Brynden Tully

Brynden was born at Riverrun as Lord Tully's second son; his brother Hoster was already five years old, and the two got along well as children. He served as a squire to Lord Darry and, once knighted, crossed the sea to fight the Band of Nine during the War of the Ninepenny Kings, where he fought alongside Barristan Selmy and came home famous across the realm.

When Hoster inherited Riverrun, he tried to marry Brynden off to Bethany Redwyne; Brynden refused, and turned down the later offers from Lord Bracken and Walder Frey the same way. He never took a wife, and that stubbornness cooled the relationship between the brothers. When Hoster called him the black sheep of the family in front of an eight-year-old Catelyn, Brynden answered by swapping the silver trout on his arms for a black one — and the Blackfish was born.

With Hoster distant and Lady Minisa growing sicker, it was Brynden who listened to Catelyn, Lysa, and Edmure, and to the household's young ward, Petyr Baelish, as well. The night Catelyn's betrothal to Brandon Stark was announced, he was the one who carried a drunk, humiliated Petyr out of the hall before Hoster could see him like that. Years earlier, when Tywin Lannister weighed marrying his heir Jaime to Lysa, Jaime himself spent the visit asking Brynden for war stories instead of courting the shy girl.

Robert's Rebellion broke out in 282 AC, after Brandon and Rickard Stark were killed on King Aerys II's orders. Catelyn was betrothed instead to Brandon's brother, Eddard Stark, and Hoster agreed to marry Lysa to Lord Jon Arryn to bring House Tully into the revolt. The two weddings were held together at Riverrun.

At the wedding feast, Brynden told his brother he was entering Jon Arryn's service. Hoster took it as a personal betrayal and stopped speaking his name for years. Brynden fought on until the war ended, and once Robert had won the throne he settled in the Vale with Lysa, where Arryn made him Knight of the Gate, commanding the Bloody Gate.

Brynden was still Knight of the Gate when his niece Catelyn arrived at the Vale with Tyrion Lannister as her prisoner. He soon clashed with Lysa over her refusal to send troops to the riverlands, resigned his post, and escorted Catelyn on to White Harbor and then Moat Cailin.

Once he met Robb Stark he earned a seat on his war council and command of a hundred scouts. His riders cut down a dozen of Addam Marbrand's horsemen and shot down the ravens flying out of the Twins. It was also Brynden who learned from a captive that Edmure Tully had lost a battle to Jaime Lannister beneath the walls of Riverrun. When Catelyn questioned a decision, Brynden cut her off: "My first rule of war, Cat, is that you don't give your enemies what they want."

After Catelyn struck her bargain with Walder Frey, Robb took most of his northern riders across the Green Fork while Roose Bolton held the eastern bank; Brynden covered the march with three hundred men, Theon Greyjoy riding among his scouts. His men were the ones who drew Jaime out of his own camp, leading to his capture at the Battle of the Whispering Wood. Brynden went on to fight at the Battle of the Camps, which broke the siege of Riverrun, and stood among the northmen when they proclaimed Robb their king.

Brynden and Hoster made peace after years of distance. Brynden helped plan the invasion of the westerlands and led the scouts on the march. At the Battle of Oxcross he swept aside the Lannister riders and led the charge that broke what was left of the enemy army.

Back at Riverrun, Maester Vyman warned Catelyn that Hoster would not live much longer and that Brynden should be sent for, so he could reach his brother in time.

Brynden returned to Riverrun with King Robb. Furious, the two of them confronted Edmure over the Battle of the Fords, which had ruined their plan to ambush Tywin along the Golden Tooth road — a spot Brynden's scouts had already picked out.

After Lord Rickard Karstark killed Tion Frey and Willem Lannister, the Karstark men abandoned Riverrun; Brynden rode out with a hundred soldiers to hunt them down, though with little hope of success, while Robb had Karstark executed.

When Hoster died, Edmure missed the funeral boat three times with a flaming arrow; Brynden took the bow and hit it on his first try. Since the Freys had withdrawn their support after Robb married Jeyne Westerling, Brynden advised Edmure to marry one of Walder Frey's daughters instead. Grateful for his service, Robb named him Warden of the Southern Marches and put him in charge of guarding the queen.

After the Red Wedding and Robb's death, Brynden held Riverrun long after the other river lords had bent the knee to the Iron Throne. He drove the refugees out of the castle and readied it to hold. When the new Warden of the West, Daven Lannister, and Ser Ryman Frey laid siege to it, a drunk Ryman demanded to speak with him; Brynden answered by putting an arrow in his horse and dropping him in the mud. Neither the daily threats to hang Edmure nor anything else could make him yield, and he refused to hand over Robb's widow, Jeyne Westerling.

Cersei Lannister sent her brother Jaime to end the siege. At the parley, Brynden used the meeting to ask why Catelyn's daughters hadn't been returned and to get a look at Jaime's stump for himself. Jaime offered him the black if he surrendered, and mentioned that Jon Snow was now Lord Commander of the Night's Watch; remembering how little Catelyn had trusted the boy, Brynden assumed the Lannisters were behind the appointment. Unmoved, he answered: "Are you blind as well as crippled, Ser? Look up, and you'll see the direwolf still flying over our walls."

At Jaime's war council some pushed to scale the walls, others to smear arrows with dung, others to challenge him in single combat. Jaime eventually talked Edmure, now head of the house, into surrendering the castle in exchange for letting Brynden and the garrison take the black. But before Edmure opened the gates, he let Brynden slip away, swimming out under the half-raised water gate. Riders searched both up and down the river without finding him, and Jaime, wary of an ambush, doubled the escort taking Edmure and the Westerlings west.

By then Brynden had been declared an outlaw. When the siege of Riverrun ended, Lord Tytos Blackwood told Jaime Lannister that the Blackfish had never reached Raventree Hall.