The Hand of the King

The Hand of the King is the second-most powerful figure in the Seven Kingdoms, the king's chief minister, general, and judge. The office is defined by the saying "What the king dreams, the Hand builds," and a cruder lowborn version: "The king eats, and the Hand takes the shit." The Hand speaks with the king's voice, commands the king's armies, drafts the king's laws, and at times sits upon the Iron Throne to dispense the king's justice when the king is absent, sick, or otherwise indisposed. Yet the same power that makes the Hand indispensable also makes the Hand a target; the office has proven lethal to its recent holders.

Powers and Responsibilities

The Hand of the King is vested with the authority to rule in the king's stead. When Robert Baratheon went hunting, Eddard Stark sat the Iron Throne, heard petitions, and rendered judgments in the king's name. The Hand commands the royal armies, drafts laws, and oversees the small council. The office also carries the power to convene the council and to issue commands to the lords of the realm. When Ned Stark, as Hand, ordered Lord Beric Dondarrion to bring the king's justice to Ser Gregor Clegane, he spoke with the king's voice and dispatched men under the royal banner. The Hand's badge of office is a silver hand clasp, worn at the throat of the cloak. The Hand also has a household guard; Ned Stark brought fifty men south with him, and the Tower of the Hand in the Red Keep serves as the Hand's residence and seat of power.

The Burden and the Danger

The office is a heavy burden. Robert Baratheon told Ned Stark that sitting a throne is a thousand times harder than winning one, and that he needed a man he could trust to run the kingdom and fight the wars while he ate, drank, and whored himself into an early grave. Ned, who had no wish to be Hand, accepted only out of duty and friendship, and soon found himself enmeshed in deadly intrigues. The previous Hand, Jon Arryn, had served faithfully for fourteen years but was poisoned—with the rare and untraceable poison called the Tears of Lys—because he had begun asking dangerous questions about the true parentage of the king's children. Ned himself was betrayed, arrested, and ultimately beheaded after he attempted to expose the same truth. The office thus carries a mortal risk: the Hand stands between the king and the realm's enemies, and those enemies often strike at the Hand first.

The Hand and the King's Justice

The Hand is the chief executor of the king's justice. Ned Stark, sitting the Iron Throne in Robert's absence, heard the pleas of villagers whose holdfasts had been burned by raiders and declared Ser Gregor Clegane an outlaw, stripping him of rank and titles and sentencing him to death. The Hand also has the authority to convene the small council and to make decisions in the king's absence, though the king may overrule those decisions. The Hand's seal is required on royal decrees, and the Hand is expected to countersign the king's commands. When Robert lay dying, he dictated a will naming Ned Stark as Lord Regent and Protector of the Realm, to rule until Joffrey came of age—a document that Ned himself wrote and witnessed.

The Hand as Regent and Protector

Upon the death of a king, the Hand may be named Protector of the Realm, serving as regent until the heir comes of age. Robert Baratheon's final command named Eddard Stark to this role, though the appointment was immediately contested by Cersei Lannister, who had her own plans for the succession. The regency gives the Hand the power to rule in the new king's name, to command the armies, and to convene the great council that determines the succession. Ned Stark attempted to use this authority to place Stannis Baratheon on the throne, but his efforts were thwarted by betrayal and the superior force of the Lannisters and the City Watch.

The Hand's Fall

The office of Hand has become a death sentence for those who oppose the Lannisters. Jon Arryn was poisoned for discovering the truth of Joffrey's birth. Eddard Stark was arrested for treason, forced to confess publicly on the steps of the Great Sept of Baelor, and then beheaded by Ser Ilyn Payne on the orders of King Joffrey. The execution was a political catastrophe that plunged the realm into war. After Ned's death, Tywin Lannister was named Hand, but he remained in the field with his army, leaving the day-to-day governance of King's Landing to his son Tyrion, whom he sent to court to rule in his stead—a task that Tyrion accepted with grim irony, knowing that his father had given him up for lost along with Jaime.