with Odin. Runs an underwater Valhalla were all Ironborn go whey they either if they drowned at sea, the men die a manly death or the women die in childbirth.

</div></div>

==The appeal of A Song of Ice And Fire==
Exactly what catches the eyes of [[Skub|a given fan/critic/lout who complains about how bad it is anytime the show is mentioned within earshot]] to ASOIAF and its TV adaptation varies from individual to individual. Still, there's a couple of major draws.

'''The Worldbuilding:''' The main reason why this series gets compared to [[The Lord of the Rings]], ASOIAF is literally ''drowning'' under the weight of its worldbuilding, being crammed as full of facts about fictitious regions, histories, cultures, dynasties and races as GRRM can fit it. Your mileage will vary on how ''good'' that info is, but there's plenty of info in it.

'''Mainstream [[Dark Fantasy]]:''' Dark Fantasy is not exactly a mainstream niche. ASOIAF stands out by deliberately trying to market itself to the mainstream, despite embracing an abundance of dark fantasy tropes; gratuitous violence, sexuality and sexual violence, moral ambiguity, political intrigue, and a willingness to suddenly kill off any character, even the most likable or heroic of them.

'''[[Low Fantasy]]:''' On the surface, ASOIAF is an old-school Low Fantasy setting, being a medieval-tech world with the story openly focused on the mundane lives of people struggling for political power.

'''[[High Fantasy]]:''' But if you scratch the surface, ASOIAF is also a High Fantasy setting, which is always the more marketable of the two, with the big backstory about how the world is facing impending doom from an army of wintery [[fey]] and their [[undead]] minions. There are also non-evil higher powers working against them, but they get swept under the rug in the show. Also, [[dragon]]s. As the more marketable genre, it's also inevitably the more skubby one, for whatever that's worth.

'''Gratuitous Sexuality:''' More a thing for the TV show than the book; the frequent scenes of nudity and sex in the early seasons were a ''big'' selling point for many people.

==Oh Yeah, About The TV Show==
[[image:KnightsWhoSayFuck.jpg|150px|thumb|left|Yeah, pretty much.]]
After the first three books became hits, many Hollywood producers and directors had came to the sadistic neckbeard, asking him about making a movie adaptation. At first, he was reluctant, at best, due to the fact that a whole lot of his content would've been cut out to be fit into a movie trilogy (see the Lord of the Rings live action films). Then, a couple of dudes, David Benioff and D.B Weiss (AKA D&D, or more accurately as of the final season, Dumb & Dumber), decided to contact him, and asked him at a local restaurant about turning ASOIAF into a Television show produced by HBO, the top-rated soft-core porno channel. The story goes that George, before giving them his consent, ask them a very specific question (Who is Jon Snow's mother?). Satisfied with the response they gave, he gave them permission to start work on the show, which would be titled after the first book, ''Game of Thrones''.

The television show casts several well known performers, such as Sean Bean as Eddard, Peter Dinklage as Tyrion, Lena Headey as Cersei, and Charles Dance as Tywin. They have also cast some comparatively less well-known actors and even ones new to cinema, such as Sophie Turner (Sansa), Maisie Williams (Arya), Kit Harington (Jon), Iwan Rheon (Ramsay), Alfie Allen (Theon), and Richard Madden (Robb).

'''TL;DR'''

Producers Dumb&Dumber-style change characters and railroad the plot at a whim, the tits and ultraviolence spigot is opened even wider than the books, and most scenes are made for the actors to show off their skills at making their signature angry/murder/brooding/etc. faces.

Thus, book snobs seem to think that every episode post-season 3 is nothing more than Emmy-bait. Regardless of the fact Kit Harington still [[Fail|doesn't have an Emmy]], there's a valid contention in that regard, with the amount of liberties taken overshadowing the initial appeal.

The final season was eventually revealed to be such a train wreck because Dumb & Dumber did not want to work on the series anymore and had let the success with the earlier seasons go to their heads so they shut out any dissenting voices (including even George's eventually). In their arrogance, instead of handing the reins to someone else, they decided to plan out their own ending and use it as an audition to Disney so they could write for Star Wars. By then, they'd run out of books to adapt, there was no superior writing for them to leech off of and there was no one to gainsay them in their echo chamber/writer's room. The result was absolutely shit writing that caused a glorious breakage in the [[skub]] dam that left [[Butthurt|many a fan's anus weeping]] (provided they weren't early seasons fans, book series fans, or any of the other assorted onlookers [[Lulz|taking part in the mightiest of keks]]) and, if anything, proved <s>George's </s> Ramsay's quote at the beginning of the article true. Goddamn Dumb & Dumber, could you talentless faggots do any worse if you tried?

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''What about the final season?'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
Long story short, the Army of the Dead is destroyed in an epic battle, where the ancient and super-powerful BBEG gets killed by some slight-of-hand. Meanwhile Daenerys has spent the last two seasons being stripped of her plot armor; she's lost most of her supporters - including one of her dragons - and has been forced to confront the fact that nobody in Westeros wants her around. Especially not the Northerners, where Sansa is basically playing the "Northern Independence Now!" movement to try and get her own bum in a throne after seven seasons of being a plaything for people with actual power. The kicker is she's fallen in love with Jon Snow, but he learns he's actually her nephew - and the fruit of a legitimate marriage between her elder brother Rhaegar Targaryean and Lyanna Stark that was handled in secret. This discovery not only caused him to back away from her (because he's got Northerner values, so fucking his aunt squicks him out... not that it stopped him from doing it at least once), but also makes him a threat to her political standing, which is something Varys makes plans to exploit. When Tyrion found out Jon wouldn't back down, he told Danerys about it, for which she had Drogon burn Varys to ash. When she forces the survivors of the final battle to march on King's Landing, another of her dragons ends up dead and her only remaining friend captured and executed by Cersei. So she attacks King's Landing... and then, when her followers maneuver around her to get the city to surrender rather than die to the last, she snaps and burns most of the city to ashes. She then decides to continue ramming her head against the proverbial wall and embraces her personal narrative of herself as a divinely chosen hero-queen meant to "free" the world by conquering everybody, having lost interesting in just ruling Westeros around the same time she lost her fucking mind. Such is her insanity that Jon Snow ends up sticking a dagger in her heart rather than let her kill Sansa and Arya, who he knows will resist her.

Jon proceeds to somehow not get killed by her last surviving dragon who pretty much knows Jon killed his momma because plot reasons, and it destroys the Iron Throne ([[What|by accident, according to the showrunners]]) while chucking a tantrum over Dany's death before grabbing her body and flying off to parts unknown. This leaves everybody stuck trying to figure out what to do, [[The Empire (Warhammer Fantasy)|but ultimately they decide to replace a dynastic monarchy with an elective one]], and make Bran the new king because, hey, he's the 3-Eyed Raven and has the seer powers to see all of space and time, so he's the least worst option they have (he's also trying to find and take control of the aforementioned dragon). The North secedes from the Seven Kingdoms, but nobody gives a damn, and Jon Snow is formally banished to the Wall - where instead he wanders off into the wilderness with the surviving Wildlings, with the land showing signs of exiting its endless winter. [[The Lord of the Rings|Arya runs off to sail to the West,]] and Sansa is crowned Queen in the North.

</div></div>

==GRRM and [[Your Dudes]]==
Want to make your own ASoIF setting for a role playing game? Well, readers have enough room to fantasize about their own minor noble House (or kingdom during the Age of the Hundred Kingdoms).

A good example of what you could do is the House from the old [[/v/|"Telltale Game of Thrones"]], House Forrester. Their relationship to the canon is as follows:

House Forrester (lords of some place in the Wolfswood) '''-> is sworn to ->''' House Glover (overall lords of the entire Wolfswood) '''-> is sworn to ->''' House Stark (rulers of the North).

There's also an actual tie-in tabletop RPG now, which uses its own system and looks kind of like [[Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay]] with a heavy helping of resource-management strategy feel.
Players are assuming the role of a minor House to guide to glory, or, more accurately given the setting we're in, NOT to ruin utterly in a season or two, which would still be more than many A-list players mustered in canon. Each PC has a specific position within said House, and only the role of official Head is mandatory; the rest could be wife/children/brothers and sisters/all other kinds of siblings, bastards (with rules for obtaining the legitimate recognition), maesters, sworn/subservient knights, or most of anybody else. This naturally opens up near-infinite possibilities for families screwed up seven ways to high heavens, which would make Lannister's brand of infighting-slash-inbreeding look as sane as the High Septon.

The setting is also ill-suited for "adventures in Westeros" style of gaming for two reasons:
#In the grim darkness of low fantasy, a roaming nobody with no banner to talk about, no House allegiance, no nothing isn't generally treated to a Tavern With Quest Givers, but rather more to a Tavern Where You Are Shanked For Your Sword And Boots And Dumped At The Nearest Forest. Heck, even the big wheelers and dealers are routinely seen invited to the latter when they are slow to properly introduce themselves.
#Working on your initially-puny House will quite realistically involve thy neighbors first and foremost, then liege lords from the higher House yours is sworn to, and on occasion shopping around for an advantageous marriage - there simply ain't gonna be that much spare time to "travel to see places". Both of these are also why tourism wasn't a very popular pastime in medieval Europe and why those who were "living on the road" usually enjoyed the lowest social standing.

A note to aspiring Lords: do NOT, under any circumstances, allow your "combat-optimized" siblings an unsupervised minute in a social setting. Game's "social combat" system is a thing more brutal than the physical one, and it takes a socially-optimized character all of a few minutes to mindfuck one who is not (read: everyone but dedicated diplomats and Heads of the Houses, and not every one of the latter, to boot, as illustrated by several amazing boneheads in canon) into believing pretty much anything short of Grumpkins and Snarks. Stupid NPCs or a stupid GM will make said mindfuck obvious, allowing you to "mindfuck 'em back" without abuse of OOC info; cunning ones will not.

On a side-note; GRRM is said to take a dim view of fanfiction, saying it kills creative ability. This is kind of a double-edged statement, since a lot of George's characters here are either rehashes of his characters from previous works, references to other fictional characters (like Littlefinger and Samwell being based on Jay Gatsby and [[The Lord of the Rings|Samwise Gamgee]]), walking tropes (such as Ned Stark and Robb Stark being the "[[TVTropes|Honor Before ]] [[Lawful Stupid|Reason]]" characters) or references to historical people (such as Tyrion Lannister being Richard III and House Tyrell being totally-not-House-Tudor - to the point that Margaery Tyrell is played by "The Tudors" actress Natalie Dormer). While this makes everything he wrote just another...fanfiction, and his disapproval hypocritical, given the "creative" output of the average neckbeard, he does have a point. Ironically, however, he sold the rights to make a TV series of the books to HBO, who then went on to make a glorified fanfic.

==Games==
[[image:AGot-2nd-ed-cardfan.png|thumb|250px]]
Like any fantasy author who finds themselves unexpectedly in the warm embrace of commercial success Martin quickly licensed the shit out of his setting, spawning everything from resin miniatures to replica great swords. While most of this is worthless junk to foist on [[Neckbeard|obsessive fanboys]] /tg/ has agreed that a few of the games are made of win. The first two are a collectable [[CCG|card game]] put out in 2002 by [[Fantasy Flight Games]] and a [[risk]]-esque board game that followed shortly after in 2003. One of [[White Wolf]]'s subsidiaries also put out a d20 RPG in 2005 but it quickly tanked because, come on, White Wolf. Martin since wrested the rights back and developed a new version with Green Ronin games.

Now lets have some serious talks about the game of thrones games, because they have become some sort of endless source of amusement and frustration for the gaming fanbase. Game of thrones is roughly speaking the second franchise with the most licensed board games, after star wars, and some of them have adquired quite a legendary status and a fanbase that goes beyond the book or series fans.

The great juggernaut for all the ASOIAF based games is Fantasy Flight Games

First and foremost we have the game of thrones board game, a game that after two editions stillranks high in the BGG top 100 board games, and has recently had an expansion. The game of thrones board game has becomesomesort of meme for the modern board gamersand it could be consider the equivalent of a more advanced risk, in which dice and blank character got replacedby a very flavourful and brutalcombat system and a lot of thematical mechanics fueling the engine. Overall this game has been associated with concepts such as, requiring maximun player count to really be entertaining, having an amazing ammount of lenght and depth and being a very faithful representation of the political feeling the series inspire. Almost any boardgamer or wargamer worth his salt has played this game and enjoyed its highs,its lows and the amazing ammount of frustrations it brings. This is probably the most well known of all the ASOIAF games and it was released way before game of thrones was a cultural phenomenom back in 2003.

Another game that bears mention, both for it's excellent mechanics and its historical significance is the game of thrones card game.It is one of the most balanced card game experiences you can get,also full of flavour and with quite a great ammount of balance and non linear thinking. Best part is, unlike other card games,the game has a "living card game" release format,in which players know exactly what each booster pack brings and can buy cards in a more responsible manner rather than playing bingo and hoping to get a rare cards. Also the sole core set already provides more replayability than some fully fledged board games.

Finally the last game to mention in the FFG venerable trilogy of games is "Battles of Westeros", arguably the most ambitious and least succesful of the three. Battles of westeros was a fully fledged wargame that used the Memoir 44/battlelore rules as a base, but then evolved into its own by introducing mechanics such as commanders, tactic cards and very creative scenario rules. Miniatures were made in 15 mm and for their time and scale they were quite detailed, some commanders are real standouts(I´m looking at you Robb Stark(with his wolf jumping at his side) and Rickard Karstark). Thanks to it's scale, the game was able to provide players with a great ammount of options and units at a fraction of the price of other boardgames. With a core set that was already stacked with units and variety and then faction specific expansions that added several more units and commanders. The game also came with scenario books that provided narrative play with quite creative rule variants, such as storming palisades, having decoys in escort missions and bombarding enemies with catapults. One scenario even tried to bring to life the battle of the blackwater(the hibrid invation of kings landing by stannis the manis). The game was incredible and quite a creative wargame,its main issue was that the setup time was just terrible. Incredibly complex and tiresome when compared to the actual gameplay time.

And then the miniature producing kickstarter juggernaut CMON decided to produce its own wargame, with AMAZING miniatures.

As this is CMON the game began with a [[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cmon/a-song-of-ice-and-fire-tabletop-miniatures-game]kickstarter], and after that the game has had at least 2 dozen more releases with 3 more factions added.

The game has some mechanics taken from rank and file games such as KOW combining them with mechanics taken out of "battles of westeros" particularly the tactics deck.

==Books==
*''A Game of Thrones''
*''A Clash of Kings''
*''A Storm of Swords'': Split into 2
*''A Feast for Crows'': half the characters, the point where the series goes down the toilet
*''A Dance with Dragons'': split into 2 the first is about the other half of the characters
*''The Winds of Winter'': Most recent rumors say George could have it ready in late 2018. But will he ''really''?
** Nope, though he has shared chapters of the book.
** Official now set to release in summer 2020, but we've all heard that before.
**It might happen by 2030 if we're really lucky
*''A Dream of Spring'' : Unreleased and unlikely to ever be.
**GRRM will most likely die before writing this
*''The Dunk and Egg Series'': A story about a landless hedge knight traveling across Westeros with a Targaryen squire, so he can teach him how not to be an asshole to peasants.

==See Also==
*[[/tg/ Song of Ice and Fire Houses]]
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U7NpSubAJQ Weiner, weiner weiner]

[[category: Literature]]

A Song of Ice and Fire

2019-12-09T08:26:30Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:290B:BAAA:92F2:A623: /* Oh Yeah, About The TV Show */

[[image:Game_of_Thrones_Title-DVD.png|300px|thumb|WIENER PARTY! WIENER PARTY!]]

{{Spoilers}}
'''Warning: This article contains so many spoilers we're ruining books that haven't even been released yet.'''

{{Topquote|If you think this story has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention.|Ramsay Bolton, nailing the grimdark theme of this series}}

'''''A Song of Ice and Fire''''' (more better known as '''''Game of Thrones''''') is a [[Grimdark]] fantasy book series for people who hate fantasy. Its central themes include [[Tzeentch|political Machiavellian scheming]], [[Khorne|ultraviolence]], [[Slaanesh|incest/sex with exposition]], and [[Nurgle|everyone trying to survive in such a Crapsack World of perpetual suffering]]. Thus it has become one of the most popular series of our generation and its author, [[George R. R. Martin]], has been praised for his highly realized world and gritty low fantasy style. He was even called "the American [[Tolkien]]" by <s>Time magazine</s> gormless idiots who lump diametrically different writers together for no other reason than that they're both fantasy authors, which would probably explains its sudden spike in popularity following the TV show (at least [[Skub|to a point, anyway.]])

The series itself is set on the [[Original character, do not steal|totally not medieval European ripoff]] realm of Westeros as it is wracked by a massive succession war drawing its realms into conflict. A bunch of dudes declare themselves kings (book two), they're burning the continent down in their scramble for power, and somehow all the fuck-ups managed to lose anyway (book three). Just when the guys who lost the least start thinking they get to rule over the remaining chaos, more fuck ups happen and more dudes show up (book four). Sadly, winter has finally come and, unbeknownst to most people, [[Thousand Sons|evil ice wizards leading soulless undead]] [[Alpha Legion|assumed to be only myths by most people]] are about to invade the continent from the north. By the fifth book, things are going and/or will go to shit even for the bad guys.

According to a leaked fan conversation, George R. R. Martin jokingly stated the series would end with an epic cock-slap fight between Samwell Tarly and Jaime Lannister.

TL;DR: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Roses War of Roses] redux, with a side helpin' of <s>cliched fantasy</s> George's old sci-fi writing plots and [[/d/]]-lite.

===Characters===
{{cleanup}}
Since these books have some thousand named characters, you won't remember most of them without an obsessive disorder over details.
Here's a relatively short list (mostly based on the TV series rather than the books, but seems to randomly switch between the two) for the characters you'll care about.

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Stark'''

''"Winter Is Coming"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Honourable, bro-tier northerners who always [[Space Wolves|compare themselves to direwolves]]. They have a tendency towards [[Lawful Stupid]] that proves to bite them in the ass due to naivete about how [[Tzeentch|Westerosi corrupt politics actually works]]. They're also arguably the protagonists of the setting. Basically Scotland and/or the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_york House of York].
* Eddard Stark, ''The Quiet Wolf'': Patriarch, lord and POV death-puppet. Not nearly as stupid as everyone tries to pretend, but still a dead man walking.
* Robb Stark, ''The Young Wolf'': Shiny, [[Lawful Stupid]] King Arthur-like hero. After waging a successful war to avenge his murdered father, he was betrothed to a noblewoman but he ended having comfort sex with a virgin noblewoman which may have been arranged by her scheming bitch mother, while in softcore porno he got the hots for a commoner. Cacks it nastily: he got his head cut off and his pet's wolf's head stuck on his body, which was paraded around while his enemies chanted "HERE COMES THE KING IN THE NORTH!" In other words, he's a Scottish [[Roman Empire|Hannibal Barca]].
* Sansa Stark: Useless teenage girl extraordinaire at the start of the series with dreams of marrying a prince and "having lots of babies", but gets shat on hard by reality. Becomes Littlefinger's replacement goldfish when Catelyn's no longer around, her father got killed and her best friend was sold as a sex slave, and ended up in the worst relationship we can possibly imagine with King Joffrey. [[Grimdark|Even got deflowered via rape by Ramsey Bolton]] and married to him before managing to escape with the help of others. Currently acting as a co-ruler to her brother/cousin Jon Snow, and has learned much from her suffering, allowing her to kick Littlefinger out of the Great Game via throat slitting. While in the book Littlefinger is/was setting her up at House Arryn to claim the Vale and the North, the show version becomes QUEEN IN DA NORF in the final episode.
* Arya Stark: Little tomboy assassin. Has a kill list, but doesn't get to use it so long as she is an amnesiac apprentice of [[Officio Assassinorum|the Friendly Neighborhood Assassins Guild]]. After breaking away (in the TV series) from the Faceless Men she heads back to Westeros to get revenge on a LOT of people, giving her one of the highest kill counts in the series. Is currently back with her sister Sansa, acting as a general "troubleshooter". Kills the Night King like a fucking champion [[Skub|(or, alternatively, in a nonsensical plot twist)]] in Season 8, and is now riding south to add Cersei to her killcount. Instead, the Hound talks her out of it and she decides to sail into the unknown west.
* Catelyn Stark (nee Tully): A woman who trusts the wrong people at the worst time, causing a lot of misery. Gets killed along with Robb, then comes back (books only) as an undead witch bent on killing all the Boltons, Freys, Greyjoys, Lannisters... pretty much everyone she thinks was tangentially involved in betraying her and her family, or somebody who just pissed her off.
* Bran Stark: Intelligent little boy, named after the founder of House Stark, Brandon the Builder (basically Tony Stark combined with [[Leman Russ]]). He was crippled in the first sign of major [[GrimDark]]. Has prophetic dreams and becomes a [[druid]]. In the TV series, fucks things up by alerting the Others to where he's hiding, which gets all of the Children, his loyal wolf, the Three-Eyed Crow and Hodor killed. For good measure, turns out to have accidentally ''caused'' Hodor to become, well, Hodor, as he was using his druid powers to figure out why Hodor is only able to say Hodor, resulting in Hodor's gruesome death-by-zombies being beamed directly into young!Hodor's brain. He's now the Three-Eyed Raven and likes going around being creepy as fuck and generally weirding people out. Becomes King of the Six Kingdoms in a hilariously nonsensical plot twist in the finale.
* Rickon Stark: Four years old at the start, turning into a real little [[Barbarian]] from not being raised properly, because everyone who would have raised him was dead or missing. In the show, he ends up hanging out at the Umbers, then is handed over to Ramsay as a prisoner when Smalljon becomes afraid of the Wildlings living north of him (who were invited by Jon Snow to fight the Zombie Apocalypse), and finally dies via arrow in a sick game of "dodge the missiles" courtesy of Ramsey.
* Jon Snow, ''The White Wolf'': A bastard living in the Stark household before leaving for the Night's Watch (basically [[The Last Chancers|Colonel Schaeffer]] with more convicted rapists under his command) and excels there because nearly every one of his fellow recruits are peasants who have never had a formal days training while Jon has had the serious training afforded to all lords. After he takes over by becoming the Watch Commander secures and alliance with the Wildlings, ancient barbarian enemies of the Night's Watch, because when the end of the world is coming you tend to think outside the box. Currently revived by R'hllor in the series after being stabbed to death by the senior members of the Watch. Isn't actually Eddard's bastard son, but rather the legitimate son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, meaning that he is in fact the rightful heir to the Iron Throne. The new KING IN DA NORF according to his supporters after he killed Ramsay Bolton and took back Winterfell, and is also currently hooking up with his own aunt. He turns on Daenerys once he realizes she's lost it and kills her in the throne room. The Unsullied want his head, but instead King Bran exiles him to the Night's Watch and he fucks off into the far north to live with the Free Folk.
* Hodor: Hodor. Hodor, Hodor, Hodor. <s>An enormous and possibly retarded stable boy, and Bran's faithful steed.</s> Hodor. Ok, in all actual seriousness, this guy is probably one of the most tragic figures in this series (and that's saying something). [[Grimdark|The guy basically received horrible visions of his own death fighting a horde of zombies, buying time for his friends to escape by literally holding the door shut as he was hacked apart]]. This causes him to suffer a psychiatric break, leading him to develop Immature Personality Disorder and his only speech is to repeat a garbled phrase of his friend's last request "hold the door" for all of his adult life; the logic here is that "hold the door" devolves into "hol' th' door" and eventually "Hodor". You now feel bad for at laughing at the guy.
* Osha: A Wildling woman who surrendered to the Starks and becomes their servant in exchange for not getting killed. Now dead in the show thanks to Ramsay's dickery.</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Targaryen'''

''"Fire and Blood"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">The former Dragon kings and rulers of Westeros, [[Eldar|fair-haired purple-eyed beautiful people]] who have descended from the [[Dark Age of Technology|ancient technologically-advanced superpower]] of [[Roman Empire|Valyria]], which collapsed because of [[Fall of the Eldar|their colossal hubris]]. After the anarchic [[Age of Strife|Century of Blood]], the Targaryen patriarch Aegon I, instead of reconquering the lost cause of Essos and of Valyria's former empire, looked towards the rather primitive continent of Westeros, and its squabbling Seven Kingdoms, [[Great Crusade|to establish his own Imperial dynasty and unify the Realm]]. Aegon I is essentially the Low Fantasy version of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_the_Conqueror William the Conqueror] and/or the [[God-Emperor of Mankind]], with a little dash of [[/d/|incest]].

[[Rules Lawyer|Thanks to a loophole]], the Targaryens were immune to the moral objections relating to incest. Common sense (and common decency) took back seat to a time-honored policy of [[/d/|catastrophic inbreeding]], which made a number of problems. Aegon I married his older and younger sisters and had several kids with each, which would be the start of another Targaryen tradition: the occasional succession crisis. The inbreeding would also lead to a line of almost alternatingly great and lunatic kings, culminating in Aerys "The Mad King" Targaryen and a palace coup. Eventually the lineage was banished to Essos after a brutal civil war, the remnants trying to gather armies to retake the Iron Throne which they see as rightfully theirs. Basically a family of inbreeding girly-men with a massive sense of superiority and as arrogant as they come, forgetting that most of what they accomplished was due to the fact that only they had dragons. Still, they occasionally did have genuinely good people like Aegon V (aka Egg), Jaeherys I the Conciliator, his wife Good Queen Alysanne and complete badasses like Brynden Bloodraven and Baelor Breakspear.
Pseudo-Romans and/or the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Normandy House of Normandy].

* Aerys II, ''The Mad King'': [[Kharn|A pretty fun guy to be around]]. Had a psychotic fascination for fire, which extended to being a psychotic fascination for burning traitors, a category of people that eventually grew to include anybody he disliked for any reason, anyone who disagreed with him, and a few people who were unlucky enough to be caught in the crossfire. [[Goge Vandire|Teamkilled by his bodyguard Jaime for planning to burn the city down with everyone inside it, and even refused to accept his death until he actually died]].
* [[Mary Sue|Daenerys Targaryen]], ''Stormborn'': She was sold by her brother to a barbarian leader [[Genghis motherfucking Khan|Khal (warlord) Drogo]] in exchange for the promise that he'd use his Khalassar (warband/tribe) to conquer Westeros. She found her self esteem as his wife, then her husband killed her idiot brother Viserys and promised to conquer the world for Daenerys, making her a full-fledged badass barbarian warqueen. Unfortunately, her husband died when [[Derp|Daenerys trusted one of the slaves whose town Drogo had pillaged and burnt to heal an infected wound of his]] and his horde fell apart (though the book is somewhat ambiguous as to whether the slave did kill Drogo). Then she hatched three dragons (completely by accident when she tried to commit suicide) bringing them back from extinction, and now everyone wants to marry her because she is now one of the most powerful people around due to said dragons and being good-looking (in the books this is by the age-of-consent in Westeros standards, where girls are women when they start getting their periods and boys are men at age 13). [[Gets shit done]] except the entire fifth book, in which she mopes around about wanting to marry an annoying, flamboyant mercenary instead of saving herself for political marriage. After banging the flamboyant mercenary, she later marries a Meereenese noble who guarantees he can get her some peace (more likely [[Just As Planned|just as he planned]]). She also does nothing while insurgents kill her men, a horde of plagued refugees spread disease to her city, and standing idly by while an enemy army besieges her walls, all for realistically political reasons because the world is a horrible place. Learns how to train her dragon. Is currently (TV series) in Westeros invading the place with an army of elite hoplites, a massive horde of Dothraki, one dragon (because the other two are dead) and fucking her nephew (Jon Snow). Has officially gone Mad Queen as of S8E5, wherein she burned most of King's Landing after the city attempted to surrender. Jon kills her in the series finale so that she won't go around burninating the rest of the world.
* The dragons: The three dragons that Daenerys hatched. They're wyverns that breathe fire, [[Awesome|have blood hot enough to melt steel]], and [[List of /tg/ Cuisine|cook their meat before eating it]]. Naturally, some of the coolest things in the story.
** Drogon; named for her late husband, Khal Drogo. Black and Red, the biggest and [[Gork|most aggressive dragon]]. Starts eating people and then escapes, leading to the other two getting imprisoned. Interrupts a gladiator tournament, killing a lot of people before being whipped by Daenerys into flying her to a Khalassar that broke off from her husband's after his death. Is now the last dragon standing after Viserion bites it at Winterfell and Rhaegal gets shot down over Dragonstone. Fucks off to who knows where after Dany is killed.
** Rhaegal; named for the first of her dead brothers, Rhaegar. Green and gold, the [[Mork|cunning one]]. Kills Quentyn Martell (see below). After breaking out of jail with Viserion they go "all your bases are belong to us" on Meereen, killing people and taking over the pyramid of a loyal family as his lair. Is now dead in the show thanks to Euron Greyjoy and some diabolus ex machina bullshit.
** Viserion; named for her other brother Viserys. White and gold, the [[Vulkan|friendliest]] (as dragons go, he still eats people) and the loudest. Dug cave for himself in his jail then moved into another pyramid after their great escape. Gets killed by the [[Vampire Counts|Night's King in the show via a magic spear, is reanimated to be his zombie dragon steed]] and blasts a hole in the famous Wall, allowing the armies of snow elves and zombies to start flooding Westeros. Now perma-dead thanks to the Night King biting it.
* Viserys Targaryen, ''The Beggar King'': Daenerys' physically abusive older brother. Best known for being a bully with incestuous lust for her, and an arrogant and incompetent fuck with a massive sense of entitlement. He eventually got himself killed for being an all-around jerk and whiny idiot, which culminated in him threatening his sister and unborn nephew with a sword while drunk in a sacred Dothraki place where weapons and bloodshed are forbidden on pain of death (execution is done by bloodless death - having a scarf wrapped tight around the neck and being drowned in a barrel). Daenerys' husband [[awesome|poured molten gold over his head and called it his promised crown]].
* Aegon Targaryen, ''Aegon VI'': Daenerys' nephew, the son of her brother Rhaegar. Been hiding in Essos for the entire length of the series, but recently raised an army of Westerosi exiles and threw them all a massive Welcome Home party with rape and pillage. Wants to marry his aunt because she has dragons, and might not actually be a member of House Targaryen if you believe some fans. He can actually count past 6, can multiply numbers, can read different language and has a minor understanding of geometry thus cementing him as one of the most educated people in this overwrought series. Can also do his own laundry.
* Brynden Rivers ''Bloodraven'': A Targaryen bastard who came to prominence about a hundred years before the series as sort of sorcerer, he later became known as the "Three-Eyed Raven/Crow" after encountering the Children of the Forest, and uses his powers to help advert the Long Night and train Bran. He's described as having long, white hair, missing an eye, bound to a tree, knows all and sees all, associated heavily with ravens and omens... [[Vikings|yeah, he's very much Odin, come to think of it.]]</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Lannister'''

''<s>"Hear Me Roar"</s> "A Lannister Always Pays His Debts"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">[[Monopoly|The world's richest family]], proud, pompous, selfish and fabulous assholes. Not much of a martial tradition but if you cross them [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7t7cnwlOgY they will fucking cut you]. You can tell they are the bad guys because they have an army of sick fucks, including a zebra-riding mercenary band and 7' 8" Khornate Champion <s>not-Goliath</s> Gregor Clegane. House Lancaster combined with the House of Rothschild and the Mafia.
* Tywin Lannister, ''The Lion of Lannister'': The Godfather, head of the house, and obsessed with his reputation as a Magnificent Bastard extraordinaire. He was a most feared general whose greatest achievement was nuking House Reyne out of existence, which was immortalised in his own sweet-yet-creepy-as-fuck theme song (The Rains of Castamere) that became used as a warning against anyone standing against him. During his tenure as Hand of the King (i.e. Prime Minister), he was a political genius who operates as the true power behind the Iron Throne, keeping the realm stable and prosperous despite the stupidity of Aerys II and Joffrey. However, despite all of his achievements, he was an [[Emperor|absolutely terrible father]], who treats his children as nothing more than tools to further his political agenda. He is completely blind to the incestuous relationship his two oldest children had, and hated Tyrion and made his life a living hell for very poor reasons. He humiliated Tyrion whenever it wouldn't threaten the family's reputation, berated Tyrion for being a whore-monger despite secretly being one himself, [[Grimdark|tried to get him killed multiple times]], and as the capstone of awful parenting, he taught Tyrion not to marry commoners after he married one called Tysha - by forcing Tyrion to watch Tysha get gangraped, forcing him to rape her too and then annulling their marriage. The only person Tywin truly loved was his wife. He eventually gets his comeuppance when Tyrion finds out the truth about the Tysha incident, and kills him with a crossbow, all while mentioning that out of all his children, Tyrion was the most alike to Tywin himself. He's based on [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Neville,_16th_Earl_of_Warwick Warwick the Kingmaker].
* Joanna Lannister: Tywin's late wife and first cousin, meaning the next three characters are inbred as well, ironically. Dies giving birth to Tyrion, which is part of why Tywin hates him, though Cersei hates him for other reasons. Caught wind of Cersei and Jaime's incestuous tendencies, but she died before she could tell Tywin. It is implied that her ghost visits Jaime in a dream and mourns the current state of her family.
* Cersei Lannister, ''Cunt Queen'': Tywin and Joanna's first child. Twin sister to Jaime Lannister and wife to King Robert Baratheon. She fucks her brother Jaime all the time and had three of his children, whom she passed off as Robert's to grab power. She is a massive narcissist who thinks of herself as "female Tywin" and hence seeks to rule Westeros as the Queen, and will do anything to keep her power... even when [[Abbadon the Despoiler|most of her plans end up becoming utter failures]]. Crazy as all fuck and prophesied to be killed by the "little brother." This is because of a prophecy a Gypsy made when Cersei was a child that she'd be a beautiful queen, lose everything, her children would die before her, and the "Valonqar" would kill her. Though that does explains why she hates Tyrion as hard as all fuck, [[Just As Planned|the exact translation of the term]] that was used is "younger sibling", and not necessarily her sibling, which opens the door to all sorts of characters who hate the fuck out of her. Since Jaime is technically younger by a few seconds, him killing Cersei would be an interesting twist not without buildup. Possibly the Gypsy was messing with her head because of what a bitch Cersei was being to her; something Cersei never grew out of. Cersei is currently alive only because Varys wants her to be, [[Just As Planned|as she's a terrible queen who'll destabilize the realm enough for him to bring back the Targaryens]]. She was completely shaved, stripped of power in all but her royal heritage and forced to do a nude walk of penance throughout the city by the High Sparrow (ASOIAF Pope equivalent) after he uncovered her crimes. Now she's waiting for her hair to grow back and may be thinking of revenge. She gets it in the show by blowing up the Sept (ASOIAF church) with everyone she doesn't like inside it, having her cousin killed near the Wildfire then capturing the nun who was her jailer and [[Grimdark|leaving her to be tortured to death by zombie Gregor Clegane]]. She is in short Thanquol disguised as a beautiful blonde woman. Gets anticlimactically squashed by a collapsing ceiling along with Jaime during Daenerys's assault on King's Landing.
* Jaime Lannister, ''The Kingslayer'': Younger twin brother (by about three seconds) to Cersei Lannister and commander of the Kingsguard. He loves his sister in every sense of the word and had three children with her. Killed the last king despite his oath, and is widely hated for it, even though everyone agrees that dying was a massive improvement for Aerys. The reason for this betrayal was that Aerys had a huge stockpile of Acme Brand Magic Napalm stockpiled under the city, ready to be set off the moment a siege broke through the town walls, and Jaime's options were to let it happen or kill Aerys before the crazy fuck got ''everybody'' killed. His desire to openly love his sister and win the respect he feels he deserves eventually causes Cersei to reject him. Starts off as an arrogant douche [[Grimdark|and tried to murder Bran Stark, but accidentally crippled him instead]]; he becomes otherwise quite bro-tier besides the whole wants-to-fuck-his-sister thing, though he grows out of ''that'' as well when he realizes what a bitch she is and that there's plenty of women who want his jock - even the hunky Brienne isn't that bad looking. Thoroughly humbled to boot after learning a few hard lessons, losing his sword hand, and having some time to rethink his life. Also the only person in his family who treats Tyrion well, along with one of his aunts and two dead uncles. Essentially, a more incestuous and douchey Blood Angel. In the books, he is currently being lured into a trap by Lady Stoneheart. In the show, he has finally told Cersei to get fucked after realizing that she has well and truly lost it, and is riding north to help fight the White Walkers. He survives the Battle of Winterfell, hooks up with Brienne, and then rides south [[Derp|because he just can't let Cersei go.]] Winds up getting shanked by Euron Greyjoy and dies [[Fail|via collapsing ceiling]].
* Tyrion Lannister, ''Halfman'': a very intelligent dwarf who is awesome, but hated by all of the civilized characters in the books, except his brother Jaime. He seems to do much better when getting drunk with whores, rogues, bastards and barbarians. His silver tongue is one of his greatest strengths (he's witty and good at persuading people) and weaknesses (he's quick with insults and the truth in a city ruled by sociopaths and liars). Tyrion is also one of the only characters with an actual sense of the bigger picture, and an interest toward steering the world toward an outcome that ''doesn't'' involve a [[The End Times|Warhammer End Times]] scenario. Unfortunately, the world's movers, shakers, and those who generally have the power to make a difference are increasingly either a) dead, b) scattered to the winds, or c) hate his dwarf guts. Despite the increasing difficulty and fruitlessness of his task, however, [[Awesome|Tyrion still fights]]. After being framed for killing Joffrey, he killed his own father and is currently in exile in the Free Cities, weaseling his way into leading a merc band and trying to sign them up with Daenerys' forces, recognizing her as one of the few chances Westeros has got of fixing its shit (provided she can get her own shit together, which she's having a bit of trouble with). Since characters in this series tend to either be walking tropes, rip-offs of other fantasy characters, or historical people with different names, Tyrion is probably based on the great [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_Vorkosigan Miles Vorkosigan] (who was himself based on a few people including Sir Winston Churchill) and is a nod to King Richard III (a deformed but competent king later demonized by historians of his era). Even if he is usually the smartest one in the room at any given time, though, Tyrion is still not above having some derp moments. Exhibit A, when Tyrion asked his father what happened to his first wife (right before killing him), he took an ''obvious'' "I don't know and I don't care," response ("Wherever whores go") as actual, literal directions. The show version meets Daenerys and becomes her Hand only to [[Fail|fuck up a bunch of stuff]] and lose her trust. Sells her out when he realizes that she's gone round the bend and winds up becoming Hand to King Bran.
* Kevan Lannister: Tywin's younger brother, considered "the reliable one". One of the few decent Lannisters, though saying that he is perfectly happy carrying out Tywin's bidding. Tried to talk sense into Cersei and was later called in to try and fix her mess. He did such a good job of it that Varys decided to personally thank him. With a crossbow. And a group of knife-wielding children.
* Cersei and Robert's (actually Jaime's) children:
** Joffrey Baratheon: "Heir" of the throne, and technical king of Westeros during the War of the Five Kings since he lives in King's Landing and sits on the throne. Turned out to be worse than Aerys. He died and there was much rejoicing. [[Fail|Except by his mother, who instead had sex on his corpse]]. Fourteen years old at time of death.
** Tommen Baratheon: The new king on the Iron Throne. Nine years old. Married to a teenaged shotacon wife who's (unknown to him) the granddaughter of his brother's true killer. Trying to litigate the criminalization of beets. Loves [[Cats|kittens]]. He's pretty well-rounded and non-fucked up, which is a miracle considering his parents, both putative and biological. Also seems to be trying to take kinging seriously, but his mom is trying to quash that in her subliminal attempt to hold power indefinitely, so whether it holds is another matter entirely. Prophesied to die before Cersei, which doubly tragic due to his age and being a much better person than her. He commits suicide after Cersei gets her revenge via killing his wife, godfather, great-uncle, and all his religious friends via blowing up the ASOIAF equivalent of St. Peter's Basilica, because of course her power hunger was more important than his happiness and well being.
** Mycella Baratheon: Princess, and Cersei and "Robert's" second oldest child. She had her face fucked up because of Arianne Martell's amateur intrigues, which overlapped with poor planning, general stupidity, and another guy's backstabbing. Ten years old. Before the maiming, she was quite decent and non-evil. Who knows how she'll turn out now with half of her face cut off. Also prophesied to die before Cersei. In the show she had a crush on Oberyn's surviving nephew, but was killed by Elia in revenge for Oberyn's death, but alive in the books though missing an ear. Also, the readership all got on George's balls for maiming this girl, mostly because it was a sign that he had run out of ideas and was basically just milking diabolus ex machina ([[Just As Planned|or that's what he wants us to think]]).
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Baratheon'''

''"Ours is the Fury"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Ascended to the Iron Throne after a successful rebellion against the Mad King Aerys II Targaryen. Produces no less than three claimants to the succession, each one very different from the other. Technically a cadet branch of House Targaryen as their founder Orys was allegedly a Targaryen bastard, who took the original Storm Kings (House Durrandon) deer sigil after killing the last one and fucking his only child Argella and then 200 odd years later, King Egg's daughter married their grandfather, they're pretty much the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Plantagenet House of Plantagenet].
* Robert Baratheon, ''The Usurper'': Fat, old, former badass who led the rebellion, and now the king who married Cersei Lannister. Then he fucked a bunch of other women and had lots of illegitimate kids. He was killed while mixing boar hunting and drinking, but whether this death was planned or not is uncertain. On the surface, a king with a thing for easy laughs and partying; right underneath the surface, he's irresponsible and leaves the actual ruling of a nation to his staff, deeper under the surface he's pretty much a sad, lonely old bro who would rather not have been king. Comparable to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_IV_of_England Edward IV], in that both were powerfully built military geniuses who overthrew the existing monarchy and later succumbed to an unhealthy lifestyle.
* Stannis '''The Mannis''' Baratheon: Robert's younger brother, all-around badass who swings between [[Lawful Stupid]] (moreso in the show than the books) and [[gets shit done|getting shit done]]. [[Judge Dredd|Believes so strongly in the rule of law]] that he feels compelled to take the Iron Throne for himself despite wanting nothing to do with it. Is advised by a priestess of the God of light, Melisandre, and a lowborn smuggler named Davos Seaworth raised to knighthood and nobility. [[C.S Goto|His character is ruined in the show into an incompetent pawn of Melisandre and gets killed off just because one of the showrunners didn't like him]].
** Shireen Baratheon: Stannis's kid daughter. Sweet, charming, and intelligent little lady who was left with a deformity on her face from a disease called greyscale. Teaches Davos how to read, and is probably the most innocent person in the series alongside Tommen, Myrcella and a few others. Being the grim and dark universe A Song of Ice and Fire is, however, this means that she's likely going to end up becoming fuel for a vicious fire god. In the show she does, but in the books she is safe and sound since Stannis isn't stupid enough to bring him with her while campaigning. His wife, on the other hand, being such an idiotic fanatical pyromaniac... well, her odds aren't exactly looking that great.
* Renly Baratheon, ''That Gay Guy'': Robert and Stannis's youngest brother. Took Loras Tyrell (a.k.a. Knight of Flowers, Pretty Boy, etc.) as his lover. Decided he was better suited to be king, though the bizarre and outdated laws of the land stated Stannis was next in line (though Joffrey and then Tommen were first since they were [[Pretend|officially]] Bobby B's legitimate kids). Was hugely popular since he had Robert's charisma, which led to him getting the most support, but he lacked Stannis's conviction and devotion to the duty of actually doing the work of a king, or even Robert's ability to wage war. Killed by Melisandre with some "help" by Stannis ''The Mannis'' for trying to steal his crown, though in the books Stannis may not have been completely aware of the role he played in Renly's death. He's basically [[That Guy]] of ASOIAF, since quite a lot of shit is his fault, indirectly or otherwise.
*Gendry Baratheon, the Bastard Son. One of Robert's many, many bastard children, and the one who gets the most page and screen time. He starts out as a humble blacksmith in King's Landing, who first comes to Ned's attention when Lord Stark is investigating the death of Jon Arryn. From there, he gets shipped off to the Night's Watch to avoid the imminent purge of Robert's bastards, and winds up becoming friends with Arya and Hot Pie. After some adventuring and sexual tension with Arya (at least in the show), he joins the Brotherhood Without Banners. In the show, they sell him to Melisandre so she can use him for a blood magic ritual, while in the books he just goes on being a smith and doesn't get involved in anything particularly weird or shady. He has yet to reappear in the books, but in the show Ser Davos sets him free and tells him to fuck off, which he does for a few seasons. He eventually turns up back in King's Landing, where Davos finds him and recruits him for Team Snow. He helps Jon capture a wight to show Cersei, makes dragonglass weapons for the Army of the Living, has sex with Arya, and fights in the Battle of Winterfell, after which Daenerys legitimizes him as the new lord of House Baratheon.</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Tully'''

''"Family, Duty, Honor"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content"> Lords of the central river lands. Being the obligatory central nation they spend a lot of the series being fought over like a cake in between fat kids. Basically Poland/Netherlands, given they have so many rivers and how hard they've been fucked over.
*Edmure Tully: Basically the SoIaF universe's eternal butt monkey (because he happens to be a decent fucking person). A useless ponce with a dense streak a mile wide and a bad habit of bragging about things he shouldn't be proud of. It took hanging in a stockade for a few months to make him experience some growth. When Jaime was brought in to unfuck the situation and end the siege at Tully's house in Riverrun, Jaime's "negotiation" pressured him into convincing his house to surrender, but he made sure [[Troll|that Brynden got out first]]. Currently spending his days at the Lannister house as a hostage to make sure that the Tullys don't try to ruin the situation again. Tries to make a case for himself as king in the final episode, only to get shut down by Sansa.
*Brynden Tully ''the Blackfish'': He didn't catch the memo that he was part of the joke faction, and proceeds to spend the entire series fucking Lannister shit up and generally being a boss. Thought to be the black sheep in a family of fish. (Thus "Blackfish", geddit?) Ended up holed up in Riverrun, and got the fuck out right before the end of the siege, so that the Lannisters couldn't dick him over as a prisoner (or so he can keep dicking them over before he became a prisoner). Also widely accepted by the fans to be a closeted homosexual. In the HBO show, he gets killed when resisting arrest from Tully forces by order of Edmure. [[Rage|And it happens offscreen.]]</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Arryn'''

''"As High as Honor"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Mountain lords turned [[NEET|neurotic shut ins]]. Goes through lords about as quickly as you would expect a castle equipped with a door that opens into empty air. Basically Switzerland/Afghanistan, seeing as how they stayed neutral in the War of Five Kings, their land is covered by nothing but mountains, and they're constantly fighting with the local tribes. They were being entertainingly screwed over by Littlefinger until his death.
*Jon Arryn: Only appears posthumously and is the catalyst for the whole plot. The true mastermind behind Robert's Rebellion, was killed by Littlefinger via Lysa when he figured out that Robert's kids are bastards of Cersei and Jaime. His death was blamed on the Lannisters to destabilize Westeros.
*Lysa Arryn: Loli bride turned Lady of the Vale after the Lannisters forcibly retired her husband from life, at least officially. In reality Littlefinger convinced her to poison her husband and blame the Lannisters [[Just As Planned|which pretty much started this whole clusterfuck to begin with]]. A closeted, crazy woman who spends the entire series in her castle "the Eyrie" being useless, breastfeeding her own son at age 10, obsessing over Littlefinger's cock, and [[Derp|refusing to help her sister and nephew in the war she and Littlefinger pretty much started]], which may have guaranteed their eventual horrific murders by their enemies. Finally gets her comeuppance when Littlefinger kicks her out the moon door (post-taunting, of course), putting her out of our collective misery. Long live the Lord Protector.
* Robert Arryn: ''Littlefuck'', Lysa's equally mentally unstable autistic son, who still sucks on his mom's tit, and enjoys seeing people "fly" out the moon door to their deaths. He actually seems to be a bit smarter than you would first think and is a really, really good judge of character, except with Sansa. Secretly being poisoned by Littlefinger and Sansa, so she can take over the Vale and North. Named Robin in the show because the showrunners were afraid that having two characters with the same name would be too confusing. The show version doesn't get poisoned, but turns up in the series finale as the Lord of the Vale.</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Greyjoy'''

''"We Do Not Sow"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">[[Awesome|A house founded by Cthulhu-worshipping Norscans]]. While not actual Vikings in any sense of the word, there is little other way to describe them. They live on some islands and almost their entire culture is based around raiding and the ocean. Their religion holds it shameful for a man to pay for personal possessions, and states they have to get things either by trade or The Iron Price; seizing something from the body or belongings of someone he defeated in conquest rather than paying or trading for it. Also only possessions acquired via The Iron Price command respect among the Ironborn.
*Balon Greyjoy: Asshole dad, crappy ruler and general shithead who rebelled against Robert Baratheon and failed miserably. All of his sons were killed, except for Theon, who was taken as a hostage to ensure his good behavior. Despite being in a position to join either the Lannisters or the Starks during the War of Five Kings and thereby get whatever he wanted from either (independence and the North, or independence and Casterly Rock, respectively), he does the absolute stupidest thing possible and declares himself independent without support from anyone, attacking the North and the rest of Westeros, thereby virtually guaranteeing that he'll be on the receiving end of another one-sided battle. Never got that far, though, since he was pushed off a bridge during a storm by an assassin his brother Euron sent.
*Victarion Greyjoy: Admiral of the Iron Fleet. [[Gets shit done]] while wearing [[Dark Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|Lokhir Fellheart's]] armor during boarding actions. Does it for vengeance, the lulz and as a ticket to Ironborn heaven (which they believe men can reach if they die in battle or by drowning). Worships both R'hllor and the Drowned God. For all his badassery, is far too stupid to realize that his black Red Priest sidekick's constant rambling about his "great destiny" is inevitably going to end in his burning to death on a sacrificial pyre. Said Red Priest impressed Victarion by surviving being marooned at sea for 3 weeks and turning Victarion's infected arm into a super-strong volcano arm. Seriously.
*Aeron Greyjoy ''Damphair'': A priestly Alan Moore who drank seawater. Once a fun-loving party animal, he nearly drowned during the Greyjoy Rebellion, and became a dour and devout priest of the Ironborn [[Cthulhu]] religion. Confirmed to have been raped by Euron when they were kids. Planned to overthrow Euron, who bribed and manipulated his way into becoming king of the Ironborn. [[Grimdark|Was captured by Euron and tortured to try and make him renounce his faith, including feeding him spoiled food, drugging him and burning him. Later Euron tied Aeron, naked, to the prow of Euron's ship alongside Euron's tortured, pregnant former lover because she showed Aeron kindness by once giving him proper food]]. He tried to console her by saying their suffering will end in underwater Valhalla, [[Awesome|showing Euron failed to make him deny his faith]].
*Theon Greyjoy: Son of the Lord/King of the Iron Islands. Had the personality of a stereotypical high school jock, being an excellent archer and womanizer and proud of it. He was given to Ned Stark by his father after Balon failed to successfully rebel against Robert Baratheon. Swore an oath to Robb, but then ditched him out of a desperate need to please his father. Ends up castrated and acts as the personal slave of Ramsay Bolton after Ramsay puts him through horrific torture to turn him into Reek. Rescued by his sister, but the psychological trauma meant it took awhile before he could stop calling himself Reek and start getting back to normal mentally (physically he's now missing a few parts that don't heal or grow back). Dead in the show, thanks to charging the Night King by himself while protecting Bran.
* Asha Greyjoy: Theon's older sister and a commander of some renown which is quite a feat - almost every man on the Iron Islands except her father either tried to get in her pants, or told her to [[-4 STR|stop playing around and go do some actual women's work]], before she kicked enough ass that they respected her. Rescues Theon after he escapes Ramsay but then loses him to Stannis. Is named Yara in the show because the showrunners thought her name sounded too similar to Osha the wildling chick, and is also apparently [[PROMOTIONS|bisexual]]. Eventually becomes Lady of the Iron Islands in the show because she's the last Greyjoy standing.
*Euron Greyjoy ''Crow's Eye'': A [[Chaos|sick fuck Lovecraftian pirate armed with unnatural sorcerous powers, so evil]] that Balon banished him from the Iron Islands. Every member of his crew is a mute, because Euron ripped all their tongues out. Many of them are also the illegitimate sons of women he's raped around the world during his raids. Uses an eyepatch to conceal a pitch-black eye, his personal "obviously a villain" mark. Raped his brother Victarion's wife, then claimed she wanted it so Victarion had to kill her. Raped his younger brother Aeron. Also showed back up in the Iron Islands the day after Balon died, despite having been raping and pillaging in Essos before that, which is suspicious as fuck. Now the new Iron King. Plans to conquer Westeros, and has some unknown plan to deal with Daenerys. Revealed in the book ''Winds of Winter'' to be [[Honsou|the sickest fuck in an entire setting of sick fucks (and that's saying something)]], including having a god complex while hating religion so much he [[Grimdark|tortures any clergymen he captures to try and make them give up their faiths using ironic tortures themed around their religions - such as preachers have their tongues cut out and burning priests of the fire god to death]]. Euron tried and failed to break his priest brother Aeron's faith so he lashed Aeron to the front of his ship to die [[Grimdark|alongside Euron's own pregnant lover Falia]]. Jaime kills him in the second-to-last episode of the show. </div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Tyrell'''

''"Growing Strong"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Lords of Highgarden and backstabbers par-excellence and owners of a lot of fertile land. Unlike the current lot of Lannisters they understand the value of good PR, balancing ruthlessness with being somewhat amicable, political savvy and not being stuck-up on honor. They're basically France. [[Fail|Unfortunately they've all been wiped out in the show]].
*Mace "The Ace" Tyrell: Lord of Highgarden. Massively fat and overweight, while being stupid, overreaching and constantly mocked by everyone else, he's otherwise known as a friendly man, a good Lord when it comes to management and a good father; unfortunately this isn't enough to save a man in the Game of Thrones. Gets killed with the rest of the noble houses when Cersei blows up the Great Sept of Baelor.
*Olenna Tyrell: The brains behind House Tyrell's schemes. Known as the ''Queen of Thorns'' for being an outspoken, prickly and venomous old lady. Schemed with Littlefinger to have Joffrey killed, but she carried it out with compressed powder "gems" that poisoned his wine. Now she keeps her family in line and is hailed as a more progressive version of Tywin. Became a fan favorite for constantly dropping awesome one-liners and telling the Sand Snakes to shut up. [[Fail|Later killed off in the show]], but not before revealing to Jaime that [[Awesome|she was the one who killed Joffrey]].
*Willas Tyrell: Mace Tyrell's eldest son and heir, crippled at a very young age when jousting against Oberyn Martell. Probably one of the most pleasant and sensible characters in the series, which might explain why he's yet to make an appearance. Very fond of breeding animals, especially horses.
*Garlan Tyrell ''The Gallant'': Second-born son. Badass extraordinaire, considered one of the best swords in Westeros, and one of the few people kind to Tyrion. Trains for real combat (often against multiple opponents by himself) unlike Loras, who's a tourney fighter. Single-handed wrecks many notable knights fighting for Stannis during the War of The Five Kings. And he is the only person other than Tywin to put Joffrey in his place, at his own wedding. Sadly no POV chapter yet and omitted from the TV series (Loras takes credit for his deeds).
*Loras Tyrell ''The Knight of Flowers'': The Tyrell who appears most in the series. Considered to be an example of the perfect knight, despite his youth. Is secretly Renly's gay lover and conspired to take the throne with him and his sister. Last seen badly injured in the books attempting to take Stannis' castle. In the show he ends up tortured by the members of the Faith for being gay [[C.S Goto|because the showrunners retconned them to hate gay people]], [[Protectorate of Menoth|later joins their ranks of questionable willingness]] then dies when Cersei blows up the Sept of Baelor.
*Margaery Tyrell: The would-be Queen of Westeros, she has married, in order, Renly Baratheon (gay), Joffrey Baratheon (evil), and Tommen Baratheon (8 years old) and has been crowned as queen three times. While she is nice, she is capable of manipulation. In the show she marries and uses sex to control Tommen. Was arrested by the resident Chamber Militant The Sparrow and asked for a trial by faith in the books. In the show this also happens but she tries to be pious in an attempt to save herself, but ended up getting killed when Cersei blew up the Sept of Baelor.
</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Bolton'''

''"Our Blades Are Sharp"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">The Starks' most important (and most despised) vassal, a former arch rival made of [[Grimdark]] because their entire theme [[Dark Eldar|revolves around Torture]]. Their sigil is a flayed man and their castle is [[Commorragh|a complex of eternal suffering called the Dreadfort]], which shows how stupid the Starks were for allying with them.
*Roose Bolton, ''The 'Leech Lord'': A Lawful Evil sociopathic health nut who's called the Leech Lord because he gets leeched regularly, believing they get rid of bad blood. Second-most powerful Lord in the North with ambitions to depose the Starks. Since the Starks are unable to think like crafty people and are blinded by honor this doesn't prove too difficult. He gets his wish when he stabs Robb Stark in the back, at his uncle's wedding no less, and has anyone associated with Robb killed. He then makes over Winterfell in his bloody image, and is currently trolling Stannis. Believes in the abolished practice of "[[Rape|Droit du seigneur]]" (a tradition that allowed a lord to have sex with subordinate women, whether they wanted to or not) and killed a man for trying to hide his wife from Roose. Believed that he and his son could be as evil as they wanted as long as no one found out. Killed by Ramsey in the show, which Ramsey tried to cover with a lie despite the witnesses to his actions.
*Ramsay Snow/Bolton: The bastard son of Roose Bolton and a woman he raped. He is arguably the most fucked up person in all of the Seven Kingdoms, because he [[Dark Eldar|loves to torture and kill people openly for the lulz]], such as Theon Greyjoy, who he crippled, knocked his teeth out and castrated too. He then sent the severed appendage to the foreshortened Theon's dad in a cutesy box with a letter mockingly detailing his evilness. Will torture anyone who points out his illegitimate heritage though now he's legally recognized as a Bolton. Also has a pack of hunting dogs he names after women he hunts, rapes and kills. Married a fake Arya Stark and regularly mistreats her, including forced bestiality. Not a fun guy to be around. Only reason he's gotten away with it for so long (as pointed out by his father) is because no one is strong enough to stand up to him yet, but when they are he's going to be killed. In the show he killed his father with a knife, fed his stepmother and newborn half-brother to his dogs, then married Sansa Stark and deflowered her via rape. Ramsay was such a monster even Iwan Rheon, THE ACTOR WHO PLAYED THE GUY, hoped he'd die horribly. He got his wish: The consequences of Ramsay's actions catch up with him when Jon Snow shows up with an army capable of threatening him, and after surprise reinforcements from Littlefinger and his own fucked-up teamkilling, the Starks crush the Bolton army, forcing Ramsay to flee back to Winterfell. Despite this, the gate is smashed down, he is disarmed, beaten rather brutally and detained to await trial. Before the trial Sansa sets his dogs on him, which he had deliberately starved so they would eat Jon. Apparently they found him quite tasty.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Martell'''

''"Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Desert dwelling survivalists who pride themselves on having never been conquered by the Targaryen dynasty (though they later married in). Moorish Spaniards, kinda. [[C.S Goto|Their story arc was completely FUBAR in the show, as Elia and Oberyn's daughters kill Oberyn's brother and nephew for taking too long to avenge him before being captured and killed themselves by Euron and Cersei]].
*Doran Martell: Lord of Sunspear and of royal descent. Still mad at the the Lannisters about that whole "murdered-my-sister-and-infant-niece thing". Playing the longest of long games with Varys while trying to keep the rest of his psychotic family members in check. Wheelchair bound due to his gout. [[What|Killed off in the show by Ellaria as part of her plan to avenge Oberyn]].
*Arianne Martell: One of GRRM's characters who seems to exists solely to fuck everything up at the worst conceivable moment. Still hot as Dornish girls come. Exists only in the books, where she is currently helping her dad get ready to topple the Lannisters after fucking everything up with her own stupid plan to crown Myrcella, which is what got the poor girl maimed.
*Oberyn Martell ''The Viper of Dorne'': Doran Martell's brother, a bisexual swinger, former mercenary, and a drunkard. His girlfriend is a spectacularly beautiful bastard named Ellaria Sand and he has many illegitimate children, mostly daughters, collectively called "The Sand Snakes". Crippled the Tyrell heir in a fight, causing a rift between the two houses; despite this, he's actually best mates with the aforementioned heir, due to Willas Tyrell being straight up the nicest and most balanced man in the series and Oberyn being a somewhat decent person. Known for poisoning his weapons, as well as his battle-cry. Died from a mutual kill, with Gregor Clegane crushing his skull in rather graphically, avenging his sister Elia who Gregor had raped and murdered. Though it's probably a win for Oberyn, since he got Clegane with a horribly painful and slow-acting venom which stretched his death over days or even weeks, during which time he was ruthlessly experimented upon by a mad scientist.
*Quentyn Martell: Didn't realize what series he was in, poor bastard. A member of House Martell, sent to marry Daenerys to secure an alliance between the families, since the original marriage plan to hook Arianne up with Viserys won't work with Viserys dead. Leaves Westeros and goes all the way to the city of Meereen to marry her, but he's too late, as she marries the Meereenese noble Hizdahr, and like Jorah he's not her type (Dany likes her bad boys). Tries to tame two of her dragons to impress her; the attempt goes wrong, he gets horribly burnt and gradually dies in agony from his wounds.
*The Sand Snakes: Oberyn's children. All daughters he had with various women throughout his travels (all consensual encounters, mind you). Mixed race and all hot with various skills including combat training and mastery of poisons. Working with Doran and Ellaria in the books. [[C.S Goto|Ruined in the show where they don't accomplish anything, are given atrocious dialogue (the "you need the bad pussy" line comes to mind), aren't great fighters]] and get killed by Euron's men, except for one who gets captured and poisoned by Cersei so an imprisoned Ellaria is forced to watch her die and decompose.</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''Night's Watch'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">The Night's Watch are an apolitical force in charge of manning The Wall, a giant ice wall that separates the relative tranquility of the south from the Lovecraftian fucked-up-itude of the true north. They are chronically undermanned and undersupplied since nobody believes their stories of a barbarian army or the impending zombie apocalypse. Basically everybody else thinks they're in a game of [[Diplomacy]] and the Night's Watch are the only ones who realize they're actually in [[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]], though it's been so long since the last snow elf invasion that even they had forgotten about the undead hordes and focused too much on barbarians. They've allied with the Wildings and the North, but in the TV show the Night's King used the undead dragon Viserion to burn a hole through The Wall.
*Jeor Mormont, ''The Old Bear'': 997th Lord Commander of the Night's Watch at the start of the series. Sees Jon Snow as something of a second son (since his own son Jorah was exiled for enslaving and refused to take the black for his crimes). Leads a ranging north of the Wall to investigate reports that the Others have returned. Ends up killed during a mutiny of survivors after the Others wiped out most of his force.
*Alliser Thorne: Prick of a knight who was favorite to be the next Watch Commander, but was passed over by Jon Snow. Unable to accept Jon Snow letting the Wildlings live on the other side of the wall in an alliance against the zombie hordes, he staged a coup against Jon. It failed because Jon was brought back to life. He is now dead in the show, having been executed for his treason by Jon Snow.
*Aemon Targaryen: Maester of the Citadel at Castle Black. Despite being the third born son of King Maekar I Targaryen, he declined the right to sit on the Iron Throne. One of the few people in the series to die of old age, at 102.
*Samwell Tarly, ''The Slayer'': Fat bookworm who was forced to take the black after his father Randyl threatened to murder him for being unmanly. Jon Snow's best friend among the Night's Watch, and knows everything because he "read it in a book". Despite being a self-professed coward, Sam became the first person in thousands of years to slay an Other with an obsidian dagger. George Martin himself said Sam's based on Samwise Gamgee from Lord of the Rings. Since then, he has started improving his combat skills and balls (in more ways than one for the latter, finding his spine and losing his virginity). He abandons the Night's Watch to help fight the dead and tell Jon who he really is, and winds up becoming the new Grand Maester by the end of the show.
*Eddison Tollett, ''Dolorous Edd'': Probably the most badass member of the Night's Watch. Responds to situations by making sarcastic jokes about them, and known for being a grim motherfucker in a setting of grim motherfuckers. In the show he [[Awesome|became the new Lord Commander]] while Jon was dead, but gave the title back to Jon when he was brought back to life, and then Jon handed it right back because he needed to go sort out Ramsay Bolton. Dies in Season 8 at the Battle of Winterfell. </div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">

'''Wildlings'''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Groups of nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes who live north of the Wall. Mostly First Men by blood, they have been heading toward the Wall for the past decade with the reputed reemergence of the Others. Nomadic, aggressive, and very much believing in "might makes right", they do not get along with anyone south of The Wall since they view them as "Kneeling weaklings". Basically every Celtic/Scandinavian/barbarian stereotype combined.
*Mance Rayder, ''The King Beyond The Wall'': A Wildling orphan who was taken in by the Night's Watch, he became their best Ranger before he deserted to join his people. He united the Wildlings and lead them south to escape the Others. Also a trained bard, but that was not enough to save him from death.
*Tormund Giantsbane: Claims to have a ten-inch penis, and invites his enemies to use their mouths if they want to clean it. Cool as fuck old guy who [[Furry|fucks mother-bears]] in his free time. Tough as nails motherfucker who preaches the merits of using one's cock for everything. He teams up with Jon Snow for the fight against the White Walkers, then fucks off back to the north once the Night King is dead, making him one of the most sensible people on the show. He and Jon go off to be bros at the end of the show.
*Ygritte: Wildling woman who Jon Snow ends up falling for and who returns his affections. Has red hair which is considered lucky among the Wildlings. This being ''A Song of Ice and Fire'', she ends up dying because her worldview is not compatible with Jon's.
*Craster: A sick bastard, formerly a member of the Night's Watch. [[Grimdark|Has lots of daughters who he marries and fucks regularly, giving him more children. So his wives are his daughters, granddaughters and so on... Girls grow up to become more wives, boys get sacrificed to the Others]]. This keeps them at bay, and that sanctuary is why the Night Watch barely tolerate him. Fortunately, he's been killed off in the story.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Frey'''

''"We Stand Together"''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content"> House of weasels who are always grumpy and have a thing for overreacting to perceived slights. Wouldn't be that important except for the fact that they own the only bridge over a strategically important river, and regularly extort anyone attempting to cross it.

*Walder Frey: The ancient, terrible, ornery old man in charge of the Twins. Hates everyone for "looking down on him", and will readily betray an important ally for immediate gain, or if he feels he has been slighted in some minor way. His descendants are literally so numerous that no one except GRRM himself have been able to count them all, so we aren't even going to attempt it. Now dead in the show due to getting his throat slit by a vengeful Arya after she serves him two of his sons as meat pies. </div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''Commoners, Knights, and Petty Lords'''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Basically any character not associated with any of the Great Houses.
* Varys, ''The Spider'': The eunuch spymaster of Westeros. You can't take a shit in the Seven Kingdoms without Varys finding out where, when, and how watery or dry it was. He does this through paid informants and his "little birds", a spy network of children who sneak through the castle's passageways and air flues to eavesdrop on everyone. Stabs everyone in the back because he's actually trying to bring the Targaryens back in order to strengthen the realm. Dead in the show, having decided to try and put Jon on the throne instead of Daenerys; Jon says no, Tyrion sells him out when he realizes Jon absolutely means it, and Dany has Drogon barbecue him.
* Petyr Baelish, ''Littlefinger'': The Master of Coin (the ASOIAF equivalent of a treasurer) and the closest person the Game of Thrones world has to a [[Daemon Prince]] of [[Tzeentch]], up to even declaring "[[Chaos]] is a Ladder". A dangerous manipulator who manages to trick and steal his way to positions of lordship and wealth because no one takes him seriously, and stabs all the Lannisters in the back when they become inconvenient. As a child he wanted Catelyn Stark, and was tricked into thinking she wanted him when her sister Lysa fucked him while he was drunk. Challenged Catelyn's betrothed Brandon Stark, Ned's older brother who was murdered by Aerys, for her hand in marriage and got his ass kicked because he was a small skinny boy and Brandon Stark was a big strapping man, making that his start of darkness. The guy responsible, directly or indirectly, for the War of the Five Kings because he was the mastermind behind poisoning Jon Arryn, the capture and execution of Ned Stark, feeding several half-truths to Catelyn to motivate her to arrest Tyrion, and eventually Joffrey's death by having Dontos and Olenna Tyrell carry out the plan to kill Joffrey and letting Tyrion take the fall; but no one in the story knows this, not even Varys. People think he can pull gold out of thin air, but he's really been buying debt while letting Robert Baratheon's extravagances and Cersei's dipshittery pull the country into a serious debt of its own. So he's pledged himself to [[Chaos]] and destroying Westeros all because he couldn't have Catelyn as his girlfriend, though he changed his focus to her daughter Sansa now, making him a paedophile. Hasn't yet got his comeuppance in the books, but is curently dead in the show after he was outgambitted by Sansa and killed by Arya. According to GRRM he's based on the title character from the Great Gatsby.
*Gregor Clegane, ''The Mountain'': A 7' 8" 400 pound mass of [[Khorne|testosterone, muscles, steroid overdose and murderous RAGE]], Gregor is Tywin Lannister's top muscle. Killed his own father and sister and permanently scarred his brother. Hobbies include rape, arson, murder, and random torture; he's also been married a few times but not now with the implication he kept killing his wives. He played an important part in destroying the Targaryens by killing a couple of Aerys's kids in rather brutal fashion, then raping and murdering his wife. Spends a few novels doing Tywin's dirty work before a Trial by Champion leads to him dying after being poisoned by Oberyn Martell. Qyburn later resurrected him as... something... called "Ser Robert Strong", and is now even stronger, less prone to psychotic rages, and is completely obedient. He's based on accounts of French knight Gilles de Rais and maybe also the scriptural giant Goliath. Kills Qyburn during the Siege of King's Landing and then nearly kills his little brother, only for Sandor to tackle him through a collapsing wall and into a gigantic inferno.
* Sandor Clegane, ''The Hound'': Younger brother to Gregor Clegane, called the Hound because of his hound-face helm, his family's heraldry, and being the king's hired muscle without being a knight. He hates knights due to the hypocrisy of being a professional "noble warrior" but mostly since his monstrous brother is a knight, showing it's not so much of a noble promotion. Terrified of fire after Gregor put his head against a brazier for playing with one of Gregor's old toys when they were children, burning half his face, but he's still the second-strongest person in Westeros. A brutal anti-hero with a soft spot for Sansa, but a better person than his brother. After falling sick from Biter's nasty teeth, he ends up being a silent monk burying people in the Silent Isles. In the show he joins the Brotherhood without Banners and goes north to help fuck up the White Walkers. As of Season 8 he's survived the Battle of Winterfell and is riding south with Arya to put the boots to Gregor. Dies killing his brother in a pretty epic fight amidst the crumbling ruins of the Red Keep.
*Grand Maester Pycelle: A shrewd, dangerous man putting on a "harmless old man act" and a high ranking scholar from the science/medical guild the Maesters. The longest serving member of the King's advisory staff, and is actually Tywin Lannister's biggest lackey. He convinced the Mad King to let Tywin in as Baratheon's armies were marching on the capital, where Tywin proceeded to sack the city and claim it for Robert. Gets his head bashed in by Varys in the books and murdered by Qyburn in the show.
* Qyburn: Formerly a maester, who was kicked out of the order for unethical experiments on the living. Introduced as a part of a mercenary company serving Roose Bolton, which should be a red flag. He moves up in the world when he's sent to escort Brienne and Jaime back to King's Landing, and ends with Cersei employing him to replace Pycelle as "science advisor" and eventually Varys's Spymaster. Serves Cersei loyally as long as she lets him indulge his sick experiments, serving as a black magic variety of the court mage. He has resurrected Gregor Clegane as... something. [[Fabius Bile]] if he traded his robot limbs, eugenics and power armor for necromancy. He overestimated his hold on Gregor and got his head caved in for it as of the second-to-last episode of the show.
*Barristan Selmy, ''The Bold'': Knight of the Kingsguard. Which Kingsguard? Take your pick. He's served pretty much every king since Aerys and understandably feels pretty bad about it. Another sad old man who pretty much just wants to die until he decides to go pledge his services to Daenerys. Even in his old age he is considered one of the most dangerous men in Westeros. [[Fail|Dead in the show]] (to be fair they gave him a huge last stand), but [[Awesome|alive and appointed himself Daenerys' steward in her absence to try and fix Meereen's situation in the books]].
*Melisandre, ''The Red Witch'': A priestess of R'hllor, the god of fire. Proclaimed Stannis to be the messiah-king and is doing everything in her power to make sure he wins (considerable given that she can scry, make shadow baby assassins and set things on fire with her mind). She'd be pretty bro-tier if her god wasn't so vicious. As it stands she's kind of in the gray (in the books, the show seems to zig-zag on her being evil 'cos the showrunners seem to hate religion). Most of the people she set on fire deserved it, and she hasn't ''succeeded'' in killing any babies yet. Show version now dead from suicide via rapid aging after ensuring the Living defeat the Dead.
*Jorah Mormont: A knight and son of Jeor Mormont, exiled for trying to sell poachers into slavery and eventually joining the exiles of House Targaryen. He is offered a pardon in exchange for spying on the Targaryens, but ultimately decides to stay with them after falling in love with Daenerys. Unfortunately, he gets friend-zoned hard. Despite saving her life from an assassin while she was pregnant, she still votes him off the Khalassar after learning he was a spy. He still loves her and follows her in secret, though. In the show he goes on a quest to prove himself to her and contracts the dangerous disease Greyscale (it's like the unholy lovechild of smallpox and leprosy), but he gets cured and is now back at her side. He dies protecting her at the Battle of Winterfell.
*Davos Seaworth, ''The Onion Knight'': A former smuggler and bannerman to House Baratheon. During Roberts Rebellion he ran a blockade with a cargo of contraband onions to a castle Stannis Baratheon was besieged in. In exchange for for the food he had, Stannis knighted Davos, but Stannis's law-worshiping mindset compelled him to remove four digits from his left hand. Despite this, Davos has served Stannis with unquestioning loyalty, because Stannis knighting him gave his children a future. The fact that Stannis's war for the throne has ended up killing several of his sons hasn't dented his loyalty at all. Doesn't like Melisandre because he sees her as a user and her beliefs as brutal. He's a devout follower of the Faith of the Seven in the books and the first season of the show [[C.S Goto|but is clumsily retconned into an anti-religious atheist in later show seasons]]. In the show, he's now pledged to DA NORF and is basically Jon's Hand of the King, except he doesn't get a fancy pin. He survives the Battle of Winterfell and the Second Sack of King's Landing, and becomes Master of Ships in the final episode of the show.
*Shae: A former camp follower and Tyrion Lannister's squeeze for most of the story. Fled from an abusive family and became a camp follower to earn a living. Seems to fall in love with Tyrion, but it turns out she's a gold-digging bitch. When Tyrion doesn't marry Shae she sells him out to Cersei for a better offer, then fucks Tywin when she realizes Cersei won't keep her promise. Tyrion found her in his father's bed and strangled her to death with a necklace for betraying him. The discovery of Shae's corpse in Tywin's bed - posthumously outing him as a whoremonger - upsets Cersei to the point she unpersons Shae.
*Bronn: A mercenary who acts as Tyrion's enforcer and personal killer until Cersei outbids him and he he settles down with a little wife and title. Routinely kills knights by exploiting how arrogant and stupid they are even after becoming one himself. Only in it for the money, which he'll happily tell you himself. The only character other than Littlefinger to end every book in a better position than he started it. In the show, he makes the very sensible decision to sit out the fighting and wait for his promised castle (Riverrun if Cersei wins, Highgarden if Daenerys wins). He gets Highgarden and is named Lord Paramount of the Reach and Master of Coin in the final episode.
* Brienne of Tarth, ''The Beauty'': Surprisingly badass lady knight wannabe (since no women can be knighted), legendarily unattractive but still pretty idealistic despite the shit she gets for her looks. Fate frequently gives her the shit end of the stick, because no matter how hard she tries to finish her quests, she ends up failing or stuff happens that makes it impossible. Secretly crushes on Renly and unaware he's gay. After he dies, Brienne switches her loyalty to Catelyn and helps her bring Jaime to King's Landing as Tyrion promised Sansa's return in exchange for Jaime. She later developed a crush on Jaime. Things don't go well because Jaime lost his hand and the Red Wedding happened. Next, Jaime sends her out to find and keep Sansa safe to make good on Tyrion's promise, since he isn't the complete dick everyone thinks he is. Brienne ends up getting captured by Cat, now known as Lady Stoneheart and an insane undead, who was going to hang Brienne for working with Jaime. Brienne was spared at the last moment to capture/manipulate Jaime. In the show she's now sworn to House Stark and gets knighted by Jaime just before the Battle of Winterfell and then she and Jaime hook up afterward, only for him to take off and break her heart. She is now Lady Commander of the Kingsguard as of the final episode.
* Lyanna Mormont: A badass ten year old girl who inherits Bear Island after her mother and older sister die horribly in the Riverlands - at least if we are going by the show; in the book, her mother is still alive somewhere in the Neck and her older sister Alysanne is de-facto head of House Mormont. Her activities include pimp-slapping bitches, leading men twice as old as her, and being completely loyal to the Starks despite all their misfortunes. [[Awesome|"Bear Island knows no king but the King in the North, whose name is STARK."]] She dies killing an undead giant at the Battle of Winterfell, which is pretty badass.
* Wyman Manderly, ''Lord Too-Fat-To-Sit-A-Horse'': The Lord of White Harbour and one of the few Northerners who worship the Seven. Fervently loyal to House Stark, he pays lip-service to the Iron Throne long enough for his eldest son to return home, all to mask a plan to restore the Starks to power, mostly by destabilising the Frey-Bolton alliance, building a navy, marshalling the forces of the lands east of the White Knife river, "losing" Freys in the wilderness and sending Lord Davos Seaworth to rescue Rickon Stark from Skagos. His favourite food is lamprey, although he has also developed a taste for Frey Pie. Also a remarkably graceful dancer, and can survive taking a knife to the throat.
** Wylla Manderly: Granddaughter to the above. Another badass little girl, her activities include openly declaring undying loyalty to House Stark and dying her hair green. She and Lyanna Mormont would probably be best friends if they met. [[Awesome|"The city is built upon the land [the Starks] gave us. In return, we swore that we should always be their men. Stark men!"]]
* Jon Umber, ''The Greatjon'': At first he seems to be your stereotypical, boisterous Northern Lord. However, he becomes one of Robb's most loyal supporters, being first to declare him as 'King in the North' after Ned's execution. Had his moment of awesome [[Awesome|when he killed and wounded four Freys at the Red Wedding, all the while being drunk and needing eight additional men to take him down.]]
* Beric Dondarrion, ''The Lightning Lord'': Minor lord who agreed to head an expedition to take out Gregor Clegane. This being Game of Thrones, however, his party is ambushed by the Mountain and is beaten rather badly, and he loses his life in the process. Thanks to his drunken Red Priest friend, however, he manages to come back not once, but eight times, and each time he comes back, he becomes more powerful, though at the cost of his memory. He now heads an outlaw faction of grimdark Robin Hood types called "The Brotherhood Without Banners", who are dedicated to punishing those who abuse and mistreat the smallfolk. Ironically, he's one of the few book characters to have died (permanently) in the books but remain alive in the show, except now he's dead for real as of the Battle of Winterfell.
* Thoros of Myr: Aforementioned drunken priest who is dedicated to R'hllor, though at first he doesn't really give a rat's ass about the Red God, as he prefers to party it up with wine and women, but after he 'accidentally' resurrects Beric, he becomes quite serious about his religion and vows to curb his excesses in drinking. Dies on a mission beyond the Wall to capture a wight (show-version).
</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''The Free Cities'''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Nine city states to the West of Westeros, for the most part the old colonies of the Valaryian Freehold. Mostly they are ruled by Merchant Princes. They look down on the Westerosi for being a bunch of up jumped backwards war-mongering morons who are only a few silverware sets and maesters away from absolute barbarism. In turn the Westerosi look down on the Free Cities as being money-grubbing effete cowards ruled by cheesemongers who use bribery, tall walls and dirty tricks to get ahead in the world.

* Illyrio Mopatis: A rich fat bastard and a Magister of Pentos. Old buddies with Varys and a bigtime schemer.
* [[Officio Assassinorum|The Faceless Men]]: A cult of shape-shifting assassins who worship The Many Faced God of death based in the free city of Braavos that give up personal identity. They claim descent from escaped Valyrian slaves whom considered death to be a better fate than perpetual slavery. Their mission hence became being servants of the Many Faced God of Death. You can hire them to off your rivals, but they request a steep and equivalent price. Their motto is "Valar Morghulis": All Men Must Die.
* Xaro Xhoan Daxos: One of the thirteen leaders of the city of Qarth. A flamboyant, languid, bald rich man who looks after Daenerys while she stays in Qarth and gives her many gifts. He wants her dragons as much as anyone else and even tries to marry her despite his homosexual tendencies. He stops wanting the dragons later in the book series after seeing [[RIP AND TEAR|their work in Astapor]], and no longer wants her around as her anti-slavery stance is hampering his wealth, so he offers Daenerys ships to leave the area and declares war on her when she refuses. In the show he's heterosexual, helps steal her dragons, fucks one of her handmaidens and gets locked in a vault for conspiring to have her killed. He's also black and fat in the show when he's white and lanky in the books, being Qartheen and all.
* Syrio Forel: The former First Sword of Braavos (aka the ruler's personal bodyguard) and later Arya's mentor in King's Landing. He teaches her the way of Braavosi fencing, called "Water Dancing", and sacrifices himself to save her from Lannister thugs, taking down at least six of them with a wooden sword. May have inadvertently set her on the path of becoming a badass assassin by telling her of his belief in the God of Death.

</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''The Dothraki'''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Horse people who live in a country of endless grass plains referred to by others as the Dothraki sea. They only have one city, called Vaes Dothrak, which is less of a city and more of a place they all meet when important things have to be discussed. Have traits borrowed from several cultures, including Mongols and Native Americans, all filtered through European misconceptions of those cultures of course, such as the Dothraki's antipathy for heavy armor, despite the fact that the Mongols were very heavily armored and also excelled as infantry, see the Battle of Leignitz. They fear the ocean because of its size and the fact that horses won't drink from it, calling it the "poison water".

* Khal Drogo: An expy of <s>Genghis Khan</s> Yesukhei Baatyr (his son would have been the equivalent to Chinggis Khaan). Leads the largest Khalassar among the Dothraki. Despite being a barbarian warlord, Drogo is surprisingly intelligent and treats Daenerys well. After an assassin tries to kill her he promises to conquer Westeros for her and their unborn son, and immediately starts raiding towns for slaves and ships. At one town he gets cut in a leadership challenge and Daenerys gets a captive wise woman to heal him. However, the woman hates him because his tribe destroyed her hometown, raped/slaughtered or enslaved her friends and raped her three times so she curses him to become catatonic (along with killing his unborn son), leading a devastated Daenerys to perform an arguable mercy kill by smothering him with a pillow. After, she burns herself, her stillborn child and the wise woman on his funeral pyre, Daenerys survives and it brings her dragons to life. GRRM named Drogo after [[The Lord of the Rings|Frodo's father]].
* Daenerys' handmaidens.
** Doreah: Daenerys' handmaiden and a wedding gift from Illyrio. A woman from Lysene brought by her brother to teach her how to pleasure a man. In the book she dies of fever and starvation crossing a desert, in the TV show she betrays Daenerys for [[Salamanders|Xaro's BBC]] and gets locked in a vault to starve to death.
** Irri: Daenerys' handmaiden who teaches Daenerys how to ride a horse. [[PROMOTIONS|Also pleasures Daenerys twice after catching her masturbating once]], yet this canonical girl-on-girl action was left out of the show. The character was even killed off there when she survived in the books, but in this case, it was because her actress' visa had expired rather than [[C.S. Goto|author railroading]].
** Jhiqui: Daenerys' handmaiden who teaches her the Dothraki language and squabbles with Irri over wanting one of Daenerys' bodyguards when he becomes a badass. Also dies in the TV show while staying alive so far in the books.

</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''Slavers Bay'''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">A civilization of [[Stupid Evil]] slavers. The remains of a previous civilization that was once the big powerful empire thanks to having phalanxes of obedient, pain-resistant soldiers which Valyria conquered a long while ago because phalanxes don't do too well against motherfucking dragons. They are ruled by wealthy slavemongers who buy slaves, train them up to do specific things and generally are a bunch of stuck up, decadent, puppy-eating (literally) assholes. Basically a civilization so repugnant even most hippies will be cheering when Dany decides to conquer them.

* The Unsullied: Eunuch phalanx fighting slave soldiers trained the Spartan way to produce totally obedient infantry that never break ranks. They also don't feel pain due to drinking a special drink daily, and each one has to take a new name from the name box each day so they can't develop a sense of identity. At least until Dany "bought" the lot of them, had them sack the city which trained them and freed them.
* Grey Worm: The Unsullied Commander and a no-nonsense badass. When given a chance to take a new name he keeps his slave name because it's the name he had when freed so he considers it lucky. He is completely loyal to Daenerys, considering her his savior, and in the show he falls in love with fellow freed-woman, Missandei. This being ASOIAF, however, he can only watch helplessly as his lover is beheaded in front of him by the Mountain. This drives him into a rage, and he eagerly takes part in the sacking of King's Landing in revenge for her death. After the war is over and both Daenerys and Cersei are dead, he takes the Unsullied forces to Naath, in order to fulfill his promise to Missandei that he'd protect her homeland.
* Strong Belwas: A fat but skilled eunuch gladiator. Loves liver and onions and referring to himself in the third person. Traveling companion/guide of Ser Barristan. Has an awesome scene where he beats the champion of Meereen then mocks the Meereenese by taking a shit in their direction and wiping his ass on their dead champion's cloak. Also saves Daenerys from eating poisoned sweets. [[FAIL|Left out of the show]].
* Daario Naharis: A Tyroshi mercenary captain who dyes his hair blue. Betrays his fellow commanders for Daenerys because he loves her as a queen. Fortunately for him, Daenerys loves him back and they pursue a romance for a time, though she doesn't marry him as she's still otherwise smart enough to know she has to save herself for a political marriage. Goes to Yunkai as a hostage in the war on Meereen. Also potentially a shapeshifter, if the show is to be believed.
*Missandei: A young slave woman with a remarkable talent for linguistics and one of the more empathetic people in this dark world, Missandei is freed by Daenerys during her campaign to liberate Slaver's Bay, eventually becoming one of her closest confidants and advisers. She falls in love with the Unsullied eunuch Grey Worm, but later is captured by Cersei and beheaded by the Mountain in front of all her friends, but not before telling her friends to burn the Lannisters to ashes.

</div></div>
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''The Others'''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">A mysterious race from beyond the Wall, known to [[newfag|HBO fans]] as "the White Walkers". Can be described as ice demons/snow elves with necromancy. Eight thousand years ago, they invaded Westeros during a decades-long winter known as "the Long Night". With an army of undead warriors, they proceeded to fuck Westeros up every which way to [[Sunday]] before the locals finally drove them out, established the Night's Watch, and built the Wall to keep them out. Like all fantasy aspects of ASOIAF, they are very cliched. In the TV series, it's revealed that they were created from human captives by "The Children", the pseudo-[[Elf]] fair folk race that lived in Westeros before humanity arrived, as an attempt to create a super-weapon. The idea was, since humanity bred faster than the Children could keep up with, they would create icy [[lich]]-creatures that could create [[undead]] soldiers, and these would then wipe out all human life. Instead, it went disastrously wrong because it turned out that the Children actually couldn't control what they'd created, so the Others [[Ork|just want to exterminate '''all''' life.]]
* Night's King: A long time ago, when the Night's Watch was just barely getting set up, its Lord Commander, the thirteenth in line, decided to climb over the Wall and explore some. While in the woods to the north of the Wall, he found a beautiful [[Monstergirls|Other female]]. He fell in love with her, had [[/d/|sex with her on top of the Wall]], which somehow changed him into an albino version of [[Star Wars|Darth Maul]], and set himself up as King of the Wall, making everyone in the Watch his slaves and sacrificial fodder. Naturally, this didn't sit too well with the Starks and the Wildlings, and so they banded together to free the Watch and kick his ass, which they managed to do successfully. Now everyone thinks him as dead or a myth. In the HBO version of the story, this whole backstory is basically dropped; he was the very first White Walker ever created by the Children, and he decided to get back at them by wiping out all life. Also, whilst he was apparently beaten in the ancient past and sealed away behind the Wall, he's still "alive" and well, [[Daemonculaba|turning infant human boys into new White Walkers]]. Also, he can apparently raise up entire legions of undead, just by raising his arms and looking completely smug about it; unlike regular Others, who can just raise up maybe a village at most. Given that he's the resident [[BBEG|Dark Lord]] of the series, it makes sense that he can take down a dragon with seemingly little effort (a simple throw of his spear), and resurrect it to be his personal steed a la Arthas. Used it to blow a hole in the Wall and begin [[The End Times]] for Westeros. Now dead thanks to Arya's magic ninja haxx letting her kill the BBEG and his entire race and army of zombies in one blow.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''Gods and their followers'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content"> The world of ASOIAF has various religions and faiths abound, just like in real life. Similarly, they range between fucking awesome to utterly useless.

*[[Ecclesiarchy|The Faith of the Seven]]: The Catholic Church stand-in, which gets both sympathetic (books only) and unsympathetic (books and show) characters associated with it. Holds an anti-slavery stance. The god/s are considered seven aspects of one deity with three male aspects (The Smith, the Father, the Warrior), three female aspects (The Maiden, the Mother, the Crone) and an asexual one representing Death. The places of worship are called Septs, and their system includes Septons, nun-equivalents called Septas and a Pope equivalent called a High Septon. The High Septons all give up their names when they become one to confuse future historians.
** High Septon 1: A fat, greedy man who used the position for personal gain. He ended up being [[Grimdark|torn apart in a riot]], because the people resented that he had enough food to stay fat while they were starving.
** High Septon 2: Successor of High Septon 1. Chosen by Tyrion so the Faith would be loyal to the Lannisters. Only ''slightly'' corrupt, being a pro-Lannister yes-man. Murdered on Cersei's order in the book, while in the show he's retconned into a whoremonger who gets deposed by the Sparrows (see below).
** High Septon 3/The High Sparrow: Successor of High Septon 2. After the second High Septon died, the smallfolk burst into the meeting to pick a successor and ordered their chosen candidate to be put in charge when his original successor was caught whoremongering. He'd been a wandering preacher beforehand, and his feet were dark and gnarled from lots of walking. When he reaches the position he starts [[gets shit done|getting things done]]. Since he was appointed by a smallfolk religious movement called Sparrows, he's given the moniker "The High Sparrow". The nobility underestimate him, either due to having other matters or disregard for religious people, but he turns out to be smart, well-meaning and somewhat ruthless. Under the High Sparrow, he and the other clergymen sell their fancy clothes and decorations [[Noblebright|replacing them with simple wool tunics, using the money to buy food and clothes for the poor in King's Landing]]. He also has their Knights-Templar-equivalent reformed to [[Inquisition|protect the faithful and help them root out]] [[heresy]] and sin. He also outwits Cersei and has her arrested and tried for all her evil deeds. While Cersei's scheming does lead to Margaery's arrest, Cersei confesses to some crimes while concealing others, leading to Cersei taking a nude walk of penance in front of the entire city. After this he somewhat reined in the nobles' politicking to actually look after the commoners and the Faith, though this does make some enemies. In the show he and the Sparrows are [[C.S Goto|retconned]] from assorted smallfolk and clergymen tired of the nobles' lawlessness and power plays into one-dimensional stereotypes and thinly-veiled jabs at the Catholic Church [[Imperial Truth|in a shoe-horned anti-religion message]]. While they do arrest Cersei and Margaery like in the books, during the trial most of the Faith, including the High Sparrow himself, get blown to kingdom come when Cersei has her agents ignite a massive amount of magical napalm underneath the Great Sept.
* [[Old Ones|Old Gods]]: Native American/Japanese Kame/Druid/nature spirits that reside in places called Godswoods. Their powers are limited to the North, where the last remaining Godswoods remain, but they can grant gifted individuals awesome psychic powers like Warging (mind-controlling animals) and Greensight (Time Travel). For some reason, Martin claims they're based off the Norse Gods. Probably has to do with the way the Vikings made sacrifices to their gods, by hanging them in Ash trees, a symbol for the World Tree Yggdrasil. The Weirwood trees are sacred to the followers of the Old Gods in a similar way. Mostly worship of them is quiet and informal.
* R'hllor: The God of Fire and Light, and like the Old Gods, actually shows evidence for existing. [[/tg/ gets shit done|He gets shit done]] such as fire magic and Resurrection. Has a nasty habit for burning heretics, though. GRRM said this faith is roughly based (read: poorly modeled after) upon Zoroastrianism and Gnosticism. His nemesis is The Great Other: the god of cold and darkness, the leader of the Others, and prophesied to be defeated by the chosen one, or messianic figure: [[Star Child|Azor Ahai/The Prince That Was Promised]], a figure who is the prophesied warrior that will fight with the Great Other/Night's King during the Apocalypse. Interestingly enough, the prophecy may not refer to a single person, but three (Jon, Tyrion/Bran, and Daenerys). Supposedly, one of these three will also receive an [[Emperor's Sword|awesome flaming sword called "Lightbringer"]].
* Him of Many Faces: The god of the Dead of the religion whose followers are the [[Officio Assassinorum|Faceless Men]]. According to his cult of assassins, whom Arya joins, every other god is him in a different form and he requires his assassins to utterly forget their past identities in service to him. Has a heyday during the Battle of King's Landing and the Red Wedding. His followers are granted shapeshifting abilities and powers to be the ultimate assassins.
* Drowned God: Cthulhu combined with Odin. Runs an underwater Valhalla were all Ironborn go whey they either if they drowned at sea, the men die a manly death or the women die in childbirth.

</div></div>

==The appeal of A Song of Ice And Fire==
Exactly what catches the eyes of [[Skub|a given fan/critic/lout who complains about how bad it is anytime the show is mentioned within earshot]] to ASOIAF and its TV adaptation varies from individual to individual. Still, there's a couple of major draws.

'''The Worldbuilding:''' The main reason why this series gets compared to [[The Lord of the Rings]], ASOIAF is literally ''drowning'' under the weight of its worldbuilding, being crammed as full of facts about fictitious regions, histories, cultures, dynasties and races as GRRM can fit it. Your mileage will vary on how ''good'' that info is, but there's plenty of info in it.

'''Mainstream [[Dark Fantasy]]:''' Dark Fantasy is not exactly a mainstream niche. ASOIAF stands out by deliberately trying to market itself to the mainstream, despite embracing an abundance of dark fantasy tropes; gratuitous violence, sexuality and sexual violence, moral ambiguity, political intrigue, and a willingness to suddenly kill off any character, even the most likable or heroic of them.

'''[[Low Fantasy]]:''' On the surface, ASOIAF is an old-school Low Fantasy setting, being a medieval-tech world with the story openly focused on the mundane lives of people struggling for political power.

'''[[High Fantasy]]:''' But if you scratch the surface, ASOIAF is also a High Fantasy setting, which is always the more marketable of the two, with the big backstory about how the world is facing impending doom from an army of wintery [[fey]] and their [[undead]] minions. There are also non-evil higher powers working against them, but they get swept under the rug in the show. Also, [[dragon]]s. As the more marketable genre, it's also inevitably the more skubby one, for whatever that's worth.

'''Gratuitous Sexuality:''' More a thing for the TV show than the book; the frequent scenes of nudity and sex in the early seasons were a ''big'' selling point for many people.

==Oh Yeah, About The TV Show==
[[image:KnightsWhoSayFuck.jpg|150px|thumb|left|Yeah, pretty much.]]
After the first three books became hits, many Hollywood producers and directors had came to the sadistic neckbeard, asking him about making a movie adaptation. At first, he was reluctant, at best, due to the fact that a whole lot of his content would've been cut out to be fit into a movie trilogy (see the Lord of the Rings live action films). Then, a couple of dudes, David Benioff and D.B Weiss (AKA D&D, or more accurately as of the final season, Dumb & Dumber), decided to contact him, and asked him at a local restaurant about turning ASOIAF into a Television show produced by HBO, the top-rated soft-core porno channel. The story goes that George, before giving them his consent, ask them a very specific question (Who is Jon Snow's mother?). Satisfied with the response they gave, he gave them permission to start work on the show, which would be titled after the first book, ''Game of Thrones''.

The television show casts several well known performers, such as Sean Bean as Eddard, Peter Dinklage as Tyrion, Lena Headey as Cersei, and Charles Dance as Tywin. They have also cast some comparatively less well-known actors and even ones new to cinema, such as Sophie Turner (Sansa), Maisie Williams (Arya), Kit Harington (Jon), Iwan Rheon (Ramsay), Alfie Allen (Theon), and Richard Madden (Robb).

'''TL;DR'''

Producers Dumb&Dumber-style change characters and railroad the plot at a whim, the tits and ultraviolence spigot is opened even wider than the books, and most scenes are made for the actors to show off their skills at making their signature angry/murder/brooding/etc. faces.

Thus, book snobs seem to think that every episode post-season 3 is nothing more than Emmy-bait. Regardless of the fact Kit Harington still [[Fail|doesn't have an Emmy]], there's a valid contention in that regard, with the amount of liberties taken overshadowing the initial appeal.

The final season was eventually revealed to be such a train wreck because Dumb & Dumber did not want to work on the series anymore and had let the success with the earlier seasons go to their heads so they shut out any dissenting voices (including even George's eventually). In their arrogance, instead of handing the reins to someone else, they decided to plan out their own ending and use it as an audition to Disney so they could write for Star Wars. By then, they'd run out of books to adapt, there was no superior writing for them to leech off of and there was no one to gainsay them in their echo chamber/writer's room. The result was absolutely shit writing that caused a glorious breakage in the [[skub]] dam that left [[Butthurt|many a fan's anus weeping]] (provided they weren't early seasons fans, book series fans, or any of the other assorted onlookers [[Lulz|taking part in the mightiest of keks]]) and, if anything, proved <s>George's </s> Ramsay's quote at the beginning of the article true. Goddamn Dumb & Dumber, could you talentless faggots do any worse if you tried?

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''What about the final season?'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
Long story short, the Army of the Dead is destroyed in an epic battle, where the ancient and super-powerful BBEG gets killed by some slight-of-hand. Meanwhile Daenerys has spent the last two seasons being stripped of her plot armor; she's lost most of her supporters - including one of her dragons - and has been forced to confront the fact that nobody in Westeros wants her around. Especially not the Northerners, where Sansa is basically playing the "Northern Independence Now!" movement to try and get her own bum in a throne after seven seasons of being a plaything for people with actual power. The kicker is she's fallen in love with Jon Snow, but he learns he's actually her nephew - and the fruit of a legitimate marriage between her elder brother Rhaegar Targaryean and Lyanna Stark that was handled in secret. This discovery not only caused him to back away from her (because he's got Northerner values, so fucking his aunt squicks him out... not that it stopped him from doing it at least once), but also makes him a threat to her political standing, which is something Varys makes plans to exploit. When Tyrion found out Jon wouldn't back down, he told Danerys about it, for which she had Drogon burn Varys to ash. When she forces the survivors of the final battle to march on King's Landing, another of her dragons ends up dead and her only remaining friend captured and executed by Cersei. So she attacks King's Landing... and then, when her followers maneuver around her to get the city to surrender rather than die to the last, she snaps and burns most of the city to ashes. She then decides to continue ramming her head against the proverbial wall and embraces her personal narrative of herself as a divinely chosen hero-queen meant to "free" the world by conquering everybody, having lost interesting in just ruling Westeros around the same time she lost her fucking mind. Such is her insanity that Jon Snow ends up sticking a dagger in her heart rather than let her kill Sansa and Arya, who he knows will resist her.

Jon proceeds to somehow not get killed by her last surviving dragon who pretty much knows Jon killed his momma because plot reasons, and it destroys the Iron Throne ([[What|by accident, according to the showrunners]]) while chucking a tantrum over Dany's death before grabbing her body and flying off to parts unknown. This leaves everybody stuck trying to figure out what to do, [[The Empire (Warhammer Fantasy)|but ultimately they decide to replace a dynastic monarchy with an elective one]], and make Bran the new king because, hey, he's the 3-Eyed Raven and has the seer powers to see all of space and time, so he's the least worst option they have (he's also trying to find and take control of the aforementioned dragon). The North secedes from the Seven Kingdoms, but nobody gives a damn, and Jon Snow is formally banished to the Wall - where instead he wanders off into the wilderness with the surviving Wildlings, with the land showing signs of exiting its endless winter. [[The Lord of the Rings|Arya runs off to sail to the West,]] and Sansa is crowned Queen in the North.

</div></div>

==GRRM and [[Your Dudes]]==
Want to make your own ASoIF setting for a role playing game? Well, readers have enough room to fantasize about their own minor noble House (or kingdom during the Age of the Hundred Kingdoms).

A good example of what you could do is the House from the old [[/v/|"Telltale Game of Thrones"]], House Forrester. Their relationship to the canon is as follows:

House Forrester (lords of some place in the Wolfswood) '''-> is sworn to ->''' House Glover (overall lords of the entire Wolfswood) '''-> is sworn to ->''' House Stark (rulers of the North).

There's also an actual tie-in tabletop RPG now, which uses its own system and looks kind of like [[Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay]] with a heavy helping of resource-management strategy feel.
Players are assuming the role of a minor House to guide to glory, or, more accurately given the setting we're in, NOT to ruin utterly in a season or two, which would still be more than many A-list players mustered in canon. Each PC has a specific position within said House, and only the role of official Head is mandatory; the rest could be wife/children/brothers and sisters/all other kinds of siblings, bastards (with rules for obtaining the legitimate recognition), maesters, sworn/subservient knights, or most of anybody else. This naturally opens up near-infinite possibilities for families screwed up seven ways to high heavens, which would make Lannister's brand of infighting-slash-inbreeding look as sane as the High Septon.

The setting is also ill-suited for "adventures in Westeros" style of gaming for two reasons:
#In the grim darkness of low fantasy, a roaming nobody with no banner to talk about, no House allegiance, no nothing isn't generally treated to a Tavern With Quest Givers, but rather more to a Tavern Where You Are Shanked For Your Sword And Boots And Dumped At The Nearest Forest. Heck, even the big wheelers and dealers are routinely seen invited to the latter when they are slow to properly introduce themselves.
#Working on your initially-puny House will quite realistically involve thy neighbors first and foremost, then liege lords from the higher House yours is sworn to, and on occasion shopping around for an advantageous marriage - there simply ain't gonna be that much spare time to "travel to see places". Both of these are also why tourism wasn't a very popular pastime in medieval Europe and why those who were "living on the road" usually enjoyed the lowest social standing.

A note to aspiring Lords: do NOT, under any circumstances, allow your "combat-optimized" siblings an unsupervised minute in a social setting. Game's "social combat" system is a thing more brutal than the physical one, and it takes a socially-optimized character all of a few minutes to mindfuck one who is not (read: everyone but dedicated diplomats and Heads of the Houses, and not every one of the latter, to boot, as illustrated by several amazing boneheads in canon) into believing pretty much anything short of Grumpkins and Snarks. Stupid NPCs or a stupid GM will make said mindfuck obvious, allowing you to "mindfuck 'em back" without abuse of OOC info; cunning ones will not.

On a side-note; GRRM is said to take a dim view of fanfiction, saying it kills creative ability. This is kind of a double-edged statement, since a lot of George's characters here are either rehashes of his characters from previous works, references to other fictional characters (like Littlefinger and Samwell being based on Jay Gatsby and [[The Lord of the Rings|Samwise Gamgee]]), walking tropes (such as Ned Stark and Robb Stark being the "[[TVTropes|Honor Before ]] [[Lawful Stupid|Reason]]" characters) or references to historical people (such as Tyrion Lannister being Richard III and House Tyrell being totally-not-House-Tudor - to the point that Margaery Tyrell is played by "The Tudors" actress Natalie Dormer), making everything he wrote just another...fanfiction. Yet given the "creative" output of the average neckbeard, he does have a point. Ironically, however, he sold the rights to make a TV series of the books to HBO, who then went on to make a glorified fanfic.

==Games==
[[image:AGot-2nd-ed-cardfan.png|thumb|250px]]
Like any fantasy author who finds themselves unexpectedly in the warm embrace of commercial success Martin quickly licensed the shit out of his setting, spawning everything from resin miniatures to replica great swords. While most of this is worthless junk to foist on [[Neckbeard|obsessive fanboys]] /tg/ has agreed that a few of the games are made of win. The first two are a collectable [[CCG|card game]] put out in 2002 by [[Fantasy Flight Games]] and a [[risk]]-esque board game that followed shortly after in 2003. One of [[White Wolf]]'s subsidiaries also put out a d20 RPG in 2005 but it quickly tanked because, come on, White Wolf. Martin since wrested the rights back and developed a new version with Green Ronin games.

Now lets have some serious talks about the game of thrones games, because they have become some sort of endless source of amusement and frustration for the gaming fanbase. Game of thrones is roughly speaking the second franchise with the most licensed board games, after star wars, and some of them have adquired quite a legendary status and a fanbase that goes beyond the book or series fans.

The great juggernaut for all the ASOIAF based games is Fantasy Flight Games

First and foremost we have the game of thrones board game, a game that after two editions stillranks high in the BGG top 100 board games, and has recently had an expansion. The game of thrones board game has becomesomesort of meme for the modern board gamersand it could be consider the equivalent of a more advanced risk, in which dice and blank character got replacedby a very flavourful and brutalcombat system and a lot of thematical mechanics fueling the engine. Overall this game has been associated with concepts such as, requiring maximun player count to really be entertaining, having an amazing ammount of lenght and depth and being a very faithful representation of the political feeling the series inspire. Almost any boardgamer or wargamer worth his salt has played this game and enjoyed its highs,its lows and the amazing ammount of frustrations it brings. This is probably the most well known of all the ASOIAF games and it was released way before game of thrones was a cultural phenomenom back in 2003.

Another game that bears mention, both for it's excellent mechanics and its historical significance is the game of thrones card game.It is one of the most balanced card game experiences you can get,also full of flavour and with quite a great ammount of balance and non linear thinking. Best part is, unlike other card games,the game has a "living card game" release format,in which players know exactly what each booster pack brings and can buy cards in a more responsible manner rather than playing bingo and hoping to get a rare cards. Also the sole core set already provides more replayability than some fully fledged board games.

Finally the last game to mention in the FFG venerable trilogy of games is "Battles of Westeros", arguably the most ambitious and least succesful of the three. Battles of westeros was a fully fledged wargame that used the Memoir 44/battlelore rules as a base, but then evolved into its own by introducing mechanics such as commanders, tactic cards and very creative scenario rules. Miniatures were made in 15 mm and for their time and scale they were quite detailed, some commanders are real standouts(I´m looking at you Robb Stark(with his wolf jumping at his side) and Rickard Karstark). Thanks to it's scale, the game was able to provide players with a great ammount of options and units at a fraction of the price of other boardgames. With a core set that was already stacked with units and variety and then faction specific expansions that added several more units and commanders. The game also came with scenario books that provided narrative play with quite creative rule variants, such as storming palisades, having decoys in escort missions and bombarding enemies with catapults. One scenario even tried to bring to life the battle of the blackwater(the hibrid invation of kings landing by stannis the manis). The game was incredible and quite a creative wargame,its main issue was that the setup time was just terrible. Incredibly complex and tiresome when compared to the actual gameplay time.

And then the miniature producing kickstarter juggernaut CMON decided to produce its own wargame, with AMAZING miniatures.

As this is CMON the game began with a [[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cmon/a-song-of-ice-and-fire-tabletop-miniatures-game]kickstarter], and after that the game has had at least 2 dozen more releases with 3 more factions added.

The game has some mechanics taken from rank and file games such as KOW combining them with mechanics taken out of "battles of westeros" particularly the tactics deck.

==Books==
*''A Game of Thrones''
*''A Clash of Kings''
*''A Storm of Swords'': Split into 2
*''A Feast for Crows'': half the characters, the point where the series goes down the toilet
*''A Dance with Dragons'': split into 2 the first is about the other half of the characters
*''The Winds of Winter'': Most recent rumors say George could have it ready in late 2018. But will he ''really''?
** Nope, though he has shared chapters of the book.
** Official now set to release in summer 2020, but we've all heard that before.
**It might happen by 2030 if we're really lucky
*''A Dream of Spring'' : Unreleased and unlikely to ever be.
**GRRM will most likely die before writing this
*''The Dunk and Egg Series'': A story about a landless hedge knight traveling across Westeros with a Targaryen squire, so he can teach him how not to be an asshole to peasants.

==See Also==
*[[/tg/ Song of Ice and Fire Houses]]
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U7NpSubAJQ Weiner, weiner weiner]

[[category: Literature]]

A Song of Ice and Fire

2019-12-09T08:25:44Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:290B:BAAA:92F2:A623: /* Oh Yeah, About The TV Show */

[[image:Game_of_Thrones_Title-DVD.png|300px|thumb|WIENER PARTY! WIENER PARTY!]]

{{Spoilers}}
'''Warning: This article contains so many spoilers we're ruining books that haven't even been released yet.'''

{{Topquote|If you think this story has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention.|Ramsay Bolton, nailing the grimdark theme of this series}}

'''''A Song of Ice and Fire''''' (more better known as '''''Game of Thrones''''') is a [[Grimdark]] fantasy book series for people who hate fantasy. Its central themes include [[Tzeentch|political Machiavellian scheming]], [[Khorne|ultraviolence]], [[Slaanesh|incest/sex with exposition]], and [[Nurgle|everyone trying to survive in such a Crapsack World of perpetual suffering]]. Thus it has become one of the most popular series of our generation and its author, [[George R. R. Martin]], has been praised for his highly realized world and gritty low fantasy style. He was even called "the American [[Tolkien]]" by <s>Time magazine</s> gormless idiots who lump diametrically different writers together for no other reason than that they're both fantasy authors, which would probably explains its sudden spike in popularity following the TV show (at least [[Skub|to a point, anyway.]])

The series itself is set on the [[Original character, do not steal|totally not medieval European ripoff]] realm of Westeros as it is wracked by a massive succession war drawing its realms into conflict. A bunch of dudes declare themselves kings (book two), they're burning the continent down in their scramble for power, and somehow all the fuck-ups managed to lose anyway (book three). Just when the guys who lost the least start thinking they get to rule over the remaining chaos, more fuck ups happen and more dudes show up (book four). Sadly, winter has finally come and, unbeknownst to most people, [[Thousand Sons|evil ice wizards leading soulless undead]] [[Alpha Legion|assumed to be only myths by most people]] are about to invade the continent from the north. By the fifth book, things are going and/or will go to shit even for the bad guys.

According to a leaked fan conversation, George R. R. Martin jokingly stated the series would end with an epic cock-slap fight between Samwell Tarly and Jaime Lannister.

TL;DR: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Roses War of Roses] redux, with a side helpin' of <s>cliched fantasy</s> George's old sci-fi writing plots and [[/d/]]-lite.

===Characters===
{{cleanup}}
Since these books have some thousand named characters, you won't remember most of them without an obsessive disorder over details.
Here's a relatively short list (mostly based on the TV series rather than the books, but seems to randomly switch between the two) for the characters you'll care about.

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Stark'''

''"Winter Is Coming"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Honourable, bro-tier northerners who always [[Space Wolves|compare themselves to direwolves]]. They have a tendency towards [[Lawful Stupid]] that proves to bite them in the ass due to naivete about how [[Tzeentch|Westerosi corrupt politics actually works]]. They're also arguably the protagonists of the setting. Basically Scotland and/or the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_york House of York].
* Eddard Stark, ''The Quiet Wolf'': Patriarch, lord and POV death-puppet. Not nearly as stupid as everyone tries to pretend, but still a dead man walking.
* Robb Stark, ''The Young Wolf'': Shiny, [[Lawful Stupid]] King Arthur-like hero. After waging a successful war to avenge his murdered father, he was betrothed to a noblewoman but he ended having comfort sex with a virgin noblewoman which may have been arranged by her scheming bitch mother, while in softcore porno he got the hots for a commoner. Cacks it nastily: he got his head cut off and his pet's wolf's head stuck on his body, which was paraded around while his enemies chanted "HERE COMES THE KING IN THE NORTH!" In other words, he's a Scottish [[Roman Empire|Hannibal Barca]].
* Sansa Stark: Useless teenage girl extraordinaire at the start of the series with dreams of marrying a prince and "having lots of babies", but gets shat on hard by reality. Becomes Littlefinger's replacement goldfish when Catelyn's no longer around, her father got killed and her best friend was sold as a sex slave, and ended up in the worst relationship we can possibly imagine with King Joffrey. [[Grimdark|Even got deflowered via rape by Ramsey Bolton]] and married to him before managing to escape with the help of others. Currently acting as a co-ruler to her brother/cousin Jon Snow, and has learned much from her suffering, allowing her to kick Littlefinger out of the Great Game via throat slitting. While in the book Littlefinger is/was setting her up at House Arryn to claim the Vale and the North, the show version becomes QUEEN IN DA NORF in the final episode.
* Arya Stark: Little tomboy assassin. Has a kill list, but doesn't get to use it so long as she is an amnesiac apprentice of [[Officio Assassinorum|the Friendly Neighborhood Assassins Guild]]. After breaking away (in the TV series) from the Faceless Men she heads back to Westeros to get revenge on a LOT of people, giving her one of the highest kill counts in the series. Is currently back with her sister Sansa, acting as a general "troubleshooter". Kills the Night King like a fucking champion [[Skub|(or, alternatively, in a nonsensical plot twist)]] in Season 8, and is now riding south to add Cersei to her killcount. Instead, the Hound talks her out of it and she decides to sail into the unknown west.
* Catelyn Stark (nee Tully): A woman who trusts the wrong people at the worst time, causing a lot of misery. Gets killed along with Robb, then comes back (books only) as an undead witch bent on killing all the Boltons, Freys, Greyjoys, Lannisters... pretty much everyone she thinks was tangentially involved in betraying her and her family, or somebody who just pissed her off.
* Bran Stark: Intelligent little boy, named after the founder of House Stark, Brandon the Builder (basically Tony Stark combined with [[Leman Russ]]). He was crippled in the first sign of major [[GrimDark]]. Has prophetic dreams and becomes a [[druid]]. In the TV series, fucks things up by alerting the Others to where he's hiding, which gets all of the Children, his loyal wolf, the Three-Eyed Crow and Hodor killed. For good measure, turns out to have accidentally ''caused'' Hodor to become, well, Hodor, as he was using his druid powers to figure out why Hodor is only able to say Hodor, resulting in Hodor's gruesome death-by-zombies being beamed directly into young!Hodor's brain. He's now the Three-Eyed Raven and likes going around being creepy as fuck and generally weirding people out. Becomes King of the Six Kingdoms in a hilariously nonsensical plot twist in the finale.
* Rickon Stark: Four years old at the start, turning into a real little [[Barbarian]] from not being raised properly, because everyone who would have raised him was dead or missing. In the show, he ends up hanging out at the Umbers, then is handed over to Ramsay as a prisoner when Smalljon becomes afraid of the Wildlings living north of him (who were invited by Jon Snow to fight the Zombie Apocalypse), and finally dies via arrow in a sick game of "dodge the missiles" courtesy of Ramsey.
* Jon Snow, ''The White Wolf'': A bastard living in the Stark household before leaving for the Night's Watch (basically [[The Last Chancers|Colonel Schaeffer]] with more convicted rapists under his command) and excels there because nearly every one of his fellow recruits are peasants who have never had a formal days training while Jon has had the serious training afforded to all lords. After he takes over by becoming the Watch Commander secures and alliance with the Wildlings, ancient barbarian enemies of the Night's Watch, because when the end of the world is coming you tend to think outside the box. Currently revived by R'hllor in the series after being stabbed to death by the senior members of the Watch. Isn't actually Eddard's bastard son, but rather the legitimate son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, meaning that he is in fact the rightful heir to the Iron Throne. The new KING IN DA NORF according to his supporters after he killed Ramsay Bolton and took back Winterfell, and is also currently hooking up with his own aunt. He turns on Daenerys once he realizes she's lost it and kills her in the throne room. The Unsullied want his head, but instead King Bran exiles him to the Night's Watch and he fucks off into the far north to live with the Free Folk.
* Hodor: Hodor. Hodor, Hodor, Hodor. <s>An enormous and possibly retarded stable boy, and Bran's faithful steed.</s> Hodor. Ok, in all actual seriousness, this guy is probably one of the most tragic figures in this series (and that's saying something). [[Grimdark|The guy basically received horrible visions of his own death fighting a horde of zombies, buying time for his friends to escape by literally holding the door shut as he was hacked apart]]. This causes him to suffer a psychiatric break, leading him to develop Immature Personality Disorder and his only speech is to repeat a garbled phrase of his friend's last request "hold the door" for all of his adult life; the logic here is that "hold the door" devolves into "hol' th' door" and eventually "Hodor". You now feel bad for at laughing at the guy.
* Osha: A Wildling woman who surrendered to the Starks and becomes their servant in exchange for not getting killed. Now dead in the show thanks to Ramsay's dickery.</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Targaryen'''

''"Fire and Blood"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">The former Dragon kings and rulers of Westeros, [[Eldar|fair-haired purple-eyed beautiful people]] who have descended from the [[Dark Age of Technology|ancient technologically-advanced superpower]] of [[Roman Empire|Valyria]], which collapsed because of [[Fall of the Eldar|their colossal hubris]]. After the anarchic [[Age of Strife|Century of Blood]], the Targaryen patriarch Aegon I, instead of reconquering the lost cause of Essos and of Valyria's former empire, looked towards the rather primitive continent of Westeros, and its squabbling Seven Kingdoms, [[Great Crusade|to establish his own Imperial dynasty and unify the Realm]]. Aegon I is essentially the Low Fantasy version of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_the_Conqueror William the Conqueror] and/or the [[God-Emperor of Mankind]], with a little dash of [[/d/|incest]].

[[Rules Lawyer|Thanks to a loophole]], the Targaryens were immune to the moral objections relating to incest. Common sense (and common decency) took back seat to a time-honored policy of [[/d/|catastrophic inbreeding]], which made a number of problems. Aegon I married his older and younger sisters and had several kids with each, which would be the start of another Targaryen tradition: the occasional succession crisis. The inbreeding would also lead to a line of almost alternatingly great and lunatic kings, culminating in Aerys "The Mad King" Targaryen and a palace coup. Eventually the lineage was banished to Essos after a brutal civil war, the remnants trying to gather armies to retake the Iron Throne which they see as rightfully theirs. Basically a family of inbreeding girly-men with a massive sense of superiority and as arrogant as they come, forgetting that most of what they accomplished was due to the fact that only they had dragons. Still, they occasionally did have genuinely good people like Aegon V (aka Egg), Jaeherys I the Conciliator, his wife Good Queen Alysanne and complete badasses like Brynden Bloodraven and Baelor Breakspear.
Pseudo-Romans and/or the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Normandy House of Normandy].

* Aerys II, ''The Mad King'': [[Kharn|A pretty fun guy to be around]]. Had a psychotic fascination for fire, which extended to being a psychotic fascination for burning traitors, a category of people that eventually grew to include anybody he disliked for any reason, anyone who disagreed with him, and a few people who were unlucky enough to be caught in the crossfire. [[Goge Vandire|Teamkilled by his bodyguard Jaime for planning to burn the city down with everyone inside it, and even refused to accept his death until he actually died]].
* [[Mary Sue|Daenerys Targaryen]], ''Stormborn'': She was sold by her brother to a barbarian leader [[Genghis motherfucking Khan|Khal (warlord) Drogo]] in exchange for the promise that he'd use his Khalassar (warband/tribe) to conquer Westeros. She found her self esteem as his wife, then her husband killed her idiot brother Viserys and promised to conquer the world for Daenerys, making her a full-fledged badass barbarian warqueen. Unfortunately, her husband died when [[Derp|Daenerys trusted one of the slaves whose town Drogo had pillaged and burnt to heal an infected wound of his]] and his horde fell apart (though the book is somewhat ambiguous as to whether the slave did kill Drogo). Then she hatched three dragons (completely by accident when she tried to commit suicide) bringing them back from extinction, and now everyone wants to marry her because she is now one of the most powerful people around due to said dragons and being good-looking (in the books this is by the age-of-consent in Westeros standards, where girls are women when they start getting their periods and boys are men at age 13). [[Gets shit done]] except the entire fifth book, in which she mopes around about wanting to marry an annoying, flamboyant mercenary instead of saving herself for political marriage. After banging the flamboyant mercenary, she later marries a Meereenese noble who guarantees he can get her some peace (more likely [[Just As Planned|just as he planned]]). She also does nothing while insurgents kill her men, a horde of plagued refugees spread disease to her city, and standing idly by while an enemy army besieges her walls, all for realistically political reasons because the world is a horrible place. Learns how to train her dragon. Is currently (TV series) in Westeros invading the place with an army of elite hoplites, a massive horde of Dothraki, one dragon (because the other two are dead) and fucking her nephew (Jon Snow). Has officially gone Mad Queen as of S8E5, wherein she burned most of King's Landing after the city attempted to surrender. Jon kills her in the series finale so that she won't go around burninating the rest of the world.
* The dragons: The three dragons that Daenerys hatched. They're wyverns that breathe fire, [[Awesome|have blood hot enough to melt steel]], and [[List of /tg/ Cuisine|cook their meat before eating it]]. Naturally, some of the coolest things in the story.
** Drogon; named for her late husband, Khal Drogo. Black and Red, the biggest and [[Gork|most aggressive dragon]]. Starts eating people and then escapes, leading to the other two getting imprisoned. Interrupts a gladiator tournament, killing a lot of people before being whipped by Daenerys into flying her to a Khalassar that broke off from her husband's after his death. Is now the last dragon standing after Viserion bites it at Winterfell and Rhaegal gets shot down over Dragonstone. Fucks off to who knows where after Dany is killed.
** Rhaegal; named for the first of her dead brothers, Rhaegar. Green and gold, the [[Mork|cunning one]]. Kills Quentyn Martell (see below). After breaking out of jail with Viserion they go "all your bases are belong to us" on Meereen, killing people and taking over the pyramid of a loyal family as his lair. Is now dead in the show thanks to Euron Greyjoy and some diabolus ex machina bullshit.
** Viserion; named for her other brother Viserys. White and gold, the [[Vulkan|friendliest]] (as dragons go, he still eats people) and the loudest. Dug cave for himself in his jail then moved into another pyramid after their great escape. Gets killed by the [[Vampire Counts|Night's King in the show via a magic spear, is reanimated to be his zombie dragon steed]] and blasts a hole in the famous Wall, allowing the armies of snow elves and zombies to start flooding Westeros. Now perma-dead thanks to the Night King biting it.
* Viserys Targaryen, ''The Beggar King'': Daenerys' physically abusive older brother. Best known for being a bully with incestuous lust for her, and an arrogant and incompetent fuck with a massive sense of entitlement. He eventually got himself killed for being an all-around jerk and whiny idiot, which culminated in him threatening his sister and unborn nephew with a sword while drunk in a sacred Dothraki place where weapons and bloodshed are forbidden on pain of death (execution is done by bloodless death - having a scarf wrapped tight around the neck and being drowned in a barrel). Daenerys' husband [[awesome|poured molten gold over his head and called it his promised crown]].
* Aegon Targaryen, ''Aegon VI'': Daenerys' nephew, the son of her brother Rhaegar. Been hiding in Essos for the entire length of the series, but recently raised an army of Westerosi exiles and threw them all a massive Welcome Home party with rape and pillage. Wants to marry his aunt because she has dragons, and might not actually be a member of House Targaryen if you believe some fans. He can actually count past 6, can multiply numbers, can read different language and has a minor understanding of geometry thus cementing him as one of the most educated people in this overwrought series. Can also do his own laundry.
* Brynden Rivers ''Bloodraven'': A Targaryen bastard who came to prominence about a hundred years before the series as sort of sorcerer, he later became known as the "Three-Eyed Raven/Crow" after encountering the Children of the Forest, and uses his powers to help advert the Long Night and train Bran. He's described as having long, white hair, missing an eye, bound to a tree, knows all and sees all, associated heavily with ravens and omens... [[Vikings|yeah, he's very much Odin, come to think of it.]]</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Lannister'''

''<s>"Hear Me Roar"</s> "A Lannister Always Pays His Debts"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">[[Monopoly|The world's richest family]], proud, pompous, selfish and fabulous assholes. Not much of a martial tradition but if you cross them [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7t7cnwlOgY they will fucking cut you]. You can tell they are the bad guys because they have an army of sick fucks, including a zebra-riding mercenary band and 7' 8" Khornate Champion <s>not-Goliath</s> Gregor Clegane. House Lancaster combined with the House of Rothschild and the Mafia.
* Tywin Lannister, ''The Lion of Lannister'': The Godfather, head of the house, and obsessed with his reputation as a Magnificent Bastard extraordinaire. He was a most feared general whose greatest achievement was nuking House Reyne out of existence, which was immortalised in his own sweet-yet-creepy-as-fuck theme song (The Rains of Castamere) that became used as a warning against anyone standing against him. During his tenure as Hand of the King (i.e. Prime Minister), he was a political genius who operates as the true power behind the Iron Throne, keeping the realm stable and prosperous despite the stupidity of Aerys II and Joffrey. However, despite all of his achievements, he was an [[Emperor|absolutely terrible father]], who treats his children as nothing more than tools to further his political agenda. He is completely blind to the incestuous relationship his two oldest children had, and hated Tyrion and made his life a living hell for very poor reasons. He humiliated Tyrion whenever it wouldn't threaten the family's reputation, berated Tyrion for being a whore-monger despite secretly being one himself, [[Grimdark|tried to get him killed multiple times]], and as the capstone of awful parenting, he taught Tyrion not to marry commoners after he married one called Tysha - by forcing Tyrion to watch Tysha get gangraped, forcing him to rape her too and then annulling their marriage. The only person Tywin truly loved was his wife. He eventually gets his comeuppance when Tyrion finds out the truth about the Tysha incident, and kills him with a crossbow, all while mentioning that out of all his children, Tyrion was the most alike to Tywin himself. He's based on [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Neville,_16th_Earl_of_Warwick Warwick the Kingmaker].
* Joanna Lannister: Tywin's late wife and first cousin, meaning the next three characters are inbred as well, ironically. Dies giving birth to Tyrion, which is part of why Tywin hates him, though Cersei hates him for other reasons. Caught wind of Cersei and Jaime's incestuous tendencies, but she died before she could tell Tywin. It is implied that her ghost visits Jaime in a dream and mourns the current state of her family.
* Cersei Lannister, ''Cunt Queen'': Tywin and Joanna's first child. Twin sister to Jaime Lannister and wife to King Robert Baratheon. She fucks her brother Jaime all the time and had three of his children, whom she passed off as Robert's to grab power. She is a massive narcissist who thinks of herself as "female Tywin" and hence seeks to rule Westeros as the Queen, and will do anything to keep her power... even when [[Abbadon the Despoiler|most of her plans end up becoming utter failures]]. Crazy as all fuck and prophesied to be killed by the "little brother." This is because of a prophecy a Gypsy made when Cersei was a child that she'd be a beautiful queen, lose everything, her children would die before her, and the "Valonqar" would kill her. Though that does explains why she hates Tyrion as hard as all fuck, [[Just As Planned|the exact translation of the term]] that was used is "younger sibling", and not necessarily her sibling, which opens the door to all sorts of characters who hate the fuck out of her. Since Jaime is technically younger by a few seconds, him killing Cersei would be an interesting twist not without buildup. Possibly the Gypsy was messing with her head because of what a bitch Cersei was being to her; something Cersei never grew out of. Cersei is currently alive only because Varys wants her to be, [[Just As Planned|as she's a terrible queen who'll destabilize the realm enough for him to bring back the Targaryens]]. She was completely shaved, stripped of power in all but her royal heritage and forced to do a nude walk of penance throughout the city by the High Sparrow (ASOIAF Pope equivalent) after he uncovered her crimes. Now she's waiting for her hair to grow back and may be thinking of revenge. She gets it in the show by blowing up the Sept (ASOIAF church) with everyone she doesn't like inside it, having her cousin killed near the Wildfire then capturing the nun who was her jailer and [[Grimdark|leaving her to be tortured to death by zombie Gregor Clegane]]. She is in short Thanquol disguised as a beautiful blonde woman. Gets anticlimactically squashed by a collapsing ceiling along with Jaime during Daenerys's assault on King's Landing.
* Jaime Lannister, ''The Kingslayer'': Younger twin brother (by about three seconds) to Cersei Lannister and commander of the Kingsguard. He loves his sister in every sense of the word and had three children with her. Killed the last king despite his oath, and is widely hated for it, even though everyone agrees that dying was a massive improvement for Aerys. The reason for this betrayal was that Aerys had a huge stockpile of Acme Brand Magic Napalm stockpiled under the city, ready to be set off the moment a siege broke through the town walls, and Jaime's options were to let it happen or kill Aerys before the crazy fuck got ''everybody'' killed. His desire to openly love his sister and win the respect he feels he deserves eventually causes Cersei to reject him. Starts off as an arrogant douche [[Grimdark|and tried to murder Bran Stark, but accidentally crippled him instead]]; he becomes otherwise quite bro-tier besides the whole wants-to-fuck-his-sister thing, though he grows out of ''that'' as well when he realizes what a bitch she is and that there's plenty of women who want his jock - even the hunky Brienne isn't that bad looking. Thoroughly humbled to boot after learning a few hard lessons, losing his sword hand, and having some time to rethink his life. Also the only person in his family who treats Tyrion well, along with one of his aunts and two dead uncles. Essentially, a more incestuous and douchey Blood Angel. In the books, he is currently being lured into a trap by Lady Stoneheart. In the show, he has finally told Cersei to get fucked after realizing that she has well and truly lost it, and is riding north to help fight the White Walkers. He survives the Battle of Winterfell, hooks up with Brienne, and then rides south [[Derp|because he just can't let Cersei go.]] Winds up getting shanked by Euron Greyjoy and dies [[Fail|via collapsing ceiling]].
* Tyrion Lannister, ''Halfman'': a very intelligent dwarf who is awesome, but hated by all of the civilized characters in the books, except his brother Jaime. He seems to do much better when getting drunk with whores, rogues, bastards and barbarians. His silver tongue is one of his greatest strengths (he's witty and good at persuading people) and weaknesses (he's quick with insults and the truth in a city ruled by sociopaths and liars). Tyrion is also one of the only characters with an actual sense of the bigger picture, and an interest toward steering the world toward an outcome that ''doesn't'' involve a [[The End Times|Warhammer End Times]] scenario. Unfortunately, the world's movers, shakers, and those who generally have the power to make a difference are increasingly either a) dead, b) scattered to the winds, or c) hate his dwarf guts. Despite the increasing difficulty and fruitlessness of his task, however, [[Awesome|Tyrion still fights]]. After being framed for killing Joffrey, he killed his own father and is currently in exile in the Free Cities, weaseling his way into leading a merc band and trying to sign them up with Daenerys' forces, recognizing her as one of the few chances Westeros has got of fixing its shit (provided she can get her own shit together, which she's having a bit of trouble with). Since characters in this series tend to either be walking tropes, rip-offs of other fantasy characters, or historical people with different names, Tyrion is probably based on the great [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_Vorkosigan Miles Vorkosigan] (who was himself based on a few people including Sir Winston Churchill) and is a nod to King Richard III (a deformed but competent king later demonized by historians of his era). Even if he is usually the smartest one in the room at any given time, though, Tyrion is still not above having some derp moments. Exhibit A, when Tyrion asked his father what happened to his first wife (right before killing him), he took an ''obvious'' "I don't know and I don't care," response ("Wherever whores go") as actual, literal directions. The show version meets Daenerys and becomes her Hand only to [[Fail|fuck up a bunch of stuff]] and lose her trust. Sells her out when he realizes that she's gone round the bend and winds up becoming Hand to King Bran.
* Kevan Lannister: Tywin's younger brother, considered "the reliable one". One of the few decent Lannisters, though saying that he is perfectly happy carrying out Tywin's bidding. Tried to talk sense into Cersei and was later called in to try and fix her mess. He did such a good job of it that Varys decided to personally thank him. With a crossbow. And a group of knife-wielding children.
* Cersei and Robert's (actually Jaime's) children:
** Joffrey Baratheon: "Heir" of the throne, and technical king of Westeros during the War of the Five Kings since he lives in King's Landing and sits on the throne. Turned out to be worse than Aerys. He died and there was much rejoicing. [[Fail|Except by his mother, who instead had sex on his corpse]]. Fourteen years old at time of death.
** Tommen Baratheon: The new king on the Iron Throne. Nine years old. Married to a teenaged shotacon wife who's (unknown to him) the granddaughter of his brother's true killer. Trying to litigate the criminalization of beets. Loves [[Cats|kittens]]. He's pretty well-rounded and non-fucked up, which is a miracle considering his parents, both putative and biological. Also seems to be trying to take kinging seriously, but his mom is trying to quash that in her subliminal attempt to hold power indefinitely, so whether it holds is another matter entirely. Prophesied to die before Cersei, which doubly tragic due to his age and being a much better person than her. He commits suicide after Cersei gets her revenge via killing his wife, godfather, great-uncle, and all his religious friends via blowing up the ASOIAF equivalent of St. Peter's Basilica, because of course her power hunger was more important than his happiness and well being.
** Mycella Baratheon: Princess, and Cersei and "Robert's" second oldest child. She had her face fucked up because of Arianne Martell's amateur intrigues, which overlapped with poor planning, general stupidity, and another guy's backstabbing. Ten years old. Before the maiming, she was quite decent and non-evil. Who knows how she'll turn out now with half of her face cut off. Also prophesied to die before Cersei. In the show she had a crush on Oberyn's surviving nephew, but was killed by Elia in revenge for Oberyn's death, but alive in the books though missing an ear. Also, the readership all got on George's balls for maiming this girl, mostly because it was a sign that he had run out of ideas and was basically just milking diabolus ex machina ([[Just As Planned|or that's what he wants us to think]]).
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Baratheon'''

''"Ours is the Fury"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Ascended to the Iron Throne after a successful rebellion against the Mad King Aerys II Targaryen. Produces no less than three claimants to the succession, each one very different from the other. Technically a cadet branch of House Targaryen as their founder Orys was allegedly a Targaryen bastard, who took the original Storm Kings (House Durrandon) deer sigil after killing the last one and fucking his only child Argella and then 200 odd years later, King Egg's daughter married their grandfather, they're pretty much the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Plantagenet House of Plantagenet].
* Robert Baratheon, ''The Usurper'': Fat, old, former badass who led the rebellion, and now the king who married Cersei Lannister. Then he fucked a bunch of other women and had lots of illegitimate kids. He was killed while mixing boar hunting and drinking, but whether this death was planned or not is uncertain. On the surface, a king with a thing for easy laughs and partying; right underneath the surface, he's irresponsible and leaves the actual ruling of a nation to his staff, deeper under the surface he's pretty much a sad, lonely old bro who would rather not have been king. Comparable to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_IV_of_England Edward IV], in that both were powerfully built military geniuses who overthrew the existing monarchy and later succumbed to an unhealthy lifestyle.
* Stannis '''The Mannis''' Baratheon: Robert's younger brother, all-around badass who swings between [[Lawful Stupid]] (moreso in the show than the books) and [[gets shit done|getting shit done]]. [[Judge Dredd|Believes so strongly in the rule of law]] that he feels compelled to take the Iron Throne for himself despite wanting nothing to do with it. Is advised by a priestess of the God of light, Melisandre, and a lowborn smuggler named Davos Seaworth raised to knighthood and nobility. [[C.S Goto|His character is ruined in the show into an incompetent pawn of Melisandre and gets killed off just because one of the showrunners didn't like him]].
** Shireen Baratheon: Stannis's kid daughter. Sweet, charming, and intelligent little lady who was left with a deformity on her face from a disease called greyscale. Teaches Davos how to read, and is probably the most innocent person in the series alongside Tommen, Myrcella and a few others. Being the grim and dark universe A Song of Ice and Fire is, however, this means that she's likely going to end up becoming fuel for a vicious fire god. In the show she does, but in the books she is safe and sound since Stannis isn't stupid enough to bring him with her while campaigning. His wife, on the other hand, being such an idiotic fanatical pyromaniac... well, her odds aren't exactly looking that great.
* Renly Baratheon, ''That Gay Guy'': Robert and Stannis's youngest brother. Took Loras Tyrell (a.k.a. Knight of Flowers, Pretty Boy, etc.) as his lover. Decided he was better suited to be king, though the bizarre and outdated laws of the land stated Stannis was next in line (though Joffrey and then Tommen were first since they were [[Pretend|officially]] Bobby B's legitimate kids). Was hugely popular since he had Robert's charisma, which led to him getting the most support, but he lacked Stannis's conviction and devotion to the duty of actually doing the work of a king, or even Robert's ability to wage war. Killed by Melisandre with some "help" by Stannis ''The Mannis'' for trying to steal his crown, though in the books Stannis may not have been completely aware of the role he played in Renly's death. He's basically [[That Guy]] of ASOIAF, since quite a lot of shit is his fault, indirectly or otherwise.
*Gendry Baratheon, the Bastard Son. One of Robert's many, many bastard children, and the one who gets the most page and screen time. He starts out as a humble blacksmith in King's Landing, who first comes to Ned's attention when Lord Stark is investigating the death of Jon Arryn. From there, he gets shipped off to the Night's Watch to avoid the imminent purge of Robert's bastards, and winds up becoming friends with Arya and Hot Pie. After some adventuring and sexual tension with Arya (at least in the show), he joins the Brotherhood Without Banners. In the show, they sell him to Melisandre so she can use him for a blood magic ritual, while in the books he just goes on being a smith and doesn't get involved in anything particularly weird or shady. He has yet to reappear in the books, but in the show Ser Davos sets him free and tells him to fuck off, which he does for a few seasons. He eventually turns up back in King's Landing, where Davos finds him and recruits him for Team Snow. He helps Jon capture a wight to show Cersei, makes dragonglass weapons for the Army of the Living, has sex with Arya, and fights in the Battle of Winterfell, after which Daenerys legitimizes him as the new lord of House Baratheon.</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Tully'''

''"Family, Duty, Honor"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content"> Lords of the central river lands. Being the obligatory central nation they spend a lot of the series being fought over like a cake in between fat kids. Basically Poland/Netherlands, given they have so many rivers and how hard they've been fucked over.
*Edmure Tully: Basically the SoIaF universe's eternal butt monkey (because he happens to be a decent fucking person). A useless ponce with a dense streak a mile wide and a bad habit of bragging about things he shouldn't be proud of. It took hanging in a stockade for a few months to make him experience some growth. When Jaime was brought in to unfuck the situation and end the siege at Tully's house in Riverrun, Jaime's "negotiation" pressured him into convincing his house to surrender, but he made sure [[Troll|that Brynden got out first]]. Currently spending his days at the Lannister house as a hostage to make sure that the Tullys don't try to ruin the situation again. Tries to make a case for himself as king in the final episode, only to get shut down by Sansa.
*Brynden Tully ''the Blackfish'': He didn't catch the memo that he was part of the joke faction, and proceeds to spend the entire series fucking Lannister shit up and generally being a boss. Thought to be the black sheep in a family of fish. (Thus "Blackfish", geddit?) Ended up holed up in Riverrun, and got the fuck out right before the end of the siege, so that the Lannisters couldn't dick him over as a prisoner (or so he can keep dicking them over before he became a prisoner). Also widely accepted by the fans to be a closeted homosexual. In the HBO show, he gets killed when resisting arrest from Tully forces by order of Edmure. [[Rage|And it happens offscreen.]]</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Arryn'''

''"As High as Honor"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Mountain lords turned [[NEET|neurotic shut ins]]. Goes through lords about as quickly as you would expect a castle equipped with a door that opens into empty air. Basically Switzerland/Afghanistan, seeing as how they stayed neutral in the War of Five Kings, their land is covered by nothing but mountains, and they're constantly fighting with the local tribes. They were being entertainingly screwed over by Littlefinger until his death.
*Jon Arryn: Only appears posthumously and is the catalyst for the whole plot. The true mastermind behind Robert's Rebellion, was killed by Littlefinger via Lysa when he figured out that Robert's kids are bastards of Cersei and Jaime. His death was blamed on the Lannisters to destabilize Westeros.
*Lysa Arryn: Loli bride turned Lady of the Vale after the Lannisters forcibly retired her husband from life, at least officially. In reality Littlefinger convinced her to poison her husband and blame the Lannisters [[Just As Planned|which pretty much started this whole clusterfuck to begin with]]. A closeted, crazy woman who spends the entire series in her castle "the Eyrie" being useless, breastfeeding her own son at age 10, obsessing over Littlefinger's cock, and [[Derp|refusing to help her sister and nephew in the war she and Littlefinger pretty much started]], which may have guaranteed their eventual horrific murders by their enemies. Finally gets her comeuppance when Littlefinger kicks her out the moon door (post-taunting, of course), putting her out of our collective misery. Long live the Lord Protector.
* Robert Arryn: ''Littlefuck'', Lysa's equally mentally unstable autistic son, who still sucks on his mom's tit, and enjoys seeing people "fly" out the moon door to their deaths. He actually seems to be a bit smarter than you would first think and is a really, really good judge of character, except with Sansa. Secretly being poisoned by Littlefinger and Sansa, so she can take over the Vale and North. Named Robin in the show because the showrunners were afraid that having two characters with the same name would be too confusing. The show version doesn't get poisoned, but turns up in the series finale as the Lord of the Vale.</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Greyjoy'''

''"We Do Not Sow"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">[[Awesome|A house founded by Cthulhu-worshipping Norscans]]. While not actual Vikings in any sense of the word, there is little other way to describe them. They live on some islands and almost their entire culture is based around raiding and the ocean. Their religion holds it shameful for a man to pay for personal possessions, and states they have to get things either by trade or The Iron Price; seizing something from the body or belongings of someone he defeated in conquest rather than paying or trading for it. Also only possessions acquired via The Iron Price command respect among the Ironborn.
*Balon Greyjoy: Asshole dad, crappy ruler and general shithead who rebelled against Robert Baratheon and failed miserably. All of his sons were killed, except for Theon, who was taken as a hostage to ensure his good behavior. Despite being in a position to join either the Lannisters or the Starks during the War of Five Kings and thereby get whatever he wanted from either (independence and the North, or independence and Casterly Rock, respectively), he does the absolute stupidest thing possible and declares himself independent without support from anyone, attacking the North and the rest of Westeros, thereby virtually guaranteeing that he'll be on the receiving end of another one-sided battle. Never got that far, though, since he was pushed off a bridge during a storm by an assassin his brother Euron sent.
*Victarion Greyjoy: Admiral of the Iron Fleet. [[Gets shit done]] while wearing [[Dark Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|Lokhir Fellheart's]] armor during boarding actions. Does it for vengeance, the lulz and as a ticket to Ironborn heaven (which they believe men can reach if they die in battle or by drowning). Worships both R'hllor and the Drowned God. For all his badassery, is far too stupid to realize that his black Red Priest sidekick's constant rambling about his "great destiny" is inevitably going to end in his burning to death on a sacrificial pyre. Said Red Priest impressed Victarion by surviving being marooned at sea for 3 weeks and turning Victarion's infected arm into a super-strong volcano arm. Seriously.
*Aeron Greyjoy ''Damphair'': A priestly Alan Moore who drank seawater. Once a fun-loving party animal, he nearly drowned during the Greyjoy Rebellion, and became a dour and devout priest of the Ironborn [[Cthulhu]] religion. Confirmed to have been raped by Euron when they were kids. Planned to overthrow Euron, who bribed and manipulated his way into becoming king of the Ironborn. [[Grimdark|Was captured by Euron and tortured to try and make him renounce his faith, including feeding him spoiled food, drugging him and burning him. Later Euron tied Aeron, naked, to the prow of Euron's ship alongside Euron's tortured, pregnant former lover because she showed Aeron kindness by once giving him proper food]]. He tried to console her by saying their suffering will end in underwater Valhalla, [[Awesome|showing Euron failed to make him deny his faith]].
*Theon Greyjoy: Son of the Lord/King of the Iron Islands. Had the personality of a stereotypical high school jock, being an excellent archer and womanizer and proud of it. He was given to Ned Stark by his father after Balon failed to successfully rebel against Robert Baratheon. Swore an oath to Robb, but then ditched him out of a desperate need to please his father. Ends up castrated and acts as the personal slave of Ramsay Bolton after Ramsay puts him through horrific torture to turn him into Reek. Rescued by his sister, but the psychological trauma meant it took awhile before he could stop calling himself Reek and start getting back to normal mentally (physically he's now missing a few parts that don't heal or grow back). Dead in the show, thanks to charging the Night King by himself while protecting Bran.
* Asha Greyjoy: Theon's older sister and a commander of some renown which is quite a feat - almost every man on the Iron Islands except her father either tried to get in her pants, or told her to [[-4 STR|stop playing around and go do some actual women's work]], before she kicked enough ass that they respected her. Rescues Theon after he escapes Ramsay but then loses him to Stannis. Is named Yara in the show because the showrunners thought her name sounded too similar to Osha the wildling chick, and is also apparently [[PROMOTIONS|bisexual]]. Eventually becomes Lady of the Iron Islands in the show because she's the last Greyjoy standing.
*Euron Greyjoy ''Crow's Eye'': A [[Chaos|sick fuck Lovecraftian pirate armed with unnatural sorcerous powers, so evil]] that Balon banished him from the Iron Islands. Every member of his crew is a mute, because Euron ripped all their tongues out. Many of them are also the illegitimate sons of women he's raped around the world during his raids. Uses an eyepatch to conceal a pitch-black eye, his personal "obviously a villain" mark. Raped his brother Victarion's wife, then claimed she wanted it so Victarion had to kill her. Raped his younger brother Aeron. Also showed back up in the Iron Islands the day after Balon died, despite having been raping and pillaging in Essos before that, which is suspicious as fuck. Now the new Iron King. Plans to conquer Westeros, and has some unknown plan to deal with Daenerys. Revealed in the book ''Winds of Winter'' to be [[Honsou|the sickest fuck in an entire setting of sick fucks (and that's saying something)]], including having a god complex while hating religion so much he [[Grimdark|tortures any clergymen he captures to try and make them give up their faiths using ironic tortures themed around their religions - such as preachers have their tongues cut out and burning priests of the fire god to death]]. Euron tried and failed to break his priest brother Aeron's faith so he lashed Aeron to the front of his ship to die [[Grimdark|alongside Euron's own pregnant lover Falia]]. Jaime kills him in the second-to-last episode of the show. </div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Tyrell'''

''"Growing Strong"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Lords of Highgarden and backstabbers par-excellence and owners of a lot of fertile land. Unlike the current lot of Lannisters they understand the value of good PR, balancing ruthlessness with being somewhat amicable, political savvy and not being stuck-up on honor. They're basically France. [[Fail|Unfortunately they've all been wiped out in the show]].
*Mace "The Ace" Tyrell: Lord of Highgarden. Massively fat and overweight, while being stupid, overreaching and constantly mocked by everyone else, he's otherwise known as a friendly man, a good Lord when it comes to management and a good father; unfortunately this isn't enough to save a man in the Game of Thrones. Gets killed with the rest of the noble houses when Cersei blows up the Great Sept of Baelor.
*Olenna Tyrell: The brains behind House Tyrell's schemes. Known as the ''Queen of Thorns'' for being an outspoken, prickly and venomous old lady. Schemed with Littlefinger to have Joffrey killed, but she carried it out with compressed powder "gems" that poisoned his wine. Now she keeps her family in line and is hailed as a more progressive version of Tywin. Became a fan favorite for constantly dropping awesome one-liners and telling the Sand Snakes to shut up. [[Fail|Later killed off in the show]], but not before revealing to Jaime that [[Awesome|she was the one who killed Joffrey]].
*Willas Tyrell: Mace Tyrell's eldest son and heir, crippled at a very young age when jousting against Oberyn Martell. Probably one of the most pleasant and sensible characters in the series, which might explain why he's yet to make an appearance. Very fond of breeding animals, especially horses.
*Garlan Tyrell ''The Gallant'': Second-born son. Badass extraordinaire, considered one of the best swords in Westeros, and one of the few people kind to Tyrion. Trains for real combat (often against multiple opponents by himself) unlike Loras, who's a tourney fighter. Single-handed wrecks many notable knights fighting for Stannis during the War of The Five Kings. And he is the only person other than Tywin to put Joffrey in his place, at his own wedding. Sadly no POV chapter yet and omitted from the TV series (Loras takes credit for his deeds).
*Loras Tyrell ''The Knight of Flowers'': The Tyrell who appears most in the series. Considered to be an example of the perfect knight, despite his youth. Is secretly Renly's gay lover and conspired to take the throne with him and his sister. Last seen badly injured in the books attempting to take Stannis' castle. In the show he ends up tortured by the members of the Faith for being gay [[C.S Goto|because the showrunners retconned them to hate gay people]], [[Protectorate of Menoth|later joins their ranks of questionable willingness]] then dies when Cersei blows up the Sept of Baelor.
*Margaery Tyrell: The would-be Queen of Westeros, she has married, in order, Renly Baratheon (gay), Joffrey Baratheon (evil), and Tommen Baratheon (8 years old) and has been crowned as queen three times. While she is nice, she is capable of manipulation. In the show she marries and uses sex to control Tommen. Was arrested by the resident Chamber Militant The Sparrow and asked for a trial by faith in the books. In the show this also happens but she tries to be pious in an attempt to save herself, but ended up getting killed when Cersei blew up the Sept of Baelor.
</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Bolton'''

''"Our Blades Are Sharp"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">The Starks' most important (and most despised) vassal, a former arch rival made of [[Grimdark]] because their entire theme [[Dark Eldar|revolves around Torture]]. Their sigil is a flayed man and their castle is [[Commorragh|a complex of eternal suffering called the Dreadfort]], which shows how stupid the Starks were for allying with them.
*Roose Bolton, ''The 'Leech Lord'': A Lawful Evil sociopathic health nut who's called the Leech Lord because he gets leeched regularly, believing they get rid of bad blood. Second-most powerful Lord in the North with ambitions to depose the Starks. Since the Starks are unable to think like crafty people and are blinded by honor this doesn't prove too difficult. He gets his wish when he stabs Robb Stark in the back, at his uncle's wedding no less, and has anyone associated with Robb killed. He then makes over Winterfell in his bloody image, and is currently trolling Stannis. Believes in the abolished practice of "[[Rape|Droit du seigneur]]" (a tradition that allowed a lord to have sex with subordinate women, whether they wanted to or not) and killed a man for trying to hide his wife from Roose. Believed that he and his son could be as evil as they wanted as long as no one found out. Killed by Ramsey in the show, which Ramsey tried to cover with a lie despite the witnesses to his actions.
*Ramsay Snow/Bolton: The bastard son of Roose Bolton and a woman he raped. He is arguably the most fucked up person in all of the Seven Kingdoms, because he [[Dark Eldar|loves to torture and kill people openly for the lulz]], such as Theon Greyjoy, who he crippled, knocked his teeth out and castrated too. He then sent the severed appendage to the foreshortened Theon's dad in a cutesy box with a letter mockingly detailing his evilness. Will torture anyone who points out his illegitimate heritage though now he's legally recognized as a Bolton. Also has a pack of hunting dogs he names after women he hunts, rapes and kills. Married a fake Arya Stark and regularly mistreats her, including forced bestiality. Not a fun guy to be around. Only reason he's gotten away with it for so long (as pointed out by his father) is because no one is strong enough to stand up to him yet, but when they are he's going to be killed. In the show he killed his father with a knife, fed his stepmother and newborn half-brother to his dogs, then married Sansa Stark and deflowered her via rape. Ramsay was such a monster even Iwan Rheon, THE ACTOR WHO PLAYED THE GUY, hoped he'd die horribly. He got his wish: The consequences of Ramsay's actions catch up with him when Jon Snow shows up with an army capable of threatening him, and after surprise reinforcements from Littlefinger and his own fucked-up teamkilling, the Starks crush the Bolton army, forcing Ramsay to flee back to Winterfell. Despite this, the gate is smashed down, he is disarmed, beaten rather brutally and detained to await trial. Before the trial Sansa sets his dogs on him, which he had deliberately starved so they would eat Jon. Apparently they found him quite tasty.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Martell'''

''"Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken"''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Desert dwelling survivalists who pride themselves on having never been conquered by the Targaryen dynasty (though they later married in). Moorish Spaniards, kinda. [[C.S Goto|Their story arc was completely FUBAR in the show, as Elia and Oberyn's daughters kill Oberyn's brother and nephew for taking too long to avenge him before being captured and killed themselves by Euron and Cersei]].
*Doran Martell: Lord of Sunspear and of royal descent. Still mad at the the Lannisters about that whole "murdered-my-sister-and-infant-niece thing". Playing the longest of long games with Varys while trying to keep the rest of his psychotic family members in check. Wheelchair bound due to his gout. [[What|Killed off in the show by Ellaria as part of her plan to avenge Oberyn]].
*Arianne Martell: One of GRRM's characters who seems to exists solely to fuck everything up at the worst conceivable moment. Still hot as Dornish girls come. Exists only in the books, where she is currently helping her dad get ready to topple the Lannisters after fucking everything up with her own stupid plan to crown Myrcella, which is what got the poor girl maimed.
*Oberyn Martell ''The Viper of Dorne'': Doran Martell's brother, a bisexual swinger, former mercenary, and a drunkard. His girlfriend is a spectacularly beautiful bastard named Ellaria Sand and he has many illegitimate children, mostly daughters, collectively called "The Sand Snakes". Crippled the Tyrell heir in a fight, causing a rift between the two houses; despite this, he's actually best mates with the aforementioned heir, due to Willas Tyrell being straight up the nicest and most balanced man in the series and Oberyn being a somewhat decent person. Known for poisoning his weapons, as well as his battle-cry. Died from a mutual kill, with Gregor Clegane crushing his skull in rather graphically, avenging his sister Elia who Gregor had raped and murdered. Though it's probably a win for Oberyn, since he got Clegane with a horribly painful and slow-acting venom which stretched his death over days or even weeks, during which time he was ruthlessly experimented upon by a mad scientist.
*Quentyn Martell: Didn't realize what series he was in, poor bastard. A member of House Martell, sent to marry Daenerys to secure an alliance between the families, since the original marriage plan to hook Arianne up with Viserys won't work with Viserys dead. Leaves Westeros and goes all the way to the city of Meereen to marry her, but he's too late, as she marries the Meereenese noble Hizdahr, and like Jorah he's not her type (Dany likes her bad boys). Tries to tame two of her dragons to impress her; the attempt goes wrong, he gets horribly burnt and gradually dies in agony from his wounds.
*The Sand Snakes: Oberyn's children. All daughters he had with various women throughout his travels (all consensual encounters, mind you). Mixed race and all hot with various skills including combat training and mastery of poisons. Working with Doran and Ellaria in the books. [[C.S Goto|Ruined in the show where they don't accomplish anything, are given atrocious dialogue (the "you need the bad pussy" line comes to mind), aren't great fighters]] and get killed by Euron's men, except for one who gets captured and poisoned by Cersei so an imprisoned Ellaria is forced to watch her die and decompose.</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''Night's Watch'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">The Night's Watch are an apolitical force in charge of manning The Wall, a giant ice wall that separates the relative tranquility of the south from the Lovecraftian fucked-up-itude of the true north. They are chronically undermanned and undersupplied since nobody believes their stories of a barbarian army or the impending zombie apocalypse. Basically everybody else thinks they're in a game of [[Diplomacy]] and the Night's Watch are the only ones who realize they're actually in [[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]], though it's been so long since the last snow elf invasion that even they had forgotten about the undead hordes and focused too much on barbarians. They've allied with the Wildings and the North, but in the TV show the Night's King used the undead dragon Viserion to burn a hole through The Wall.
*Jeor Mormont, ''The Old Bear'': 997th Lord Commander of the Night's Watch at the start of the series. Sees Jon Snow as something of a second son (since his own son Jorah was exiled for enslaving and refused to take the black for his crimes). Leads a ranging north of the Wall to investigate reports that the Others have returned. Ends up killed during a mutiny of survivors after the Others wiped out most of his force.
*Alliser Thorne: Prick of a knight who was favorite to be the next Watch Commander, but was passed over by Jon Snow. Unable to accept Jon Snow letting the Wildlings live on the other side of the wall in an alliance against the zombie hordes, he staged a coup against Jon. It failed because Jon was brought back to life. He is now dead in the show, having been executed for his treason by Jon Snow.
*Aemon Targaryen: Maester of the Citadel at Castle Black. Despite being the third born son of King Maekar I Targaryen, he declined the right to sit on the Iron Throne. One of the few people in the series to die of old age, at 102.
*Samwell Tarly, ''The Slayer'': Fat bookworm who was forced to take the black after his father Randyl threatened to murder him for being unmanly. Jon Snow's best friend among the Night's Watch, and knows everything because he "read it in a book". Despite being a self-professed coward, Sam became the first person in thousands of years to slay an Other with an obsidian dagger. George Martin himself said Sam's based on Samwise Gamgee from Lord of the Rings. Since then, he has started improving his combat skills and balls (in more ways than one for the latter, finding his spine and losing his virginity). He abandons the Night's Watch to help fight the dead and tell Jon who he really is, and winds up becoming the new Grand Maester by the end of the show.
*Eddison Tollett, ''Dolorous Edd'': Probably the most badass member of the Night's Watch. Responds to situations by making sarcastic jokes about them, and known for being a grim motherfucker in a setting of grim motherfuckers. In the show he [[Awesome|became the new Lord Commander]] while Jon was dead, but gave the title back to Jon when he was brought back to life, and then Jon handed it right back because he needed to go sort out Ramsay Bolton. Dies in Season 8 at the Battle of Winterfell. </div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">

'''Wildlings'''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Groups of nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes who live north of the Wall. Mostly First Men by blood, they have been heading toward the Wall for the past decade with the reputed reemergence of the Others. Nomadic, aggressive, and very much believing in "might makes right", they do not get along with anyone south of The Wall since they view them as "Kneeling weaklings". Basically every Celtic/Scandinavian/barbarian stereotype combined.
*Mance Rayder, ''The King Beyond The Wall'': A Wildling orphan who was taken in by the Night's Watch, he became their best Ranger before he deserted to join his people. He united the Wildlings and lead them south to escape the Others. Also a trained bard, but that was not enough to save him from death.
*Tormund Giantsbane: Claims to have a ten-inch penis, and invites his enemies to use their mouths if they want to clean it. Cool as fuck old guy who [[Furry|fucks mother-bears]] in his free time. Tough as nails motherfucker who preaches the merits of using one's cock for everything. He teams up with Jon Snow for the fight against the White Walkers, then fucks off back to the north once the Night King is dead, making him one of the most sensible people on the show. He and Jon go off to be bros at the end of the show.
*Ygritte: Wildling woman who Jon Snow ends up falling for and who returns his affections. Has red hair which is considered lucky among the Wildlings. This being ''A Song of Ice and Fire'', she ends up dying because her worldview is not compatible with Jon's.
*Craster: A sick bastard, formerly a member of the Night's Watch. [[Grimdark|Has lots of daughters who he marries and fucks regularly, giving him more children. So his wives are his daughters, granddaughters and so on... Girls grow up to become more wives, boys get sacrificed to the Others]]. This keeps them at bay, and that sanctuary is why the Night Watch barely tolerate him. Fortunately, he's been killed off in the story.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''House Frey'''

''"We Stand Together"''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content"> House of weasels who are always grumpy and have a thing for overreacting to perceived slights. Wouldn't be that important except for the fact that they own the only bridge over a strategically important river, and regularly extort anyone attempting to cross it.

*Walder Frey: The ancient, terrible, ornery old man in charge of the Twins. Hates everyone for "looking down on him", and will readily betray an important ally for immediate gain, or if he feels he has been slighted in some minor way. His descendants are literally so numerous that no one except GRRM himself have been able to count them all, so we aren't even going to attempt it. Now dead in the show due to getting his throat slit by a vengeful Arya after she serves him two of his sons as meat pies. </div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''Commoners, Knights, and Petty Lords'''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Basically any character not associated with any of the Great Houses.
* Varys, ''The Spider'': The eunuch spymaster of Westeros. You can't take a shit in the Seven Kingdoms without Varys finding out where, when, and how watery or dry it was. He does this through paid informants and his "little birds", a spy network of children who sneak through the castle's passageways and air flues to eavesdrop on everyone. Stabs everyone in the back because he's actually trying to bring the Targaryens back in order to strengthen the realm. Dead in the show, having decided to try and put Jon on the throne instead of Daenerys; Jon says no, Tyrion sells him out when he realizes Jon absolutely means it, and Dany has Drogon barbecue him.
* Petyr Baelish, ''Littlefinger'': The Master of Coin (the ASOIAF equivalent of a treasurer) and the closest person the Game of Thrones world has to a [[Daemon Prince]] of [[Tzeentch]], up to even declaring "[[Chaos]] is a Ladder". A dangerous manipulator who manages to trick and steal his way to positions of lordship and wealth because no one takes him seriously, and stabs all the Lannisters in the back when they become inconvenient. As a child he wanted Catelyn Stark, and was tricked into thinking she wanted him when her sister Lysa fucked him while he was drunk. Challenged Catelyn's betrothed Brandon Stark, Ned's older brother who was murdered by Aerys, for her hand in marriage and got his ass kicked because he was a small skinny boy and Brandon Stark was a big strapping man, making that his start of darkness. The guy responsible, directly or indirectly, for the War of the Five Kings because he was the mastermind behind poisoning Jon Arryn, the capture and execution of Ned Stark, feeding several half-truths to Catelyn to motivate her to arrest Tyrion, and eventually Joffrey's death by having Dontos and Olenna Tyrell carry out the plan to kill Joffrey and letting Tyrion take the fall; but no one in the story knows this, not even Varys. People think he can pull gold out of thin air, but he's really been buying debt while letting Robert Baratheon's extravagances and Cersei's dipshittery pull the country into a serious debt of its own. So he's pledged himself to [[Chaos]] and destroying Westeros all because he couldn't have Catelyn as his girlfriend, though he changed his focus to her daughter Sansa now, making him a paedophile. Hasn't yet got his comeuppance in the books, but is curently dead in the show after he was outgambitted by Sansa and killed by Arya. According to GRRM he's based on the title character from the Great Gatsby.
*Gregor Clegane, ''The Mountain'': A 7' 8" 400 pound mass of [[Khorne|testosterone, muscles, steroid overdose and murderous RAGE]], Gregor is Tywin Lannister's top muscle. Killed his own father and sister and permanently scarred his brother. Hobbies include rape, arson, murder, and random torture; he's also been married a few times but not now with the implication he kept killing his wives. He played an important part in destroying the Targaryens by killing a couple of Aerys's kids in rather brutal fashion, then raping and murdering his wife. Spends a few novels doing Tywin's dirty work before a Trial by Champion leads to him dying after being poisoned by Oberyn Martell. Qyburn later resurrected him as... something... called "Ser Robert Strong", and is now even stronger, less prone to psychotic rages, and is completely obedient. He's based on accounts of French knight Gilles de Rais and maybe also the scriptural giant Goliath. Kills Qyburn during the Siege of King's Landing and then nearly kills his little brother, only for Sandor to tackle him through a collapsing wall and into a gigantic inferno.
* Sandor Clegane, ''The Hound'': Younger brother to Gregor Clegane, called the Hound because of his hound-face helm, his family's heraldry, and being the king's hired muscle without being a knight. He hates knights due to the hypocrisy of being a professional "noble warrior" but mostly since his monstrous brother is a knight, showing it's not so much of a noble promotion. Terrified of fire after Gregor put his head against a brazier for playing with one of Gregor's old toys when they were children, burning half his face, but he's still the second-strongest person in Westeros. A brutal anti-hero with a soft spot for Sansa, but a better person than his brother. After falling sick from Biter's nasty teeth, he ends up being a silent monk burying people in the Silent Isles. In the show he joins the Brotherhood without Banners and goes north to help fuck up the White Walkers. As of Season 8 he's survived the Battle of Winterfell and is riding south with Arya to put the boots to Gregor. Dies killing his brother in a pretty epic fight amidst the crumbling ruins of the Red Keep.
*Grand Maester Pycelle: A shrewd, dangerous man putting on a "harmless old man act" and a high ranking scholar from the science/medical guild the Maesters. The longest serving member of the King's advisory staff, and is actually Tywin Lannister's biggest lackey. He convinced the Mad King to let Tywin in as Baratheon's armies were marching on the capital, where Tywin proceeded to sack the city and claim it for Robert. Gets his head bashed in by Varys in the books and murdered by Qyburn in the show.
* Qyburn: Formerly a maester, who was kicked out of the order for unethical experiments on the living. Introduced as a part of a mercenary company serving Roose Bolton, which should be a red flag. He moves up in the world when he's sent to escort Brienne and Jaime back to King's Landing, and ends with Cersei employing him to replace Pycelle as "science advisor" and eventually Varys's Spymaster. Serves Cersei loyally as long as she lets him indulge his sick experiments, serving as a black magic variety of the court mage. He has resurrected Gregor Clegane as... something. [[Fabius Bile]] if he traded his robot limbs, eugenics and power armor for necromancy. He overestimated his hold on Gregor and got his head caved in for it as of the second-to-last episode of the show.
*Barristan Selmy, ''The Bold'': Knight of the Kingsguard. Which Kingsguard? Take your pick. He's served pretty much every king since Aerys and understandably feels pretty bad about it. Another sad old man who pretty much just wants to die until he decides to go pledge his services to Daenerys. Even in his old age he is considered one of the most dangerous men in Westeros. [[Fail|Dead in the show]] (to be fair they gave him a huge last stand), but [[Awesome|alive and appointed himself Daenerys' steward in her absence to try and fix Meereen's situation in the books]].
*Melisandre, ''The Red Witch'': A priestess of R'hllor, the god of fire. Proclaimed Stannis to be the messiah-king and is doing everything in her power to make sure he wins (considerable given that she can scry, make shadow baby assassins and set things on fire with her mind). She'd be pretty bro-tier if her god wasn't so vicious. As it stands she's kind of in the gray (in the books, the show seems to zig-zag on her being evil 'cos the showrunners seem to hate religion). Most of the people she set on fire deserved it, and she hasn't ''succeeded'' in killing any babies yet. Show version now dead from suicide via rapid aging after ensuring the Living defeat the Dead.
*Jorah Mormont: A knight and son of Jeor Mormont, exiled for trying to sell poachers into slavery and eventually joining the exiles of House Targaryen. He is offered a pardon in exchange for spying on the Targaryens, but ultimately decides to stay with them after falling in love with Daenerys. Unfortunately, he gets friend-zoned hard. Despite saving her life from an assassin while she was pregnant, she still votes him off the Khalassar after learning he was a spy. He still loves her and follows her in secret, though. In the show he goes on a quest to prove himself to her and contracts the dangerous disease Greyscale (it's like the unholy lovechild of smallpox and leprosy), but he gets cured and is now back at her side. He dies protecting her at the Battle of Winterfell.
*Davos Seaworth, ''The Onion Knight'': A former smuggler and bannerman to House Baratheon. During Roberts Rebellion he ran a blockade with a cargo of contraband onions to a castle Stannis Baratheon was besieged in. In exchange for for the food he had, Stannis knighted Davos, but Stannis's law-worshiping mindset compelled him to remove four digits from his left hand. Despite this, Davos has served Stannis with unquestioning loyalty, because Stannis knighting him gave his children a future. The fact that Stannis's war for the throne has ended up killing several of his sons hasn't dented his loyalty at all. Doesn't like Melisandre because he sees her as a user and her beliefs as brutal. He's a devout follower of the Faith of the Seven in the books and the first season of the show [[C.S Goto|but is clumsily retconned into an anti-religious atheist in later show seasons]]. In the show, he's now pledged to DA NORF and is basically Jon's Hand of the King, except he doesn't get a fancy pin. He survives the Battle of Winterfell and the Second Sack of King's Landing, and becomes Master of Ships in the final episode of the show.
*Shae: A former camp follower and Tyrion Lannister's squeeze for most of the story. Fled from an abusive family and became a camp follower to earn a living. Seems to fall in love with Tyrion, but it turns out she's a gold-digging bitch. When Tyrion doesn't marry Shae she sells him out to Cersei for a better offer, then fucks Tywin when she realizes Cersei won't keep her promise. Tyrion found her in his father's bed and strangled her to death with a necklace for betraying him. The discovery of Shae's corpse in Tywin's bed - posthumously outing him as a whoremonger - upsets Cersei to the point she unpersons Shae.
*Bronn: A mercenary who acts as Tyrion's enforcer and personal killer until Cersei outbids him and he he settles down with a little wife and title. Routinely kills knights by exploiting how arrogant and stupid they are even after becoming one himself. Only in it for the money, which he'll happily tell you himself. The only character other than Littlefinger to end every book in a better position than he started it. In the show, he makes the very sensible decision to sit out the fighting and wait for his promised castle (Riverrun if Cersei wins, Highgarden if Daenerys wins). He gets Highgarden and is named Lord Paramount of the Reach and Master of Coin in the final episode.
* Brienne of Tarth, ''The Beauty'': Surprisingly badass lady knight wannabe (since no women can be knighted), legendarily unattractive but still pretty idealistic despite the shit she gets for her looks. Fate frequently gives her the shit end of the stick, because no matter how hard she tries to finish her quests, she ends up failing or stuff happens that makes it impossible. Secretly crushes on Renly and unaware he's gay. After he dies, Brienne switches her loyalty to Catelyn and helps her bring Jaime to King's Landing as Tyrion promised Sansa's return in exchange for Jaime. She later developed a crush on Jaime. Things don't go well because Jaime lost his hand and the Red Wedding happened. Next, Jaime sends her out to find and keep Sansa safe to make good on Tyrion's promise, since he isn't the complete dick everyone thinks he is. Brienne ends up getting captured by Cat, now known as Lady Stoneheart and an insane undead, who was going to hang Brienne for working with Jaime. Brienne was spared at the last moment to capture/manipulate Jaime. In the show she's now sworn to House Stark and gets knighted by Jaime just before the Battle of Winterfell and then she and Jaime hook up afterward, only for him to take off and break her heart. She is now Lady Commander of the Kingsguard as of the final episode.
* Lyanna Mormont: A badass ten year old girl who inherits Bear Island after her mother and older sister die horribly in the Riverlands - at least if we are going by the show; in the book, her mother is still alive somewhere in the Neck and her older sister Alysanne is de-facto head of House Mormont. Her activities include pimp-slapping bitches, leading men twice as old as her, and being completely loyal to the Starks despite all their misfortunes. [[Awesome|"Bear Island knows no king but the King in the North, whose name is STARK."]] She dies killing an undead giant at the Battle of Winterfell, which is pretty badass.
* Wyman Manderly, ''Lord Too-Fat-To-Sit-A-Horse'': The Lord of White Harbour and one of the few Northerners who worship the Seven. Fervently loyal to House Stark, he pays lip-service to the Iron Throne long enough for his eldest son to return home, all to mask a plan to restore the Starks to power, mostly by destabilising the Frey-Bolton alliance, building a navy, marshalling the forces of the lands east of the White Knife river, "losing" Freys in the wilderness and sending Lord Davos Seaworth to rescue Rickon Stark from Skagos. His favourite food is lamprey, although he has also developed a taste for Frey Pie. Also a remarkably graceful dancer, and can survive taking a knife to the throat.
** Wylla Manderly: Granddaughter to the above. Another badass little girl, her activities include openly declaring undying loyalty to House Stark and dying her hair green. She and Lyanna Mormont would probably be best friends if they met. [[Awesome|"The city is built upon the land [the Starks] gave us. In return, we swore that we should always be their men. Stark men!"]]
* Jon Umber, ''The Greatjon'': At first he seems to be your stereotypical, boisterous Northern Lord. However, he becomes one of Robb's most loyal supporters, being first to declare him as 'King in the North' after Ned's execution. Had his moment of awesome [[Awesome|when he killed and wounded four Freys at the Red Wedding, all the while being drunk and needing eight additional men to take him down.]]
* Beric Dondarrion, ''The Lightning Lord'': Minor lord who agreed to head an expedition to take out Gregor Clegane. This being Game of Thrones, however, his party is ambushed by the Mountain and is beaten rather badly, and he loses his life in the process. Thanks to his drunken Red Priest friend, however, he manages to come back not once, but eight times, and each time he comes back, he becomes more powerful, though at the cost of his memory. He now heads an outlaw faction of grimdark Robin Hood types called "The Brotherhood Without Banners", who are dedicated to punishing those who abuse and mistreat the smallfolk. Ironically, he's one of the few book characters to have died (permanently) in the books but remain alive in the show, except now he's dead for real as of the Battle of Winterfell.
* Thoros of Myr: Aforementioned drunken priest who is dedicated to R'hllor, though at first he doesn't really give a rat's ass about the Red God, as he prefers to party it up with wine and women, but after he 'accidentally' resurrects Beric, he becomes quite serious about his religion and vows to curb his excesses in drinking. Dies on a mission beyond the Wall to capture a wight (show-version).
</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''The Free Cities'''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Nine city states to the West of Westeros, for the most part the old colonies of the Valaryian Freehold. Mostly they are ruled by Merchant Princes. They look down on the Westerosi for being a bunch of up jumped backwards war-mongering morons who are only a few silverware sets and maesters away from absolute barbarism. In turn the Westerosi look down on the Free Cities as being money-grubbing effete cowards ruled by cheesemongers who use bribery, tall walls and dirty tricks to get ahead in the world.

* Illyrio Mopatis: A rich fat bastard and a Magister of Pentos. Old buddies with Varys and a bigtime schemer.
* [[Officio Assassinorum|The Faceless Men]]: A cult of shape-shifting assassins who worship The Many Faced God of death based in the free city of Braavos that give up personal identity. They claim descent from escaped Valyrian slaves whom considered death to be a better fate than perpetual slavery. Their mission hence became being servants of the Many Faced God of Death. You can hire them to off your rivals, but they request a steep and equivalent price. Their motto is "Valar Morghulis": All Men Must Die.
* Xaro Xhoan Daxos: One of the thirteen leaders of the city of Qarth. A flamboyant, languid, bald rich man who looks after Daenerys while she stays in Qarth and gives her many gifts. He wants her dragons as much as anyone else and even tries to marry her despite his homosexual tendencies. He stops wanting the dragons later in the book series after seeing [[RIP AND TEAR|their work in Astapor]], and no longer wants her around as her anti-slavery stance is hampering his wealth, so he offers Daenerys ships to leave the area and declares war on her when she refuses. In the show he's heterosexual, helps steal her dragons, fucks one of her handmaidens and gets locked in a vault for conspiring to have her killed. He's also black and fat in the show when he's white and lanky in the books, being Qartheen and all.
* Syrio Forel: The former First Sword of Braavos (aka the ruler's personal bodyguard) and later Arya's mentor in King's Landing. He teaches her the way of Braavosi fencing, called "Water Dancing", and sacrifices himself to save her from Lannister thugs, taking down at least six of them with a wooden sword. May have inadvertently set her on the path of becoming a badass assassin by telling her of his belief in the God of Death.

</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''The Dothraki'''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Horse people who live in a country of endless grass plains referred to by others as the Dothraki sea. They only have one city, called Vaes Dothrak, which is less of a city and more of a place they all meet when important things have to be discussed. Have traits borrowed from several cultures, including Mongols and Native Americans, all filtered through European misconceptions of those cultures of course, such as the Dothraki's antipathy for heavy armor, despite the fact that the Mongols were very heavily armored and also excelled as infantry, see the Battle of Leignitz. They fear the ocean because of its size and the fact that horses won't drink from it, calling it the "poison water".

* Khal Drogo: An expy of <s>Genghis Khan</s> Yesukhei Baatyr (his son would have been the equivalent to Chinggis Khaan). Leads the largest Khalassar among the Dothraki. Despite being a barbarian warlord, Drogo is surprisingly intelligent and treats Daenerys well. After an assassin tries to kill her he promises to conquer Westeros for her and their unborn son, and immediately starts raiding towns for slaves and ships. At one town he gets cut in a leadership challenge and Daenerys gets a captive wise woman to heal him. However, the woman hates him because his tribe destroyed her hometown, raped/slaughtered or enslaved her friends and raped her three times so she curses him to become catatonic (along with killing his unborn son), leading a devastated Daenerys to perform an arguable mercy kill by smothering him with a pillow. After, she burns herself, her stillborn child and the wise woman on his funeral pyre, Daenerys survives and it brings her dragons to life. GRRM named Drogo after [[The Lord of the Rings|Frodo's father]].
* Daenerys' handmaidens.
** Doreah: Daenerys' handmaiden and a wedding gift from Illyrio. A woman from Lysene brought by her brother to teach her how to pleasure a man. In the book she dies of fever and starvation crossing a desert, in the TV show she betrays Daenerys for [[Salamanders|Xaro's BBC]] and gets locked in a vault to starve to death.
** Irri: Daenerys' handmaiden who teaches Daenerys how to ride a horse. [[PROMOTIONS|Also pleasures Daenerys twice after catching her masturbating once]], yet this canonical girl-on-girl action was left out of the show. The character was even killed off there when she survived in the books, but in this case, it was because her actress' visa had expired rather than [[C.S. Goto|author railroading]].
** Jhiqui: Daenerys' handmaiden who teaches her the Dothraki language and squabbles with Irri over wanting one of Daenerys' bodyguards when he becomes a badass. Also dies in the TV show while staying alive so far in the books.

</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''Slavers Bay'''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">A civilization of [[Stupid Evil]] slavers. The remains of a previous civilization that was once the big powerful empire thanks to having phalanxes of obedient, pain-resistant soldiers which Valyria conquered a long while ago because phalanxes don't do too well against motherfucking dragons. They are ruled by wealthy slavemongers who buy slaves, train them up to do specific things and generally are a bunch of stuck up, decadent, puppy-eating (literally) assholes. Basically a civilization so repugnant even most hippies will be cheering when Dany decides to conquer them.

* The Unsullied: Eunuch phalanx fighting slave soldiers trained the Spartan way to produce totally obedient infantry that never break ranks. They also don't feel pain due to drinking a special drink daily, and each one has to take a new name from the name box each day so they can't develop a sense of identity. At least until Dany "bought" the lot of them, had them sack the city which trained them and freed them.
* Grey Worm: The Unsullied Commander and a no-nonsense badass. When given a chance to take a new name he keeps his slave name because it's the name he had when freed so he considers it lucky. He is completely loyal to Daenerys, considering her his savior, and in the show he falls in love with fellow freed-woman, Missandei. This being ASOIAF, however, he can only watch helplessly as his lover is beheaded in front of him by the Mountain. This drives him into a rage, and he eagerly takes part in the sacking of King's Landing in revenge for her death. After the war is over and both Daenerys and Cersei are dead, he takes the Unsullied forces to Naath, in order to fulfill his promise to Missandei that he'd protect her homeland.
* Strong Belwas: A fat but skilled eunuch gladiator. Loves liver and onions and referring to himself in the third person. Traveling companion/guide of Ser Barristan. Has an awesome scene where he beats the champion of Meereen then mocks the Meereenese by taking a shit in their direction and wiping his ass on their dead champion's cloak. Also saves Daenerys from eating poisoned sweets. [[FAIL|Left out of the show]].
* Daario Naharis: A Tyroshi mercenary captain who dyes his hair blue. Betrays his fellow commanders for Daenerys because he loves her as a queen. Fortunately for him, Daenerys loves him back and they pursue a romance for a time, though she doesn't marry him as she's still otherwise smart enough to know she has to save herself for a political marriage. Goes to Yunkai as a hostage in the war on Meereen. Also potentially a shapeshifter, if the show is to be believed.
*Missandei: A young slave woman with a remarkable talent for linguistics and one of the more empathetic people in this dark world, Missandei is freed by Daenerys during her campaign to liberate Slaver's Bay, eventually becoming one of her closest confidants and advisers. She falls in love with the Unsullied eunuch Grey Worm, but later is captured by Cersei and beheaded by the Mountain in front of all her friends, but not before telling her friends to burn the Lannisters to ashes.

</div></div>
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''The Others'''

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">A mysterious race from beyond the Wall, known to [[newfag|HBO fans]] as "the White Walkers". Can be described as ice demons/snow elves with necromancy. Eight thousand years ago, they invaded Westeros during a decades-long winter known as "the Long Night". With an army of undead warriors, they proceeded to fuck Westeros up every which way to [[Sunday]] before the locals finally drove them out, established the Night's Watch, and built the Wall to keep them out. Like all fantasy aspects of ASOIAF, they are very cliched. In the TV series, it's revealed that they were created from human captives by "The Children", the pseudo-[[Elf]] fair folk race that lived in Westeros before humanity arrived, as an attempt to create a super-weapon. The idea was, since humanity bred faster than the Children could keep up with, they would create icy [[lich]]-creatures that could create [[undead]] soldiers, and these would then wipe out all human life. Instead, it went disastrously wrong because it turned out that the Children actually couldn't control what they'd created, so the Others [[Ork|just want to exterminate '''all''' life.]]
* Night's King: A long time ago, when the Night's Watch was just barely getting set up, its Lord Commander, the thirteenth in line, decided to climb over the Wall and explore some. While in the woods to the north of the Wall, he found a beautiful [[Monstergirls|Other female]]. He fell in love with her, had [[/d/|sex with her on top of the Wall]], which somehow changed him into an albino version of [[Star Wars|Darth Maul]], and set himself up as King of the Wall, making everyone in the Watch his slaves and sacrificial fodder. Naturally, this didn't sit too well with the Starks and the Wildlings, and so they banded together to free the Watch and kick his ass, which they managed to do successfully. Now everyone thinks him as dead or a myth. In the HBO version of the story, this whole backstory is basically dropped; he was the very first White Walker ever created by the Children, and he decided to get back at them by wiping out all life. Also, whilst he was apparently beaten in the ancient past and sealed away behind the Wall, he's still "alive" and well, [[Daemonculaba|turning infant human boys into new White Walkers]]. Also, he can apparently raise up entire legions of undead, just by raising his arms and looking completely smug about it; unlike regular Others, who can just raise up maybe a village at most. Given that he's the resident [[BBEG|Dark Lord]] of the series, it makes sense that he can take down a dragon with seemingly little effort (a simple throw of his spear), and resurrect it to be his personal steed a la Arthas. Used it to blow a hole in the Wall and begin [[The End Times]] for Westeros. Now dead thanks to Arya's magic ninja haxx letting her kill the BBEG and his entire race and army of zombies in one blow.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''Gods and their followers'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content"> The world of ASOIAF has various religions and faiths abound, just like in real life. Similarly, they range between fucking awesome to utterly useless.

*[[Ecclesiarchy|The Faith of the Seven]]: The Catholic Church stand-in, which gets both sympathetic (books only) and unsympathetic (books and show) characters associated with it. Holds an anti-slavery stance. The god/s are considered seven aspects of one deity with three male aspects (The Smith, the Father, the Warrior), three female aspects (The Maiden, the Mother, the Crone) and an asexual one representing Death. The places of worship are called Septs, and their system includes Septons, nun-equivalents called Septas and a Pope equivalent called a High Septon. The High Septons all give up their names when they become one to confuse future historians.
** High Septon 1: A fat, greedy man who used the position for personal gain. He ended up being [[Grimdark|torn apart in a riot]], because the people resented that he had enough food to stay fat while they were starving.
** High Septon 2: Successor of High Septon 1. Chosen by Tyrion so the Faith would be loyal to the Lannisters. Only ''slightly'' corrupt, being a pro-Lannister yes-man. Murdered on Cersei's order in the book, while in the show he's retconned into a whoremonger who gets deposed by the Sparrows (see below).
** High Septon 3/The High Sparrow: Successor of High Septon 2. After the second High Septon died, the smallfolk burst into the meeting to pick a successor and ordered their chosen candidate to be put in charge when his original successor was caught whoremongering. He'd been a wandering preacher beforehand, and his feet were dark and gnarled from lots of walking. When he reaches the position he starts [[gets shit done|getting things done]]. Since he was appointed by a smallfolk religious movement called Sparrows, he's given the moniker "The High Sparrow". The nobility underestimate him, either due to having other matters or disregard for religious people, but he turns out to be smart, well-meaning and somewhat ruthless. Under the High Sparrow, he and the other clergymen sell their fancy clothes and decorations [[Noblebright|replacing them with simple wool tunics, using the money to buy food and clothes for the poor in King's Landing]]. He also has their Knights-Templar-equivalent reformed to [[Inquisition|protect the faithful and help them root out]] [[heresy]] and sin. He also outwits Cersei and has her arrested and tried for all her evil deeds. While Cersei's scheming does lead to Margaery's arrest, Cersei confesses to some crimes while concealing others, leading to Cersei taking a nude walk of penance in front of the entire city. After this he somewhat reined in the nobles' politicking to actually look after the commoners and the Faith, though this does make some enemies. In the show he and the Sparrows are [[C.S Goto|retconned]] from assorted smallfolk and clergymen tired of the nobles' lawlessness and power plays into one-dimensional stereotypes and thinly-veiled jabs at the Catholic Church [[Imperial Truth|in a shoe-horned anti-religion message]]. While they do arrest Cersei and Margaery like in the books, during the trial most of the Faith, including the High Sparrow himself, get blown to kingdom come when Cersei has her agents ignite a massive amount of magical napalm underneath the Great Sept.
* [[Old Ones|Old Gods]]: Native American/Japanese Kame/Druid/nature spirits that reside in places called Godswoods. Their powers are limited to the North, where the last remaining Godswoods remain, but they can grant gifted individuals awesome psychic powers like Warging (mind-controlling animals) and Greensight (Time Travel). For some reason, Martin claims they're based off the Norse Gods. Probably has to do with the way the Vikings made sacrifices to their gods, by hanging them in Ash trees, a symbol for the World Tree Yggdrasil. The Weirwood trees are sacred to the followers of the Old Gods in a similar way. Mostly worship of them is quiet and informal.
* R'hllor: The God of Fire and Light, and like the Old Gods, actually shows evidence for existing. [[/tg/ gets shit done|He gets shit done]] such as fire magic and Resurrection. Has a nasty habit for burning heretics, though. GRRM said this faith is roughly based (read: poorly modeled after) upon Zoroastrianism and Gnosticism. His nemesis is The Great Other: the god of cold and darkness, the leader of the Others, and prophesied to be defeated by the chosen one, or messianic figure: [[Star Child|Azor Ahai/The Prince That Was Promised]], a figure who is the prophesied warrior that will fight with the Great Other/Night's King during the Apocalypse. Interestingly enough, the prophecy may not refer to a single person, but three (Jon, Tyrion/Bran, and Daenerys). Supposedly, one of these three will also receive an [[Emperor's Sword|awesome flaming sword called "Lightbringer"]].
* Him of Many Faces: The god of the Dead of the religion whose followers are the [[Officio Assassinorum|Faceless Men]]. According to his cult of assassins, whom Arya joins, every other god is him in a different form and he requires his assassins to utterly forget their past identities in service to him. Has a heyday during the Battle of King's Landing and the Red Wedding. His followers are granted shapeshifting abilities and powers to be the ultimate assassins.
* Drowned God: Cthulhu combined with Odin. Runs an underwater Valhalla were all Ironborn go whey they either if they drowned at sea, the men die a manly death or the women die in childbirth.

</div></div>

==The appeal of A Song of Ice And Fire==
Exactly what catches the eyes of [[Skub|a given fan/critic/lout who complains about how bad it is anytime the show is mentioned within earshot]] to ASOIAF and its TV adaptation varies from individual to individual. Still, there's a couple of major draws.

'''The Worldbuilding:''' The main reason why this series gets compared to [[The Lord of the Rings]], ASOIAF is literally ''drowning'' under the weight of its worldbuilding, being crammed as full of facts about fictitious regions, histories, cultures, dynasties and races as GRRM can fit it. Your mileage will vary on how ''good'' that info is, but there's plenty of info in it.

'''Mainstream [[Dark Fantasy]]:''' Dark Fantasy is not exactly a mainstream niche. ASOIAF stands out by deliberately trying to market itself to the mainstream, despite embracing an abundance of dark fantasy tropes; gratuitous violence, sexuality and sexual violence, moral ambiguity, political intrigue, and a willingness to suddenly kill off any character, even the most likable or heroic of them.

'''[[Low Fantasy]]:''' On the surface, ASOIAF is an old-school Low Fantasy setting, being a medieval-tech world with the story openly focused on the mundane lives of people struggling for political power.

'''[[High Fantasy]]:''' But if you scratch the surface, ASOIAF is also a High Fantasy setting, which is always the more marketable of the two, with the big backstory about how the world is facing impending doom from an army of wintery [[fey]] and their [[undead]] minions. There are also non-evil higher powers working against them, but they get swept under the rug in the show. Also, [[dragon]]s. As the more marketable genre, it's also inevitably the more skubby one, for whatever that's worth.

'''Gratuitous Sexuality:''' More a thing for the TV show than the book; the frequent scenes of nudity and sex in the early seasons were a ''big'' selling point for many people.

==Oh Yeah, About The TV Show==
[[image:KnightsWhoSayFuck.jpg|150px|thumb|left|Yeah, pretty much.]]
After the first three books became hits, many Hollywood producers and directors had came to the sadistic neckbeard, asking him about making a movie adaptation. At first, he was reluctant, at best, due to the fact that a whole lot of his content would've been cut out to be fit into a movie trilogy (see the Lord of the Rings live action films). Then, a couple of dudes, David Benioff and D.B Weiss (AKA D&D, or more accurately as of the final season, Dumb & Dumber), decided to contact him, and asked him at a local restaurant about turning ASOIAF into a Television show produced by HBO, the top-rated soft-core porno channel. The story goes that George, before giving them his consent, ask them a very specific question (Who is Jon Snow's mother?). Satisfied with the response they gave, he gave them permission to start work on the show, which would be titled after the first book, ''Game of Thrones''.

The television show casts several well known performers, such as Sean Bean as Eddard, Peter Dinklage as Tyrion, Lena Headey as Cersei, and Charles Dance as Tywin. They have also cast some comparatively less well-known actors and even ones new to cinema, such as Sophie Turner (Sansa), Maisie Williams (Arya), Kit Harington (Jon), Iwan Rheon (Ramsay), Alfie Allen (Theon), and Richard Madden (Robb).

'''TL;DR'''

Producers Dumb&Dumber-style change characters and railroad the plot at a whim, the tits and ultraviolence spigot is opened even wider than the books, and most scenes are made for the actors to show off their skills at making their signature angry/murder/brooding/etc. faces.

Thus, book snobs seem to think that every episode post-season 3 is nothing more than Emmy-bait. Regardless of the fact Kit Harington still [[Fail|doesn't have an Emmy]], there's a valid contention in that regard, with the amount of liberties taken overshadowing the initial appeal.

The final season was eventually revealed to be such a train wreck because Dumb & Dumber did not want to work on the series anymore and had let the success with the earlier seasons go to their heads and before then had shut out any dissenting voices (including even George's eventually). In their arrogance, instead of handing the reins to someone else, they decided to plan out their own ending and use it as an audition to Disney so they could write for Star Wars. By then, they'd run out of books to adapt, there was no superior writing for them to leech off of and no one to gainsay them. The result was absolutely shit writing that caused a glorious breakage in the [[skub]] dam that left [[Butthurt|many a fan's anus weeping]] (provided they weren't early seasons fans, book series fans, or any of the other assorted onlookers [[Lulz|taking part in the mightiest of keks]]) and, if anything, proved <s>George's </s> Ramsay's quote at the beginning of the article true. Goddamn Dumb & Dumber, could you talentless faggots do any worse if you tried?

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%">
'''What about the final season?'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
Long story short, the Army of the Dead is destroyed in an epic battle, where the ancient and super-powerful BBEG gets killed by some slight-of-hand. Meanwhile Daenerys has spent the last two seasons being stripped of her plot armor; she's lost most of her supporters - including one of her dragons - and has been forced to confront the fact that nobody in Westeros wants her around. Especially not the Northerners, where Sansa is basically playing the "Northern Independence Now!" movement to try and get her own bum in a throne after seven seasons of being a plaything for people with actual power. The kicker is she's fallen in love with Jon Snow, but he learns he's actually her nephew - and the fruit of a legitimate marriage between her elder brother Rhaegar Targaryean and Lyanna Stark that was handled in secret. This discovery not only caused him to back away from her (because he's got Northerner values, so fucking his aunt squicks him out... not that it stopped him from doing it at least once), but also makes him a threat to her political standing, which is something Varys makes plans to exploit. When Tyrion found out Jon wouldn't back down, he told Danerys about it, for which she had Drogon burn Varys to ash. When she forces the survivors of the final battle to march on King's Landing, another of her dragons ends up dead and her only remaining friend captured and executed by Cersei. So she attacks King's Landing... and then, when her followers maneuver around her to get the city to surrender rather than die to the last, she snaps and burns most of the city to ashes. She then decides to continue ramming her head against the proverbial wall and embraces her personal narrative of herself as a divinely chosen hero-queen meant to "free" the world by conquering everybody, having lost interesting in just ruling Westeros around the same time she lost her fucking mind. Such is her insanity that Jon Snow ends up sticking a dagger in her heart rather than let her kill Sansa and Arya, who he knows will resist her.

Jon proceeds to somehow not get killed by her last surviving dragon who pretty much knows Jon killed his momma because plot reasons, and it destroys the Iron Throne ([[What|by accident, according to the showrunners]]) while chucking a tantrum over Dany's death before grabbing her body and flying off to parts unknown. This leaves everybody stuck trying to figure out what to do, [[The Empire (Warhammer Fantasy)|but ultimately they decide to replace a dynastic monarchy with an elective one]], and make Bran the new king because, hey, he's the 3-Eyed Raven and has the seer powers to see all of space and time, so he's the least worst option they have (he's also trying to find and take control of the aforementioned dragon). The North secedes from the Seven Kingdoms, but nobody gives a damn, and Jon Snow is formally banished to the Wall - where instead he wanders off into the wilderness with the surviving Wildlings, with the land showing signs of exiting its endless winter. [[The Lord of the Rings|Arya runs off to sail to the West,]] and Sansa is crowned Queen in the North.

</div></div>

==GRRM and [[Your Dudes]]==
Want to make your own ASoIF setting for a role playing game? Well, readers have enough room to fantasize about their own minor noble House (or kingdom during the Age of the Hundred Kingdoms).

A good example of what you could do is the House from the old [[/v/|"Telltale Game of Thrones"]], House Forrester. Their relationship to the canon is as follows:

House Forrester (lords of some place in the Wolfswood) '''-> is sworn to ->''' House Glover (overall lords of the entire Wolfswood) '''-> is sworn to ->''' House Stark (rulers of the North).

There's also an actual tie-in tabletop RPG now, which uses its own system and looks kind of like [[Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay]] with a heavy helping of resource-management strategy feel.
Players are assuming the role of a minor House to guide to glory, or, more accurately given the setting we're in, NOT to ruin utterly in a season or two, which would still be more than many A-list players mustered in canon. Each PC has a specific position within said House, and only the role of official Head is mandatory; the rest could be wife/children/brothers and sisters/all other kinds of siblings, bastards (with rules for obtaining the legitimate recognition), maesters, sworn/subservient knights, or most of anybody else. This naturally opens up near-infinite possibilities for families screwed up seven ways to high heavens, which would make Lannister's brand of infighting-slash-inbreeding look as sane as the High Septon.

The setting is also ill-suited for "adventures in Westeros" style of gaming for two reasons:
#In the grim darkness of low fantasy, a roaming nobody with no banner to talk about, no House allegiance, no nothing isn't generally treated to a Tavern With Quest Givers, but rather more to a Tavern Where You Are Shanked For Your Sword And Boots And Dumped At The Nearest Forest. Heck, even the big wheelers and dealers are routinely seen invited to the latter when they are slow to properly introduce themselves.
#Working on your initially-puny House will quite realistically involve thy neighbors first and foremost, then liege lords from the higher House yours is sworn to, and on occasion shopping around for an advantageous marriage - there simply ain't gonna be that much spare time to "travel to see places". Both of these are also why tourism wasn't a very popular pastime in medieval Europe and why those who were "living on the road" usually enjoyed the lowest social standing.

A note to aspiring Lords: do NOT, under any circumstances, allow your "combat-optimized" siblings an unsupervised minute in a social setting. Game's "social combat" system is a thing more brutal than the physical one, and it takes a socially-optimized character all of a few minutes to mindfuck one who is not (read: everyone but dedicated diplomats and Heads of the Houses, and not every one of the latter, to boot, as illustrated by several amazing boneheads in canon) into believing pretty much anything short of Grumpkins and Snarks. Stupid NPCs or a stupid GM will make said mindfuck obvious, allowing you to "mindfuck 'em back" without abuse of OOC info; cunning ones will not.

On a side-note; GRRM is said to take a dim view of fanfiction, saying it kills creative ability. This is kind of a double-edged statement, since a lot of George's characters here are either rehashes of his characters from previous works, references to other fictional characters (like Littlefinger and Samwell being based on Jay Gatsby and [[The Lord of the Rings|Samwise Gamgee]]), walking tropes (such as Ned Stark and Robb Stark being the "[[TVTropes|Honor Before ]] [[Lawful Stupid|Reason]]" characters) or references to historical people (such as Tyrion Lannister being Richard III and House Tyrell being totally-not-House-Tudor - to the point that Margaery Tyrell is played by "The Tudors" actress Natalie Dormer), making everything he wrote just another...fanfiction. Yet given the "creative" output of the average neckbeard, he does have a point. Ironically, however, he sold the rights to make a TV series of the books to HBO, who then went on to make a glorified fanfic.

==Games==
[[image:AGot-2nd-ed-cardfan.png|thumb|250px]]
Like any fantasy author who finds themselves unexpectedly in the warm embrace of commercial success Martin quickly licensed the shit out of his setting, spawning everything from resin miniatures to replica great swords. While most of this is worthless junk to foist on [[Neckbeard|obsessive fanboys]] /tg/ has agreed that a few of the games are made of win. The first two are a collectable [[CCG|card game]] put out in 2002 by [[Fantasy Flight Games]] and a [[risk]]-esque board game that followed shortly after in 2003. One of [[White Wolf]]'s subsidiaries also put out a d20 RPG in 2005 but it quickly tanked because, come on, White Wolf. Martin since wrested the rights back and developed a new version with Green Ronin games.

Now lets have some serious talks about the game of thrones games, because they have become some sort of endless source of amusement and frustration for the gaming fanbase. Game of thrones is roughly speaking the second franchise with the most licensed board games, after star wars, and some of them have adquired quite a legendary status and a fanbase that goes beyond the book or series fans.

The great juggernaut for all the ASOIAF based games is Fantasy Flight Games

First and foremost we have the game of thrones board game, a game that after two editions stillranks high in the BGG top 100 board games, and has recently had an expansion. The game of thrones board game has becomesomesort of meme for the modern board gamersand it could be consider the equivalent of a more advanced risk, in which dice and blank character got replacedby a very flavourful and brutalcombat system and a lot of thematical mechanics fueling the engine. Overall this game has been associated with concepts such as, requiring maximun player count to really be entertaining, having an amazing ammount of lenght and depth and being a very faithful representation of the political feeling the series inspire. Almost any boardgamer or wargamer worth his salt has played this game and enjoyed its highs,its lows and the amazing ammount of frustrations it brings. This is probably the most well known of all the ASOIAF games and it was released way before game of thrones was a cultural phenomenom back in 2003.

Another game that bears mention, both for it's excellent mechanics and its historical significance is the game of thrones card game.It is one of the most balanced card game experiences you can get,also full of flavour and with quite a great ammount of balance and non linear thinking. Best part is, unlike other card games,the game has a "living card game" release format,in which players know exactly what each booster pack brings and can buy cards in a more responsible manner rather than playing bingo and hoping to get a rare cards. Also the sole core set already provides more replayability than some fully fledged board games.

Finally the last game to mention in the FFG venerable trilogy of games is "Battles of Westeros", arguably the most ambitious and least succesful of the three. Battles of westeros was a fully fledged wargame that used the Memoir 44/battlelore rules as a base, but then evolved into its own by introducing mechanics such as commanders, tactic cards and very creative scenario rules. Miniatures were made in 15 mm and for their time and scale they were quite detailed, some commanders are real standouts(I´m looking at you Robb Stark(with his wolf jumping at his side) and Rickard Karstark). Thanks to it's scale, the game was able to provide players with a great ammount of options and units at a fraction of the price of other boardgames. With a core set that was already stacked with units and variety and then faction specific expansions that added several more units and commanders. The game also came with scenario books that provided narrative play with quite creative rule variants, such as storming palisades, having decoys in escort missions and bombarding enemies with catapults. One scenario even tried to bring to life the battle of the blackwater(the hibrid invation of kings landing by stannis the manis). The game was incredible and quite a creative wargame,its main issue was that the setup time was just terrible. Incredibly complex and tiresome when compared to the actual gameplay time.

And then the miniature producing kickstarter juggernaut CMON decided to produce its own wargame, with AMAZING miniatures.

As this is CMON the game began with a [[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cmon/a-song-of-ice-and-fire-tabletop-miniatures-game]kickstarter], and after that the game has had at least 2 dozen more releases with 3 more factions added.

The game has some mechanics taken from rank and file games such as KOW combining them with mechanics taken out of "battles of westeros" particularly the tactics deck.

==Books==
*''A Game of Thrones''
*''A Clash of Kings''
*''A Storm of Swords'': Split into 2
*''A Feast for Crows'': half the characters, the point where the series goes down the toilet
*''A Dance with Dragons'': split into 2 the first is about the other half of the characters
*''The Winds of Winter'': Most recent rumors say George could have it ready in late 2018. But will he ''really''?
** Nope, though he has shared chapters of the book.
** Official now set to release in summer 2020, but we've all heard that before.
**It might happen by 2030 if we're really lucky
*''A Dream of Spring'' : Unreleased and unlikely to ever be.
**GRRM will most likely die before writing this
*''The Dunk and Egg Series'': A story about a landless hedge knight traveling across Westeros with a Targaryen squire, so he can teach him how not to be an asshole to peasants.

==See Also==
*[[/tg/ Song of Ice and Fire Houses]]
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U7NpSubAJQ Weiner, weiner weiner]

[[category: Literature]]

Age of Sigmar/Tactics/Chaos/Slaves to Darkness

2019-12-09T03:27:13Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:290B:BAAA:92F2:A623: /* Named */

{{Age of Sigmar Faction|Faction=Slaves to Darkness|Logo=Archaon Book.jpg|Alliance=Chaos|Motto=}}

The old warriors of chaos enter the Mortal Realms as the re-done Slaves to Darkness. The Slaves to Darkness fight for any of the chaos gods or the gods as a pantheon, and can be built in a variety of ways with plenty opportunity for synergy between heroes and units.

==Why Play Slaves to Darkness?==
===Pros===
* Reuses Warriors of Chaos models from WFB, making them a quasi-old-school faction (or at least a money-saver).
* Pals with most other Chaos factions, giving providing a wide range of allies, allegiances, and playstyles.
* You have lots of options for battleline units.
* If you have war bands from Warcry, you can include them in your army lists.
* Your faction leader's killed a world, so his credentials are beyond reproach.

===Cons===
* Your faction acronym is "[[Nurgle|S]][[Slaanesh|T]][[/d/|D]]"
* Traits and abilities are now specifically for Slaves to Darkness, which isn't a con for this army, but hurts value in other Chaos armies.

==Allegiance Abilities==

===Battle Traits===
If your army has a '''SLAVES TO DARKNESS''' allegiance and chose to take the '''SLAVES TO DARKNESS''' allegiance abilities, it has the following rules:

'''Damned Legions''': You '''must''' belong to one of these. If a model already has a keyword from one, they cannot gain another, it can still be included in your army but it can't benefit from the allegiance ability of that legion. Legions are: Ravagers, Cabalists, Despoilers, or the Host of the Everchosen.

'''Aura of Chaos Power''': '''SLAVES TO DARKNESS HEROES''' can grant an ability to friendly '''SLAVES TO DARKNESS''' units which have the same Mark of Chaos as them. The units in receipt of the ability must be within x" of the HERO when they use the ability. A unit that is within x" of more than one friendly '''SLAVES TO DARKNESS HERO''' can only use the Aura of Chaos Power from one of them. If a model has more than one mark of Chaos, '''you can only choose one and it lasts for the duration of the battle'''. Sorry Archaon.

The abilities are:

*'''''Khorne''''': Re-roll hit rolls of 1 for attacks made with melee weapons by a unit granted this ability wholly within 12". If the aura-holder is the general, you get +1 to wound as well.
*'''''Slaanesh''''': Unmodified hit rolls of 6 explode into 2 attacks for a unit granted this ability wholly within 12". If the aura-holder is the general, you can reroll run and charge rolls as well.
*'''''Nurgle''''': Unmodified wound rolls of 6 get +1 damage for a unit granted this ability wholly within 12". If the aura-holder is the general, you get -1 to be hit by missile weapons as well.
*'''''Tzeentch''''': Re-roll save rolls of 1 for a unit granted this ability wholly within 12". If the aura-holder is the general, 5+ optional roll to ignore spell effects.
*'''''Undivided''''': Don't take battleshock for units granted this ability wholly within 12". If the aura-holder is the general, you get 6+ FNP.

Basically a variant to the Warshrine's '''Favour of the Ruinous Powers''', without the need to pray. Solid enough already.

'''Eye of the Gods''': If a '''SLAVES TO DARKNESS HERO''' with the '''EYE OF THE GODS''' keyword makes an attack in a combat phase that slays one or more enemy '''HEROES''' or '''MONSTERS''', at the end of the combat phase, make a roll on the table below after the HERO’S attacks have been completed. Duplicates are treated like a 7 - nothing happens.

{|class="wikitable col1cen col2cen center" style="width:300px"
|-
||'''2D6'''
||'''Reward'''
|-
||'''2'''
||'''Spawndom''': You can add a Chaos Spawn to your army. If you do, set up a Chaos Spawn model within 1" of the '''HERO''', and then remove the hero. The Chaos Spawn does not cost reinforcement points in a Pitched Battle. It cannot attack in the phase in which it is set up. If you do not add a Chaos Spawn to your army, the hero suffers D3 mortal wounds instead.
|-
||'''3'''
||'''Slaughterer's Strength''': Pick a melee weapon for this '''HERO'''. Improve its rend by 1.
|-
||'''4'''
||'''Murderous Mutation''': Pick a melee weapon for this '''HERO'''. Add 1 to its attacks.
|-
||'''5'''
||'''Iron Flesh''': Add 1 to the '''HERO'''’s save rolls for the rest of the battle.
|-
||'''6'''
||'''Flames of Chaos''': The '''HERO''' can choose to ignore a spell or endless spell on a 5+.
|-
||'''7'''
||'''Snubbed by the Gods''': Your hero burps. Nothing else happens.
|-
||'''8'''
||'''Unholy Resilience''': The '''HERO''' gets a 5+ FNP.
|-
||'''9-10'''
||'''Daemonic Legions''': Add a unit to your army. Unit added depends on your '''HERO'''’s mark. 10 Bloodletters for Khorne, 10 Pink Horrors for Tzeentch, 10 Daemonettes for Slaanesh, 10 Plaguebearers for Nurgle, or 6 Furies for Undivided.
|-
||'''11-12'''
||'''Dark Apotheosis''': You can add a Daemon Prince to your army. If you do, set up a Daemon Prince model within 1" of the '''HERO''', and then remove the hero. The Daemon Prince does not cost reinforcement points in a Pitched Battle. If the '''HERO''' was a wizard, the Daemon Prince is a wizard. If you do not add a Daemon Prince to your army, you can heal D3 wounds instead.
|-
|}

===Lore of the Damned===
1. '''Binding Damnation''': CV7. Visible target within 12" fights last until your next hero phase.

2. '''Spike-tongue Curse''': CV3. Visible target within 12" takes 3 mortal wounds. If this is unsuccessful or is unnbound, the caster takes 3 mortal wounds.

3. '''Whispers of Chaos''': CV7. Roll 1d6 for each model in a visible target unit within 12". For each 6, target unit takes 1 MW. If any models were slain, the target unit cannot move until your next hero phase.

4. '''Mask of Darkness''': CV7. Pick a visible MORTAL SLAVES TO DARKNESS unit wholly within 12". That unit teleports anywhere outside of 9" of enemy models and can't move in the subsequent movement phase.

5. '''Call to Glory''': CV5. Pick a visible SLAVES TO DARKNESS HERO unit wholly within 12". They can reroll hit and wound rolls when attacking a HERO or MONSTER until your next hero phase.

6. '''Ruinous Vigour''': CV6. Pick a visible SLAVES TO DARKNESS MONSTER unit wholly within 12". They act as though they haven't taken wounds for the purposes of the wounds table.

===Endless Spells===
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Eightfold_Doom-Sigil_eng.pdf Eightford Doom-sigil]:'''

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Darkfire_Daemonrift_eng.pdf Darkfire Daemonrift]:'''

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Reamscourge_Rapture_eng.pdf Reamscourge Rapture]:'''

==Damned Legions==
===Ravagers===
All Mortals All Day. More Generals, more Marauders, more Cultists.

;Trait - Glory for the Taking: If your general is '''not''' a Daemon Prince, up to 5 Ravagers Heroes get a command trait. No duplicates, and only 1 on each. At the start of your hero phase, you can pick 1 non-Daemon Prince hero that has a command trait to be your general, and they remain your general until your next hero phase.
;Command Ability - Rally the Tribes: At the end of your movement phase, the model that is currently your general can summon 1 unit of 10 Chaos Marauders, 1 unit of 5 Marauder Horsemen, or 1 Cultist units of up to 10 models wholly within 6" of the battlefield edge and more than 9" away from enemy units. A model cannot be chosen more than once per battle to rally.

====Command Traits====
1. '''Bolstered by Hate''': +2 wounds.

2. '''Unquestioned Resolve''' Once per turn, you can use one of the basic 3 command abilities without a command point if the target is a CULTISTS unit.

3. '''Favoured by the Pantheon''': When rolling on the Eye of the Gods table, you can add or subtract 2 from the result.

4. '''Eternal Vendetta''': Reroll wound rolls. If you're attacking ORDER units, you can reroll hit rolls.

5. '''Flames of Spite''': Unmodified wound rolls of 6 do a mortal wound in addition to normal damage.

6. '''Master of Deception''': -1 to be hit by melee weapons.

====Artefact====
1. '''Hellfire Sword''': Once per battle in the shooting phase, pick a visible enemy unit within 8". Target takes D3 mortal wounds. Pass; a wizard already has better ways to deal Mortal Wounds and a combat character should have their combat capability boosted.

2. '''Blasphemous Curse''': 5+ FNP.

3. '''Helm of the Oppressor''': 6" -1 bravery aura.

4. '''Cloak of the Relentless Conquerer''': Reroll charge rolls.

5. '''Mark of the High-Favoured''': Aura of Chaos increases to 18" when affecting RAVAGERS units.

6. '''Desecrated Gauntlets''': -2 to casting rolls for enemy wizards within 3", also +1 to wound rolls on a target with the WIZARD or PRIEST keyword. Good on a wizard hunting character.

===Cabalists===
Magic! Rituals! Killing your friends to power up!

;Lore - Crippling Pain: All CABALISTS wizards know this in addition to any other spells. CV7. Target visible enemy unit within 18" suffers D3 mortal wounds. In addition, target unit has its movement characteristic reduced by a value equal to the mortal wounds suffered by this spell.
;Trait - Binding Rituals: At the start of your hero phase, 1 CABALISTS WIZARD can perform a ritual.

====Rituals====
1. '''Ritual of Sorcerous Might''': Pick a friendly CABALISTS unit within 3" of the caster. On a 3+, the friendly unit loses D3 models. For each model that was slain, all your CABALISTS WIZARDS get +1 to casting rolls until the end of the phase.

2. '''Ritual of Corruption''': Pick a friendly CABALISTS unit within 3" of the caster. On a 3+, the friendly unit loses D3 models. Then you pick a predatory endless spell within 12" of the wizard performing the ritual. You can move it 3" for each model that was slain.

====Command Traits====
1. '''Bolstered by Hate''': +2 wounds.

2. '''Lord of Terror''': 6" -1 bravery aura.

3. '''Favoured by the Pantheon''': When rolling on the Eye of the Gods table, you can add or subtract 2 from the result.

4. '''Mighty Ritualist''': Ritual of Sorcerous Might succeeds on a 2+ instead of a 3+.

5. '''Blasphemous Influence''': Ritual of Corruption succeeds on a 2+ instead of a 3+.

6. '''All for One''': Once per battle, when your general successfully performs a ritual, for each model slain, he heals 1 wound.

====Artefact====
1. '''Soul Feeder''': Pick a melee weapon. Unmodified wound rolls of 6 heal the bearer by 1.

2. '''Black Athame''': Once per battle, the bearer can automatically succeed on a ritual, no roll required.

3. '''Infernal Puppet''': Once per battle in your hero phase, pick a visible enemy wizard within 24". In your opponent's next hero phase, each time that wizard tries to cast, they take D3 mortal wounds before they roll to cast. If they are slain by the mortal wounds, the spell they were attempting to cast automatically fails.

4. '''Spelleater Pendant''': Bearer gains the WIZARD keyword. They can attempt to unbind 1 spell. If already a wizard, they can unbind an extra spell.

5. '''Scroll of Dark Unravelling''': Once per battle, you can automatically unbind a spell without rolling.

6. '''Spell Familiar''': Know an extra lore spell.

===Despoilers===
Daemon Princes Ho!

;Trait - Sacrilegious Might: Your general's Aura of Chaos is 18". In addition, your Daemon Princes have a 5+ FNP.
;Trait - Blessed by the Unholy: In your hero phase, roll for each of your Daemon Princes and monsters. On a 4+, they heal D3 mortal wounds. Mutalith Vortex Beasts heal only 1 wound.
;Trait - Twisted Dominion: When your Daemon Princes finish a move within 6" of a terrain feature, you can give it the Pitch-black and Nightmare Chasm rules. Despoilers Daemon Princes and Despoilers Monsters are unaffected by these.

'''Pitch-black''': If a straight line between two models passes over more than 1" of this terrain, they are not visible to each other.

'''Nightmare Chasm''': At the start of each hero phase, on a 6+, each unit within 1" of this suffers D3 mortal wounds (wounds rolled separately for each unit).

====Command Traits====
1. '''Bolstered by Hate''': +2 wounds.

2. '''Lord of Terror''': 6" -1 bravery aura.

3. '''Lightning Reflexes''': -1 to be hit by missile weapons.

4. '''Radiance of Dark Glory''': In your hero phase, pick a friendly Despoilers unit wholly within 18". On a 3+, heal that unit D3 wounds.

5. '''Distorting Miasma''': Your general can use Twisted Dominion within 9" instead of 6".

6. '''Paragon of Ruin''': After set-up but before the first battle round begins, D3 Despoilers units can move up to 5".

====Artefact====
1. '''Crown of Hellish Adoration''': Look Out Sir also applies a -1 to wound rolls for this model.

2. '''Helm of Many Eyes''': Bearer and their mount fight first.

3. '''Armour of Tormented Souls''': Attacks targeting this hero have their rend reduced by 1.

4. '''Diabolic Mantle''': If the bearer starts the first battle round on the battlefield, get D3 command points.

5. '''Doombringer Blade''': After set-up but before the first battle round begins, pick an enemy hero or monster. Friendly Despoilers units can reroll hit and wound rolls when targeting that model.

6. '''Realmwarper's Twistrune''': Friendly Despoilers units wholly within 12" are unaffected by the Pitch-black and Nightmare Chasm rules

===Host of the Everchosen===
ALL HAIL ARCHAON, EVERCHOSEN AND SUPREME BEING. NO COMMAND TRAITS FOR YOU. NO ARTEFACTS FOR YOU. ONLY ARCHAON.

;Trait - Exalted Grand Marshall of the Apocalypse: If Archaon is your general and on the battlefield, his Aura of Chaos is 18".
;Trait - Fearless in His Presence: If Archaon is your general and on the battlefield, friendly units are immune to battleshock.
;Trait - The Will of the Everchosen: If Archaon is your general and on the battlefield, in your hero phase you can pick 1 enemy unit on the battlefield. You can reroll hit and wound rolls of 1 for melee weapons by Host of the Everchosen units targeting that unit until your next hero phase.
;Command Ability - Dark Prophecy: If Archaon is your general and on the battlefield, you can use this at the start of your hero phase. Roll a die and keep it hidden from your opponent. Reveal it at the start of the next battle round before determining who goes first. On a 1-3, your opponent must take the first turn. On a 4-6, you must take the first turn.

====The Eight Circles of the Varanguard====
Pick one. All Varanguard units share this.

1. At the start of the first battle round, before determining who gets first turn, you can redeploy Varanguard with this.

2. -1 to bravery for enemy units within 6". In addition, if enemy units within 6" fail a battleshock test, D3 extra models flee.

3. -1 to hit rolls for missile attacks targeting these Varanguard.

4. In your hero phase, pick 1 terrain feature within 3" of any unit of your Varanguard. Each enemy unit within 3" of it takes D3 mortal wounds, rolled separately for each enemy unit.

5. Reroll hit and wound rolls for attacks targeting a HERO or MONSTER.

6. +1 damage on the turn that you charge.

7. At the end of the combat phase, if your Varanguard destroyed an enemy '''unit''', that Varanguard unit heals D3 wounds.

8. Your Varanguard can fly.

==Warscrolls==

===Heroes===
====Named====
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Belakor_eng.pdf Belakor]:''' Having somehow escaped Alarielle's ruby from The End Times, the Dark Master is back and trolling with the best of them. Has Ghostly immunity to rend and heals from Battleshocks. His best ability is The Dark Master: During deployment, pick 1 enemy unit, then reveal which unit you picked to your opponent before the first turn. Every time that unit wants to move, shoot, cast a spell or attack in combat, they have to roll a dice and can only do so on a 5+. This ability is straight busted.
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Archaon_eng.pdf Archaon The Everchosen]''': (DAEMON, KHORNE, TZEENTCH, NURGLE, SLAANESH, HEDONITE, UNDIVIDED, MONSTER, 800pts.) The heads no longer work all at once, but one of the three abilities can be used once each hero phase; the Khorne head heals D3 wounds, the Tzeentch head can stop one endless spell within 18" and the Nurgle head has a breath weapon that does D3 Mortal Wounds on a 3+. Archaon is as tanky as ever, but can also rebound Mortal Wounds on a 6+ (note this doesn't specify combat, so it effects wizards and shooting units too). He also provides a free command point each hero phase when he's on the table. Also gimps Death Armies, as the Eye of Sheerian means any hit rolls of 6 that target him must be re-rolled.
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Theddra_Skull-Scryer_eng.pdf Theddra Skull-Scryer]''':
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Godsworn_Hunt_eng.pdf Godsworn Hunt]''':
{{anchor|FWSayl}}
*'''[https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/resources/fw_site/fw_pdfs/aos_warscrolls/Downloads-AoS/aos-warscroll-sayl-and-nightmaw.pdf Sayl the Faithless]:''' (Forgeworld) A nice wizard. Only casting one spell a turn is disappointing, but his special Traitor's Mist spell makes up for it, Teleport one friendly '''SLAVES TO DARKNESS''' unit wholly within 15" for a casting value of 7. This is just as horrendous and hilarious as it sounds, especially if used on a big mob of Chosen or a Mammoth to help them cross the distance to the enemy quicker. Can also deal D3 mortal wounds to a unit within 8", which can be handy for picking off wounded heroes or forcing battleshock. Finally, if Nightmaw is around (less than 3" away) Sayl can redirect his wounds on him/her/it on a 4+.

{{anchor|FWNightmaw}}
*'''[https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/resources/fw_site/fw_pdfs/aos_warscrolls/Downloads-AoS/aos-warscroll-sayl-and-nightmaw.pdf Nightmaw]:''' (Forgeworld) Sayl's pet is a cute little hellspawn devoted to his master. 6HP, a 4+ save (increased to 3+ against spells and shooting) coupled with a special 5+ save against mortal wounds, as well as healing himself 1 wound per turn, makes him a competent enough distraction. He is capable of tying up and slowly making his way through a basic infantry unit, but he should only really be considered to tank wounds for Sayl.

====Generic====
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Chaos_Lord_eng.pdf Chaos Lord]''': (110pts.)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Chaos_Lord_on_Demonic_Mount_eng.pdf Lord on Daemonic Mount]''': (170pts.)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Chaos_Lord_on_Karkadrak_eng.pdf Chaos Lord on Karkadrak]:''' (250pts.)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Chaos_Lord_on_Manticore_eng.pdf Chaos Lord on Manticore]''': (Monster, Behemoth, 280 pts.)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Deamon_Prince_eng.pdf Daemon Prince]''': (210pts.)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Exalted_Hero_of_Chaos_eng.pdf Exalted Hero of Chaos]''': (90pts.)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Chaos_Sorcerer_Lord_eng.pdf Chaos Sorcerer Lord]''': (110pts.)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Chaos_Sorcerer_Lord_on_Manticore_eng.pdf Chaos Sorcerer Lord on Manticore]''': (Monster, Behemoth, 260 pts.)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Gaunt_Summoner_eng.pdf Gaunt Summoner on Disc of Tzeentch]''': (260pts.)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Darkoath_Chieftain_2019_eng.pdf Darkoath Chieftain]''': (90pts.)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Darkoath_Warqueen_eng.pdf Darkoath Warqueen]''': (90pts.)

*'''Ogroid Myrmidon:''' (140pts.)

===Units===
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Chaos_Warriors_eng.pdf Chaos Warriors]''': (Battleline Min5, Max:30 100pts.)
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Chaos_Chosen_eng.pdf Chaos Chosen]''': (Min5, Max:30, -pts.)
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Chaos_Marauders_eng.pdf Chaos Marauders]''': (Battleline Min20, Max:40 120pts.)
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Chaos_Marauder_Horsemen_eng.pdf Chaos Marauder Horsemen]''': (Battleline in StD Min5, Max:30 80pts.)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Chaos_Knights_eng.pdf Chaos Knights]''': (Battleline in StD Min5, Max:30, -pts.)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Chaos_Chariots_eng.pdf Chaos Chariot]''':

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Gorebeast_Chariots_eng.pdf Gorebeast Chariot]''': (150pts)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Chaos_Warshrine_eng.pdf Chaos Warshrine]''': ( TOTEM, PRIEST, Behimoth, 170pts)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Varanguard_eng.pdf Varanguard]''': (Min:3, Max:12, 300pts)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Furies_eng.pdf Furies]''':

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Raptoryx_eng.pdf Raptoryx]''':

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Soul_Grinder_eng.pdf Soul Grinder]:'''

*'''Fomoroid Crusher:''' (Monster, 100pts) a big brute, having a ogor charge, throw stones, and infict MW to other units that think they can hid in a terrain.

*'''Mindstealer Sphiranx:''' (Monster, 100pts) a big psychic cat, able to support offensives with 12" of -2 bravery and make an enemy fight last. With the right pairings, you can impose a -4 Bravery.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Slaughterbrute_eng.pdf Slaughterbrute]:''' (Monster, Behimoth, 170pts)
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Mutalith_Vortec_Beast_eng.pdf Mutalith Vortex Beast]:''' (Monster, Behimoth, 170pts)

*'''[https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/resources/PDF/fw_warscrolls/aos-monstrous-arcanum.pdf#page=7 Chaos War Mammoth]:''' (Forgeworld) This monster has 22 wounds! Although it's only packing a 5+ save. All of his attacks cause at least D3 wounds, making it an exceptional monster-killer when at full strength. Its real strength lies in supporting a Marauder charge, however - as well as imposing -2 to any Battleshock tests to any unfortunate unit that gets charged, the Mammoth can also help Marauder or Marauder Horsemen get in a little extra movement and increase their damage output in combat. Wounding and even killing this thing just makes it cause more damage. If you're playing with a big Chaos horde then there's no finer feeling than running this guy into the enemy's biggest and toughest-looking infantry blob, although expect a few dirty looks for doing so. Keep in mind that he doesn't like magic missiles or war machine fire, however.
{{anchor|FWCurs}}
*'''[https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/resources/PDF/fw_warscrolls/aos-monstrous-arcanum.pdf#page=9 Curs’d Ettin]:''' (Forgeworld) A two-headed monstrosity. Its fists can do plenty of damage and heal if it kills something, has plenty of stomp attacks. it has an attack similar to Banshees that effect every enemy unit within 3" and deals D3 Mortal wounds if you beat its leadership on a 2d6. it also has an ability to kill a single model with less than 3 wounds on a 6+ giving you the of a chance to kill a pesky leader, Special weapon or Musician.

====Cultists====
The original warbands from Warcy. Generally they all play as Marauders with special gimmicks. Though they now have more synergy with the Hero units, making them arguably more viable.
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Iron_Golems_eng.pdf Iron Golem]''':
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Splintered_Fang_eng.pdf Splintered Fang]''':
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_The_Unmade_eng.pdf The Unmade]''':
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Corvus_Cabal_eng.pdf Corvus Cabal]''':
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Cipher_Lords_eng.pdf Cipher Lords]''':
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Untamed_Beasts_eng.pdf Untamed Beasts]''':
*'''Spire Tyrants:'''

==Battalions==
*'''Chaos Horde:''' Your megabattalion. 1 Godsworn Champions of Ruin + 4-8 battalions of any combination from the rest. Once per turn, you can use 1 command ability for any unit from this battalion for free, and units from this battalion get +2" movement for the first battle round.

*'''Godsworn Champions of Ruin:'''

*'''Godswrath Warband:'''

*'''Ruinbringer Warband:'''

*'''Overlords of Chaos:''' 3-6 Host of the Everchosen Varanguard. Each unit gets a circle. Unclear if it's in addition to, or instead of. See Host of the Everchosen for more details.

The following Battalions can ''also'' be used in their respective god allegiance.

*'''Bloodmarked Warband:''' Khorne Warband. 1 Mortal STD Khorne Hero, 8 Mortal STD Khorne units. If a hero from this btn slays any models during the combat phase, you can pick a unit from this battalion wholly within 12" of said hero. That unit gains +1 attack until your next hero phase. A unit cannot benefit from this more than once per battle round.

*'''Fatesworn Warband:''' Tzeentch Warband. 1 Mortal STD Tzeentch Hero, 9 Mortal STD Tzeentch units. At the start of your hero phase, one unit from the battalion can become able to cast 1 spell and dispel 1 endless spell. It also knows the Stolen Sting spell: CV7, target a visible enemy unit within 18". Target's melee weapons have their rend worsened by 1.

*'''Plaguetouched Warband:''' Nurgle Warband. 1 Mortal STD Nurgle Hero, 7 Mortal STD Nurgle units. Unmodified wound rolls of 6 on attacks targeting units from this btn result in the attacker taking 1 mortal wound. Also, in your hero phase, pick an enemy target within 1" of any unit in the battalion. On a 3+, that enemy unit take D3 MW.

*'''Pleasurebound Warband:''' Slaanesh Warband. 1 Mortal STD Slaanesh Hero, 7 Mortal STD Slaanesh units. If a model from this btn dies during the combat phase, units from this btn can pile in an extra 6" until your next hero phase.

==Allied Armies==
*'''Beasts of Chaos'''
*'''Blades of Khorne'''
*'''Maggotkin of Nurgle'''
*'''Hedonites of Slaanesh'''
*'''Disciples of Tzeentch'''

===Mercenary Companies===
*'''Blacksmoke Battery:''' Chaos Dorfs with artillery but not really Chaos Dorfs.
*'''Greyfyrd:'''
*'''Grugg Brothers:''' Up to three Gargants that can reroll hits when near each other. A bit expensive but definitely worth it.
*'''Gutstuffers:''' Bring back the chaos ogres of old for some adaptable heavy hitters and hoard clearance.
*'''Nimyard’s Rough-Riders:'''
*'''Order of the Blood-Drenched Rose:''' Remember how in the World-That-Was Isabella Von Carsteain was resurrected as a servant of Nurgle while being possessed by a demon? You can bring her back as a vampire lord, also followed by a bunch of other vampires! Arguably you don’t need them since you got the Varanguard and Chaos Knights already, but at least you got options.
*'''Rampagers:''' Only reason you’re take this is for the troll factor of a near-endless movement phase. Other wise, pass.
*'''Skroug’s Menagerie:''' Want some Chaos beasts without breaking allegiance? Well here you go.
*'''Sons of the Lichemaster:'''
*'''Tenebrous Court:'''

{{Age_of_Sigmar_Tactics}}

[[Category:Age of Sigmar]] [[Category:Age of Sigmar/Tactics]]

Age of Sigmar/Tactics/Chaos/Slaves to Darkness

2019-12-09T03:22:30Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:290B:BAAA:92F2:A623: /* Named */

{{Age of Sigmar Faction|Faction=Slaves to Darkness|Logo=Archaon Book.jpg|Alliance=Chaos|Motto=}}

The old warriors of chaos enter the Mortal Realms as the re-done Slaves to Darkness. The Slaves to Darkness fight for any of the chaos gods or the gods as a pantheon, and can be built in a variety of ways with plenty opportunity for synergy between heroes and units.

==Why Play Slaves to Darkness?==
===Pros===
* Reuses Warriors of Chaos models from WFB, making them a quasi-old-school faction (or at least a money-saver).
* Pals with most other Chaos factions, giving providing a wide range of allies, allegiances, and playstyles.
* You have lots of options for battleline units.
* If you have war bands from Warcry, you can include them in your army lists.
* Your faction leader's killed a world, so his credentials are beyond reproach.

===Cons===
* Your faction acronym is "[[Nurgle|S]][[Slaanesh|T]][[/d/|D]]"
* Traits and abilities are now specifically for Slaves to Darkness, which isn't a con for this army, but hurts value in other Chaos armies.

==Allegiance Abilities==

===Battle Traits===
If your army has a '''SLAVES TO DARKNESS''' allegiance and chose to take the '''SLAVES TO DARKNESS''' allegiance abilities, it has the following rules:

'''Damned Legions''': You '''must''' belong to one of these. If a model already has a keyword from one, they cannot gain another, it can still be included in your army but it can't benefit from the allegiance ability of that legion. Legions are: Ravagers, Cabalists, Despoilers, or the Host of the Everchosen.

'''Aura of Chaos Power''': '''SLAVES TO DARKNESS HEROES''' can grant an ability to friendly '''SLAVES TO DARKNESS''' units which have the same Mark of Chaos as them. The units in receipt of the ability must be within x" of the HERO when they use the ability. A unit that is within x" of more than one friendly '''SLAVES TO DARKNESS HERO''' can only use the Aura of Chaos Power from one of them. If a model has more than one mark of Chaos, '''you can only choose one and it lasts for the duration of the battle'''. Sorry Archaon.

The abilities are:

*'''''Khorne''''': Re-roll hit rolls of 1 for attacks made with melee weapons by a unit granted this ability wholly within 12". If the aura-holder is the general, you get +1 to wound as well.
*'''''Slaanesh''''': Unmodified hit rolls of 6 explode into 2 attacks for a unit granted this ability wholly within 12". If the aura-holder is the general, you can reroll run and charge rolls as well.
*'''''Nurgle''''': Unmodified wound rolls of 6 get +1 damage for a unit granted this ability wholly within 12". If the aura-holder is the general, you get -1 to be hit by missile weapons as well.
*'''''Tzeentch''''': Re-roll save rolls of 1 for a unit granted this ability wholly within 12". If the aura-holder is the general, 5+ optional roll to ignore spell effects.
*'''''Undivided''''': Don't take battleshock for units granted this ability wholly within 12". If the aura-holder is the general, you get 6+ FNP.

Basically a variant to the Warshrine's '''Favour of the Ruinous Powers''', without the need to pray. Solid enough already.

'''Eye of the Gods''': If a '''SLAVES TO DARKNESS HERO''' with the '''EYE OF THE GODS''' keyword makes an attack in a combat phase that slays one or more enemy '''HEROES''' or '''MONSTERS''', at the end of the combat phase, make a roll on the table below after the HERO’S attacks have been completed. Duplicates are treated like a 7 - nothing happens.

{|class="wikitable col1cen col2cen center" style="width:300px"
|-
||'''2D6'''
||'''Reward'''
|-
||'''2'''
||'''Spawndom''': You can add a Chaos Spawn to your army. If you do, set up a Chaos Spawn model within 1" of the '''HERO''', and then remove the hero. The Chaos Spawn does not cost reinforcement points in a Pitched Battle. It cannot attack in the phase in which it is set up. If you do not add a Chaos Spawn to your army, the hero suffers D3 mortal wounds instead.
|-
||'''3'''
||'''Slaughterer's Strength''': Pick a melee weapon for this '''HERO'''. Improve its rend by 1.
|-
||'''4'''
||'''Murderous Mutation''': Pick a melee weapon for this '''HERO'''. Add 1 to its attacks.
|-
||'''5'''
||'''Iron Flesh''': Add 1 to the '''HERO'''’s save rolls for the rest of the battle.
|-
||'''6'''
||'''Flames of Chaos''': The '''HERO''' can choose to ignore a spell or endless spell on a 5+.
|-
||'''7'''
||'''Snubbed by the Gods''': Your hero burps. Nothing else happens.
|-
||'''8'''
||'''Unholy Resilience''': The '''HERO''' gets a 5+ FNP.
|-
||'''9-10'''
||'''Daemonic Legions''': Add a unit to your army. Unit added depends on your '''HERO'''’s mark. 10 Bloodletters for Khorne, 10 Pink Horrors for Tzeentch, 10 Daemonettes for Slaanesh, 10 Plaguebearers for Nurgle, or 6 Furies for Undivided.
|-
||'''11-12'''
||'''Dark Apotheosis''': You can add a Daemon Prince to your army. If you do, set up a Daemon Prince model within 1" of the '''HERO''', and then remove the hero. The Daemon Prince does not cost reinforcement points in a Pitched Battle. If the '''HERO''' was a wizard, the Daemon Prince is a wizard. If you do not add a Daemon Prince to your army, you can heal D3 wounds instead.
|-
|}

===Lore of the Damned===
1. '''Binding Damnation''': CV7. Visible target within 12" fights last until your next hero phase.

2. '''Spike-tongue Curse''': CV3. Visible target within 12" takes 3 mortal wounds. If this is unsuccessful or is unnbound, the caster takes 3 mortal wounds.

3. '''Whispers of Chaos''': CV7. Roll 1d6 for each model in a visible target unit within 12". For each 6, target unit takes 1 MW. If any models were slain, the target unit cannot move until your next hero phase.

4. '''Mask of Darkness''': CV7. Pick a visible MORTAL SLAVES TO DARKNESS unit wholly within 12". That unit teleports anywhere outside of 9" of enemy models and can't move in the subsequent movement phase.

5. '''Call to Glory''': CV5. Pick a visible SLAVES TO DARKNESS HERO unit wholly within 12". They can reroll hit and wound rolls when attacking a HERO or MONSTER until your next hero phase.

6. '''Ruinous Vigour''': CV6. Pick a visible SLAVES TO DARKNESS MONSTER unit wholly within 12". They act as though they haven't taken wounds for the purposes of the wounds table.

===Endless Spells===
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Eightfold_Doom-Sigil_eng.pdf Eightford Doom-sigil]:'''

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Darkfire_Daemonrift_eng.pdf Darkfire Daemonrift]:'''

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Reamscourge_Rapture_eng.pdf Reamscourge Rapture]:'''

==Damned Legions==
===Ravagers===
All Mortals All Day. More Generals, more Marauders, more Cultists.

;Trait - Glory for the Taking: If your general is '''not''' a Daemon Prince, up to 5 Ravagers Heroes get a command trait. No duplicates, and only 1 on each. At the start of your hero phase, you can pick 1 non-Daemon Prince hero that has a command trait to be your general, and they remain your general until your next hero phase.
;Command Ability - Rally the Tribes: At the end of your movement phase, the model that is currently your general can summon 1 unit of 10 Chaos Marauders, 1 unit of 5 Marauder Horsemen, or 1 Cultist units of up to 10 models wholly within 6" of the battlefield edge and more than 9" away from enemy units. A model cannot be chosen more than once per battle to rally.

====Command Traits====
1. '''Bolstered by Hate''': +2 wounds.

2. '''Unquestioned Resolve''' Once per turn, you can use one of the basic 3 command abilities without a command point if the target is a CULTISTS unit.

3. '''Favoured by the Pantheon''': When rolling on the Eye of the Gods table, you can add or subtract 2 from the result.

4. '''Eternal Vendetta''': Reroll wound rolls. If you're attacking ORDER units, you can reroll hit rolls.

5. '''Flames of Spite''': Unmodified wound rolls of 6 do a mortal wound in addition to normal damage.

6. '''Master of Deception''': -1 to be hit by melee weapons.

====Artefact====
1. '''Hellfire Sword''': Once per battle in the shooting phase, pick a visible enemy unit within 8". Target takes D3 mortal wounds. Pass; a wizard already has better ways to deal Mortal Wounds and a combat character should have their combat capability boosted.

2. '''Blasphemous Curse''': 5+ FNP.

3. '''Helm of the Oppressor''': 6" -1 bravery aura.

4. '''Cloak of the Relentless Conquerer''': Reroll charge rolls.

5. '''Mark of the High-Favoured''': Aura of Chaos increases to 18" when affecting RAVAGERS units.

6. '''Desecrated Gauntlets''': -2 to casting rolls for enemy wizards within 3", also +1 to wound rolls on a target with the WIZARD or PRIEST keyword. Good on a wizard hunting character.

===Cabalists===
Magic! Rituals! Killing your friends to power up!

;Lore - Crippling Pain: All CABALISTS wizards know this in addition to any other spells. CV7. Target visible enemy unit within 18" suffers D3 mortal wounds. In addition, target unit has its movement characteristic reduced by a value equal to the mortal wounds suffered by this spell.
;Trait - Binding Rituals: At the start of your hero phase, 1 CABALISTS WIZARD can perform a ritual.

====Rituals====
1. '''Ritual of Sorcerous Might''': Pick a friendly CABALISTS unit within 3" of the caster. On a 3+, the friendly unit loses D3 models. For each model that was slain, all your CABALISTS WIZARDS get +1 to casting rolls until the end of the phase.

2. '''Ritual of Corruption''': Pick a friendly CABALISTS unit within 3" of the caster. On a 3+, the friendly unit loses D3 models. Then you pick a predatory endless spell within 12" of the wizard performing the ritual. You can move it 3" for each model that was slain.

====Command Traits====
1. '''Bolstered by Hate''': +2 wounds.

2. '''Lord of Terror''': 6" -1 bravery aura.

3. '''Favoured by the Pantheon''': When rolling on the Eye of the Gods table, you can add or subtract 2 from the result.

4. '''Mighty Ritualist''': Ritual of Sorcerous Might succeeds on a 2+ instead of a 3+.

5. '''Blasphemous Influence''': Ritual of Corruption succeeds on a 2+ instead of a 3+.

6. '''All for One''': Once per battle, when your general successfully performs a ritual, for each model slain, he heals 1 wound.

====Artefact====
1. '''Soul Feeder''': Pick a melee weapon. Unmodified wound rolls of 6 heal the bearer by 1.

2. '''Black Athame''': Once per battle, the bearer can automatically succeed on a ritual, no roll required.

3. '''Infernal Puppet''': Once per battle in your hero phase, pick a visible enemy wizard within 24". In your opponent's next hero phase, each time that wizard tries to cast, they take D3 mortal wounds before they roll to cast. If they are slain by the mortal wounds, the spell they were attempting to cast automatically fails.

4. '''Spelleater Pendant''': Bearer gains the WIZARD keyword. They can attempt to unbind 1 spell. If already a wizard, they can unbind an extra spell.

5. '''Scroll of Dark Unravelling''': Once per battle, you can automatically unbind a spell without rolling.

6. '''Spell Familiar''': Know an extra lore spell.

===Despoilers===
Daemon Princes Ho!

;Trait - Sacrilegious Might: Your general's Aura of Chaos is 18". In addition, your Daemon Princes have a 5+ FNP.
;Trait - Blessed by the Unholy: In your hero phase, roll for each of your Daemon Princes and monsters. On a 4+, they heal D3 mortal wounds. Mutalith Vortex Beasts heal only 1 wound.
;Trait - Twisted Dominion: When your Daemon Princes finish a move within 6" of a terrain feature, you can give it the Pitch-black and Nightmare Chasm rules. Despoilers Daemon Princes and Despoilers Monsters are unaffected by these.

'''Pitch-black''': If a straight line between two models passes over more than 1" of this terrain, they are not visible to each other.

'''Nightmare Chasm''': At the start of each hero phase, on a 6+, each unit within 1" of this suffers D3 mortal wounds (wounds rolled separately for each unit).

====Command Traits====
1. '''Bolstered by Hate''': +2 wounds.

2. '''Lord of Terror''': 6" -1 bravery aura.

3. '''Lightning Reflexes''': -1 to be hit by missile weapons.

4. '''Radiance of Dark Glory''': In your hero phase, pick a friendly Despoilers unit wholly within 18". On a 3+, heal that unit D3 wounds.

5. '''Distorting Miasma''': Your general can use Twisted Dominion within 9" instead of 6".

6. '''Paragon of Ruin''': After set-up but before the first battle round begins, D3 Despoilers units can move up to 5".

====Artefact====
1. '''Crown of Hellish Adoration''': Look Out Sir also applies a -1 to wound rolls for this model.

2. '''Helm of Many Eyes''': Bearer and their mount fight first.

3. '''Armour of Tormented Souls''': Attacks targeting this hero have their rend reduced by 1.

4. '''Diabolic Mantle''': If the bearer starts the first battle round on the battlefield, get D3 command points.

5. '''Doombringer Blade''': After set-up but before the first battle round begins, pick an enemy hero or monster. Friendly Despoilers units can reroll hit and wound rolls when targeting that model.

6. '''Realmwarper's Twistrune''': Friendly Despoilers units wholly within 12" are unaffected by the Pitch-black and Nightmare Chasm rules

===Host of the Everchosen===
ALL HAIL ARCHAON, EVERCHOSEN AND SUPREME BEING. NO COMMAND TRAITS FOR YOU. NO ARTEFACTS FOR YOU. ONLY ARCHAON.

;Trait - Exalted Grand Marshall of the Apocalypse: If Archaon is your general and on the battlefield, his Aura of Chaos is 18".
;Trait - Fearless in His Presence: If Archaon is your general and on the battlefield, friendly units are immune to battleshock.
;Trait - The Will of the Everchosen: If Archaon is your general and on the battlefield, in your hero phase you can pick 1 enemy unit on the battlefield. You can reroll hit and wound rolls of 1 for melee weapons by Host of the Everchosen units targeting that unit until your next hero phase.
;Command Ability - Dark Prophecy: If Archaon is your general and on the battlefield, you can use this at the start of your hero phase. Roll a die and keep it hidden from your opponent. Reveal it at the start of the next battle round before determining who goes first. On a 1-3, your opponent must take the first turn. On a 4-6, you must take the first turn.

====The Eight Circles of the Varanguard====
Pick one. All Varanguard units share this.

1. At the start of the first battle round, before determining who gets first turn, you can redeploy Varanguard with this.

2. -1 to bravery for enemy units within 6". In addition, if enemy units within 6" fail a battleshock test, D3 extra models flee.

3. -1 to hit rolls for missile attacks targeting these Varanguard.

4. In your hero phase, pick 1 terrain feature within 3" of any unit of your Varanguard. Each enemy unit within 3" of it takes D3 mortal wounds, rolled separately for each enemy unit.

5. Reroll hit and wound rolls for attacks targeting a HERO or MONSTER.

6. +1 damage on the turn that you charge.

7. At the end of the combat phase, if your Varanguard destroyed an enemy '''unit''', that Varanguard unit heals D3 wounds.

8. Your Varanguard can fly.

==Warscrolls==

===Heroes===
====Named====
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Belakor_eng.pdf Belakor]:''' Having somehow escaped Alarielle's ruby from The End Times, the Dark Master is back and trolling with the best of them. Has Ghostly immunity to rend and heals from Battleshocks. His best ability is The Dark Master: Before the first turn, pick 1 enemy unit, then reveal which unit you picked to your opponent before then. Every time that unit wants to move, shoot, cast a spell or attack in combat, they have to roll a dice and can only do so on a 5+. This ability is straight busted.
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Archaon_eng.pdf Archaon The Everchosen]''': (DAEMON, KHORNE, TZEENTCH, NURGLE, SLAANESH, UNDIVIDED, MONSTER, 800pts.) The heads no longer work all at once, but one of the three abilities can be used once each hero phase; the Khorne head heals D3 wounds, the Tzeentch can stop one endless spell within 18" and the Nurgle head has a breath weapon that does D3 Mortal Wounds. Archaon is as tanky as ever, but can also rebound Mortal Wounds on a 6+ (note this doesn't specify combat, so it effects wizards and shooting units too).
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Theddra_Skull-Scryer_eng.pdf Theddra Skull-Scryer]''':
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Godsworn_Hunt_eng.pdf Godsworn Hunt]''':
{{anchor|FWSayl}}
*'''[https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/resources/fw_site/fw_pdfs/aos_warscrolls/Downloads-AoS/aos-warscroll-sayl-and-nightmaw.pdf Sayl the Faithless]:''' (Forgeworld) A nice wizard. Only casting one spell a turn is disappointing, but his special Traitor's Mist spell makes up for it, Teleport one friendly '''SLAVES TO DARKNESS''' unit wholly within 15" for a casting value of 7. This is just as horrendous and hilarious as it sounds, especially if used on a big mob of Chosen or a Mammoth to help them cross the distance to the enemy quicker. Can also deal D3 mortal wounds to a unit within 8", which can be handy for picking off wounded heroes or forcing battleshock. Finally, if Nightmaw is around (less than 3" away) Sayl can redirect his wounds on him/her/it on a 4+.

{{anchor|FWNightmaw}}
*'''[https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/resources/fw_site/fw_pdfs/aos_warscrolls/Downloads-AoS/aos-warscroll-sayl-and-nightmaw.pdf Nightmaw]:''' (Forgeworld) Sayl's pet is a cute little hellspawn devoted to his master. 6HP, a 4+ save (increased to 3+ against spells and shooting) coupled with a special 5+ save against mortal wounds, as well as healing himself 1 wound per turn, makes him a competent enough distraction. He is capable of tying up and slowly making his way through a basic infantry unit, but he should only really be considered to tank wounds for Sayl.

====Generic====
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Chaos_Lord_eng.pdf Chaos Lord]''': (110pts.)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Chaos_Lord_on_Demonic_Mount_eng.pdf Lord on Daemonic Mount]''': (170pts.)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Chaos_Lord_on_Karkadrak_eng.pdf Chaos Lord on Karkadrak]:''' (250pts.)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Chaos_Lord_on_Manticore_eng.pdf Chaos Lord on Manticore]''': (Monster, Behemoth, 280 pts.)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Deamon_Prince_eng.pdf Daemon Prince]''': (210pts.)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Exalted_Hero_of_Chaos_eng.pdf Exalted Hero of Chaos]''': (90pts.)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Chaos_Sorcerer_Lord_eng.pdf Chaos Sorcerer Lord]''': (110pts.)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Chaos_Sorcerer_Lord_on_Manticore_eng.pdf Chaos Sorcerer Lord on Manticore]''': (Monster, Behemoth, 260 pts.)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Gaunt_Summoner_eng.pdf Gaunt Summoner on Disc of Tzeentch]''': (260pts.)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Darkoath_Chieftain_2019_eng.pdf Darkoath Chieftain]''': (90pts.)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Darkoath_Warqueen_eng.pdf Darkoath Warqueen]''': (90pts.)

*'''Ogroid Myrmidon:''' (140pts.)

===Units===
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Chaos_Warriors_eng.pdf Chaos Warriors]''': (Battleline Min5, Max:30 100pts.)
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Chaos_Chosen_eng.pdf Chaos Chosen]''': (Min5, Max:30, -pts.)
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Chaos_Marauders_eng.pdf Chaos Marauders]''': (Battleline Min20, Max:40 120pts.)
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Chaos_Marauder_Horsemen_eng.pdf Chaos Marauder Horsemen]''': (Battleline in StD Min5, Max:30 80pts.)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Chaos_Knights_eng.pdf Chaos Knights]''': (Battleline in StD Min5, Max:30, -pts.)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Chaos_Chariots_eng.pdf Chaos Chariot]''':

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Gorebeast_Chariots_eng.pdf Gorebeast Chariot]''': (150pts)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Chaos_Warshrine_eng.pdf Chaos Warshrine]''': ( TOTEM, PRIEST, Behimoth, 170pts)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Varanguard_eng.pdf Varanguard]''': (Min:3, Max:12, 300pts)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Furies_eng.pdf Furies]''':

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Raptoryx_eng.pdf Raptoryx]''':

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Soul_Grinder_eng.pdf Soul Grinder]:'''

*'''Fomoroid Crusher:''' (Monster, 100pts) a big brute, having a ogor charge, throw stones, and infict MW to other units that think they can hid in a terrain.

*'''Mindstealer Sphiranx:''' (Monster, 100pts) a big psychic cat, able to support offensives with 12" of -2 bravery and make an enemy fight last. With the right pairings, you can impose a -4 Bravery.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Slaughterbrute_eng.pdf Slaughterbrute]:''' (Monster, Behimoth, 170pts)
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Mutalith_Vortec_Beast_eng.pdf Mutalith Vortex Beast]:''' (Monster, Behimoth, 170pts)

*'''[https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/resources/PDF/fw_warscrolls/aos-monstrous-arcanum.pdf#page=7 Chaos War Mammoth]:''' (Forgeworld) This monster has 22 wounds! Although it's only packing a 5+ save. All of his attacks cause at least D3 wounds, making it an exceptional monster-killer when at full strength. Its real strength lies in supporting a Marauder charge, however - as well as imposing -2 to any Battleshock tests to any unfortunate unit that gets charged, the Mammoth can also help Marauder or Marauder Horsemen get in a little extra movement and increase their damage output in combat. Wounding and even killing this thing just makes it cause more damage. If you're playing with a big Chaos horde then there's no finer feeling than running this guy into the enemy's biggest and toughest-looking infantry blob, although expect a few dirty looks for doing so. Keep in mind that he doesn't like magic missiles or war machine fire, however.
{{anchor|FWCurs}}
*'''[https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/resources/PDF/fw_warscrolls/aos-monstrous-arcanum.pdf#page=9 Curs’d Ettin]:''' (Forgeworld) A two-headed monstrosity. Its fists can do plenty of damage and heal if it kills something, has plenty of stomp attacks. it has an attack similar to Banshees that effect every enemy unit within 3" and deals D3 Mortal wounds if you beat its leadership on a 2d6. it also has an ability to kill a single model with less than 3 wounds on a 6+ giving you the of a chance to kill a pesky leader, Special weapon or Musician.

====Cultists====
The original warbands from Warcy. Generally they all play as Marauders with special gimmicks. Though they now have more synergy with the Hero units, making them arguably more viable.
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Iron_Golems_eng.pdf Iron Golem]''':
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Splintered_Fang_eng.pdf Splintered Fang]''':
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_The_Unmade_eng.pdf The Unmade]''':
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Corvus_Cabal_eng.pdf Corvus Cabal]''':
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Cipher_Lords_eng.pdf Cipher Lords]''':
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Untamed_Beasts_eng.pdf Untamed Beasts]''':
*'''Spire Tyrants:'''

==Battalions==
*'''Chaos Horde:''' Your megabattalion. 1 Godsworn Champions of Ruin + 4-8 battalions of any combination from the rest. Once per turn, you can use 1 command ability for any unit from this battalion for free, and units from this battalion get +2" movement for the first battle round.

*'''Godsworn Champions of Ruin:'''

*'''Godswrath Warband:'''

*'''Ruinbringer Warband:'''

*'''Overlords of Chaos:''' 3-6 Host of the Everchosen Varanguard. Each unit gets a circle. Unclear if it's in addition to, or instead of. See Host of the Everchosen for more details.

The following Battalions can ''also'' be used in their respective god allegiance.

*'''Bloodmarked Warband:''' Khorne Warband. 1 Mortal STD Khorne Hero, 8 Mortal STD Khorne units. If a hero from this btn slays any models during the combat phase, you can pick a unit from this battalion wholly within 12" of said hero. That unit gains +1 attack until your next hero phase. A unit cannot benefit from this more than once per battle round.

*'''Fatesworn Warband:''' Tzeentch Warband. 1 Mortal STD Tzeentch Hero, 9 Mortal STD Tzeentch units. At the start of your hero phase, one unit from the battalion can become able to cast 1 spell and dispel 1 endless spell. It also knows the Stolen Sting spell: CV7, target a visible enemy unit within 18". Target's melee weapons have their rend worsened by 1.

*'''Plaguetouched Warband:''' Nurgle Warband. 1 Mortal STD Nurgle Hero, 7 Mortal STD Nurgle units. Unmodified wound rolls of 6 on attacks targeting units from this btn result in the attacker taking 1 mortal wound. Also, in your hero phase, pick an enemy target within 1" of any unit in the battalion. On a 3+, that enemy unit take D3 MW.

*'''Pleasurebound Warband:''' Slaanesh Warband. 1 Mortal STD Slaanesh Hero, 7 Mortal STD Slaanesh units. If a model from this btn dies during the combat phase, units from this btn can pile in an extra 6" until your next hero phase.

==Allied Armies==
*'''Beasts of Chaos'''
*'''Blades of Khorne'''
*'''Maggotkin of Nurgle'''
*'''Hedonites of Slaanesh'''
*'''Disciples of Tzeentch'''

===Mercenary Companies===
*'''Blacksmoke Battery:''' Chaos Dorfs with artillery but not really Chaos Dorfs.
*'''Greyfyrd:'''
*'''Grugg Brothers:''' Up to three Gargants that can reroll hits when near each other. A bit expensive but definitely worth it.
*'''Gutstuffers:''' Bring back the chaos ogres of old for some adaptable heavy hitters and hoard clearance.
*'''Nimyard’s Rough-Riders:'''
*'''Order of the Blood-Drenched Rose:''' Remember how in the World-That-Was Isabella Von Carsteain was resurrected as a servant of Nurgle while being possessed by a demon? You can bring her back as a vampire lord, also followed by a bunch of other vampires! Arguably you don’t need them since you got the Varanguard and Chaos Knights already, but at least you got options.
*'''Rampagers:''' Only reason you’re take this is for the troll factor of a near-endless movement phase. Other wise, pass.
*'''Skroug’s Menagerie:''' Want some Chaos beasts without breaking allegiance? Well here you go.
*'''Sons of the Lichemaster:'''
*'''Tenebrous Court:'''

{{Age_of_Sigmar_Tactics}}

[[Category:Age of Sigmar]] [[Category:Age of Sigmar/Tactics]]

Age of Sigmar/Tactics/Chaos/Slaves to Darkness

2019-12-09T03:16:05Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:290B:BAAA:92F2:A623: /* Artefact */

{{Age of Sigmar Faction|Faction=Slaves to Darkness|Logo=Archaon Book.jpg|Alliance=Chaos|Motto=}}

The old warriors of chaos enter the Mortal Realms as the re-done Slaves to Darkness. The Slaves to Darkness fight for any of the chaos gods or the gods as a pantheon, and can be built in a variety of ways with plenty opportunity for synergy between heroes and units.

==Why Play Slaves to Darkness?==
===Pros===
* Reuses Warriors of Chaos models from WFB, making them a quasi-old-school faction (or at least a money-saver).
* Pals with most other Chaos factions, giving providing a wide range of allies, allegiances, and playstyles.
* You have lots of options for battleline units.
* If you have war bands from Warcry, you can include them in your army lists.
* Your faction leader's killed a world, so his credentials are beyond reproach.

===Cons===
* Your faction acronym is "[[Nurgle|S]][[Slaanesh|T]][[/d/|D]]"
* Traits and abilities are now specifically for Slaves to Darkness, which isn't a con for this army, but hurts value in other Chaos armies.

==Allegiance Abilities==

===Battle Traits===
If your army has a '''SLAVES TO DARKNESS''' allegiance and chose to take the '''SLAVES TO DARKNESS''' allegiance abilities, it has the following rules:

'''Damned Legions''': You '''must''' belong to one of these. If a model already has a keyword from one, they cannot gain another, it can still be included in your army but it can't benefit from the allegiance ability of that legion. Legions are: Ravagers, Cabalists, Despoilers, or the Host of the Everchosen.

'''Aura of Chaos Power''': '''SLAVES TO DARKNESS HEROES''' can grant an ability to friendly '''SLAVES TO DARKNESS''' units which have the same Mark of Chaos as them. The units in receipt of the ability must be within x" of the HERO when they use the ability. A unit that is within x" of more than one friendly '''SLAVES TO DARKNESS HERO''' can only use the Aura of Chaos Power from one of them. If a model has more than one mark of Chaos, '''you can only choose one and it lasts for the duration of the battle'''. Sorry Archaon.

The abilities are:

*'''''Khorne''''': Re-roll hit rolls of 1 for attacks made with melee weapons by a unit granted this ability wholly within 12". If the aura-holder is the general, you get +1 to wound as well.
*'''''Slaanesh''''': Unmodified hit rolls of 6 explode into 2 attacks for a unit granted this ability wholly within 12". If the aura-holder is the general, you can reroll run and charge rolls as well.
*'''''Nurgle''''': Unmodified wound rolls of 6 get +1 damage for a unit granted this ability wholly within 12". If the aura-holder is the general, you get -1 to be hit by missile weapons as well.
*'''''Tzeentch''''': Re-roll save rolls of 1 for a unit granted this ability wholly within 12". If the aura-holder is the general, 5+ optional roll to ignore spell effects.
*'''''Undivided''''': Don't take battleshock for units granted this ability wholly within 12". If the aura-holder is the general, you get 6+ FNP.

Basically a variant to the Warshrine's '''Favour of the Ruinous Powers''', without the need to pray. Solid enough already.

'''Eye of the Gods''': If a '''SLAVES TO DARKNESS HERO''' with the '''EYE OF THE GODS''' keyword makes an attack in a combat phase that slays one or more enemy '''HEROES''' or '''MONSTERS''', at the end of the combat phase, make a roll on the table below after the HERO’S attacks have been completed. Duplicates are treated like a 7 - nothing happens.

{|class="wikitable col1cen col2cen center" style="width:300px"
|-
||'''2D6'''
||'''Reward'''
|-
||'''2'''
||'''Spawndom''': You can add a Chaos Spawn to your army. If you do, set up a Chaos Spawn model within 1" of the '''HERO''', and then remove the hero. The Chaos Spawn does not cost reinforcement points in a Pitched Battle. It cannot attack in the phase in which it is set up. If you do not add a Chaos Spawn to your army, the hero suffers D3 mortal wounds instead.
|-
||'''3'''
||'''Slaughterer's Strength''': Pick a melee weapon for this '''HERO'''. Improve its rend by 1.
|-
||'''4'''
||'''Murderous Mutation''': Pick a melee weapon for this '''HERO'''. Add 1 to its attacks.
|-
||'''5'''
||'''Iron Flesh''': Add 1 to the '''HERO'''’s save rolls for the rest of the battle.
|-
||'''6'''
||'''Flames of Chaos''': The '''HERO''' can choose to ignore a spell or endless spell on a 5+.
|-
||'''7'''
||'''Snubbed by the Gods''': Your hero burps. Nothing else happens.
|-
||'''8'''
||'''Unholy Resilience''': The '''HERO''' gets a 5+ FNP.
|-
||'''9-10'''
||'''Daemonic Legions''': Add a unit to your army. Unit added depends on your '''HERO'''’s mark. 10 Bloodletters for Khorne, 10 Pink Horrors for Tzeentch, 10 Daemonettes for Slaanesh, 10 Plaguebearers for Nurgle, or 6 Furies for Undivided.
|-
||'''11-12'''
||'''Dark Apotheosis''': You can add a Daemon Prince to your army. If you do, set up a Daemon Prince model within 1" of the '''HERO''', and then remove the hero. The Daemon Prince does not cost reinforcement points in a Pitched Battle. If the '''HERO''' was a wizard, the Daemon Prince is a wizard. If you do not add a Daemon Prince to your army, you can heal D3 wounds instead.
|-
|}

===Lore of the Damned===
1. '''Binding Damnation''': CV7. Visible target within 12" fights last until your next hero phase.

2. '''Spike-tongue Curse''': CV3. Visible target within 12" takes 3 mortal wounds. If this is unsuccessful or is unnbound, the caster takes 3 mortal wounds.

3. '''Whispers of Chaos''': CV7. Roll 1d6 for each model in a visible target unit within 12". For each 6, target unit takes 1 MW. If any models were slain, the target unit cannot move until your next hero phase.

4. '''Mask of Darkness''': CV7. Pick a visible MORTAL SLAVES TO DARKNESS unit wholly within 12". That unit teleports anywhere outside of 9" of enemy models and can't move in the subsequent movement phase.

5. '''Call to Glory''': CV5. Pick a visible SLAVES TO DARKNESS HERO unit wholly within 12". They can reroll hit and wound rolls when attacking a HERO or MONSTER until your next hero phase.

6. '''Ruinous Vigour''': CV6. Pick a visible SLAVES TO DARKNESS MONSTER unit wholly within 12". They act as though they haven't taken wounds for the purposes of the wounds table.

===Endless Spells===
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Eightfold_Doom-Sigil_eng.pdf Eightford Doom-sigil]:'''

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Darkfire_Daemonrift_eng.pdf Darkfire Daemonrift]:'''

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Reamscourge_Rapture_eng.pdf Reamscourge Rapture]:'''

==Damned Legions==
===Ravagers===
All Mortals All Day. More Generals, more Marauders, more Cultists.

;Trait - Glory for the Taking: If your general is '''not''' a Daemon Prince, up to 5 Ravagers Heroes get a command trait. No duplicates, and only 1 on each. At the start of your hero phase, you can pick 1 non-Daemon Prince hero that has a command trait to be your general, and they remain your general until your next hero phase.
;Command Ability - Rally the Tribes: At the end of your movement phase, the model that is currently your general can summon 1 unit of 10 Chaos Marauders, 1 unit of 5 Marauder Horsemen, or 1 Cultist units of up to 10 models wholly within 6" of the battlefield edge and more than 9" away from enemy units. A model cannot be chosen more than once per battle to rally.

====Command Traits====
1. '''Bolstered by Hate''': +2 wounds.

2. '''Unquestioned Resolve''' Once per turn, you can use one of the basic 3 command abilities without a command point if the target is a CULTISTS unit.

3. '''Favoured by the Pantheon''': When rolling on the Eye of the Gods table, you can add or subtract 2 from the result.

4. '''Eternal Vendetta''': Reroll wound rolls. If you're attacking ORDER units, you can reroll hit rolls.

5. '''Flames of Spite''': Unmodified wound rolls of 6 do a mortal wound in addition to normal damage.

6. '''Master of Deception''': -1 to be hit by melee weapons.

====Artefact====
1. '''Hellfire Sword''': Once per battle in the shooting phase, pick a visible enemy unit within 8". Target takes D3 mortal wounds. Pass; a wizard already has better ways to deal Mortal Wounds and a combat character should have their combat capability boosted.

2. '''Blasphemous Curse''': 5+ FNP.

3. '''Helm of the Oppressor''': 6" -1 bravery aura.

4. '''Cloak of the Relentless Conquerer''': Reroll charge rolls.

5. '''Mark of the High-Favoured''': Aura of Chaos increases to 18" when affecting RAVAGERS units.

6. '''Desecrated Gauntlets''': -2 to casting rolls for enemy wizards within 3", also +1 to wound rolls on a target with the WIZARD or PRIEST keyword. Good on a wizard hunting character.

===Cabalists===
Magic! Rituals! Killing your friends to power up!

;Lore - Crippling Pain: All CABALISTS wizards know this in addition to any other spells. CV7. Target visible enemy unit within 18" suffers D3 mortal wounds. In addition, target unit has its movement characteristic reduced by a value equal to the mortal wounds suffered by this spell.
;Trait - Binding Rituals: At the start of your hero phase, 1 CABALISTS WIZARD can perform a ritual.

====Rituals====
1. '''Ritual of Sorcerous Might''': Pick a friendly CABALISTS unit within 3" of the caster. On a 3+, the friendly unit loses D3 models. For each model that was slain, all your CABALISTS WIZARDS get +1 to casting rolls until the end of the phase.

2. '''Ritual of Corruption''': Pick a friendly CABALISTS unit within 3" of the caster. On a 3+, the friendly unit loses D3 models. Then you pick a predatory endless spell within 12" of the wizard performing the ritual. You can move it 3" for each model that was slain.

====Command Traits====
1. '''Bolstered by Hate''': +2 wounds.

2. '''Lord of Terror''': 6" -1 bravery aura.

3. '''Favoured by the Pantheon''': When rolling on the Eye of the Gods table, you can add or subtract 2 from the result.

4. '''Mighty Ritualist''': Ritual of Sorcerous Might succeeds on a 2+ instead of a 3+.

5. '''Blasphemous Influence''': Ritual of Corruption succeeds on a 2+ instead of a 3+.

6. '''All for One''': Once per battle, when your general successfully performs a ritual, for each model slain, he heals 1 wound.

====Artefact====
1. '''Soul Feeder''': Pick a melee weapon. Unmodified wound rolls of 6 heal the bearer by 1.

2. '''Black Athame''': Once per battle, the bearer can automatically succeed on a ritual, no roll required.

3. '''Infernal Puppet''': Once per battle in your hero phase, pick a visible enemy wizard within 24". In your opponent's next hero phase, each time that wizard tries to cast, they take D3 mortal wounds before they roll to cast. If they are slain by the mortal wounds, the spell they were attempting to cast automatically fails.

4. '''Spelleater Pendant''': Bearer gains the WIZARD keyword. They can attempt to unbind 1 spell. If already a wizard, they can unbind an extra spell.

5. '''Scroll of Dark Unravelling''': Once per battle, you can automatically unbind a spell without rolling.

6. '''Spell Familiar''': Know an extra lore spell.

===Despoilers===
Daemon Princes Ho!

;Trait - Sacrilegious Might: Your general's Aura of Chaos is 18". In addition, your Daemon Princes have a 5+ FNP.
;Trait - Blessed by the Unholy: In your hero phase, roll for each of your Daemon Princes and monsters. On a 4+, they heal D3 mortal wounds. Mutalith Vortex Beasts heal only 1 wound.
;Trait - Twisted Dominion: When your Daemon Princes finish a move within 6" of a terrain feature, you can give it the Pitch-black and Nightmare Chasm rules. Despoilers Daemon Princes and Despoilers Monsters are unaffected by these.

'''Pitch-black''': If a straight line between two models passes over more than 1" of this terrain, they are not visible to each other.

'''Nightmare Chasm''': At the start of each hero phase, on a 6+, each unit within 1" of this suffers D3 mortal wounds (wounds rolled separately for each unit).

====Command Traits====
1. '''Bolstered by Hate''': +2 wounds.

2. '''Lord of Terror''': 6" -1 bravery aura.

3. '''Lightning Reflexes''': -1 to be hit by missile weapons.

4. '''Radiance of Dark Glory''': In your hero phase, pick a friendly Despoilers unit wholly within 18". On a 3+, heal that unit D3 wounds.

5. '''Distorting Miasma''': Your general can use Twisted Dominion within 9" instead of 6".

6. '''Paragon of Ruin''': After set-up but before the first battle round begins, D3 Despoilers units can move up to 5".

====Artefact====
1. '''Crown of Hellish Adoration''': Look Out Sir also applies a -1 to wound rolls for this model.

2. '''Helm of Many Eyes''': Bearer and their mount fight first.

3. '''Armour of Tormented Souls''': Attacks targeting this hero have their rend reduced by 1.

4. '''Diabolic Mantle''': If the bearer starts the first battle round on the battlefield, get D3 command points.

5. '''Doombringer Blade''': After set-up but before the first battle round begins, pick an enemy hero or monster. Friendly Despoilers units can reroll hit and wound rolls when targeting that model.

6. '''Realmwarper's Twistrune''': Friendly Despoilers units wholly within 12" are unaffected by the Pitch-black and Nightmare Chasm rules

===Host of the Everchosen===
ALL HAIL ARCHAON, EVERCHOSEN AND SUPREME BEING. NO COMMAND TRAITS FOR YOU. NO ARTEFACTS FOR YOU. ONLY ARCHAON.

;Trait - Exalted Grand Marshall of the Apocalypse: If Archaon is your general and on the battlefield, his Aura of Chaos is 18".
;Trait - Fearless in His Presence: If Archaon is your general and on the battlefield, friendly units are immune to battleshock.
;Trait - The Will of the Everchosen: If Archaon is your general and on the battlefield, in your hero phase you can pick 1 enemy unit on the battlefield. You can reroll hit and wound rolls of 1 for melee weapons by Host of the Everchosen units targeting that unit until your next hero phase.
;Command Ability - Dark Prophecy: If Archaon is your general and on the battlefield, you can use this at the start of your hero phase. Roll a die and keep it hidden from your opponent. Reveal it at the start of the next battle round before determining who goes first. On a 1-3, your opponent must take the first turn. On a 4-6, you must take the first turn.

====The Eight Circles of the Varanguard====
Pick one. All Varanguard units share this.

1. At the start of the first battle round, before determining who gets first turn, you can redeploy Varanguard with this.

2. -1 to bravery for enemy units within 6". In addition, if enemy units within 6" fail a battleshock test, D3 extra models flee.

3. -1 to hit rolls for missile attacks targeting these Varanguard.

4. In your hero phase, pick 1 terrain feature within 3" of any unit of your Varanguard. Each enemy unit within 3" of it takes D3 mortal wounds, rolled separately for each enemy unit.

5. Reroll hit and wound rolls for attacks targeting a HERO or MONSTER.

6. +1 damage on the turn that you charge.

7. At the end of the combat phase, if your Varanguard destroyed an enemy '''unit''', that Varanguard unit heals D3 wounds.

8. Your Varanguard can fly.

==Warscrolls==

===Heroes===
====Named====
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Belakor_eng.pdf Belakor]:''' Having somehow escaped Alarielle's ruby from The End Times, the Dark Master is back and trolling with the best of them. Has Ghostly immunity to rend and heals from Battleshocks. His best ability is The Dark Master: Before the first turn, pick 1 enemy unit, then reveal which unit you picked to your opponent before then. Every time that unit wants to move, shoot, cast a spell or attack in combat, they have to roll a dice and can only do so on a 5+. This ability is straight busted.
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Archaon_eng.pdf Archaon The Everchosen]''': (DAEMON, KHORNE, TZEENTCH, NURGLE, SLAANESH, UNDIVIDED, MONSTER, 800pts.)
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Theddra_Skull-Scryer_eng.pdf Theddra Skull-Scryer]''':
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Godsworn_Hunt_eng.pdf Godsworn Hunt]''':
{{anchor|FWSayl}}
*'''[https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/resources/fw_site/fw_pdfs/aos_warscrolls/Downloads-AoS/aos-warscroll-sayl-and-nightmaw.pdf Sayl the Faithless]:''' (Forgeworld) A nice wizard. Only casting one spell a turn is disappointing, but his special Traitor's Mist spell makes up for it, Teleport one friendly '''SLAVES TO DARKNESS''' unit wholly within 15" for a casting value of 7. This is just as horrendous and hilarious as it sounds, especially if used on a big mob of Chosen or a Mammoth to help them cross the distance to the enemy quicker. Can also deal D3 mortal wounds to a unit within 8", which can be handy for picking off wounded heroes or forcing battleshock. Finally, if Nightmaw is around (less than 3" away) Sayl can redirect his wounds on him/her/it on a 4+.

{{anchor|FWNightmaw}}
*'''[https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/resources/fw_site/fw_pdfs/aos_warscrolls/Downloads-AoS/aos-warscroll-sayl-and-nightmaw.pdf Nightmaw]:''' (Forgeworld) Sayl's pet is a cute little hellspawn devoted to his master. 6HP, a 4+ save (increased to 3+ against spells and shooting) coupled with a special 5+ save against mortal wounds, as well as healing himself 1 wound per turn, makes him a competent enough distraction. He is capable of tying up and slowly making his way through a basic infantry unit, but he should only really be considered to tank wounds for Sayl.

====Generic====
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Chaos_Lord_eng.pdf Chaos Lord]''': (110pts.)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Chaos_Lord_on_Demonic_Mount_eng.pdf Lord on Daemonic Mount]''': (170pts.)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Chaos_Lord_on_Karkadrak_eng.pdf Chaos Lord on Karkadrak]:''' (250pts.)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Chaos_Lord_on_Manticore_eng.pdf Chaos Lord on Manticore]''': (Monster, Behemoth, 280 pts.)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Deamon_Prince_eng.pdf Daemon Prince]''': (210pts.)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Exalted_Hero_of_Chaos_eng.pdf Exalted Hero of Chaos]''': (90pts.)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Chaos_Sorcerer_Lord_eng.pdf Chaos Sorcerer Lord]''': (110pts.)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Chaos_Sorcerer_Lord_on_Manticore_eng.pdf Chaos Sorcerer Lord on Manticore]''': (Monster, Behemoth, 260 pts.)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Gaunt_Summoner_eng.pdf Gaunt Summoner on Disc of Tzeentch]''': (260pts.)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Darkoath_Chieftain_2019_eng.pdf Darkoath Chieftain]''': (90pts.)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Darkoath_Warqueen_eng.pdf Darkoath Warqueen]''': (90pts.)

*'''Ogroid Myrmidon:''' (140pts.)

===Units===
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Chaos_Warriors_eng.pdf Chaos Warriors]''': (Battleline Min5, Max:30 100pts.)
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Chaos_Chosen_eng.pdf Chaos Chosen]''': (Min5, Max:30, -pts.)
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Chaos_Marauders_eng.pdf Chaos Marauders]''': (Battleline Min20, Max:40 120pts.)
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Chaos_Marauder_Horsemen_eng.pdf Chaos Marauder Horsemen]''': (Battleline in StD Min5, Max:30 80pts.)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Chaos_Knights_eng.pdf Chaos Knights]''': (Battleline in StD Min5, Max:30, -pts.)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Chaos_Chariots_eng.pdf Chaos Chariot]''':

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Gorebeast_Chariots_eng.pdf Gorebeast Chariot]''': (150pts)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Chaos_Warshrine_eng.pdf Chaos Warshrine]''': ( TOTEM, PRIEST, Behimoth, 170pts)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Varanguard_eng.pdf Varanguard]''': (Min:3, Max:12, 300pts)

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Furies_eng.pdf Furies]''':

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Raptoryx_eng.pdf Raptoryx]''':

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Soul_Grinder_eng.pdf Soul Grinder]:'''

*'''Fomoroid Crusher:''' (Monster, 100pts) a big brute, having a ogor charge, throw stones, and infict MW to other units that think they can hid in a terrain.

*'''Mindstealer Sphiranx:''' (Monster, 100pts) a big psychic cat, able to support offensives with 12" of -2 bravery and make an enemy fight last. With the right pairings, you can impose a -4 Bravery.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Slaughterbrute_eng.pdf Slaughterbrute]:''' (Monster, Behimoth, 170pts)
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Mutalith_Vortec_Beast_eng.pdf Mutalith Vortex Beast]:''' (Monster, Behimoth, 170pts)

*'''[https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/resources/PDF/fw_warscrolls/aos-monstrous-arcanum.pdf#page=7 Chaos War Mammoth]:''' (Forgeworld) This monster has 22 wounds! Although it's only packing a 5+ save. All of his attacks cause at least D3 wounds, making it an exceptional monster-killer when at full strength. Its real strength lies in supporting a Marauder charge, however - as well as imposing -2 to any Battleshock tests to any unfortunate unit that gets charged, the Mammoth can also help Marauder or Marauder Horsemen get in a little extra movement and increase their damage output in combat. Wounding and even killing this thing just makes it cause more damage. If you're playing with a big Chaos horde then there's no finer feeling than running this guy into the enemy's biggest and toughest-looking infantry blob, although expect a few dirty looks for doing so. Keep in mind that he doesn't like magic missiles or war machine fire, however.
{{anchor|FWCurs}}
*'''[https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/resources/PDF/fw_warscrolls/aos-monstrous-arcanum.pdf#page=9 Curs’d Ettin]:''' (Forgeworld) A two-headed monstrosity. Its fists can do plenty of damage and heal if it kills something, has plenty of stomp attacks. it has an attack similar to Banshees that effect every enemy unit within 3" and deals D3 Mortal wounds if you beat its leadership on a 2d6. it also has an ability to kill a single model with less than 3 wounds on a 6+ giving you the of a chance to kill a pesky leader, Special weapon or Musician.

====Cultists====
The original warbands from Warcy. Generally they all play as Marauders with special gimmicks. Though they now have more synergy with the Hero units, making them arguably more viable.
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Iron_Golems_eng.pdf Iron Golem]''':
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Splintered_Fang_eng.pdf Splintered Fang]''':
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_The_Unmade_eng.pdf The Unmade]''':
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Corvus_Cabal_eng.pdf Corvus Cabal]''':
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Cipher_Lords_eng.pdf Cipher Lords]''':
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_Untamed_Beasts_eng.pdf Untamed Beasts]''':
*'''Spire Tyrants:'''

==Battalions==
*'''Chaos Horde:''' Your megabattalion. 1 Godsworn Champions of Ruin + 4-8 battalions of any combination from the rest. Once per turn, you can use 1 command ability for any unit from this battalion for free, and units from this battalion get +2" movement for the first battle round.

*'''Godsworn Champions of Ruin:'''

*'''Godswrath Warband:'''

*'''Ruinbringer Warband:'''

*'''Overlords of Chaos:''' 3-6 Host of the Everchosen Varanguard. Each unit gets a circle. Unclear if it's in addition to, or instead of. See Host of the Everchosen for more details.

The following Battalions can ''also'' be used in their respective god allegiance.

*'''Bloodmarked Warband:''' Khorne Warband. 1 Mortal STD Khorne Hero, 8 Mortal STD Khorne units. If a hero from this btn slays any models during the combat phase, you can pick a unit from this battalion wholly within 12" of said hero. That unit gains +1 attack until your next hero phase. A unit cannot benefit from this more than once per battle round.

*'''Fatesworn Warband:''' Tzeentch Warband. 1 Mortal STD Tzeentch Hero, 9 Mortal STD Tzeentch units. At the start of your hero phase, one unit from the battalion can become able to cast 1 spell and dispel 1 endless spell. It also knows the Stolen Sting spell: CV7, target a visible enemy unit within 18". Target's melee weapons have their rend worsened by 1.

*'''Plaguetouched Warband:''' Nurgle Warband. 1 Mortal STD Nurgle Hero, 7 Mortal STD Nurgle units. Unmodified wound rolls of 6 on attacks targeting units from this btn result in the attacker taking 1 mortal wound. Also, in your hero phase, pick an enemy target within 1" of any unit in the battalion. On a 3+, that enemy unit take D3 MW.

*'''Pleasurebound Warband:''' Slaanesh Warband. 1 Mortal STD Slaanesh Hero, 7 Mortal STD Slaanesh units. If a model from this btn dies during the combat phase, units from this btn can pile in an extra 6" until your next hero phase.

==Allied Armies==
*'''Beasts of Chaos'''
*'''Blades of Khorne'''
*'''Maggotkin of Nurgle'''
*'''Hedonites of Slaanesh'''
*'''Disciples of Tzeentch'''

===Mercenary Companies===
*'''Blacksmoke Battery:''' Chaos Dorfs with artillery but not really Chaos Dorfs.
*'''Greyfyrd:'''
*'''Grugg Brothers:''' Up to three Gargants that can reroll hits when near each other. A bit expensive but definitely worth it.
*'''Gutstuffers:''' Bring back the chaos ogres of old for some adaptable heavy hitters and hoard clearance.
*'''Nimyard’s Rough-Riders:'''
*'''Order of the Blood-Drenched Rose:''' Remember how in the World-That-Was Isabella Von Carsteain was resurrected as a servant of Nurgle while being possessed by a demon? You can bring her back as a vampire lord, also followed by a bunch of other vampires! Arguably you don’t need them since you got the Varanguard and Chaos Knights already, but at least you got options.
*'''Rampagers:''' Only reason you’re take this is for the troll factor of a near-endless movement phase. Other wise, pass.
*'''Skroug’s Menagerie:''' Want some Chaos beasts without breaking allegiance? Well here you go.
*'''Sons of the Lichemaster:'''
*'''Tenebrous Court:'''

{{Age_of_Sigmar_Tactics}}

[[Category:Age of Sigmar]] [[Category:Age of Sigmar/Tactics]]