Game of Thrones: A Guide to Westeros and Beyond: The Complete Series

PART I: THE SOUTH AND ESSOS

The South and Essos: AN INTRODUCTION

I swear to you, I was never so alive as when I was winning this throne, or so dead as now that I’ve won it.

—ROBERT BARATHEON

IN GAME OF THRONES, power is not absolute; it is a constant struggle, a competition waged between different forces trying to claim the Iron Throne of Westeros. Robert Baratheon sits on that throne when the story begins, but across the Narrow Sea, the remnants of the Targaryen family are quietly preparing to upend the Usurper, and within Robert’s own household, the Lannister family’s quest for power threatens to strip Robert of the crown.

An explosive battle for the Iron Throne engulfs Westeros, and the players make decisions throughout in an effort to move them closer to power. These decisions often come with unintended and grave consequences. Daenerys Targaryen promises to take what is hers with fire and blood, yet her journey from Essos to Westeros is impeded at every turn by the human cost of her campaign. While the Lannisters occupy the Iron Throne for much of the conflict, they lose most of their family in the quest for power, inadvertently destroying what that power is meant to protect. Furthermore, the Lannisters push the continent into a war that not only claims the lives of individuals but wipes entire houses off the map. Perhaps the cruelest twist is that everyone is too busy fighting that war to notice that, beyond the Wall, the Night King has been amassing an army unlike any they’ve ever faced before.

The arrival of the Night King and the White Walkers tests the leadership of both Cersei Lannister and Daenerys Targaryen, forcing them to face a threat much larger than their individual quests for the Iron Throne. While Cersei hopes the North will die off in the battle, Daenerys must make an important decision: to ride north and heed the warnings of Jon Snow to protect the realm or ride south to take the Iron Throne from Cersei with fire and blood. Daenerys ultimately rides north, choosing the realm, but when the dust settles on the Battle of Winterfell and the army of the dead have been defeated, Daenerys’s real test remains: What will she do now that this final obstacle has been removed from her path? With the Night King erased from the playing field, only Cersei stands in the way of Daenerys Targaryen claiming the Iron Throne. Daenerys arrives at King’s Landing bearing the weight of everything she has lost to get there, and reaching the Iron Throne, she finds herself unable to chart a different path than her father, Cersei Lannister, or so many others before her. Daenerys wins the throne, but at a fatal cost to her reputation.

The corruptive power of the Iron Throne does not discriminate: By the time it’s melted down into nothing, the damage has been done. Everyone who staked their lives on claiming it has lost their way and their life.

Astrolabe

WHEN SAM FIRST ENTERS the library of the Citadel, he sees a large astrolabe, along with several similar astrolabes, high above the working maesters. Fringed with metal blades, like a sun, and encircled by four rotating bands etched with designs, this bright orb depicts the history of Westeros, detailing the rise and fall of kings and queens. The astrolabe pictured to the left is featured in the show’s opening title sequence, offering a closer look at these symbolic depictions. When the series’ credits changed for its final season, a new astrolabe appeared, this time telling the story of the series thus far.

Robert’s Rebellion

ROBERT’S REBELLION BECOMES A CRUCIAL EVENT in the turbulent history of Westeros, since it ends centuries of Targaryen rule on the Iron Throne, which are undone by escalating crises of leadership, tragic love, and messy politics. While on paper it represents the transfer of power from the Mad King Aerys Targaryen to Robert Baratheon, the events surrounding Robert’s Rebellion are much more complex, creating a foundation for the War of the Five Kings.

RHAEGAR TARGARYEN ABDUCTS LYANNA STARK

BEFORE THE REBELLION, Prince Rhaegar is married to Elia Martell, and Lyanna Stark is betrothed to Robert Baratheon. It is scandalous when Rhaegar begins showing Lyanna favor, and that scandal becomes an uproar among those loyal to both the Stark and Baratheon families when it is presumed Lyanna has been abducted against her will and taken to Dorne by Rhaegar. They respond by raising an objection with King Aerys.

However, when Brandon and Rickard Stark—Ned Stark’s brother and father—visit Aerys, they find a king who is increasingly disconnected from reality. Although Aerys has long had a reputation of madness, an affliction common to Targaryens, it has never manifested as violently as it does when he publicly executes Brandon and Rickard after their arrival at King’s Landing. It is a significant turning point in public sentiment that galvanizes support for the rebellion against Targaryen rule.

ROBERT VS. RHAEGAR

WITH THE REBELLION IN FULL SWING, Robert Baratheon squares off against Prince Rhaegar on the Trident in single combat. After shattering the young prince’s bejeweled armor and killing him, Robert emerges victorious, becoming the face of the rebellion and eventually ascending to the throne.

The tide of the war shifts following Rhaegar’s death, but King’s Landing doesn’t fall until Tywin Lannister leads his forces into the city and his son Jaime—a member of Aerys’s Kingsguard—murders the Mad King. Jaime’s betrayal, though it dishonors his reputation, is in fact heroic given Aerys’s plans to destroy the city. The siege of King’s Landing also results in the brutal death of Elia Martell and her children, for which her brother Oberyn demands justice years later. Tywin’s betrayal of Aerys enables an uneasy alliance between the Baratheons and Lannisters—sealed through Robert’s marriage to Cersei—that unravels over time.

After her husband dies in King’s Landing, Queen Rhaella Targaryen flees to Dragonstone, where she gives birth to her daughter, Daenerys, and dies in childbirth. Stannis eventually lays siege to Dragonstone and claims it as his own, but by then Daenerys and her brother Viserys are already safely smuggled across the Narrow Sea, a loose end that allows the Targaryen line to survive and reemerge years later.

ROBERT BARATHEON

THERE IS A FUNDAMENTAL DISCONNECT between the tales of Robert Baratheon’s valor in the rebellion that bears his name and the man who arrives at Winterfell—a drunk who can barely lift an axe, let alone wield one in battle. A picture emerges of a charming man who squanders the wealth of the realm on frivolous tournaments, fathers illegitimate children with women throughout King’s Landing, and is so disconnected from his wife, Cersei Lannister, he fails to notice that all of his children have blond hair, despite the fact that every Baratheon child born beforehand is dark-haired. He is a man who constructs a life of luxury and debauchery not just to satisfy his most basic urges, of which he has many, but also to make up for the fact that the life he wanted was taken away from him before it could even begin.

It will never be known if Robert would have been a better king if Lyanna Stark had not died during his rebellion, yet her death lies at the root of his failures. He stakes his claim to the throne on behalf of justice for his betrothed, whom he believes was kidnapped by Rhaegar Targaryen, and he admits to Cersei that he never stopped loving Lyanna, even after she died at the Tower of Joy. Robert constructs an idea of what his life with Lyanna was supposed to have been, a life that never materialized. Instead he marries Cersei as a matter of political strategy and is thrust into ruling over Westeros, deprived of the woman with whom he intended to spend his life.

While Robert is on a hunting trip, Cersei instructs his squire, Lancel, to keep serving wine to the king to exacerbate his intoxication. When Robert encounters a boar, his drunkenness slows his reflexes, and he suffers a mortal injury. On his deathbed, he expresses regret over the mistakes he has made with the realm and with his children, but it’s too late to undo what is done. He is neither an honorable nor particularly effective ruler. His death is meaningful only for the political consequences it creates: the power struggle between the Lannisters and Ned Stark, Ned’s subsequent death, and the War of the Five Kings—fought over who should inherit the throne.

If there is any tragedy in Robert’s death, it is that he dies blind to the truth. He held a candle for a woman who was in love with another man and who gave birth to a child that Ned secretly took in as his own illegitimate son. He dies believing that he failed in raising his three children, unaware that they are not his children at all. Robert Baratheon never entirely understands the realm he wished to rule, and he would have hardly recognized the Westeros that rises in his wake.

THE IRON THRONE

The breath of the greatest dragon forged the Iron Throne . . . the swords of the vanquished, a thousand of them, melted together like so many candles . . . —Viserys Targaryen

AFTER AEGON I TARGARYEN CONQUERED AND UNIFIED SIX OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS UNDER HIS RULE, LATER OBTAINING DORNE THROUGH A MARRIAGE ALLIANCE, HE CALLED FOR THE CREATION OF THE IRON THRONE.

THE SWORDS THAT MAKE UP THE IRON THRONE ARE MEANT TO REPRESENT THE THOUSAND SWORDS SURRENDERED TO AEGON DURING HIS CONQUEST OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS.

THE SWORDS ARE MELTED DOWN BY AEGON’S DRAGON, BALERION, AND FORGED INTO THE SHAPE OF A THRONE. ULTIMATELY, DAENERYS’S DRAGON DROGON DESTROYS THE THRONE, ITS SWORDS MELTED DOWN ENTIRELY AS ITS REIGN OVER THE MINDS OF THE MEN AND WOMEN OF WESTEROS COMES TO AN END.

The Right to Rule

THE WAR OF THE FIVE KINGS rages around a fundamental question: Who has the right to rule over Westeros?

Joffrey Baratheon claims birthright as the firstborn son of the murdered King Robert Baratheon. Stannis Baratheon, Robert’s eldest brother, does so also, based on the assertion that none of Robert’s children are trueborn, delegitimizing Joffrey’s claim. Renly Baratheon, Robert’s younger brother, considers himself better suited to ruling than his older brother. Robb Stark, King in the North after his father’s death, leads a rebellion against the Lannisters with the support of his fellow northerners. Balon Greyjoy, Lord of the Iron Islands, has no legitimate claim to power but is an opportunist who tries to secede from Westeros by force amid the confusion of war.

All these men want power and, with the exception of Balon, they each hold different claims to the Iron Throne, with none better than the other; provided they garner enough support and make the right decisions, any one of these men could emerge as king. However, none of them do. All five die, either betrayed by their allies, assassinated by their enemies, or defeated in combat. When these men die, so too does the notion of what constitutes the right to rule in Westeros, and improbable rulers like Cersei Lannister and Daenerys Targaryen forge new paths to power.

Cersei Lannister is never supposed to achieve political power after Robert’s death. Her two sons and her daughter would rule before she would, and even then the crown would likely search for another lineage before considering her own claim. Cersei rejects this birthright, first by controlling her sons, and eventually through a violent attack on the Great Sept of Baelor that kills Queen Margaery, drives her son to suicide, and paves the way for her ascension to the throne. Cersei believes that she has earned power, and after years of occupying a marginalized role, she acts violently to claim that power, refusing the peace offered by Daenerys after the Battle of Winterfell. Having worked so hard to prove she was worthy of power, Cersei won’t give it up, even if it leads to her demise.

Daenerys Targaryen begins the story tentative and innocent across the Narrow Sea. Though she believes she has a clear blood claim to the Iron Throne, Daenerys refuses to rest on her birthright and seeks to define her form of leadership by liberating Slaver’s Bay. By the time she arrives in Westeros, Daenerys has both the claim and the resolve necessary to become queen, but she discovers this isn’t enough. During and after the Battle of Winterfell, Daenerys fails to inspire others to pledge their loyalty or allegiance to her, and people are drawn to other leaders despite her best efforts.

One person who does pledge his loyalty is Jon Snow, who, unlike Cersei and Daenerys, has no interest in sitting on the Iron Throne. As a member of the Night’s Watch, Jon discovers his own innate leadership qualities, but he is forced to stay independent of the politics of Westeros. After leaving, he discovers that others want to rally behind him as King in the North. When word spreads that Jon is the son of Rhaegar Targaryen, and therefore the rightful heir to the Iron Throne, support for his leadership grows stronger. Regardless, Jon pledges his allegiance to Daenerys, whether out of honor, love, or a lack of desire to rule over Westeros.

Ultimately, after Daenerys’s death, Tyrion Lannister addresses the lords and ladies of Westeros as they discuss who should rule. Since no one has a clear right to rule, they must choose someone. Edmure Tully steps forth and claims his seniority makes him the best candidate, but he is summarily dismissed. The experiences of Cersei, Daenerys, and Jon reinforce that leadership must involve more than birthright, popular support, or a desire for power. Good rulership requires a delicate balance and someone who can unite everyone, and Bran the Broken is deemed best suited. Having learned the lessons of his predecessors, Bran represents their history, and therefore, he can avoid the violence and mistakes of the past as he leads Westeros into the future.

KING’S LANDING

King’s Landing is the capital of the Seven