Ilyn Payne
The King's Justice, the royal headsman ÔÇö a gaunt, silent man whose tongue was torn out by order of the Mad King, so he can never speak of what he does.
A soul born at The Westerlands.
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 Clash of Kings 1 chapter that name them
A Feast for Crows 1 chapter that name them
Where the page and the screen part
The books give the executioner a strange late-career grace note the show never filmed: Jaime Lannister, learning to fight left-handed and needing a sparring partner who can never gossip about how bad the Kingslayer has become, chooses the one man in the realm with no tongue. Their nightly sessions in the Riverlands ÔÇö Jaime talking, confessing almost, at a man who answers only with dry clacking laughter and steel ÔÇö are among the novels' oddest and best pairings, and they reveal an Ilyn with a bleak sense of humor buried in the silence. The show intended more for him: the actor's illness led the series to quietly retire the character after the second season, and his sparring role passed to Bronn. He is alive in both tellings ÔÇö the show simply lets him vanish, while the books keep him swinging a sword at the Kingslayer's elbow, still without a word to say about any of it.
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.