Jorah Mormont

Jorah was born on Bear Island in 254 AC, heir to a small and poor house. His father, Jeor Mormont, stepped down and took the black to clear his son's path, and Jorah became the new Lord of Bear Island. His first marriage, to a woman of House Glover, ended in tragedy: she lost three pregnancies and died in the last one, after nearly ten years together.

He fought on the rebel side at the Trident during the war that put Robert Baratheon on the throne, and years later took up arms again when Balon Greyjoy rose against the new king. At the siege of Pyke he was among the first over the walls, and Robert himself knighted him for it.

Victory brought a tourney at Lannisport, and with it Lynesse Hightower: he fell for her, won the tourney, asked for her hand that same night, and Lord Leyton Hightower agreed. But Lynesse found Bear Island a cold, threadbare keep, nothing like what she expected, and Jorah ran up debts trying to give her the life she wanted — cooks from Oldtown, harpists from Lannisport, a new ship, loans in Braavos.

With no way out, he sold captured poachers to a slaver from Tyrosh. When Eddard Stark, his liege lord, found out, he sentenced Jorah to die. By the time the Warden of the North reached Bear Island in 293 AC to carry out the sentence, Jorah had already fled with Lynesse, leaving behind Longclaw, his house's Valyrian steel blade; his aunt Maege sent it on to Jeor at Castle Black.

In Pentos he met Daenerys Targaryen on the night she was wed to Khal Drogo, and pledged himself to her service. As a wedding gift he brought her a chest of books, histories and songs of the Seven Kingdoms. What Daenerys didn't know was that Jorah was also secretly reporting to Varys, Robert Baratheon's Spider, on the last Targaryens' every move, hoping to buy back a royal pardon.

He crossed the Dothraki Sea with the khalasar to Vaes Dothrak. He despised Viserys — to him, Rhaegar had been the last true dragon, his brother barely the shadow of one — and found himself admiring a courage in Daenerys he hadn't expected. In the sacred city's market he stopped an attempt to poison her, warned just in time by a letter revealing the bounty Robert had set on her head. A grateful Drogo let him pick any horse from his herds, and after Jorah warned him more attempts would follow, the khal swore to carry war into the Seven Kingdoms.

On the march south toward Lhazar, Jorah fought when Drogo's khalasar fell upon Ogo's, fresh from sacking a Lhazareen town. Daenerys asked him to stop the raping; Jorah admired the wish behind it but knew he couldn't save every woman.

Drogo was wounded in that fight. When the wound turned foul and the khal fell from his horse, Jorah urged Daenerys to flee before Drogo died, or she'd be made to give up her son and join the Dosh khaleen. Daenerys chose blood magic instead, and the ritual tore the camp apart: Jorah had to fight Qotho, killing him, though not before losing half an ear and taking a wound to the hip.

Daenerys's son was born dead and misshapen; Jorah couldn't bring himself to tell her, so Mirri Maz Duur did. When Daenerys had Mirri herself bound to Drogo's funeral pyre, now catatonic, Jorah cried out her name as she walked into the flames beside him. At dawn he found her among the ashes, unharmed, with three newborn dragons. He said nothing — just knelt before her while the Dothraki who remained swore themselves to their new queen.

Jorah's hip was slow to heal. At Vaes Tolorro he brought Daenerys a peach and counseled her to wait there until her battered khalasar regained its strength; talking about his two marriages — the Glover woman who died, Lynesse who left him — he let slip, without saying it outright, that he'd fallen for her. Daenerys tended his wound with her own hands.

In Qarth he distrusted everyone from the first day: the merchant prince Xaro Xhoan Daxos, the warlock Pyat Pree, the shadowbinder whose voice belonged to Quaithe. He pressed Daenerys not to linger. When Pyat Pree summoned her to the House of the Undying, Jorah wanted to go in with her; he was refused, and could only wait outside, warning her to remember what Mirri Maz Duur's blood magic had cost.

While scouring the docks for ships to carry Daenerys and her dragons back to Westeros, an assassin attacked the queen with a manticore; a stranger saved her, Arstan Whitebeard, accompanied by a fighter called Strong Belwas — both sent by Illyrio Mopatis with three ships to carry them to Pentos.

Alone with her in a ship's cabin, Jorah finally spoke his feelings and kissed her; he asked for her hand more than once, and she always refused. Buying the Unsullied was his idea, which brought Daenerys and her people to Astapor, and afterward he commanded the army that took Yunkai.

Outside Meereen, Arstan Whitebeard turned out to be Ser Barristan Selmy — and with that, the other man who had been reporting Daenerys's movements to King's Landing. She sent them both through the city's sewers to free the slaves, a mission that could easily have killed them, and which they pulled off. With Meereen taken, Jorah begged her to forgive him for that old spying, pleading his loyalty and his love. Daenerys couldn't forgive him, and sent him from her side into exile.

In a Selhorys brothel, Jorah stumbled onto Tyrion Lannister and took him prisoner, planning to hand him to Daenerys in exchange for his pardon. In Volantis, at the Merchant's House, a dwarf performer named Penny — who blamed Tyrion for her brother's death — tried to kill him; Tyrion took pity on her, and the three ended up boarding a ship to Meereen together, Jorah making clear Penny was his responsibility now.

On the voyage, Tyrion realized how deeply Jorah was still in love with Daenerys, and how desperate he was to win back her service: he drank and spent his waking hours staring out to sea from the forecastle. When Yunkish slavers boarded the ship, Jorah killed three of them before he was taken; they chained him, beat him, and branded a demon mask onto his cheek — the mark of a dangerous, disobedient slave.

Sold at auction outside Meereen, Tyrion lied his new master into buying Jorah too, for a show called "The Bear and the Maiden Fair": Jorah played the bear, Penny the maiden, Tyrion the rescuing knight. On the way to their master's tent they learned Daenerys had married Hizdahr zo Loraq; not long after, Jorah was locked in an iron cage.

When their master fell ill, the three escaped and reached Ben Plumm's camp with the Second Sons. Tyrion arranged for himself and Jorah to join the company, and both signed its book. Jorah told him then that they needed to bring the Second Sons over to Daenerys's side — Yunkai, he insisted, didn't yet know it had already lost the war.

This is where the two versions of his story split. In the novels, A Dance with Dragons leaves him alive, still in exile, now sworn to a mercenary company and hoping to earn his way back into Daenerys's favor.

The television series carries his story further and gives him a different ending: Jorah dies at Winterfell, in the year 305 AC.