Tormund Giantsbane
A boisterous, boastful free folk war-chief and one of Mance's chief captains, full of tall tales about giants and bears and his own legendary appetites.
A soul born at Beyond the Wall, sworn to The Free Folk.
The fuller tale
Season Four
In The Watchers on the Wall ÔÇö Taken alive, still shouting.
Where they stand. Castle Black.
Season Five
In Hardhome ÔÇö Beats the Lord of Bones to death with his own staff; the free folk listen.
Where they stand. Hardhome and Castle Black.
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 Dance with Dragons 3 chapters that name them
Where the page and the screen part
Book-Tormund is grayer, older and ÔÇö the White God-Beyond-the-Wall forbid ÔÇö slightly more modest; several of the showÔÇÖs tallest tales are the screen turning his boasts up to eleven, and the Brienne infatuation is pure invention (they never meet on the page). His book role after ManceÔÇÖs fall is weightier: it is Tormund who takes up leadership of the shattered free folk remnant, Tormund who negotiates the great passage through the Wall with Lord Commander Jon Snow ÔÇö hostages, terms, the weeping of chiefs handing over sons ÔÇö and Tormund who is standing at JonÔÇÖs side at Castle Black on the night of the knives. He is alive in the published books, unfinished business incarnate; the showÔÇÖs Hardhome and Winterfell heroics are extrapolation the books have not yet reached.
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.