Robin Arryn

"Mummy, I want to see the bad man fly."

- Robin Arryn

Robin Arryn, commonly called "Sweetrobin" by his mother, is a recurring character in the first and fourth seasons. He is played by guest star Lino Facioli and debuts in "The Wolf and the Lion." Lord Robin Arryn is the only surviving child and heir of Lord Jon Arryn by his wife, Lysa of House Tully. He is the Lord of the Eyrie and the head of House Arryn, the Warden of the East and Lord Paramount of the Vale of Arryn. His mother will rule as Regent until he comes into his majority.

Background
Robin was born in King's Landing where his father was serving as the Hand of the King for Robert Baratheon. Jon begins an investigation into Robert's legitimate and bastard children and then takes a fever and dies suddenly. Robin inherits Jon's position. Lysa rushes Robin back to the Eyrie following Jon's death. She writes to her sister to accuse House Lannister of poisoning Jon. Lysa is fiercely protective of Robin and he leads an extremely sheltered life.

Season 1
Catelyn Stark brings the captive Tyrion Lannister to the Eyrie. Catelyn has arrested him on suspicion of involvement in the attempted assassination of her son Bran and expects Lysa's support given her earlier accusation. She is shocked to see that Lysa still breastfeeds Robin, despite him being too old. Robin is prone to fits of histrionics, demanding to see "the bad man fly." Lysa calls him a strong and mighty ruler, worthy of the Vale's leadership, but Catelyn appears skeptical.

Tyrion agrees to confess to his crimes and is brought before the High Seat. He presents a list of minor misdemeanours from childhood, though Robin is particularly intrigued by some of them. Tyrion demands trial by combat to prove his innocence and persuades the mercenary Bronn to be his champion. Bronn triumphs against Robin's champion, Ser Vardis Egen and he and Tyrion are allowed to go free. Robin is disappointed at being deprived of an execution.

Catelyn visits Robin and Lysa before leaving the Vale to join her son Robb's army. She asks Lysa to commit the Vale to the war on the side of the Starks and Tullys, but Lysa refuses, saying the Vale's knights are needed at home to defend Robin.

In the books
In the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, Robin's character is named Robert Arryn. The character was renamed for the television series to avoid confusion with Robert Baratheon and Robb Stark - Robb Stark and Robert Arryn both being named after King Robert. The name "Robin" was chosen because it allows him to keep his book nickname of "Sweetrobin", which is how he is more commonly known. Robert is six years old when the events of the books begin. He is a soft, spoiled child but also sickly, suffering from epileptic seizures which occur sporadically. His mother dotes on him a great deal. His illness, combined with his mother's doting, has left him intellectually and physically stunted for a boy his age.

Author George R.R. Martin made it a point to have several characters with the same name, because this happened in real life. It would be implausible to say that "Robert Baratheon" was the only person named "Robert" on an entire continent. Noble families in particular frequently re-use a small set of names, as children are named to honor famous ancestors, relatives, or major allies (i.e. "Robert Arryn" is named in honor of "Robert Baratheon", his father's great ally). One of the reasons Martin wrote the A Song of Ice and Fire novels is because he grew so frustrated with writing for television and film, in which budget constraints and audience attention span are a limiting factor. As Martin explained:


 * Martin: "I wrote these books, never dreaming they would filmed or made. It was almost a reaction to my tenure in Hollywood. 'I'm just going to do this as big as I want.' But I broke a lot or rules in writing these books, that you're taught as a writer, that I certainly was taught. But at certain point I thought, 'To hell with those rules.'
 * Question: "What rules?"
 * Martin: "Well, having so many characters, for one. Having similar names. Stuff like that. I remember as a little baby writer I was taught never have two characters whose names begin with the same letter because people will get them confused. And I realized I was going to have more than 26 characters, so that would have to go out the window. - And also I was reading a lot of history. [People said], 'Never have two characters with the same letter? Certainly never have two characters with the same name.' But then I'm saying, 'That's so unrealistic.' I mean, English history is entirely composed of Henrys and Edwards. There's endless Henrys and Edwards, and you know, not only kings, who at least get numbers, but the guys who never become king. They're princes, and then they die. They're not even distinguished by numbers and it's very hard to keep all these guys straight. But that's the way the history actually was. Families using the same name over again. And I like that element of verisimilitude, [so] I adopted that."

Lords in the Vale style Lord Robert the "True Warden of the East" after King Robert names Jaime Lannister as Warden of the East due to the child lord's physical and mental state. Jaime continues to nominally hold the position when he spends a full year as a prisoner of the Starks after the Battle of the Whispering Wood, though his imprisonment means that the position is left functionally vacant. The title of Warden of the East is restored to Sweetrobin by Tywin Lannister as one of the conditions of the marriage-alliance between Lysa and Petyr Baelish which brings House Arryn back into the Lannister fold.