Jeyne Westerling

House Westerling is an old First Men line, richer in pride than in coin: the gold veins under the Crag ran dry long ago. Gawen Westerling tried to mend that shortfall by marrying Sybell Spicer, daughter of a merchant family raised to nobility not long before.

That recent blood counted against Jeyne: it was reason enough to rule her out as a match for Kevan Lannister's sons, even though her father's line was ancient.

When Robb Stark's army took the Crag during his campaign through the Westerlands, an arrow left the young king wounded, and Jeyne was the one who tended him. Word arrived in those same days that Theon Greyjoy had killed Bran and Rickon, Robb's brothers; that night, comforting him, Jeyne shared his bed, and the next day he married her to save her honor. The marriage undid the pact Robb held with House Frey: when Lord Walder offered his own daughters to a widower instead, Robb nearly killed him, and it was Jeyne who begged him to show mercy. Most of the Frey troops returned to the Twins, though one detachment stayed on under Roose Bolton's command.

At Riverrun, Jeyne confided that she and Robb tried for an heir every night, and she tried, on Catelyn's advice, to bear patiently the weight the crown placed on her husband. When House Frey asked for a new alliance in exchange for a marriage between Edmure Tully and Roslin Frey and a personal apology from the king, Jeyne stayed behind at Riverrun while Robb rode for the Twins.

At the ceremony in the Twins, House Frey turned on Robb and killed him, in what would later be known as the Red Wedding. Jeyne was not there: she had stayed behind at Riverrun.

After the slaughter, the Iron Throne pardoned her for her part in the marriage.

Jeyne mourned Robb, to her mother's displeasure, since Sybell had long been negotiating in secret with Tywin Lannister. Without Jeyne's knowledge, Sybell had been feeding her potions to prevent a pregnancy, passing them off as remedies for fertility.

The siege Riverrun endured after the Red Wedding ended peacefully through Jaime Lannister. It was then that Sybell tore from Jeyne, by force, the crown Robb had given her; when Jeyne stood up to her, a blow left her face swollen, and only Jaime's intervention stopped a second slap.

Returned to her father and sent back to the Crag, Jeyne rode with her head down, wrapped in a cloak hiding the clothes she herself had torn in mourning. To silence any rumor of a pregnancy by Robb, she had to remain unmarried for two years, escorted by guards under secret orders to kill her if anyone tried to abduct her.

The HBO show has no character named Jeyne Westerling. In her place stands Lady Talisa Maegyr of Volantis, filling the same narrative slot with no explanation ever given for the change. The actress who played Talisa, Oona Chaplin, was announced during casting as Jeyne Westerling.

In the third season's ninth episode, 'The Rains of Castamere,' Talisa dies at the same ceremony known in the books as the Red Wedding.