Jeor Mormont
The Old Bear: Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, who set aside Bear Island and his lordship for the black cloak. Gruff, shrewd, and fiercely devoted to his brothers.
A soul born at Bear Island, sworn to The Night's Watch, House Mormont.
The fuller tale
How it ends for them
On the screen. Slain at Craster's Keep (S3┬ÀE4)
The Old Bear held the shattered remnant of his ranging together as far as Craster's Keep, and there his own starving brothers turned their knives. He died with a mutineer in his fists, urging Sam to reach the Wall with word of what was coming.
On the page. The mutiny at Craster's Keep (ASOS, ch. 34)
The Old Bear brought the ranging's survivors as far as Craster's Keep, where hunger and mutiny finished what the Others began. He died with Dirk's blade in him, telling Sam to find his son Jorah and tell him to take the black.
In both tellings the Old Bear survives the Others only to be killed by his own order. The remnant of the Great Ranging staggers back to CrasterÔÇÖs Keep, starving, frostbitten and mutinous, and CrasterÔÇÖs stinginess strikes the spark: the brawl over bread becomes murder, Craster dies at his own board, and when Mormont commands the men to stand down the knives turn on him. On screen it is Rast ÔÇö the whining bully heÔÇÖd dragged to the Wall ÔÇö who drives the blade into his back; Mormont dies throttling him, ordering Sam to reach the Wall with word of what marches behind them.
The books stage the same betrayal with different hands: DirkÔÇÖs blade does the work, and the Old Bear lingers long enough for last words that are all about his son ÔÇö Jorah, the wrong done to the house, the black cloak that would wipe it clean. Either way it is the WatchÔÇÖs oldest shame enacted in miniature ÔÇö the order that guards the realms of men murdering the best man in it over supper ÔÇö and both tellings make sure the mutineers are paid in full before the tale is done.
Their chapters, book by book
Where the page and the screen part
The tellings agree on the man and diverge on the furniture. The books give his command more texture ÔÇö the election politics beneath him, the endless quartermastering, a raven that may be rather more than a bird (readers who suspect a skinchangerÔÇÖs hand in the WatchÔÇÖs affairs have circumstantial evidence to burn). The show trims the Great RangingÔÇÖs scale ÔÇö the Fist of the First Men falls to the dead on screen in a cold openÔÇÖs worth of chaos, where the books make it a drawn-out horror recounted in fragments by survivors. His last instructions differ too: on the page his dying thought is Jorah ÔÇö find my son, tell him to take the black ÔÇö while the show, having sent Jorah to Daenerys years before, gives his final breath to the Watch and the warning Sam must carry.
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.