Davos Seaworth

Davos was born poor in Flea Bottom, in King's Landing. As a young man he served under Roro Uhoris, a pirate out of Tyrosh, and learned the smuggling trade at his side. He watched Uhoris hang for selling weapons to the wildlings, though it never stopped him from doing his own business with the Night's Watch.

In time he got a ship of his own, the Black Betha, and made a name for himself slipping past the harbors of the narrow sea under cover of night, his sails painted black. He married Marya and had seven sons with her: Dale, Allard, Matthos, Maric, Devan, Stannis, and Steffon.

When Mace Tyrell laid siege to Storm's End during Robert's Rebellion, Stannis Baratheon had gone almost a year without food and was close to surrender. Davos slipped past the Redwyne blockade under cover of darkness with a hold full of onions and salted fish, and held out until Eddard Stark arrived and broke the siege.

Stannis knighted him and offered him land near Cape Wrath, but he didn't let him off the hook either: to his mind a good deed didn't cancel out a bad one, so he had four fingers on Davos's left hand cut down to the last joint, leaving only the thumb. Davos accepted the punishment on one condition, that the king wield the knife himself. He has kept those bones in a pouch around his neck ever since, convinced they bring him luck, since they bought his family a better future.

He took the name Seaworth for his house and a sigil of a black ship on a grey field with an onion on its sails. That emblem earned him the nickname Onion Knight among lords of older blood, who use it to remind him he isn't one of them.

After Robert Baratheon's death, Stannis declared himself king and Davos backed his claim without hesitation. He was sent to win over the pirate Salladhor Saan and his fleet, a mission that succeeded, and then traveled through the stormlands to sound out the local lords on their loyalty; that second mission came to nothing, and Davos reported it to Stannis exactly as it was.

Together with Maester Cressen he tried to talk Stannis into building alliances, but the king listened more to his wife, Selyse Florent, and to the priestess Melisandre. Davos was the only one who still treated Cressen with respect the night the king and queen mocked him in front of the court, and he was there when the old maester's attempt to poison Melisandre went wrong.

He watched the statues of the Seven burn in the sept of Dragonstone and the sword Lightbringer rise out of the flames; the display unsettled him, since he had never stopped following the Faith even without much devotion to it. Later he carried letters through Sea Gate, the Fingers, the Three Sisters, and Cape Wrath, proclaiming that Cersei Lannister's children weren't Robert's at all, but born of incest with her brother Jaime.

Stannis's fleet laid siege to Storm's End, and Davos was there when the king parleyed with Ser Cortnay Penrose, the castellan who refused to yield the castle. He carried Melisandre through a drain beneath the fortress, where she gave birth to a shadow that killed Penrose.

At the Battle of the Blackwater he tried to convince Ser Imry Florent, commanding the fleet, to send scouts ahead before forcing the river mouth; Imry ignored him. Four of his seven sons, Dale, Allard, Matthos, and Maric, sailed with the ships that attacked King's Landing that night, and most of the fleet burned in the wildfire.

Davos went into the water without armor, as any good sailor would, and the current carried him to the chain Tyrion Lannister had strung across the river mouth. He dove beneath it and vanished into the bay; nothing more was heard of his four eldest sons.

He spent days stranded on a rocky islet, living on crabs and whatever rainwater he could catch, hallucinating and talking to the Seven. A ship from Stannis's fleet, under Khorane Sathmantes, found him purely by chance.

He blamed Melisandre for the disaster and planned to kill her, but she saw it coming and had him locked away. Still weak, he recovered thanks to his jailers and Maester Pylos.

Ser Axell Florent pulled him out of his cell to bring him before Stannis, who was weighing a plan to burn Sweetsister and put its people to the sword as a warning to anyone tempted to side with the Lannisters; Davos called the plan cowardly, and the king ended up freeing him, naming him Hand of the King, Lord of Rainwood, and Admiral of the Narrow Sea.

He smuggled Edric Storm, Robert's bastard son, off Dragonstone before he could be sacrificed to R'hllor. With Maester Pylos he learned to read, and during one lesson he came across a letter from Bowen Marsh begging all five kings for help against a massive wildling invasion, a letter that had never reached Stannis.

Davos talked Stannis into lending a hand to the Night's Watch and traveled with him to the Wall. After the Battle of Castle Black, he was sent to White Harbor to win the support of House Manderly.

Cersei Lannister demanded Davos's head from Lord Manderly in exchange for releasing his heir, Ser Wylis, held captive at Harrenhal. Word reached the Iron Throne that Davos's head and hands were already hanging from the walls of White Harbor.

Davos sailed from Eastwatch-by-the-Sea with Salladhor Saan bound for White Harbor to speak for Stannis. The storms were so bad that Salladhor gave up the cause and gave him a choice, to sail back to Essos with him or go on alone; Davos chose to stay, and with a rowboat Salladhor left him, he reached the Three Sisters, stopping for a while at Sweetsister before pressing on.

He was beaten there by envoys from House Frey, Rhaegar, Ser Jared, and Symond, who brought the bones of Wendel Manderly, killed at the Red Wedding. Davos made his case before all of them in the Merman's Court; Wylla, Ser Wylis's daughter, called for vengeance and reminded the hall that her house had always stood by the Starks, but Lord Wyman chose the pardon Tywin Lannister offered in exchange for his son's freedom, and turned the alliance down.

Manderly had Davos arrested and locked in the Wolf's Den, then had another prisoner beheaded and stripped of the same fingers Davos was missing, to pass him off as Davos's corpse. Once the false report was on its way to the capital and his son was safely home, he sent Robett Glover, who brought Davos out of the Wolf's Den through a hidden passage into New Castle.

There he promised to recognize Stannis as king if Davos brought him Rickon Stark, whose whereabouts on Skagos he had learned from Wex Pyke's testimony. The boy and his direwolf would be proof enough for anyone, even House Bolton, should they try to deny he was truly Ned Stark's son.