<P> Ned Stark (season 1, 6 - 7) portrayed by Sean Bean in season 1 as an adult, and by Sebastian Croft in season 6 as a child, and Robert Aramayo in season 6 and 7 as a young adult . Eddard "Ned" Stark of House Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, becomes the Hand of the King after Lord Jon Arryn's death . He is known for his sense of honor and justice . He took part in Robert's Rebellion after his sister Lyanna was kidnapped by Crown Prince Rhaegar Targaryen . When Ned's father and brother went south to reclaim her, the "Mad King" Aerys Targaryen burned both of them alive . Ned and Robert Baratheon led the rebellion to unseat him from the throne . As the show opens, Ned has been content to remain in the north, but after the death of Lord Jon Arryn, he is convinced that it is his duty to accept the position of Hand of the King . Ned is not interested in politics, and prefers to rule with honor and follow the law . While investigating the reason for the death of Jon Arryn, he discovers that all three of Robert's children with Queen Cersei were fathered by Cersei's twin brother Jaime . When Ned confronts Cersei about the truth, she has him imprisoned for treason after he publicly denounces Joffrey . Ned is convinced by Varys that if he goes to his death honorably, as he is prepared to do, his daughters will suffer for it . To protect them, he sacrifices his honor and publicly declares that he was plotting to steal the throne and that Joffrey is the true king . Despite Cersei's promise that Ned would be allowed to join the Night's Watch in exile, Joffrey orders Ned's execution for his own amusement and later torments Sansa by forcing her to look at her father's head . His bones are later returned to Catelyn in the Stormlands by Petyr Baelish, who laments Ned's downfall and that he was too honorable to seize power through force, rather insisting the throne pass to Lord Stannis Baratheron, Robert's younger brother . Baelish's preferred course of action, revealed only to Ned, had been to seize Cersei and her children first and rule in Joffrey's name as Regent and Lord Protector . Ned's execution, however, is not in vain, since he notifies Stannis of the truth of Joffrey's parentage, and Stannis informs all of Westeros, which sets into motion the War of Five Kings against House Lannister . </P> <P> Robert Baratheon (season 1) portrayed by Mark Addy . Robert Baratheon of House Baratheon, formerly a fierce warrior, became King of the Seven Kingdoms after leading a rebellion against Aerys II Targaryen . He was betrothed to Ned Stark's sister Lyanna and loved her deeply, and she was kidnapped by Rhaegar Targaryen . Her father and another brother were killed when they went to King's Landing to reclaim her, which resulted in Robert and Ned Stark's revolt known as Robert's Rebellion, whereupon the Targaryens were all slaughtered or routed from the Kingdoms . Since Robert's family had closer ties to the former Royal family, this put Robert on the Iron Throne . Now, Robert has grown fat and miserable; he has no more wars to fight, is surrounded by plotters and sycophants, hates and is bored by the constant work needed to manage the Kingdoms properly, and trapped in a political marriage to the scheming Cersei Lannister, whom he has never loved . He is unaware that none of his three children are his, but instead Jaime Lannister's . Under his reign, the realm has been bankrupted, and Robert is deeply in debt to his wife's family . Killed while hunting, he unknowingly leaves no rightful heir behind . His bastards are ordered dead by Joffrey, many of which are killed, and Gendry is subsequently forced to flee the capital . </P> <P> Jaime Lannister (season 1--present) portrayed by Nikolaj Coster - Waldau . Ser Jaime Lannister of House Lannister is a member of the Kingsguard and an exceptionally skilled swordsman . He is the Queen's twin brother and has carried on an incestuous love affair with her all his life, fathering all three of her living children . He truly does love his sister and will do anything, no matter how rash, to stay close to her . He is nicknamed "Kingslayer" for killing the previous King, Aerys II, whom he was sworn to protect . He was allowed to keep his post in the current Kingsguard as he and his influential father helped Robert win the war, but no one feels he deserves this post, which frustrates Jaime . Despite Eddard Stark's animosity against him for forsaking his oath to protect the King during Robert's Rebellion, Jaime has great respect for Eddard, whom he considers a great warrior and his equal . Unlike his father and sister, Jaime cares deeply about his younger brother Tyrion . In Season 2, Catelyn releases and sends Jaime to King's Landing under Brienne of Tarth's watch in exchange for a pledge to send her daughters home . On the journey, they are captured by the violent Locke, a man - at - arms under Roose Bolton, a Northern Lord . On their way to Harrenhal, now held by Bolton, the lowborn Locke cuts off Jaime's sword hand to taunt his position and privilege . Jaime survives and is allowed to depart Harrenhal on condition that he acquits Bolton from any guilt . During his time in Harrenhal, Jaime reveals to Brienne on why he killed King Aerys II . Once freed, Jaime travels to King's Landing with Brienne and disgraced Maester Qyburn, given by Bolton to tend to his injury, in tow . At the end of Season 3, they arrive at the gates and Jaime reunites with Cersei . In season 4, Jaime is fitted with a golden prosthetic hand and given a new sword, and is trained by Bronn in fencing with his left hand . Jaime is one of the few people in King's Landing who believe in Tyrion's innocence in killing Joffrey, and does his best to comfort his younger brother, while outright refusing Cersei's order to kill Tyrion before his trial . When Tyrion is sentenced to death, Jaime frees Tyrion from captivity and arranges for him to be smuggled to Essos with Varys's help . Jaime tells Cersei that he will travel to Dorne and bring Myrcella back . Myrcella says that she likes it in Dorne and doesn't want to go back to King's Landing . However, she eventually leaves with her uncle and Trystane, after Doran bargains to have his son take his seat on the Small Council . On the journey home, Jaime reveals his incestuous relationship to Cersei to their daughter, who then reveals she knows and is glad that Jaime is her father and hugs him, but moments later Myrcella collapses from poison and dies . In season 6, Jaime returns to King's Landing with Myrcella's body and sends Doran a letter requesting the heads of Ellaria, Obara, Nymeria and Tyene, but later hears that both Doran and Trystane were killed by the Sands . In response to Cersei's humiliation by the Faith Militant, Jaime ponders murdering the High Sparrow and marching on the Great Sept of Baelor with the army of House Tyrell to forcibly rescue Margaery from custody . He is foiled, however, when Tommen declares an allegiance between the Faith and the Crown, and dismisses Jaime from the Kingsguard, clearly on the High Sparrow's orders . Jaime is later sent to the Riverlands with Bronn to oversee the surrender of Riverrun . He parleys with Brynden "The Blackfish" Tully, to no avail, and then falsely threatens Edmure Tully with the murder of his baby son if he does not get his men to surrender the castle . The castle eventually falls to the Lannisters and Freys . Jaime briefly crosses paths with Brienne and Podrick, but allows them to leave peacefully . He returns to King's Landing shortly after the Great Sept's destruction, and enters the Red Keep to see Cersei being crowned Queen . In Season 7 he commands the Lannister army, capturing Highgarden but suffering defeat when ambushed by Daenerys' Dothraki forces and dragons . He clashes with Cersei over the threat from the Army of the Dead, and when she breaks her word over sending military support he leaves her and rides north alone . </P> <P> Catelyn Stark (season 1--3) portrayed by Michelle Fairley . Catelyn Stark of House Stark and House Tully (née Tully), Lady of Winterfell, is the wife of Lord Eddard Stark . Born to the Lord and Lady of the Riverlands, she is the elder sister of Lysa Arryn, Lady of the Vale and Mistress of the Eyrie, and Lord Edmure Tully, Lord of Riverrun . After deducing that the Lannisters are responsible for the attempt on Bran Stark's life, she travels to King's Landing to warn Ned, and on her return trip has a chance encounter with Tyrion Lannister . Since Catelyn does not know about Tyrion's complete innocence, she decides to take him captive because she believes that he is behind the attempt on her son's life . She takes him to her sister, Lysa Arryn, so that he can be brought to justice but is not successful, as Tyrion is found innocent after a trial by combat . After her husband is arrested and her eldest son Robb goes to war for his release, she joins her son's war council . Upon learning that her husband was executed by orders of King Joffrey, she vows to her son Robb that the Lannister family will pay with their lives . Throughout Season 2, she aids her son Robb in the rebellion by advising him and attempting to broker alliances . While trying to form an alliance with Renly Baratheon, another claimant to the Iron Throne, she takes Brienne of Tarth into her service as an armswoman after Renly's assassination . She frees Jaime Lannister, a valuable hostage to the Starks, in an attempt to exchange him for her captive daughters . Robb, feeling betrayed by what his mother has done, puts her under house arrest . Catelyn travels north with her son to her father's funeral at her childhood home of Riverrun . She is killed in the Red Wedding Massacre after her desperate (and futile) pleas to the Freys to spare her son, threatening to slit Lady Frey's throat if Robb dies . She keeps her promise, and is herself killed moments later when "Black" Walder Frey cuts her throat to the bone . In Season 4, it is stated that her body was stripped naked and thrown into the river after the massacre as a mockery of House Tully's funeral traditions . Though House Stark is stripped of all lands and titles by House Lannister as a result of Robb's death and his ultimately failed rebellion against the Iron Throne, Catelyn and her son are later avenged in Season 6 and the first episode of Season 7 when her eldest daughter Sansa Stark and Sansa's half brother Jon Snow successfully overthrow House Bolton and retake Winterfell and Jon is crowned the King in the North by the remaining Northern lords, wildlings, and Knights of the Vale, restoring Stark rule in the North in the process, while her youngest daughter Arya Stark returns to Westeros, murders Walder Frey, and later uses his face to disguise herself as him to poison all his sons and male descendants at the Twins, ultimately avenging the Red Wedding and exterminating House Frey . </P>

List of game of thrones characters still alive