Illyrio Mopatis
A hugely fat, hugely rich magister of Pentos, host and patron to the exiled Targaryens, whose lavish generosity always seems to serve some deeper design.
A soul born at Pentos, sworn to Sellswords & Free Companies.
The fuller tale
How it ends for them
The chronicle records no death for this soul ÔÇö they are living when the tale leaves them, or their ending is a page the maesters have yet to turn.
Their chapters, book by book
A Game of Thrones 2 chapters that name them
Daenerys I
In Illyrio's manse in Pentos, Viserys dresses his sister for sale; Daenerys meets Khal Drogo and learns her wedding will buy her brother an army.
Arya III
Chasing cats through the Red Keep, Arya overhears two men in the cellars plotting delay and war ÔÇö Varys and Illyrio, though she cannot name them.A Dance with Dragons 2 chapters that name them
Where the page and the screen part
The showÔÇÖs Illyrio exists for a handful of first-season scenes ÔÇö the marriage broker, the manse, the eggs ÔÇö plus one overheard conspiracy with Varys in the Red KeepÔÇÖs cellars, and then vanishes from the series entirely. The books keep him central long after: his partnership with Varys is given a full history, his manse hosts TyrionÔÇÖs flight east, and he stands revealed as co-architect of the Young Griff plot ÔÇö the hidden claimant, the Golden Company, and the invasion of Westeros that the novels stage and the show replaced with DaenerysÔÇÖs own. The adaptation, having cut Aegon, quietly reassigned the conspiracyÔÇÖs fruits: the Golden Company sails for Cersei instead, and VarysÔÇÖs restorationist scheming is simplified into service to Daenerys. Book readers also carry the Serra question ÔÇö the dead wife, the blue-haired boy, and the possibility that IllyrioÔÇÖs grand design is partly a fatherÔÇÖs ÔÇö which the show never needed and never mentions. He is alive in both tellings, rich beyond counting, and safely offstage.
Their journey
Where the two tellings send them to the same place the road runs whole; where they part, the screen keeps the left and the books the right.