Steffon Darklyn

A knight of the queen's guard on Dragonstone, of Duskendale's old blood — loyal enough to try anything, including a riderless dragon.

The fuller tale

A knight of Rhaenyra's own household guard on Dragonstone, and of Duskendale's old blood like his kinsman Gunthor, Steffon carries a loyalty to the black cause thorough enough that he volunteers for an assignment considerably more dangerous than his rank would normally require.

With Seasmoke left riderless since Laenor's departure from the story, and the war's desperate need for more dragons pushing the black council toward increasingly long-shot claiming attempts, Steffon puts himself forward to try his own Valyrian pedigree and a driftwood wand against a dragon that has already refused several other hopeful riders.

The page and the screen

Both tellings agree on the manner and setting of his death, with the show's version staged as part of its broader dramatization of the desperate dragon-claiming period known in the histories as the Sowing.

Where they stand, season by season

Mentioned in the chronicle

• Ser Steffon Darklyn dies in fire on Dragonstone's slopes, trying to claim the riderless Seasmoke for the blacks. (S2·E6)

Their fate — if death has found them, it is written here. Open at your peril.

The show: Burned trying to claim Seasmoke (S2·E6)

The books: Burned in the Sowing (F&B, ch. 5)

Lord commander of the queen's guard, he volunteered to claim the riderless Seasmoke with a driftwood wand and a Valyrian pedigree. The dragon wanted blood, not breeding: the fire took him on Dragonstone's slopes, and the claiming was left to bastards.

In the show, Steffon approaches the riderless Seasmoke on Dragonstone with the confidence of a man who believes ancestry alone should be sufficient qualification — the dragon disagrees violently, and the fire that follows kills him on the castle's slopes.

Fire & Blood records the same death during the Sowing, when the black council opens dragon-claiming to any hopeful with a plausible claim of Valyrian blood. Steffon burns for the attempt, one of several such deaths the book cites as proof that the dragons, whatever the desperate humans around them believed, were still doing their own choosing.