Euron Greyjoy

"I am the Drowned God. From Oldtown to Qarth, when men see my sails, they pray. [...] I am the storm, brother. The first storm, and the last. And you're in my way."

- Euron Greyjoy to Balon Greyjoy

King Euron III Greyjoy is a recurring character in the sixth and seventh seasons who was previously alluded to in the first season. He is portrayed by Pilou Asbæk, and debuts in “Home”. Euron is the younger brother of King Balon Greyjoy, and the eldest uncle of Theon and Yara Greyjoy.

Background
Euron Greyjoy is the younger brother of Balon Greyjoy, head of House Greyjoy, Lord Reaper of Pyke and King of the Iron Islands.

At the outset of the Greyjoy Rebellion, Euron orchestrated the daring Raid on Lannisport which burned Tywin Lannister's entire fleet at anchor. This gave the ironborn command of the western seas and coasts of Westeros for a time.

Euron has spent the last few years as a pirate, reaving from Oldtown to Qarth and beyond. He once lost his senses during a storm while sailing on the Jade Sea, and his crew was forced to tie him to the mast to prevent him from jumping overboard. When he was let down after the storm, he had all their tongues ripped out. Euron later glibly remarked of the incident that "I needed silence".

Season 1
Tyrion Lannister tells Theon about his memories of witnessing the Raid on Lannisport which Tyrion says was caused by Theon's uncles.

Season 6
Euron returns to the Iron Islands following the War of the Five Kings, arriving during a violent storm. He confronts Balon on a rope bridge between two of Pyke's towers, as it is buffeted by the wind and rain. Balon says he assumed Euron would be dead by now, rotting under some foreign sea. Euron sarcastically replies with the traditional ironborn words, "what is dead may never die", and chides Balon when he doesn't repeat the phrase. Balon accuses him of mocking the Drowned God, which Euron retorts by boasting that he is the Drowned God: for from Oldtown to Qarth, whenever men see his sails they pray. The strong wind batters the bridge, making Balon have to hold onto the support ropes, but with eerie calmness Euron stands perfectly still with his hands together in front of him, unafraid. Smirking, Euron notes that his brother is old, and says it is time for him to move aside and let another rule.

Balon draws closer, and says he heard that Euron lost his mind during a storm on the Jade Sea, and the crew had to tie him to the mast to stop him from jumping overboard. Euron smiles and matter-of-factually acknowledges, "They did." Balon goes on to mention that Euron "rewarded" his crew for saving him by cutting out their tongues, to which Euron replies, "I needed silence."

Balon then accuses him by asking what kind of an ironborn loses his senses during a storm, to which Euron firmly says "I am the storm - the first storm, and the last" - and Balon is in his way. Realizing that Euron has come to kill him, Balon attacks him with a knife, slashing his left cheek, but Euron easily overpowers his elder brother, and throws him off the bridge to his death. Following his nephew Theon's endorsement of his niece Yara, Euron arrives at the kingsmoot, announcing his name and his decision to claim the Salt Throne. At first, he greets Theon and Yara cordially, but then he begins to mock them, telling Theon he "fucked things right into the ground", and pointing out that he is a eunuch. Euron reveals that he returned only a few days ago, leading Yara to realize that he murdered Balon. She accuses him of the murder, and he freely admits it in front of the other ironborn captains, claiming that Balon only ever led the ironborn into two wars they could not hope to win, and apologizes to the captains for not returning to kill him sooner, a sentiment which they nod and murmur at. Theon says that Yara should be queen because while Euron was raiding across the Known World, she was leading the ironborn and planning to return the Iron Islands to their former glory, by building the largest fleet the world has ever seen. Euron counters that in his travels, he has seen more of the world than the rest of the captains combined, and that he knows that Daenerys Targaryen, who owns three large dragons, hates the lords of Westeros as much as the ironborn, and has no husband or ships. He intends to sail to Slaver's Bay, bring her back to Westeros, and conquer the Seven Kingdoms with her help. The captains all declare for him when he announces that he paid the iron price for his crown. To consecrate his faith to the Drowned God, Aeron Greyjoy drowns Euron in the sea, reciting a prayer as he does so. When Euron stops breathing, he is dragged back ashore where, after a few tense seconds, he awakens, coughing and spitting water. Aeron places a driftwood crown on his head, making him King of the Iron Islands. He, Aeron, and the captains seek out Theon and Yara with the intention of murdering them, but find they have fled aboard all of the Islands' best ships. Undeterred, Euron declares this will not save them, and orders everyone to chop down every tree they find, to build a thousand ships and conquer Westeros.

Despite Euron's quip that his niece and nephew would not get far, Yara and Theon succeed in sailing across the Narrow Sea to Slaver's Bay. They land in Meereen and beat Euron to Daenerys Targaryen. Yara forges an alliance with Daenerys. In return for offering a hundred ships and supporting her claim to the Seven Kingdoms, Daenerys agrees to help Yara and Theon to defeat their uncle Euron and support Yara's claim to the Salt Throne. In addition, Daenerys extracts an agreement from Yara that the Ironborn will cease raiding the mainland.

Quotes
"I killed him. Threw him right over a rope bridge. I watched him fall. He was leading us nowhere, and we would still be heading there if it weren't for me. No one loved him, no one wanted to follow him. He led us into two wars we couldn't win. I apologize to you all for not killing him years ago."

- Euron admits he murdered Balon.

"Where are my niece and nephew? Let's go murder them."

- Euron Greyjoy.

Behind the Scenes

 * Although in the novels Euron is the eldest of Balon Greyjoy's younger brothers, Pilou Asbæk is actually 36 years younger than Michael Feast, who plays Aeron Greyjoy, the youngest of Balon's brothers in the books. Asbæk is also only four years older than Alfie Allen, who plays Euron's nephew Theon, and almost a year younger than Gemma Whelan, who plays Euron's niece Yara (though in the story there are numerous examples of younger uncles who are simply many years younger than their siblings). It is possible that in the TV version Euron and Aeron's ages were simply swapped. In the novels, however, when Euron returns to the Iron Islands, it is said that he looks unchanged despite the years he was away, almost unnaturally - hinting that he has been using dark magic to slow his aging (see below).
 * A picture of Euron from the episode "Home" implies that he attended Balon's funeral, but his scenes were cut.
 * In the books, Euron wears a patch over his left eye, for which he is nicknamed "Crow's Eye", though it is unclear what he hides beneath the patch. According to Theon it is a black eye "shining with malice", whereas his right eye is blue. The TV version simply omitted the eyepatch and he has both eyes. Actor Pilou Asbæk (Euron) responded to reactions about this change the week after he first appeared in "Home" via his Twitter account, explaining:


 * "I am sorry, but with all the killing Euron has to do, he needs both eyes."

In the books
In the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, Euron is a wildly unpredictable and cruel man, known for his delight in playing vicious mind games and waging psychological war on those around him. He is hated by all his brothers, particularly Victarion. Even many of the other ironborn greatly fear Euron, and consider him to be half-insane - not in the sense of being impulsive (like Joffrey Baratheon or Ramsay Bolton), but in that he seems almost delusional, with an utterly fearless, warped personality.

He is captain of the ship Silence, crewed entirely by mutes - to keep the crew from revealing any of his secrets, Euron personally ripped the tongues out of each of their mouths.

Unlike many ironborn (including Balon), Euron is a cunning strategist, skilled at both politics and military tactics. It was Euron who came up with the battle plan for the surprise Raid on Lannisport during the Greyjoy Rebellion, which burned Tywin Lannister's entire fleet at anchor before it could respond to the ironborn's declaration of independence. Victarion commanded the actual assault itself, but followed Euron's plan.

Euron has never been married. He has several bastard children but does not have any regard for any of them, none were officially acknowledged, and none have been introduced as named characters in the narrative. It is mentioned in passing that he brought three bastard sons to present to the Kingsmoot: only one is briefly described, a ten year old boy with woolly hair and mud-brown skin, apparently fathered on a woman from Sothoryos or the Summer Islands. Euron bluntly says that he gives as much thought to the bastards he has produced as to the contents he produces in his chamber pot.

In the past, whenever Euron drank too much, he would enter the bed chamber which his brothers Aeron and Urrigon shared, and sexually molest one of them, at his choice. As a result, Aeron suffers from occasional nightmares, even after many years passed, about a door with screeching rusty hinges, which he associates with Euron.

About three years before the Red Wedding (about one year before the first novel), Euron raped and impregnated Victarion's third wife, which drove Victarion to beat her to death in an honor killing, so he would not be put to shame as a cuckold. Euron flippantly claimed that it was not rape and he in fact seduced Victarion's wife willingly, but due to Euron's pervasive lying and mind games he may have just said this to mock his brother. Victarion would have killed Euron too, but Balon forbade it, though only because he would not have the taboo of kinslaying in his own halls. Balon still sympathized with Victarion and renounced Euron as his brother. As punishment, Balon exiled Euron from the Iron Islands, never to return, so he is not present when Theon returns to Pyke in the second novel. Victarion still deeply hates Euron and wishes him dead.

Euron's actions also made him very unpopular with the Drowned Men priests, who deride him as an "ungodly" man. There aren't many things that the Drowned God religion won't stand for - given that it considers raiding and pillaging to be holy acts - but raping your own brother's wife is one of them (even if just a salt wife). Euron is also very flippant about the Drowned God and ironborn traditions in general, further earning him the ire of the priests. After being banished from the Iron Islands, Euron sailed his ship far to the east, raiding and plundering as an infamous pirate, and became the terror of the world's oceans. He claims to have sailed to the far corners of the known world where other men fear to venture:
 * Since he had already destroyed Tywin Lannister's fleet in the northwest of the Sunset Sea, Euron sailed to distant Asshai on the Jade Sea and plundered that strange city's shadowbinders, and he paid the iron price to seize a fortune's worth of spices from the harbors of Yi Ti.
 * He also raided around Qarth, and while many men dread the Warlocks of that city, Euron attacked and captured several of them, and tortured them into teaching him the ways of black magic. He captured four warlocks at first, but when one dared to threaten Euron, he killed him and fed his flesh to the other three, starving them until they were desperate enough to eat it (after that they were more pliable to his commands). From this encounter, Euron picked up the habit of drinking shade of the evening, and as with the warlocks the potion has stained his lips blue.
 * Euron braved the dangers of the Smoking Sea, which even other pirates fear, and he even dared walk the allegedly demon-haunted ruins of Old Valyria, searching for lost treasures.
 * He reaved around the Summer Islands, taking their comeliest women as his concubines, and in the Narrow Sea, he raided ships of all the Free Cities (Braavos, Pentos, and Volantis alike).
 * In the Shivering Sea, he sailed to the frozen isle of Ibben, north of Essos, where he wrestled the hairy whaling-folk to steal their booty.

Euron is the eldest of Balon's three younger brothers - yet it is noted within the narrative that when he returns to the Iron Islands he appears almost unnaturally young. Victarion is Euron's younger brother, but while Victarion is old enough that his hair is flecked with grey, Euron's is still as black as night. Victarion's first thoughts upon seeing Euron again are: "He looks unchanged. He looks the same as he did the day he laughed at me and left." Victarion has apparently been cut from the TV series, but the HBO Viewer's Guide family tree still lists Euron as older than Aeron Greyjoy - despite the fact that TV-Aeron is presented as an older priest with greying hair. Thus it might be a plot point even in the TV show that Euron's appearance hasn't changed - possibly due to the dark arts he learned in his voyages.

In A Feast for Crows, Euron makes a surprise return to the Iron Islands - the very next day after his older brother Balon's mysterious death.

As his arrival appears to coincide with Balon's fall from the bridge, Asha (named Yara in the TV series) openly accuses him of murdering her father, but it cannot be proven. Euron is so brazen that he doesn't really care how suspicious it appeared to return immediately after his brother's death and then claim his throne, and dismisses Asha's accusations nonchalantly. It is unclear whether other ironborn suspect Euron too: nearly everyone at the Iron Islands and Westeros in general, including Aeron and Victarion, simply accept Balon's death as a fact, and the cause of death does not matter to them.

In the novels it is heavily implied that Euron hired one of the Faceless Men to throw Balon off a rope bridge at Pyke - the TV series has Euron do it personally, allowing for a face to face confrontation between them.

Asha, who suspects Euron killed her father but cannot prove that, claims that Euron is not afraid to be seen as a kinslayer; if someone says that he is, he'd murder one of his own sons just to prove he is not. Little does Asha know how much she is right, for Euron is a serial kinslayer (as revealed in "The Forsaken" sample chapter of the sixth novel): he is responsible not only to Balon's death, but also to the deaths of two of his other brothers - Robin the lackwit and Harlon who suffered of Greyscale - both of them he killed by his own hands. As for Balon, he admits "I could not do the deed myself, but it was my hand that pushed him off the bridge". Unlike in the show, he does not admit that in public.

While the Kingsmoot in A Feast for Crows also ends in Euron's victory, it occurs under considerably different circumstances. In A Storm of Swords, Euron sails into Pyke and claims the Seastone Chair one day after Balon's death. Lord Sawane Botley objects, claiming that Theon is the legal heir, and Euron drowns him. Aeron contests Euron's claim to the throne by calling a Kingsmoot. Instead of a two-horse race between him and Yara, Euron has to contend with several other candidates including his estranged younger brother Victarion; who is older than Aeron. Like the TV series, Euron is the last to present his candidacy and manages to woo the Ironborn by having one of his men, Cragorn, blow the Dragonbinder. In the novel, his Kingsmoot speech does not mention Daenerys but instead refers to her dragons.

Unlike the TV series, Aeron does not crown Euron with the driftwood crown but goes into hiding, planning to turn the small folk against Euron. Instead, his other brother Victarion pledges his allegiance to Euron and becomes his second-in-command. In the novel, Euron dispatches Victarion to travel to Essos and bring back his bride Daenerys since he is preoccupied with leading an Ironborn invasion of the Reach. Victarion, who still resents Euron, decides to take Daenerys to himself. Euron gives Victarion Dragonbinder, which the latter regards suspiciously, reminding himself "Euron's gifts are poisoned".

Following the kingsmoot, Euron does not seek to kill Asha and Theon, because he does not need to: at that point Theon is still prisoner at Dreadfort, and none of the ironborn cares if he is dead or alive; as for Asha, Euron neutralizes her by marrying her (in her absence) to the ironborn Erik Ironmaker - a politically wise action, as Asha is forced to admit.

Only one ironborn lord refuses openly to accept Euron as the king - Baelor Blacktyde, whose statement "Balon was mad, Aeron is madder, and Euron is maddest of them all" becomes a common saying among the ironborn. In response, Euron has him cut into seven pieces.

After being crowned, Euron's first military campaign is to raid the Reach. Led by Victarion, the ironborn conquer the Shield Islands. Much to Victarion's anger, Euron not only takes all the credit to himself, but also takes advantage of the victory to weaken potential rivals by giving lands and titles to key followers of theirs. Euron knows that eventually the Tyrells will retake the Shield Islands back, but does not care, nor is he worried that he will blamed for that: he is certain that the ironborn will only remember his victory taking the islands and his generosity of giving them to the new-appointed ironborn lords, but will blame their loss on the Houses that try to hold them. He does not give any thoughts about the long-range applications of his deeds.

Euron claims that he had a dragon's egg. He tells Victarion that a Myrish wizard swore he could hatch it if Euron gave him a year and all the gold that he required; when Euron grew bored with his excuses, he slew the wizard, and threw the egg in the sea during one of his dark moods. It is unknown if the story is true, but the last part is unlikely, since dragon's eggs are priceless - hatched or not. There is a theory he used the egg (if he indeed had one) as a payment to the Faceless Men for Balon's murder.

The Volantene Red Priest Benerro claims that "Daenerys stands in peril. The dark eye has fallen upon her, and the minions of night are plotting her destruction". The Red Priest Moqorro tells about a vision of "a tall and twisted thing with one black eye and ten long arms, sailing on a sea of blood" who seeks Daenerys more than anyone else. This mysterious figure is widely speculated to be Euron, since in the books he has one eye, Krakens (depicted in the Greyjoy sigil) have ten arms, and indeed he has embarked on a quest to seek Daenerys.

"Euron" is pronounced "Your-on".

In a preview chapter from the Winds of Winter novel entitled "The Forsaken", it is revealed that Euron had his mutes seize his brother Aeron. Euron has Aeron imprisoned in the depths of the Silence and forces him to consume Shade of the evening, causing the latter to have multiple visions. Euron takes Aeron down with him during his invasion of the Shield Islands. Following the capture of Oakenshield, Euron has his new salt wife Falia Flowers feed Aeron. Due to Euron's role in humiliating her estranged family and showering her with silk and jewels, Falia is enamored with Euron. She is also pregnant with Euron's child and believes that he will favor her and her children over his other saltwives and natural-born children. Knowing Euron, Aeron advises her to flee but she is not convinced.

Euron also captures several holy men from the Faith of the Seven and Red Priests and has them tortured with their tongues ripped out. When Euron visits his younger brother, he mocks the Drowned Priest's faith in the Drowned God and proudly admits to killing his brothers Harlon, Robin, and Balon Greyjoy. Euron mocks the Drowned God because he has not been punished for his crimes. Aeron dares Euron to kill him, but Euron refuses, saying enigmatically that he needs Aeron alive at present. Later, Euron prepares for battle with the Redwyne fleet in the Arbor and shows his new iron crown and Valyrian suit of armor to Aeron; confirming that he has indeed been to Valyria. Euron then orders his crew to tie Aeron and his salt wife Falia to the prow of the Silence prior to the battle with the Redwyne fleet. Falia is shown to be naked and Aeron learns that Euron has ripped out her tongue.