Renly Baratheon
The youngest Baratheon brother, Lord of Storm's End: charming, handsome, and beloved at court, with the easy warmth neither of his brothers could manage.
A soul of House Baratheon, born at Storm's End.
The fuller tale
Season One
Loras Tyrell whispers a crown into Renly's ear. Littlefinger promises the gold cloaks; Renly offers a coup; Ned chooses honor.
Where they stand. King's Landing and Highgarden.
Season Two
Catelyn treats with Renly's hundred thousand at his tourney camp ÔÇö and meets Brienne of Tarth. Renly and Stannis parley and part as enemies; Davos rows Melisandre into a cave beneath Storm's End. The shadow kills Renly in his own tent; his hundred thousand scatter to Stannis and Highgarden.
Where they stand. Storm's End.
How it ends for them
On the screen. Killed by a shadow (S2┬ÀE5)
He crowned himself with a hundred thousand swords at his back, and none of them could guard him from what Melisandre birthed in the cave beneath Storm's End. A shadow with Stannis's face put a blade through his heart in his own tent.
On the page. A shadow with his brother's face (ACOK, ch. 34)
In his pavilion at Storm's End, in front of Catelyn Stark and Brienne, a shadow with no body and his brother's face put a sword through the king in his rainbow armor. His hundred thousand swords went to other masters by morning.
Both tellings kill him the same impossible way, in front of the same two witnesses. On the eve of battle against Stannis ÔÇö dawn in the books, with Renly armored and joking about his brother's punctuality; night in the show's tent ÔÇö a shadow crawled into the light of the candles wearing something like Stannis's face, and put a blade through the king from behind his own guarded perimeter. It was Melisandre's working, birthed beneath Storm's End and fed on king's blood, and it made Catelyn Stark and Brienne of Tarth the only living witnesses to a murder no court in Westeros had language for. Brienne was blamed, and has spent the story since outrunning and outliving the accusation. His army went to other masters within days ÔÇö the Tyrell strength to the Lannisters by marriage, the storm lords to the brother whose shadow killed him ÔÇö which is as concise a summary of the War of the Five Kings as the tale offers.
Their chapters, book by book
A Game of Thrones 1 chapter that name them
A Clash of Kings 4 chapters that name them
Where the page and the screen part
The show makes explicit what the books imply: Renly and Loras as lovers, Margaery as a knowing partner in the arrangement, and Renly's discomfort with violence ÔÇö the show's Renly is queasy at blood, where the books' version rides to melees happily enough and simply prefers politics to practice yards. The books give his kingship more texture: the Rainbow Guard (a Kingsguard of seven colors, with Brienne winning the blue at Bitterbridge), the peach at the parley, and a sharper strategic mind ÔÇö his plan of starving King's Landing while his brothers' factions bled each other was working. The show trims his war to a few tents; the books make clear how close the realm came to King Renly, First of His Name.
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.