Jorah Mormont
Jorah Mormont, once Lord of Bear Island and a knight of the Seven Kingdoms, is introduced in A Dance with Dragons as a man stripped of everything but his obsession. Exiled by Eddard Stark for selling poachers into slavery, he served as a spy for Varys while acting as Daenerys Targaryen's chief advisor and protector. When his betrayal was exposed, she sent him from her side. The novel finds him a fugitive, a former lord reduced to haunting the brothels of Selhorys, driven by a single, consuming purpose: to earn his way back into the dragon queen's grace.
The Hunt for the Imp
Jorah's plan for redemption is to capture Tyrion Lannister, the kinslayer and kingslayer whom Cersei Lannister has placed a bounty on. He corners the dwarf in a Selhorys brothel, recognizing him despite his changed appearance. "You're mine, Hugor," he declares, drawing his blade . He chains Tyrion in heavy irons, explaining that the fetters are to silence his prisoner's dangerous tongue, not to prevent escape (E03553–E03557). Jorah reveals his intention is not to collect Cersei's reward but to deliver Tyrion to Daenerys, hoping the gift of her family's enemy will soften her heart. "Deliver you," he tells Tyrion, "to the queen" .
The Journey East and the Widow's Test
Jorah drags his captive across the Long Bridge into Volantis, booking a room at the Merchant's House. There, he seeks out the Widow of the Waterfront, a powerful freedwoman, to secure passage to Meereen. When she demands to know his purpose, Jorah answers with a raw, unguarded honesty that reveals the depth of his devotion: "To serve her. Defend her. Die for her, if need be" . The Widow is skeptical of his knightly posturing, but she ultimately arranges their escape on the cog Selaesori Qhoran, warning them that the ship will never reach its destination (E03707–E03710).
Enslavement and the Breaking of a Knight
The voyage ends in disaster. A storm wrecks the ship, and they are captured by slavers. Jorah, who had fought his captors with a sword, killing three before being overwhelmed, is chained to an oar, starved, beaten, and branded on his cheek with a demon's mask (E06169–E06170). The proud knight is reduced to a broken shell, his spirit crushed not by the whip but by the news that Daenerys has married Hizdahr zo Loraq. "All the fight went out of him when he heard that his queen had wed," Tyrion observes . He is sold at auction to the grotesque Yunkish lord Yezzan zo Qaggaz, joining Tyrion and the dwarf girl Penny in a grotesquerie of slaves.
The Second Sons and a New Path
Jorah's physical and psychological nadir is complete. He is a silent, sullen prisoner in a cage, beaten daily, his face a mask of bruises. When Tyrion engineers their escape to the sellsword company the Second Sons, Jorah is a shadow of his former self, clad in mismatched, rusted armor . Yet when Brown Ben Plumm recognizes him, a flicker of the old knight returns. "Give me a sword and you can call me what you like, Ben," he growls . He signs the company's book, his name scrawled below Tyrion's, and accepts his new identity as a sellsword. The novel leaves him there, a branded exile, his quest for redemption unresolved, his fate tied to the mercenary company that has just turned its cloak to join the losing side of a war he once fought to win.
