‘A Dance with Dragons’ introduces new characters into George R. R. Martin’s world. As the story dives into the complexities of Westeros and Essos, it shows the perspective of people who have struggled and tried to survive in the brutal world. The new characters and perspectives provide more detail to Westeros’s past and answer the questions about the origins of the mysterious creatures that rise as the winter falls upon the land.

Tyrion

After killing his father and leaving home, Tyrion begins a journey that takes him to the reaches of Essos. As he sails to an unknown land, the thoughts of his encounter with his father and Shae linger in his mind, and he tries to drown all the emotions of hate and anger by staying drunk. Tyrion’s internal conflict with himself makes him become a shell, a shadow of a once powerful and tactical man. As the ship sails across the Narrow Sea, he thinks of his first love, Tysha, a woman his father had disgraced and sent away.

On reaching Pentos, Tyrion meets Illyrio Mopatis, who takes him on a journey to meet Daenerys. Believing that a son who killed his Lannister father is an ally, Illyrio takes Tyrion to Haldon, and they board the Shy Maid. Aboard the ship, Tyrion gets banned from drinking by Griff, a man whose identity was shrouded in mystery.

As the ship sails to meet Daenerys, they get attacked, and Tyrion gets thrown into the water. He gets rescued and later learns that the boy with Griff is Aegon Targaryen, the son of Rhaegar Targaryen. With the new information, Tyrion advises Aegon to head to Westeros and use the divide from the war to lay his claim to the Iron Throne. With the ship docked, Tyrion heads for a brothel where he meets a Westerosi woman. After sleeping with her, he gets captured by Jorah Mormont, who says he will take him to Daenerys.

Tyrion and Jorah arrive in Volantis, where a dwarf named Penny tries to kill him. She reveals to Tyrion that his sister’s desire to have his head led to her brother’s death and countless other dwarfs. Feeling guilty for his existence, Tyrion decides to become friends with Penny. They then take a ship headed for Quarth, but it gets attacked, and they become slaves.

As slaves in the Yunkish camp, Tyrion tries to free himself and Penny but mistakenly enters the Second Sons camp. He also realizes that Penny may be down with the bloody flux and negotiates for him and Jorah to join the company. Tyrion starts a mission to make the Second Sons defect back to Daenerys’s army.

Jon Snow

As the new lord commander of the Night’s Watch, Jon maintains the Watch’s neutrality on the events happening in Westeros. He tries to ensure that he does not interfere with the activities of Stannis but gets drawn into it as he gets summoned.

Realizing that he cannot escape not interfering, Jon advises Stannis on actions to take in the north. He tells him that attacking Deepwood Motte will be a better plan than going for Dreadfort. 

Jon also tries to save Mance Rayder’s child from Melisandre by giving him to Gilly and sending her off to the Citadel with Sam. He later meets the red priestess, who tells him his enemies are close to him and lurk in the shadows waiting to attack.

As Stannis marches on Deepwood Motte, Melisandre decides to stay behind on the wall. She later reveals to Jon that Mance Rayder, whom he thought died, is alive. She tells Jon that Mance is the key to saving Arya and sends him and some spear wives to Winterfell to free Jon’s sister. 

With Stannis gone from the wall, Jon begins to plan how to stop the wights and Others. He realizes that if the wildlings are allowed through the wall, they will get killed and turned into wights. 

To prevent a massive disaster, Jon sends Val to meet Tormund Gianstsbane and request for him to bring his people through the wall. Though Jon keeps working to save the realm of men from evil, the brothers of the Watch get bitter. While trying to settle a dispute, Jon’s men turn on him and stab him multiple times, stating their actions are for the Watch.

Daenerys

Though she successfully takes over Meereen, Daenerys realizes her victory is not rosy. From the shadows, the Sons of the Harpy begin to unleash chaos in the city by killing people and the Unsullied soldiers. Desperate to end the killing, Daenerys tries to negotiate with the city’s leaders and take their young ones as hostages.

However, the killing by the Sons of the Harpy continues. As Daenerys struggles to govern Meereen, she learns that her dragons have become erratic and are causing havoc to farmers and their livestock.

With the decaying stability in Meereen, Daenerys meets with Lord Ghael from Astapor, who asks for her help as the Yunkish forces begin converging on the city. She refuses to send help, and Astapor falls to Yunkai. With the city’s fall, survivors, with the bloody flux, begin trooping to Meereen.

Meanwhile, in a desperate attempt to stop the brutal killings, Daenerys agrees to Hizdahr’s proposal as he promises to end the killing if she marries him. Thinking that she will find a better plan before Hizdahr succeeds, Daenerys gets surprised when the Sons of the Harpy stop killing. With no alternative, she marries Hizdahr and agrees to reopen the fighting pits of Meereen.

The Yunkish forces begin converging on Meereen, and Quarth declares war against Daenerys after she refuses an offer to leave for Westeros. With no alternative to peace, she starts preparing for war. However, the noise from the fighting pits attracts Drogon. To stop him from causing carnage, she flies away with him and lands in the Dothraki Sea.

While in the Dothraki Sea, Daenerys gets sick and hallucinates about different people who have come and gone in her life. She then gets discovered by Khal Jhaqo, the former Ko of her husband, Khal Drogo.

Bran

Bran continues the journey to learn more about his powers with his friends, Meera, Jojen, Hodor, and Summer. With Coldhands as their guide, the group travels further north, where the world is bleak and uninhabited. As they journey, they realize that Coldhands got sent by the last greenseer to bring Bran.

The group gets attacked by wights, but a Child of the Forest comes to their rescue. The creature reveals to Bran that it is ancient and its kind has been the owners of Westeros. It explains they become part of the weirwood trees when they die, becoming one with the earth. The Child of the Forest gives Bran a weirwood past that fully opens his powers.

The group finally reaches the three-eyed crow. Bran asks if he can restore his legs, but the pale-looking man tells him that he cannot heal his legs but can teach him to fly. As Bran’s power heightens, he begins to see the past and sees different visions of his father, a girl kissing a knight, a pregnant woman coming out of a black pool praying for her son to avenge her, and other visions.

Reek (Theon)

After Ramsay takes over Winterfell from Theon, he locks him up and tortures him. He makes Theon become a ghost of himself and changes his name to Reek. With fear for Ramsay in his heart, Theon becomes a lap dog, obeying the wishes of his master.

Reek gets sent to Moat Coalin to negotiate with the Ironborn garrison to surrender to Ramsay. When he arrives, he reluctantly reveals who he is to the men. Ramsay makes Reek a dog after completing the mission.

Ramsay marries a fake Arya, who Reek discovers is Jeyne Poole. As Arya had escaped from King’s Landing, Jeyne was used in her stead and given to Ramsay as a wife. After the wedding to Jeyne, Ramsay orders Theon to make her wet with his tongue.

Reek continues facing humiliation from Ramsay but soon realizes that some of his men are dying mysteriously. On investigating the deaths, Reek realizes that the washerwomen are plotting to take him and Jeyne out of Winterfell. He reluctantly accepts to join the cause and takes Jeyne with him.

After traveling for a few days, Reek and Jeyne arrive at Stannis’s camp, and he meets Asha. Reek then reveals his true identity to his sister, who gets dumbfounded by her brother’s changed appearance.

Aegon Targaryen

Aegon Targaryen is the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Elia Martell. After Robert’s rebellion, he was switched with another child by Varys and sent away to learn how to become King.

Aegon meets Tyrion on the Shy Maid as Young Griff. After Tyrion learns of his identity, he advises the young prince to head to Westeros and lay claim to the throne. Tyrion tells him that once he reveals his identity, many supporters of the Targaryen will raise their banners to follow him, and his aunt, Daenerys, will march her army to Westeros to defend his claim.

Aegon takes Tyrion’s advice and buys a sellsword company, the Golden companions. He convinces them of his plan to take over Westeros, and they sail for the continent. Upon arriving, Aegon, accompanied by Jon Connington, begins taking over small castles and instigating information on his identity. Kevan Lannister and the small council try to destroy the threat posed by Aegon as they believe him to be an imposter. However, Kevan gets killed by Varys, who reveals that Aegon is Rhaegar’s son.

Asha Greyjoy

After running away from the kingsmoot, Asha tries to hide in Deepwood Motte. She learns that her uncle, Euron, has married her to someone and starts contemplating the next course of action.

However, she learns that the Northmen are conspiring to take over Deepwood Motte, but before she escapes from the town, a battle begins, and she gets hit in the head with an axe.

Asha wakes up as a captive of Stannis and bends to him. She learns that Stannis plans to reach Winterfell in 15 days, and he wants to use her to show his strength. The journey begins but gets hindered by storms. After 30 days of marching, Asha realizes that Stannis and his men are too weak. She witnesses some men get burnt from eating a corpse and later meets some riders from Winterfell. Asha gets shocked to realize that one of the riders from the castle is her brother, Theon, who she thought died.

Cersei

After getting arrested by the Faith Militant, the charges against Cersei get laid. She learns that Arys is dead and sends a letter to Qyburn, telling him to make his new champion a knight of the King’s guard. 

Cersei’s hair gets shaved, and she is stripped and forced to walk to the Red Keep. As she walks to the castle, she tries to stay strong but breaks down after remembering what Maggy the Frog had told her when she was young. On reaching the Red Keep, Cersei gets clothed, and she meets the new knight of the King’s guard, Ser Robert Strong.

Barristan Selmy

After becoming the commander of Daenerys’s Queen’s guard, Barristan becomes her adviser and tries to guide her on her political decisions. After she flies away on Drogon, he stages a resistance targeting Hizdahr. Believing him to be one of the Sons of the Harpy, Barristan tries to take Hizdahr into custody but learns that Daenerys’s dragons have been set free. He arrests Hizdahr and becomes the Queen’s Hand. 

As the Queen’s Hand, Barristan tries to negotiate peace with the Yunkish. However, they refuse his terms, demanding that Daenerys’s dragons get killed before they can settle. The Yunkish forces begin flinging corpses into Meereen.

Quentyn Martell

Quentyn is the son of Prince Doran Martell of Dorne. After leaving Dorne, he heads to Volantis and disguises himself as the servant of a wineseller. Desperate to get to Daenerys, Quentyn joins a sellsword company and travels to Meereen. On arriving in the city, he asks for Daenerys’s hand in marriage, but she refuses him.

After Daenerys flies away on Drogon, Quentyn decides to steal one of her dragons. Believing that he has Targaryen blood, he sneaks into the dungeons the dragons are kept and tries to control Viserion with a whip. However, he gets killed by the dragon who had freed himself.

Davos Seaworth

As the Hand of Stannis Baratheon, Davos travels to White Harbor to ally with Lord Wyman Manderly. However, he meets the Freys in the Lord’s council and learns they are lying about the events of the Red Wedding.

Lord Wyman sentences Davos to death and has him imprisoned. He later gets taken to meet Wyman, who reveals that all he did was a charade to convince the Frey that he was on their side. Wyman reveals to Davos the atrocities committed by Ramsay Bolton in Winterfell. He learns how Rodrick Cassel got murdered.

Ramsay Bolton

Ramsay Bolton is the bastard son of Roose Bolton. Ramsay is a sadistic man who loves torturing and hunting people for sport. After taking over Winterfell, he tortures Theon and changes his name to Reek. He continues his sadistic actions of sending people into the wild and hunting them down.

Ramsay’s father arrives in Winterfell and scolds him for his terrible actions. He tells him how his actions will tarnish the House of Bolton’s image if they are ever discovered and reveals how unstable the north is after the fall of Winterfell. Ramsay then marries Arya, though she was Jeyne, and humiliates her. He locks her away, but Theon rescues her, and they run away from Winterfell with help from Mance Rayder.

Arya

After losing her sight, Arya continues working in the House of Black and White. She starts walking in the body of Nymeria and cats and impresses the Kindly man with her knowledge, and her vision gets restored.

11 Faceless Men gather to have a meeting, and after, Arya gets summoned. She gets asked if she will kill a man. She says yes and gets sent out as Cat of the Canals to spy on her target. After spying on him, Arya decides to use poison to kill the man.

The Kindly man gives Arya the face of a girl abused by her father, and she realizes that taking someone’s face also means experiencing their memories in dreams. Arya then poisons her target, killing him. On completing her mission, she gets promoted to an Acolyte, and the next day, she gets sent to meet Izembaro as an apprentice.

Victarion

Sailing for Meereen, Victarion meets a Red Priest, Moqorro, who heals his injured hands. Victarion allows the priest to accompany him on the journey to meet Daenerys. He shows him the horn Euron gave him, and the priest tells him that the horn, Dragonbinder, is a that should not get blown by a mortal man.

Doran Martell

Balon Swann arrives in Dorne with Gregor Clegane’s head. Doran realizes that if Balon learns the truth behind Myrcella’s mutilation, it will hamper his plans. He meets with the Sandsnakes and his daughter, Arianne, and tells them about his plans to cover up the incident. As Myrcella gets called back to King’s Landing, Doran asks Nymeria to accompany her and tasks Tyene with infiltrating the Faith to gain leverage in King’s Landing.

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