Joffrey Baratheon

Joffrey is born in King's Landing in 286, the official son of King Robert Baratheon and Queen Cersei Lannister. In truth he is the son of Ser Jaime Lannister, the queen's twin brother, conceived during a royal visit to the island of Estermont. No one outside the Lannisters knows the truth, and the realm raises him as the rightful heir to the Iron Throne.

Robert never doubted his paternity, but he felt little warmth for the boy either, disappointed by what he saw in him. Joffrey grows up spoiled and unchecked, and as a child he once slit open a pregnant cat's belly out of curiosity, an act that cost him two teeth when his furious father struck him on finding out. He treated his younger brother Tommen just as badly, and much of what he did seemed aimed, never successfully, at winning Robert's approval.

Cersei assigns Sandor Clegane as her son's sworn shield; Joffrey never calls him by name, only "Dog." The tourney for his twelfth nameday, in 298, brings figures like Walder Frey, Jon Arryn, Stannis Baratheon and Davos Seaworth to King's Landing. Once it ends, he travels with his mother and siblings to Casterly Rock, to his grandfather Tywin Lannister's seat.

Like all Lannisters, Joffrey is fair-haired, green-eyed and handsome, though the sneer he often wore undercut the effect. Stubborn and short-tempered, he barely distinguishes right from wrong and always finds someone else to blame for his own mistakes; he understands little of politics, but when it suits him he can manage just enough courtesy to deceive whoever stands before him.

The court travels to Winterfell after Jon Arryn's death, and there Joffrey is betrothed to Sansa Stark, the eldest daughter of Eddard Stark, the new Hand of the King. In the yard he spars with wooden swords against Robb Stark and taunts him when he isn't allowed to use real steel.

When Bran Stark falls from a tower and is badly hurt, Tyrion Lannister slaps Joffrey for mocking the boy's condition. Soon after, someone sends a hired killer to finish Bran off in his sleep; the attempt fails and the blame falls on Tyrion, poisoning relations between the Starks and Lannisters.

On the road back south, Joffrey walks with Sansa and comes across Arya play-fighting with wooden swords alongside Mycah, the butcher's boy. Drunk, he picks a fight with the boy and gets bitten by Nymeria, Arya's direwolf. To his father he tells a different story, one where he was attacked through no fault of his own, and from it comes Mycah's death and that of Lady, Sansa's direwolf, along with Arya's lasting hatred. In the scuffle he also loses his sword, Lion's Tooth, which Arya throws into the Trident.

Eddard Stark, now serving as Hand of the King, discovers that Joffrey and his siblings are not Robert's children. Cersei protects the secret: Robert dies and Eddard ends up arrested. On his official father's death, Joffrey takes the Iron Throne as Joffrey I, with the stag and lion combined as his sigil.

In his first session as king he names his grandfather Tywin as Hand, places his mother on the small council, and puts Jaime at the head of the Kingsguard, dismissing Barristan Selmy. The open spot in the Kingsguard goes to Sandor Clegane, despite never having been knighted.

Sansa begs mercy for her father. Joffrey promises mercy, and that mercy turns out to be a public execution, with Eddard's daughters made to watch. The act, meant by the Lannisters to secure their power, is exactly what ignites the war among the realm's great lords. With Sansa held captive at court, Joffrey humiliates her through his Kingsguard and even forces her to look at her father's head mounted on a spike.

Stannis Baratheon, Lord of Dragonstone and brother of the late Robert, sends word across the realm that Joffrey and his siblings are the product of incest between Cersei and Jaime, using the claim to press his own case for the Iron Throne. At the tourney for his thirteenth nameday, in 299, Sansa gets Joffrey to spare Ser Dontos Hollard's life, and Dontos becomes the court's new fool.

Joffrey rules however he pleases, and no one, not even his mother, can rein him in; Sansa bears the brunt of his moods. When he tries to have her stripped naked before the whole court, it's Tyrion — acting as Hand while Tywin is off campaigning — who stops him. Hunger in King's Landing from the lack of grain makes him deeply unpopular, and a riot in the streets nearly costs him his life.

On the eve of the Battle of the Blackwater he names his second sword Hearteater and asks Sansa to kiss it for luck. When the fighting starts, his mother manages to keep him away from the walls, and his absence very nearly loses the battle for his own side. Once the Lannister and Tyrell armies reach the capital, Joffrey restores Tywin to the office of Hand of the King.

Joffrey breaks his engagement to Sansa Stark and becomes betrothed to Margaery Tyrell, a political match meant to bind the Reach to the Lannister cause. He remains just as cruel toward his uncle Tyrion, more so after suspecting Tyrion has pieced together his role in sending the killer after Bran Stark at Winterfell.

The wedding takes place on the first day of the new century. That morning, Tywin gives him a Valyrian steel sword that Joffrey names Widow's Wail; the gift from Tyrion and Sansa, a rare book called "Lives of Four Kings," ends up cut to pieces with the new sword because Joffrey decides the gift isn't good enough.

At the feast, Joffrey chokes to death, poisoned with the strangler. Cersei accuses Tyrion and Sansa, though it later comes out that the plot may have been the work of Olenna Redwyne and Littlefinger. He is buried in the Great Sept of Baelor. No one but his mother truly mourns him — not even Jaime, his blood father, believes he deserved any other fate.

After his death, in a conversation between Jaime and Tommen following Tywin's funeral, it becomes clear that Joffrey used to hit his younger brother when he lost his temper.

During the walk of penance the Faith imposes on her, Cersei spots him among the crowd and thinks that if she hadn't let Eddard Stark be executed, none of what followed would have happened.