Samwell Tarly

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Samwell Tarly
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Aliases
  • Sam
  • Ser Piggy
  • Lord of Ham
  • Sam the Slayer
  • Black Sam
Allegiance Night's Watch
Culture Westeros
Born Horn Hill
Books

Played by John Bradley

Samwell Tarly is the eldest son of Lord Randyll Tarly. Although fat, timid, and unsure of himself, he is intelligent and thoughtful. He is a steward of the Night's Watch. He becomes a POV Character in A Storm of Swords. In the TV series he is played by John Bradley.[1]

Appearance

He is very fat with dark hair. He has pale eyes with a large moon-shaped face.[2]

History

Samwell's childhood was spent clashing with his stern, militaristic father, who tried to mold the timid and gentle Samwell into a proper knight. Sam lived in fear of his father, but could not change to appease him. After Sam's appropriately aggressive brother Dickon was born, Sam was left to enjoy his music, kittens, and food in peace. However, when Sam reached maturity, Randyll threatened Sam into joining the Night's Watch so that he would not stand in the way of his proper son's inheritance.[3]

Recent Events

A Game of Thrones

Samwell arrives at The Wall to face bullying, taunting, and abuse at the hands of his fellow recruits as well as from the master-at-arms, Ser Alliser Thorne, who derisively nicknames him "Ser Piggy" and orders the other recruits to continue beating him even after he has yielded. He finds a friend in Jon Snow, however, and Jon takes it upon himself to persuade (and threaten, when necessary) his fellow recruits to stop their abuse.[4]

Samwell is not helped by any of Ser Alliser's training and remains an incompetent warrior, and as such is initially deemed not ready to take his vows and become a man of the Night's Watch with Jon and the others. Jon, fearful for what will happen to Sam once he is no longer able to provide protection for him, persuades Maester Aemon to allow him to join the Stewards. Aemon agrees, and gives Samwell a position assisting him in the rookery and library. Despite having been born and raised into the Faith of the Seven, Samwell decides to take his Night's Watch vow with Jon Snow at a Heart Tree. He is able to impress Lord Commander Mormont by noting some of the odd details of the corpses of Othor and Jafer Flowers. He is among the group of friends who stop Jon from abandoning the Night's Watch and forswearing himself.[5]

A Clash of Kings

Samwell is made part of Commander Mormont's massive ranging, and placed in charge of the ravens. At Craster's Keep he is befriended by Gilly, a daughter and wife of Craster, who is pregnant and fearful that if she has a boy, Craster will sacrifice it to the Others. Samwell, unsure of what to do, turns to Jon for help, but there is nothing Jon can do to help her.

A Storm of Swords

Sam is among the survivors of the Battle of the Fist of the First Men, but gets separated from the majority of the men in retreat, along with Grenn and Small Paul, who carried Samwell much of the way from the Fist. There they are attacked by an Other, who attacks Small Paul and kills him, but Paul's weight disarms the Other as he falls. Samwell, who is carrying a dragonglass dagger that was among the cache found by Ghost, uses the opportunity to attack, and blindly stabs the Other, who dies instantaneously from the dragonglass blade. Killing the Other earns him the nickname "Sam the Slayer".

He and Grenn rendezvous with the remaining survivors at Craster's Keep, where Gilly gives birth to a son. Shortly thereafter, however, violence erupts in the keep, with some Night's Watch men believing that Craster was holding out on the food he provided for him, and others still harboring mutinous intentions toward Commander Mormont. Craster and Mormont are both killed in the fighting, Before Mormont dies he gives Sam his dying wish, that Jorah his son, join the Watch.[6]

Sam is forced to flee, joined only by Gilly and her newborn. They make it as far as a village Sam believes to be Whitetree but are then attacked by wights, including a reanimated Small Paul, who attackes Sam first. Sam fights him off and stabs him with the dragonglass dagger, but it proves ineffective. Desperately, Sam strikes him with a piece of charred wood, which catches him on fire, killing him. They run, but are beset by additional wights, and are saved at the last moment by Coldhands.

Gilly and Sam are led back to the wall by Coldhands, who has informed them that there will be one in the Nightfort that must be sent to him. Entering the Nightfort through the castle's Black Gate, Samwell encounters Bran Stark, along with Hodor and Meera and Jojen Reed, whom he leads back to Coldhands.

Sam returns to Castle Black following the events of the Battle of Castle Black, with Stannis Baratheon present and urging the swift election of a new Lord Commander and threatening to name one himself if none can achieve the required two-thirds majority. In the voting, Janos Slynt is gaining ground on the leading candidates Cotter Pyke and Denys Mallister. Believing Slynt would be a disastrous Lord Commander, Sam approaches Pyke and Mallister independently, and lies to each regarding Stannis's intentions to name the other to the office, thus convincing them both to support Jon Snow as a compromise candidate, leading to Jon's election.

A Feast for Crows

One of Jon Snow's first acts as Lord Commander is to send Samwell South to Oldtown so that he might study there as a maester for Castle Black. With him he sends Dareon, whom he appoints as a recruiter for the Night's Watch, as well as Maester Aemon and the infant son of Mance Rayder, so as to deprive Melisandre of the chance to sacrifice them for their king's blood. He also sends Gilly, separating her from her child, so that she might nurse Rayder's son. Maester Aemon falls ill on the voyage, however, and stopping in Braavos they are forced to spend their coin on an inn and a healer. Aemon's condition worsens nonetheless, though he briefly wakes and wishes to hear the stories of Daenerys's dragons that are spreading throughout the city, having the revelation that Daenerys may be the true fulfillment of the prophecy of the Prince who was Promised.

Samwell urges Dareon to sing at the local taverns to earn money so that they might buy passage on a ship to Oldtown, but Dareon spends most of what he earns on wine and trade from the city's whores. Samwell confronts Dareon in a brothel and accuses him of breaking his vows, and Dareon responds with his intention to abandon them and desert the Night's Watch, resulting in a fight whereupon Samwell is pulled off of Dareon and thrown into a canal. He is pulled out by Xhondo, who heard him speaking of dragons and had seen them in Qarth. Xhondo offers them passage on his ship, the Cinnamon Wind, in exchange for work and for some of the last of their possessions.

Maester Aemon dies early in that journey, and in mourning for his death Gilly briefly becomes a lover to Samwell. She names the child after Aemon, and upon landing at Oldtown is sent to Samwell's childhood home of Horn Hill with the story that her child is a bastard fathered by Sam. Samwell continues to the Citadel, where he encounters Alleras, who has sought him out and brings him straight to Archmaester Marwyn, who asks Samwell to repeat for him Aemon's final words. Upon hearing the story, Marwyn immediately departs the city with the stated intention of going to Daenerys and becoming her maester.

Family

 
 
 
 
Randyll
 
Melessa
Florent
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Samwell
 
Talla
 
Two
daughters
 
Dickon
 
Eleanor
Mooton
 
 


References and Notes

This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Minor houses in A Song of Ice and Fire.
The list of authors can be seen in the page history of Minor houses in A Song of Ice and Fire.
As with A Wiki of Ice and Fire, the content of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.

See also