House Thorne

A small knightly house of the Crownlands whose name is carried, at the edge of the world, by one of the Night's Watch's hardest and most bitter men.

The fuller tale

House Thorne would be a footnote were it not for Ser Alliser Thorne, the master-at-arms of Castle Black. A Targaryen loyalist who was given the black as the price of the losing side after Robert's Rebellion, Alliser has spent the years since drilling frightened boys into something that can hold a sword, with a tongue like a lash and a contempt for softness that never sleeps.

He is no friend to Jon Snow, and his sourness makes him easy to dislike ÔÇö yet he is also a man who has kept a crumbling watch on a crumbling Wall long after the realm forgot the Watch existed. Whatever else Alliser Thorne is, he is not a man who ran from his post, and that grim constancy is the truest thing his house's name has to show.