Tommen Baratheon

Tommen is born in King's Landing in 291, the youngest of the children Queen Cersei Lannister presents as King Robert Baratheon's. He grows up surrounded by the attentions of the court, and in the shadow of his older brother Joffrey, who treats him far more cruelly than the family lets show in public.

As a boy he adopts a fawn as a pet; Joffrey takes it from him and skins it to make himself a doublet, a gesture that says plenty about how he treated his younger brother. After a tourney held for Joffrey's name day, Tommen travels with Cersei and his siblings to Casterly Rock to visit their grandfather, Lord Tywin Lannister.

When Jon Arryn dies, the royal family travels to Winterfell together with King Robert; Tommen is part of the retinue, and during the court's stay in the north he spends time practising swordplay with wooden blades.

It's then that Eddard Stark, the new Hand of the King, concludes that neither Tommen nor his siblings are Robert's sons, but Jaime Lannister's — the queen's twin brother. With the king dying, Lord Renly Baratheon suggests that Tommen and Myrcella be taken into custody and that Arya Stark marry Tommen; Eddard turns the idea down.

After Robert's death, Tommen's older brother Joffrey inherits the throne, and Tommen himself watches Eddard Stark's arrest in the throne room of King's Landing.

At the tourney for the name day of Joffrey, now king, Tommen falls off his horse against a quintain and his brother mocks him in front of the whole court. Around the same time, Stannis Baratheon lays claim to the Iron Throne and publicly declares that his nephews, Tommen among them, are the product of incest between Cersei and Jaime Lannister.

Tommen cries at the farewell of his sister Myrcella, sent off to Dorne. With King's Landing growing ever more dangerous amid riots and approaching armies, Cersei tries to smuggle him out of the city to Rosby disguised as a page, under the protection of Lord Gyles Rosby.

Tyrion Lannister, then Hand of the King, learns of the plan and makes sure it's himself, not Cersei, who controls Tommen's custody during the move; he even threatens that any harm done to the captive Alayaya will be done to the prince as well. After the Battle of the Blackwater and the death of Jacelyn Bywater, Cersei manages to bring Tommen back to the capital.

Stannis Baratheon's Hand, Alester Florent, tries on his own initiative to broker peace with Tywin Lannister by offering a marriage between Tommen and Stannis's daughter Shireen; the plan falls through and Florent is executed. At the wedding feast of his uncle Tyrion and Sansa Stark, Tommen, now taller than his uncle, dances with Megga Tyrell.

At the wedding of Joffrey and Margaery Tyrell, Tommen carries the bride's cloak and scatters rose petals after the ceremony, but he panics and bursts into tears when his brother chokes to death at the feast. Joffrey's death makes Tommen king, and plans begin for his own marriage to Margaery.

Tywin Lannister, wanting Cersei kept away from raising the new king, proposes that Jaime give up his place in the Kingsguard to raise Tommen as his ward and squire at Casterly Rock; Jaime refuses. He instead orders Ser Boros Blount to serve as the king's food taster.

During Tyrion's trial for Joffrey's murder, Prince Oberyn Martell points out that under Dornish law it would be Myrcella, not Tommen, who should inherit the throne, while the witness Shae claims Tyrion also planned to kill Tommen. His great-uncle, Ser Kevan Lannister, is the one who brings him the pardons, grants and other documents the boy king signs without much of a look.

After the death of his grandfather Tywin Lannister, with his mother Cersei acting as regent, Tommen's favourite activity as king becomes stamping the royal seal on whatever paper is put in front of him. Cersei complains privately about how docile and submissive he is, forever comparing him to Joffrey's stubbornness.

He marries Margaery Tyrell and grows genuinely fond of her; she, in turn, starts encouraging him not to always obey his mother. Margaery gives him three black cats, Ser Pounce, Lady Whiskers and Boots, and Tommen takes up an interest in knighthood and jousting, going so far as to ask that Ser Loras Tyrell train him.

When Cersei refuses that request and also threatens Margaery in front of him, Tommen stands up to his mother for the first time. Cersei's response is to order Ser Boros Blount to force Tommen to beat his whipping boy, Pate, until he bleeds.

After Cersei's arrest for treason and adultery, Tommen keeps obeying every order that reaches him from the small council, asking again and again after his mother and his wife.

While his mother serves her penance walking naked through the streets of King's Landing, Tommen is kept inside the Red Keep; his great-uncle Kevan Lannister, now Lord Regent, spares him from having to witness it.

Once Cersei is free again, Tommen has dinner with her and with Kevan, spending the evening telling them about his kittens' antics. Kevan finds him an unusually sweet child.

As far as Dance with Dragons, the latest published novel, takes the story, Tommen is still alive and still king. The television series follows a different chronology and places his death in the year 303.

It's one of the clearest points where the show's timeline breaks away from the books, which by this point hadn't yet reached his ending.