Jon Arryn

Jon Arryn

Lord of the Eyrie; Defender of the Vale; Warden of the East; Hand of the King

House / Order	House Arryn
Race / Culture
Status	Deceased
Origin	The Vale of Arryn; King's Landing
Born	219 AC (approx.)
Died	298 AC, at King's Landing
Weapon
Fate	Poisoned with the Tears of Lys, arranged by his wife Lysa Arryn at the urging of Petyr Baelish
Portrayed by

The seed is strong.

Jon Arryn was Lord of the Eyrie, Defender of the Vale, Warden of the East, and for many years Hand of the King to Robert Baratheon. A wise and honorable old lord, he fostered both Eddard Stark and Robert Baratheon in his youth and became a second father to them, his refusal to surrender his wards to the Mad King Aerys II Targaryen igniting Robert's Rebellion. His sudden death sets the entire plot of A Game of Thrones in motion.

Background

Jon Arryn was head of one of the oldest and proudest of the Andal houses, whose seat is the unconquered mountain fastness of the Eyrie. Long-lived and respected, he took into his care two young wards, Eddard Stark of Winterfell and Robert Baratheon of Storm's End, raising them together and instilling in both a deep loyalty to him.

Robert's Rebellion

When the Mad King Aerys II Targaryen murdered Rickard and Brandon Stark and demanded that Jon Arryn deliver up his two wards for execution, Jon refused and instead called his banners, beginning the rebellion. The Vale, the North, and the Stormlands rose together, and after years of war the Targaryens were overthrown. To cement the new regime, the aging Jon wed Lysa Tully, a much younger bride, sealing the alliance with House Tully of Riverrun.

Hand of the King

Under King Robert, Jon Arryn served as Hand for some fifteen years, in effect governing the realm while the king indulged his appetites. He was the steadying hand behind a peace that grew increasingly rotten with debt and intrigue.

In his final days, Jon began quietly investigating the parentage of Queen Cersei Lannister's children, consulting an old genealogical text and visiting Robert's bastards. He came to a dangerous conclusion, encapsulated in his cryptic dying words, "the seed is strong": that the king's true-looking children were all golden-haired Lannisters, none of them Robert's. Before he could act, he was poisoned with a rare toxin called the Tears of Lys. His wife Lysa Arryn administered the poison, manipulated into it by her lover Petyr Baelish, who then steered her to blame House Lannister in a letter to her sister Catelyn Stark, setting Stark against Lannister.

Legacy

Jon's death prompted Robert to ride north and name Eddard Stark his new Hand, drawing Ned into the deadly politics of the capital. The mystery Jon died investigating, the parentage of Cersei's children, becomes the secret around which the early novels turn. His sickly young son, Robert Arryn, inherited the Vale under the unstable regency of Lysa Arryn.

Character

Jon Arryn embodies an older order of honor and steady governance, a foster father whose integrity shaped two of the realm's great lords. His murder, engineered by Petyr Baelish, is the first hidden move in the long game that topples the peace of the Seven Kingdoms.

In the television series

In HBO's Game of Thrones, Jon Arryn does not appear alive but is central to the backstory, his murder and his investigation into the royal children's parentage driving the first season's intrigue.

Appearances

• A Game of Thrones (mentioned)