Yoren

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Yoren
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Allegiance Night's Watch
Culture Westeros
Died In 299 ACRiverlands
Books

Played by Francis Magee
TV series Season 1 | Season 2

Yoren is a sworn brother of the Night's Watch. He is a recruiter, or "wandering crow," he travels the Seven Kingdoms, responsible for collecting recruits and prisoners, who would take the black, and escorting them to Castle Black for training.

Character and Appearance

Yoren is hard and grim, and has little patience for fools.[1] Due to his shoulder injury he cannot fight well anymore and for the past thirty years he has been traveling the Seven Kingdoms recruiting for the Night's watch. In all that time, he only lost three. Yoren is not the most refined member but loyal and trustworthy. His travels frequently bring him to Winterfell, and he knows the members of House Stark and has a certain loyalty to them.[2]

Yoren is stooped and sinister with a twisted shoulder. His coarse and ugly features are hidden behind a thick and matted black beard. He is lice-ridden and smells foul, wearing garments that are tattered and long since faded to grey.[3][1] He chews sourleaf.

History

A Game of Thrones

Yoren joined Benjen Stark's party as it headed north to the Wall[3] and later accompanied Tyrion Lannister back south on the road to King's Landing.[4] After Catelyn Stark arrest Tyrion, Yoren continues on to King's Landing to inform Eddard Stark about what happened.[5]

Yoren remains in the city to gather more recruits. At some point, Yoren was approached by a man who gave him some gold to take a boy with him to the wall (later revealed as Gendry) and after Eddard's imprisonment Yoren was told to be ready to take Eddard to the Wall.[6] Yoren was present at the Great Sept of Baelor where Eddard confessed and was executed instead of being banished to the Wall. Yoren recognizes Arya Stark amidst the crowd and seizes her after her father’s execution, calling her "boy" dragging her away.[7]

Yoren gives the command to leave for the Wall.

A Clash of Kings

Yoren is returning north to the Wall with approximately thirty recruits, mostly culled from the dungeons of the Red Keep. After disguising Arya as a boy, cutting her hair with a blade and calling her Arry, he takes her with him. He plans to drop her off in Winterfell along the way.[6]

Avoiding the Kingsroad, Yoren's group moves north along the eastern side of the river running south from the Gods Eye. Having no means to cross the river with their wagons so that they could move along the western lakeshore, Yoren figures that the best way to proceed is by renting boats in a (nameless) town on the southern shore of the Gods Eye and crossing the lake towards Harrentown, going on from there or finding shelter with Lady Whent at Harrenhal (which, unbeknownst to Yoren, is already under Lannister control). However, when they arrive at the town, it is deserted and no boats can be found. Yoren, apprehensive about the increasing signs of war, decides to spend the night at the abandoned holdfast of the town while reflecting on how to cross the lake.[8]

During the night, a party led by Ser Amory Lorch, part of the Lannister campaign in the Riverlands, arrives and torches the town. They advance to the holdfast and Lorch commands Yoren, in the name of King Joffrey, to open the gate. After some discussion, in the course of which he points out that the Night's Watch takes no part in the war, Yoren refuses, prompting Lorch to order his men to storm the holdfast and kill all inside. They open the attack by thrusting a spear in Yoren's direction but kill Woth instead. Yoren gives orders for defending the walls. During the ensuing assault, he kills the man with whom he had the first exchange that night. When he realizes that the attackers have won, he grabs Arry and yells at her, still calling her "boy", that she and Gendry should rescue as many boys as possible, pointing out a flight route via a tunnel they had found earlier. Then he goes off to engage more enemies. This is the last Arry sees of Yoren before she and some others escape through the tunnel.[8]

Arry and Gendry return to the holdfast the next morning, after the departure of Lorch's men, with Arry hoping they'll find Yoren alive, because Lorch's men would not have dared to kill a man of the Night Watch and Yoren is too hard to beat anyway. However, everyone has been killed. They find Yoren's body, an axe having split his skull, surrounded by the bodies of four enemies. They bury him on Arry's insistence, leaving the bodies of the others as they have no time to bury all.[9]

Back in King's Landing, Tyrion is told by Bronn that a black brother has arrived from the Wall. Tyrion hopes it might be Yoren and is disappointed when he finds out that it is Ser Alliser Thorne instead.[10]

Yoren's Last Crows

These are the last recruits that Yoren tried to bring to the Wall before his demise.

References and Notes