Jon Arryn
The old Lord of the Eyrie and Hand of the King, who fostered Ned Stark and Robert Baratheon as boys and held the realm together for seventeen years. His sudden death opens the tale.
A soul of House Arryn, born at The Eyrie.
The fuller tale
Season One
Ned follows Jon Arryn's last steps to an armorer's shop ÔÇö and Robert's black-haired bastard.
Season Four
Lysa Arryn marries Littlefinger within the hour of his arrival ÔÇö and shrieks the truth of Jon Arryn's murder.
How it ends for them
On the screen. A sudden fever (S1┬ÀE1)
The Hand of the King died suddenly of a burning fever, quick as a candle snuffed ÔÇö and half the realm's troubles begin with that bed. He spent his last strength whispering 'the seed is strong,' having learned a truth about the royal children that could not be allowed to live.
On the page. A sudden fever (AGOT, ch. 1)
The Hand of the King burned out in days, a strong man eaten hollow by a sudden fever, whispering 'the seed is strong.' The tale opens with his death ÔÇö and with the lie Lysa wrote to Winterfell about who arranged it.
He died fast for a healthy man ÔÇö a burning fever that ate him in days, in both tellings, with his wife at his bedside and his last strength spent on four words about seed. The realm was told it was natural. Winterfell was told, by LysaÔÇÖs smuggled letter, that it was the Lannisters. Both were lies, and the second was the more effective: Ned Stark rode south to catch his friendÔÇÖs killers and walked into the machine that killed him.
The truth surfaces at the Moon Door years later, in the show and the books alike: Lysa herself poisoned her husband with the Tears of Lys, at the urging of Petyr Baelish, who then dictated the letter blaming the Lannisters. Jon Arryn was murdered by his own wife for the love of a man who wanted a war ÔÇö not because of what he knew, though what he knew was fatal, but as the opening move of LittlefingerÔÇÖs long game. The books add PycelleÔÇÖs cold assist, withholding care once the fever took hold. The most honorable man of his generation died of other peopleÔÇÖs ambitions, three separate ways at once.
Their chapters, book by book
A Game of Thrones 3 chapters that name them
Catelyn I
In the godswood Catelyn brings Ned hard news: Jon Arryn is dead of a sudden fever, and King Robert rides north with his court.
Catelyn II
Lysa's secret letter arrives accusing the Lannisters of murdering Jon Arryn; Ned resolves to go south, and Jon will go to the Wall.
Eddard V
Jon Arryn's trail: Pycelle's evasions, a heavy book of lineages, and Littlefinger's careful hint about an armorer's shop.Where the page and the screen part
Both tellings agree on the essentials; the books simply furnish the investigation. There Jon Arryn works in tandem with Stannis, and the trail is strewn with corroborating detail the show trims: the suspiciously new-made knight Ser Hugh of the Vale, his former squire, who dies conveniently on the MountainÔÇÖs lance at the HandÔÇÖs own memorial tourney; and Grand Maester PycelleÔÇÖs later confession that he deliberately let the HandÔÇÖs sickness run its course, sending away the healer who might have saved him, because a dying manÔÇÖs secrets die with him. The show gives you the corpse in the first hour; the books give you the autopsy across four volumes.