A Song of Ice and Fire/Characters/Outsiders

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This is a listing of groups that are outsiders to Westeros that appear in the Fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire. Visit here for the main character index.

The Clans of the Mountains of the Moon

  • A Child Shall Lead Them: Timett, son of Timett, of the Burned Men is described as a gaunt youth, and is not yet twenty years old when he first appears. He leads the Burned Men because he is the most Badass one there - he put out his own eye with a red hot knife just to prove it. The Burned Men were so impressed they promoted him to "Red Hand" (a war leader) on the spot.
  • Action Girl/ Dark Action Girl/ Action Mom: Chella, daughter of Cheyk. She has forty-eight ears on the necklace around her neck. According to her, her sons have also taken many.
  • An Axe to Grind: Shagga, son of Dolf.
  • Self-Mutilation Equals Authority: The Burned Men perform self-mutilation as a rite of passage to demonstrate their bravery. Cutting off one's nipple or finger is pretty typical. Timett took it Up to Eleven by gouging out his own eye with a hot knife, which was so impressive that he was immediately promoted to warleader.
  • Ax Crazy: The rest of Westeros see mountain clans as this, the mountain clans see the Burned Men as this, and even the Burned Men are a little wary around Timmett.
  • Badass: Especially Shagga and Timmett.
  • Berserker Tears: Shagga, when his friend Conn is killed.
  • Boisterous Bruiser: Shagga. He never stops.
  • The Brute: The entire clan becomes this to Tyrion, and they are widely hated by the people of King's Landing. Shagga is the most obvious example.
  • Dual-Wielding: Shagga, and sometimes Timmett.
  • Eye Scream: Timmett. He burned out his own eye just to prove how Badass he is.
  • Running Gag: "I'll chop off your manhood and feed it to the goats" is Shagga's favourite threat ; sometimes used by Tyrion to great effect. It turns out that Shagga refers to a man's beard as his "manhood"
  • Skeletons in the Coat Closet: Chella's necklace of ears.
  • Third Person Person: Shagga.

The Wildlings

Mance Rayder

Even as early as King Robert's arrival at Winterfell, there are worries surrounding the so-called "King-beyond-the-Wall," a former member of the Night's Watch who has forsworn his vows, gone out to live amongst the wildlings, and become their leader. This king, Mance Rayder, is formally introduced in the third book and becomes entangled in the game of thrones as he leads a vast wildling host south against the Wall and the Night's Watch.

Tormund Giantsbane

One of Rayder's chief lieutenants, Tormund is a giant gasbag of a man whose bark is worse than his bite. He replaces Mance as de-facto leader of the Wildlings after the latter's capture at the end of A Storm of Swords. He helps broker a fragile peace between the Wildlings and the Night's Watch, and in this capacity Jon begins to rely on him heavily.

  • Beware the Nice Ones: from a preview chapter at the end of SOS, Jon is asked his opinion of the man. (Note that this description does not appear in the published version of Dw D, but it's still the best encapsulation of him.)

"Tormund Giantsbane seemed to me the sort of man who would make a good friend and a bad enemy, Your Grace."

  • Boisterous Bruiser: despite that, the man does not seem to have a single malicious bone in his body.
  • The Brute: He fills this role in Mance's Five-Bad Band of commanders.
  • Friendly Enemy: He is one of the only Wildlings to never threaten Jon Snow, physically or otherwise, and we never see him actually do violence. Even when they meet as enemies at the end of A Storm of Swords to parley the wildlings's surrender, he just seems disappointed in Jon rather than betrayed.
  • I Have Many Names: The appendices list eight separate titles/nicknames he has.
  • Shrouded in Myth: He tells Jon Snow some of the stories that are circulating about them, and admits to some of the exaggerations.
  • Token Good Teammate

Ygritte

A wildling spearwife, Ygritte is first encountered by Jon Snow while he's scouting Mance Rayder's army in the Skirling Pass, where he captures and then frees her. After Jon joins the wildlings as a Reverse Mole, she takes a great interest in him, having taken his refusal to kill her when she was his captive as a sign he has feelings for her. Eventually, Jon really does start to love her, which provides him with much angst because his vows as a member of the Night's Watch prevent him from taking a wife.

  • Accidental Marriage: Or what passes for marriage in wildling society anyway -- when Jon captures her and refuses to kill her, she takes this to mean he wants her, because for a wildling woman to stay with a man he has to capture her first.
  • Action Girl
  • The Archer: Her preferred weapon is a bow.
  • Catch Phrase: "You know nothing, Jon Snow."
  • Fiery Redhead: The wildlings decribe people with red hair as being "kissed by fire"; this provides an excellent description of Ygritte's personality.
  • Heroes Want Redheads: Despite his angst about breaking his vows, it's clear that Jon genuinely has feelings for her.
  • Killed Off for Real

Varamyr Sixskins*

A Wilding who is a powerful skinchanger and is the POV of the prologue to A Dance With Dragons.

  • Awesome McCoolname: He was originally named "Lump", and deliberately chose the name Varamyr to be more impressive (not difficult), and as he added additional "skins" (animals he'd skinchange into), he changed his sobriquet accordingly.
  • Beast Master
  • Body Surf: Mainly with animals, including to deprive other skinchangers of their "second life" in their animal hosts, but as a last ditch effort, he tries to save himself by taking over a Wilding woman.:
  • Evil Sorcerer
  • From Nobody to Nightmare: He started as a weak and unwanted child, but once he discovered his powers, he became powerful and influential and widely feared.
  • Mr. Exposition: His chapter includes the "Rules of Warging" that he learned from his master. Interestingly, Bran Stark unknowingly breaks more rules and goes farther than even Varamyr was willing to.
  • Squishy Wizard: He's not physically imposing, but is powerful and dangerous because he mentally controls animals including three wolves, a shadowcat, and a gigantic snow bear.
  • Villain Protagonist: Varamyr's story is that of the traditional fantasy underdog character who discovers that they have impressive magical powers, with the twist that Varamyr spends his entire life using his to terrorize others and fulfill his selfish desires.

The Guild of the Faceless Men

  • Affably Evil: They seem a pretty decent bunch considering what they are.
  • Ambiguously Evil: At least until their true agenda (if any) is exposed, it's hard to classify them as good or evil.
  • Blood Magic: Their powers may derive from a version of this, given that it's the source of powers of other ASOIAF magic users.
  • Blue and Orange Morality: Their worship of death is expressed in an unusual moral system which will readily provide this "gift" to anyone who desires it for themselves, but is very expensive when it comes to providing it to others (although it's implied that the price paid doesn't have to be financial). For instance, while the original Faceless Men lead Valyrian slaves to freedom, the initial action of the first Faceless Man was to Mercy Kill a slave rather than killing an abusive master.
    • The second action was to help another slave kill his master, because it was the one thing he desired more than anything else, but afterwards the first Faceless Man told him that he must now serve, and that slave became the second Faceless Man.
  • Face Stealer: Their means of a more potent disguise: they take the faces off corpses of those who drank from the poisonous waters and use some sort of magic to take their appearances
  • Glamour: One means of disguise.
  • Individuality Is Illegal: You can't become one of them unless you totally forsake your identity.
  • Master of Disguise / Voluntary Shapeshifting: Their powers.
  • Mentor Archetype: Jaqen and the Kindly Man are both this to Arya. The latter's persona could be viewed as a conscious invocation of this trope.
  • Mercy Kill: Will gladly provide this to anyone who desires it. Their temple has a poisonous spring that the suffering can drink from to receive painless euthanasia.
  • No Name Given: None of them have names other than Jaqen H'ghar (which is a fake persona anyway) and Arya identifies them by physical descriptors.
  • Religion of Evil: Maybe.
  • Weird Trade Union: An assassins guild religion.

Jaqen H'ghar

"Valar Morghulis."

A Faceless Man introduced as a prisoner being taken as "recruit" to the Wall, he ends up owing a debt to Arya during A Clash Of Kings and serves as an important mentor figure to Arya/impetus for her later decisions. He more than likely appears with a different face and identity in A Feast For Crows.

  • Affably Evil: He's polite and charming and while a professional killer, displays no signs of sadism.
  • Blue and Orange Morality: Because of his identity as a Faceless Man, he finds saving lives to be immoral and stresses Balancing Death's Books, and can't really be classified as good or evil.
  • Dead Person Impersonation: In A Feast For Crows, he's heavily implied to be a character calling himself the Alchemist and in this identity, ends up killing and taking the identity of Citadel student, Pate.
  • Evil Mentor
  • Foil: Regardless of whether the popular fan theory is true that he is also Arya's fencing teacher Syrio, he's definitely presented as a foil to him. Both men are from Braavos and serve as mentors to Arya, but Jaqen is a much more morally ambiguous figure, and his helpfulness to her is very conditional.
  • I Cannot Self-Terminate: Played with. He can, but when Arya names him as the third person he must kill (see Three Wishes below), he asks her to 'unsay' it.
  • Hitman with a Heart: Has some shades of this, as he seems to have some genuine affection for Arya
  • Make It Look Like an Accident: Generally kills in this manner, which appears to be a Faceless Man trademark.
  • Master of Disguise / Voluntary Shapeshifting: Comes with the Faceless Man package.
  • Punctuation Shaker: Possibly the oddest and most "fantasy" name in the series.
  • Strange Syntax Speaker / Third Person Person: Always refers to himself in a detached way as "A Man" rather than saying "I". Likewise, he speaks of Arya in third person as "A girl" rather than saying "You".
  • Three Wishes: After Arya saves him, Rorge, and Biter, he offers her the lives of any three people in exchange as a kind of Balancing Death's Books.
  • Villainy Discretion Shot: Fridge Logic would suggest that he must have done something pretty horrible to end up in the Black Cells/inspire the respect and fear of monsters like Rorge and Biter.
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