A Dance with Dragons characters

Also known as Dany, the Mother of Dragons, Queen Daenerys

Appears from the start

The exiled Targaryen queen and mother of three dragons, who has taken and now rules the great slaver city of Meereen. Determined to break the trade in human beings, she struggles with the grinding work of governing a hostile, foreign city, a shadowy insurgency, and dragons growing too large and dangerous to control.

Also known as Lord Commander Snow

Appears from the start

Eddard Stark's bastard son, now the young Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. Trying to prepare the Wall for the true enemy gathering in the far north, he makes hard and unpopular choices, including dealings with the wildlings, that set many of his own sworn brothers against him.

Also known as the Imp, Halfman

Appears from the start

The dwarf Lannister, a hunted fugitive across the sea after murdering his father and fleeing the kingdom he can never return to. Bitter, drunken, and grieving, he sells his wits to survive as he is swept eastward through the free cities toward the distant dragon queen.

Also known as Brandon Stark

Appears from the start

The crippled Stark boy, traveling far beyond the Wall with a small band of companions in search of a mysterious teacher glimpsed in his dreams. He has begun to sense a strange power waking in himself, tied to the old gods and the weirwood trees.

Appears from the start

King Robert's stern brother, encamped at the Wall with his dwindling army and still claiming the Iron Throne by right. He looks to win the North to his cause, undeterred by cold, hunger, or the long odds against him, with the priestess Melisandre at his side.

Also known as the Onion Knight

Appears from the start

The low-born, honest knight who serves Stannis Baratheon as his most trusted and plain-spoken hand. Sent out on a perilous errand to win northern lords to his king's cause, he must trade in words and loyalties rather than swords.

Also known as Queen Cersei

Appears from the start

The disgraced queen mother, imprisoned by the militant Faith on charges of adultery and treason and stripped of her power in the capital. Awaiting judgment in a cell, she nurses her humiliation and her hatred and searches for any way back to authority.

Also known as Barristan the Bold, Ser Barristan

Appears from the start

An aged, legendary knight once the finest blade of the Kingsguard, cast off by the boy king Joffrey and since sworn to the service of Daenerys Targaryen. Honorable and skilled beyond his years, he advises and guards the young queen in her troubled city.

Also known as Ser Jorah

Appears from the start

A disgraced northern knight who fled the realm years ago and became one of Daenerys Targaryen's earliest and most devoted followers, though he was banished from her side when his old secret dealings came to light. Hard, resourceful, and still hopelessly loyal, he seeks a way to redeem himself in her eyes.

Also known as Reek

Appears from the start

Once the proud heir to the Iron Islands who betrayed the Starks and seized Winterfell, now a broken and terrorized prisoner of House Bolton, so unmanned by torment that he answers to a servant's name and scarcely dares remember who he was. He is a hollow, fearful shell of the young man he had been.

Also known as Ramsay Snow

Appears from the start

The cruel, unpredictable son of Lord Roose Bolton, the northern lord who helped destroy the Starks. Sadistic and dangerous, delighting in the fear and pain of those in his power, he is a menace even to his father's allies as House Bolton tightens its grip on the North.