Difference between revisions of "Jon Arryn"

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===Cause of Death===
 
===Cause of Death===
[[Stannis Baratheon]] started to suspect that [[Cersei Lannister|Queen Cersei's]] children had been fathered not by [[Robert Baratheon|King Robert]] but by her brother [[Jaime Lannister|Jaime]], the Kingslayer, which would have made Stannis Robert's rightful heir. Concerned that such a suggestion coming from him would be seen as a result of own ambitions, Stannis didn't confide in the King but rather raised the issue with Jon Arryn, whom Robert would be more inclined to believe.{{Ref|aCoK|31}}
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[[Stannis Baratheon]] started to suspect that [[Cersei Lannister|Queen Cersei's]] children had been fathered not by [[Robert Baratheon|King Robert]] but by her brother [[Jaime Lannister|Jaime]], the Kingslayer, which would have made them illegitimate and Stannis therefore Robert's rightful heir. Concerned that such a suggestion coming from him would be seen as a result of own ambitions, Stannis didn't confide in the King but rather raised the issue with Jon Arryn, whom Robert would be more inclined to believe.{{Ref|aCoK|31}}
  
 
Jon and Stannis began to secretly investigate the matter by seeking out bastards Robert had produced. Together they visited the armory of [[Tobho Mott]] where [[Gendry]] was employed, one of Robert's offsprings who bore a striking resemblance to his father. They also visited the brothel of [[Chataya]], where Robert had fathered a girl, [[Barra]], who also clearly had the King's features.{{Ref|aGoT|27}}{{Ref|aGoT|30}} The increased contact with Stannis apparently also contributed to Jon Arryn planning to send his [[Robert Arryn|own son]] as Stannis' ward to [[Dragonstone]].{{Ref|aGoT|40}}
 
Jon and Stannis began to secretly investigate the matter by seeking out bastards Robert had produced. Together they visited the armory of [[Tobho Mott]] where [[Gendry]] was employed, one of Robert's offsprings who bore a striking resemblance to his father. They also visited the brothel of [[Chataya]], where Robert had fathered a girl, [[Barra]], who also clearly had the King's features.{{Ref|aGoT|27}}{{Ref|aGoT|30}} The increased contact with Stannis apparently also contributed to Jon Arryn planning to send his [[Robert Arryn|own son]] as Stannis' ward to [[Dragonstone]].{{Ref|aGoT|40}}

Revision as of 22:17, 23 August 2013

House Arryn.PNG
Jon Arryn
House Arryn.PNG
970110 1331165364981 full.jpg
Copyrighted work by Fantasy Flight Games©

Titles
Allegiance House Arryn
Culture The Vale
Born 225 AC
Died 298 AC
King's Landing
Spouses
Books
Jon Arryn as Hand of the King, for King Robert Baratheon


Lord Jon Arryn (225 AL-298 AL) was Lord of the Eyrie, Defender of the Vale and Warden of the East. He served as Hand of the King to Robert Baratheon from 283 AL until his death in 298 AL.[1]

Appearance

Jon had broad shoulders.[1]

History

Youth

Jon was born in 225 AL as the son of Lord Jasper Arryn. Not much is known about his youth or his parents. He had a younger brother, Ronnel, and a sister, Alys, who married Elys Waynwood. Jon was Keeper of the Gates of the Moon while his father lived, and after his father's death he named his brother Ronnel and later his cousin Denys to that position.[2]

Robert's Rebellion

Jon fostered Eddard Stark and Robert Baratheon as his wards in the Vale. As they grew, the two boys became close companions and regarded Jon as a second father. After Aerys II demanded that Jon turn them over for a likely execution, Jon refused and raised his banners in revolt. After the Battle of Gulltown, where he confronted several lords who resisted the rebellion, Jon fought in the Battle of the Bells and the Battle of the Trident. During the war, in the same ceremony in which Eddard Stark and Catelyn Tully were wed, he married Lysa Tully to gain her father's support and to try and secure an heir for the failing Arryn line.

During the Sack of King's Landing, not only King Aerys but also the wife and children of Prince Rhaegar were killed. Eddard Stark was appalled by the brutality of the acts but Robert's hatred for the Targaryens made him consider the murders necessary, creating a temporary rift between the two that even Jon Arryn was unable to breach.[3] When Robert Baratheon ascended to the Iron Throne, he appointed Jon as his Hand.[4]

Hand of the King

The first task Jon undertook was making peace with Dorne. Dorne was incensed by the deaths of Lewyn and Elia Martell during the war. Oberyn Martell tried to raise the kingdom to support Viserys Targaryen, the surviving son of King Aerys. In response, Jon returned the bones of Lewyn and was able to broker a peace with Doran Martell. However, the knights Gregor Clegane and Amory Lorch, who had killed Elia and her children, went unpunished, creating a persistent bone of contention between the Iron Throne and Dorne.

Jon Arryn by TheMico

To strengthen Robert's hold on the throne, Jon negotiated Robert's marriage with Cersei Lannister and advised that he retain her brother Jaime on the Kingsguard, thereby opposing Eddard Stark who proposed sending Jaime to the Wall for his killing of King Aerys. Robert also considered the assassination of Viserys and Daenerys Targaryen, believed to be the last two Targaryens and thus a possible threat, but Lord Jon dissuaded him from the idea.[3]

Robert left Jon with much of the responsibility of running the Seven Kingdoms, but Jon could not stop Robert from spending huge amounts of money on tournaments and excess, putting the nation in serious debt.[5] While he was at court, Nestor Royce ruled as High Steward of the Vale.

Unbeknownst to Lord Jon, his wife and Petyr Baelish kept up a relationship they had since their youth. She organized for Petyr to get his first position and later convinced her husband to bring her lover to the court in King's Landing, so that they could be close together. Petyr was made Master of Coin under Jon as Hand.[6]

Cause of Death

Stannis Baratheon started to suspect that Queen Cersei's children had been fathered not by King Robert but by her brother Jaime, the Kingslayer, which would have made them illegitimate and Stannis therefore Robert's rightful heir. Concerned that such a suggestion coming from him would be seen as a result of own ambitions, Stannis didn't confide in the King but rather raised the issue with Jon Arryn, whom Robert would be more inclined to believe.[7]

Jon and Stannis began to secretly investigate the matter by seeking out bastards Robert had produced. Together they visited the armory of Tobho Mott where Gendry was employed, one of Robert's offsprings who bore a striking resemblance to his father. They also visited the brothel of Chataya, where Robert had fathered a girl, Barra, who also clearly had the King's features.[8][9] The increased contact with Stannis apparently also contributed to Jon Arryn planning to send his own son as Stannis' ward to Dragonstone.[10]

Jon was seeking further proof that Cersei's children couldn't be Robert's in Grand Maester Malleon's book The Lineages and Histories of the Great Houses of the Seven Kingdoms, a ponderous tome lent to him by Grand Maester Pycelle. The book would have informed him, as it later informed Lord Eddard Stark, that whenever members of the houses Lannister and Baratheon married, their offspring always showed clear Baratheon features.[1][11]

At that time, Jon's investigation had become known to a couple of people at the court, including Pycelle, Varys, Cersei and Petyr Baelish. Cersei considered Jon a threat to her plan of putting her son Joffrey on the Iron Throne after her husband had been disposed of.[12] Pycelle believed that Jon was about to act on his knowledge by making preparations to send his wife to the Eyrie and his son to Dragonstone.[13] Varys saw Jon's life in danger and begged him to use a taster, but Jon dimissed the suggestion that anyone would try to poison him.[9] Littlefinger's motivations are not clear, but he obviously saw the chance of exploiting the death of Jon Arryn for increasing the animosity between the Lannisters and the Starks for his own ends.[6] It's also possible that he saw Cersei and her tendency to act irrationally and hastily as crucial to his own strategy in the "game of thrones" and wanted to prevent her untimely removal from the game.[14]

Petyr Baelish convinced Lysa Arryn to poison Jon's wine with Tears of Lys, suggesting to her that this would both remove the obstacle of them getting married and prevent Jon from sending Robert Arryn to Dragonstone. Lysa did as bid.[6] Jon, until then considered very robust for his age, became ill the night after he had borrowed Malleon's book. He quickly wasted away. Jon's own maester Colemon tried treating an assumed stomach illness by purging the body. However, Grand Maester Pycelle, a staunch Lannister ally, believed that Queen Cersei wanted Jon dead. Although she hadn't given him explicit orders in this regard and wasn't even in the city at the time, he assumed responsibility for the treatment and thereby assured that Jon Arryn died. The moribund Jon kept mentioning the name Robert and his final words to his wife and King Robert were "The seed is strong."[1][13] Lysa believed this to be a comment on their own son.[13] However, it is more likely that Jon Arryn was referring to what he had learned about the Baratheon lineage while studying Maester Malleon's book.[11] Afterwards his speech became too slurred to comprehend and he died the following morning.[1]

Repercussions

After Jon Arryn's death, Robert Baratheon suggested to Lysa Arryn that her son Robert should become ward of Lord Tywin Lannister and be sent to Casterly Rock, as he feared that being raised by his mother would make his namesake weak. Lysa refused the suggestion brusquely and, against the wishes of the King, one night fled from King's Landing with her son und returned to the Vale of Arryn.[15]

The death of Jon Arryn soon became one of the primary triggers of the War of the Five Kings. King Robert decided that Lord Eddard Stark should succeed as Hand of the King, which angered both Queen Cersei, who had hoped her (uninterested) brother Jaime would assume the position and feared that Lord Eddard would move to curb Lannister influence[16], and Stannis Baratheon, who thought he'd owned the position through his 15 years of service on the small council.[17] Shortly after Robert and his entourage left for Winterfell to ask Lord Eddard to become his Hand, Stannis went to Dragonstone[5], where he remained until the war had broken out, which kept him from sharing his suspicions about Cersei's children with Lord Eddard and from directly challenging the legitimacy of Joffrey when he assumed the throne after King Robert died.

On Petyr Baelish's initiative, Lysa wrote a coded letter to her sister Catelyn, in which she falsely claimed that Jon Arryn had been murdered by Queen Cersei. This convinced Catelyn and eventually Eddard, who had been inclined to refuse King Robert's offer, that he must assume the position of Hand, so that he can find out the truth about Jon Arryn's death and expose those responsible.[18][6]

However, when Lord Eddard arrived at the Red Keep, he soon had to realize that Lysa's return to the Eyrie with most of the Arryn household and Stannis' departure to Dragonstone prevented him from questioning crucial witnesses about the circumstances and background of Jon Arryn's death. Left without other options, he began to rely on information provided by Littlefinger and Varys. For obvious reasons, Littlefinger had every interest in Eddard not finding out the truth and only fed him useless information, whereas Varys' belief that Jon Arryn's squire Hugh had poisoned his master might have been an honest mistake.[1][8][9]

In any event, by the time Eddard found out what Jon Arryn had been investigating and what had provided the likely motive for his murder, it was too late to inform King Robert, as he had already gone on the hunting trip on which he would be fatally wounded, and, following Catelyn taking Tyrion Lannister captive for his assumed role in plotting her son Bran's death, fighting had already broken out in the Riverlands.[19][20][11]

Marriages and Heirs

Jon Arryn was married three times, first to Jeyne Royce, and then to Rowena Arryn, a cousin. Neither marriage produced a child. Because he had no children, he had appointed a number of heirs who died one after another. First his nephew Elbert Arryn, the son of his younger brother Ronnel. After Elbert was executed by Aerys II, Denys Arryn became heir. He was of a lower branch of House Arryn, and had married Jon's niece. He was killed in the Battle of the Bells.

During the Rebellion, Jon had married a third time to Lysa Tully, the daughter of Hoster Tully. Their marriage was loveless. Lysa found Jon to be too old and hated his bad breath. After several miscarriages Lysa gave Jon a sickly son and heir, Robert Arryn.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Jasper
 
Unknown
wife
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Rowena
Arryn
 
Jeyne
Royce
 
Jon
 
Lysa
Tully
 
 
 
Alys
 
Elys
Waynwood
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Ronnel
 
Lady
Belmore
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Stillborn
daughter
 
2 stillborn
children
 
Robert
 
Daughter
 
Denys
Arryn
 
Daughter
 
6 daughters
 
Jasper
Waynwood
 
Elbert
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Son
 
 
 
Harrold
Hardyng
 


References and Notes