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“ | Godless? Why, Aeron, I am the godliest man ever to raise sail! You serve one god, Damphair, but I have served ten thousand. From Ib to Asshai, when men see my sails, they pray. | „ |
~ Euron to Aeron during the kingsmoot. |
“ | We are the ironborn, and once we were conquerors. Our writ ran everywhere the sound of the waves was heard. My brother would have you be content with the cold and dismal north, my niece with even less ... but I shall give you Lannisport. Highgarden. The Arbor. Oldtown. The riverlands and the Reach, the kingswood and the rainwood, Dorne and the marches, the Mountains of the Moon and the Vale of Arryn, Tarth and the Stepstones. I say we take it all! I say, we take Westeros. | „ |
~ Euron during the Kingsmoot. |
“ | I am the storm, my lord. The first storm and the last. | „ |
~ Euron to Rodrik Harlaw. |
King Euron III Greyjoy, also known as Euron Crow's Eye and the Storm, is one of the main antagonists of the A Song of Ice and Fire novel series and a major antagonist in its television adaptation, Game of Thrones.
He is the younger brother of King Balon Greyjoy, the older brother of Victarion, Urrigon, and Aeron, and the captain of his ship, The Silence, a galley that is said to be infamous from Ibben to Asshai, and it consists of mutes from everywhere across the Known World, whose tongues are multilated. The mutes have all extremely different looks from different cultures, some of them covered in tattoos, and are regarded by the Ironborn as "monsters." Not everyone in Euron's galley is tongueless, however, as several of his non-mute "mongrel" baseborn sons serve him aboard, and in recent years, wizards as well.
A wild, vicious, and unpredictable pirate and outlaw, during the Kingsmoot, Euron acts like he loves Ironborn culture and wants the best for his people; however, deep down, he only cares about himself and loves being at the center of attention around the known world. Euron is not capable of real love, having started to kill family members and sexually abuse them at a young age. He has no particular beliefs in life, gods, or loved ones and only lives to watch the suffering of the known world. He also serves as the arch-nemesis of Asha, Aeron, and Victarion.
In the books, he is considered to be one of the most depraved and ruthless characters in the series. He is often compared with the likes of Ramsay Bolton and Rorge when it comes to sadism (much like Ramsay, who is prone to flaying, Euron cuts out the tongues of his recruits, likely to protect the secrets of his journeys and powers, yet he also does it to his victims and prisoners for no apparent reason).
In contrast to the likes of Ramsay, however, Euron is far more cunning, calculative, and ambitious, and (much like Tywin Lannister, Roose Bolton, and Stannis Baratheon) is highly skilled in both warfare and politics. He is also capable of being extremely charming and charismatic in almost any circumstance, which makes him incredibly dangerous and one of the most influential men in Westeros. In many ways, he is the feared ruler that Joffrey and Ramsay only wished to be, and he has both authority and power to back him up in his evil plans.
In Game of Thrones, Euron, while being an expert captain in leading the Iron Fleet, is an exceptional, ferocious, and highly skilled warrior, being a professional in the usage of the battle axe since he appears to be a combination of himself and Victarion Greyjoy.
In the TV series, he was portrayed by Pilou Asbæk, who also played Wafner in Overlord, Cyrus/Nemesis II in Samaritan, and Kordax in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.
Appearance[]
The way Euron physically looks differs depending on the version. In the novels, Euron is pale-skinned and attractive, with long black hair and a close-cropped black beard. His lips are tinted pale blue due to his habit of drinking "shade of the evening." He wears an eye patch over his left eye, earning him the nickname "Crow's Eye." According to his nephew Theon, the eyepatch hides a "black eye shining with malice." His right eye is a deep blue and is often referred to as his "smiling eye." He wears almost entirely black and red. He is described as the most handsome of Quellon Greyjoy's children.
In the TV series, Euron's looks are quite similar to those of his nephew Theon, as described in many articles about the HBO series. Euron has light brown hair, no eye patch, and no blue lips. Despite having no magic powers in the show, he still appears much younger than his younger brother Aeron, who has gray hair in the show.
Although he's Balon's eldest brother, Euron is said to look unchanged after Greyjoy's Rebellion and all the years he was away after that. Euron looks younger than his brothers Victarion and Aeron; the way he still looks the same young man as years ago is considered unnatural by his brothers and his people, hinting that he has been using blood magic to slow his aging. When Aeron and Victarion meet Euron again, they think that he looks exactly as he did the day he went into exile. He is still impossibly youthful, while his younger brothers are old-looking.
Personality[]
“ | Balon was mad, Aeron is madder, and Euron is the maddest of them all. | „ |
~ Baelor Blacktyde to Victarion Greyjoy. |
“ | Tell the Crow's Eye he's afraid of kinslaying and he'll murder one of his own sons just to prove you wrong. | „ |
~ Asha Greyjoy to Tristifer Botley. |
Euron is a wildly unpredictable, aggressive, and cruel pirate who is known for his delight in playing mind games and waging psychological warfare on anyone around him. This has made him hated by all of his brothers, especially Victarion. He has been considered too evil even for ironborn standards, and his unnatural presence makes everyone uneasy. Euron loves to boast about his great deeds and talks a lot about himself, reacting with cold fury if questioned about his journeys. His years of exile and stories about his many travels have made him a living legend among the ironborn, to the point of becoming a sort of messiah. However, Euron has no complete control over the ironmen, as there are still many who challenge his crown and plans. He is a serial kinslayer, a skilled warrior and manipulator, and he is cunning, shrewd, and ruthless. He also possesses a strong sense of narcissism and sees himself as God. Unlike his brothers and many famous ironborn warriors, Euron is very good at strategy, and he is also very good at manipulation, politics, and military tactics.
In contrast, Joffrey Baratheon was an arrogant, petty fool prone to random outbursts of anger, obsessed with the title of king he believed he inherited, even though he was little more than a puppet backed up by his grandfather Tywin. Joffrey never actually wielded a weapon, however, usually making a cowardly retreat when confronted with real danger. Ramsay Bolton was sadistic and personally dangerous, capable of great violence and torment against people he had already captured. Still, he didn't have any true authority to back it up, and he has an impulsive, childish need to brutalize people for transient amusement (i.e., hunting women for sport and flaying men alive who disobeyed him, then leaving them on public display) with no thought to the long-term repercussions. Ramsay only knew random force and was in no way skilled at diplomacy, alienating potential allies. Euron Greyjoy, meanwhile, isn't impulsive but capable of cunning long-term strategies, and unlike both of them, he is actually capable of being incredibly charming when the situation arises. Euron needed to win over the ironborn to elect him king willingly, playing to their admiration for strength and audacity while making grandiose promises. In many ways, Euron is the feared ruler that Joffrey and Ramsay wished they could be: genuinely dangerous and cunning, with a well-earned reputation, the authority to back it up, and a gift for long-term manipulation.
He is also a very powerful, persuasive, magnificent, and convincing actor, deceiving anyone around him by acting like a great and generous leader who gives all the fruits of his raidings and castles to the ironmen and leaves nothing for himself. In reality, it always turns out to be part of his evil plans. He is so good at manipulating everything to make the water flow his way that he manages to get everyone's attention, with everyone speaking about his great, impossible deeds and even making a cult about him. Euron is also very greedy, not content with ruling only the Iron Islands or caring about them; he wants to conquer all of Westeros and sit on the Iron Throne, apparently just because he can (and this is only a first step, as he talks about becoming God). He is described as a very dangerous and vengeful man who can become more prosperous than most of the Westeros lords by pirating other ships and stealing their goods. He is incredibly rich enough to give up a huge amount of treasure to the ironmen in order to win their favor. He was reckless and insane enough to sail to the ruins of Old Valyria and return alive with real old Valyrian armor.
For an unknown reason, possibly simple cruelty, he personally cuts the tongues out of the men serving on his terrifying ship, Silence. It is highly likely that Euron removed their tongues to keep the secrets within him and his crew. His men are known as "Euron's mutes." He has never been married, and he has fathered numerous bastard children throughout the world but has no regard for any of them. It is mentioned in the books that he brought 3 bastard sons to present as his champions to the Kingsmoot. Still, only one is briefly described: a 10-year-old boy with woolly hair and mud-brown skin, apparently fathered on a woman from Sothoryos or the Summer Islands. Euron couldn't care any less for his illegitimate children, bluntly saying that he gives as much thought to the bastards he has produced as to the contents he produces in his chamber pot.
Euron is strongly opposed to every religion in the world. With sorcery, he has visions and dreams very similar to Bran Stark's dreams. He is aware of the Red Priests' omens, and he is likely aware of the prophesied Long Night that Never Ends, which will see the world filled with darkness, demons, and evil beings once again. Euron believes that the world is coming to an end, and he proclaims himself the sole new God to replace all the other gods of men in the world, then remakes the world as he wants. Euron taunts the ironborn culture by claiming to be the real Storm God (the "evil god" of the Ironborn) and the Drowned God in one person. He disdainfully finds the culture of the Iron Islands worthless, and its taboos, beliefs, and faith mean nothing to him, being disdainful and annoyed at the ironborn traditions. He has seen many foreign religions and takes great pride in destroying a person's faith and defiling every religious belief in the world. Nothing in life is sacred to him.
Euron is also considered untrustworthy and manipulative for alliances, as Euron's only friend is Euron himself. Also, making him angry is the best way to see his true colors. He is also shown to be sadistic and cold-hearted, as he takes joy in humiliating his enemies in front of everyone, including tormenting all his family members, who all hate him. He personally chooses sadistic ways to kill his enemies based on their characteristics (like cutting in seven pieces Lord Blacktyde in the books, who worshipped the Seven, or killing Sand Snakes with their own weapons that defined their powers in the show). He loves to torment people by messing with their heads, playing mind games, and engaging in psychological warfare. Euron does not go in search of whores and prefers having many sexual relationships with various women. He is charming and acts as a nice boyfriend to young girls, making children with them, promising them marriage, happiness, etc. As soon as he gets bored of the girls, Euron simply cuts their tongues, strips them naked in front of everyone and his crew, and either gives them away as slaves or throws them into the sea. He is not beyond letting his crews share his former girlfriends, like he is not beyond incest. Euron can take his male sons in his own crew and cut their tongues like everyone else, as a bastard son of his was present with him during the Kingsmoot.
Quotes[]
By Euron[]
“ | The bleeding star bespoke the end. These are the last days, when the world shall be broken and remade. A new god shall be born from the graves and charnel pits. | „ |
~ Euron to Aeron Greyjoy |
“ | When the kraken weds the dragon, brother, let all the world beware. | „ |
~ Euron to Victarion Greyjoy. |
About Euron[]
“ | Now it was metal underneath the Crow's Eye: a great, tall, twisted seat of razor sharp iron, barbs and blades and broken swords, all dripping blood. Impaled upon the longer spikes were the bodies of the gods. The Maiden was there and the Father and the Mother, the Warrior and Crone and Smith...even the Stranger. They hung side by side with all manner of queer foreign gods: the Great Shepherd and the Black Goat, three-headed Trios and the Pale Child Bakkalon, the Lord of Light and the butterfly god of Naath. And there, swollen and green, half-devoured by crabs, the Drowned God festered with the rest, seawater still dripping from his hair. Then, Euron Crow's Eye laughed again, and the priest woke screaming in the bowels of Silence. | „ |
~ Aeron Greyjoy's vision of Euron sitting on the Iron Throne and killing all known gods. |
“ | The dreams were even worse the second time. He saw the longships of the Ironborn adrift and burning on a boiling blood-red sea. He saw his brother on the Iron Throne again, but Euron was no longer human. He seemed more squid than man, a monster fathered by a kraken of the deep, his face a mass of writhing tentacles. Beside him stood a shadow in woman's form, long and tall and terrible, her hands alive with pale white fire. Dwarves capered for their amusement, male and female, naked and misshapen, locked in carnal embrace, biting and tearing at each other as Euron and his mate laughed and laughed and laughed... | „ |
~ Aeron's vision concerning Euron's possible future. |
Trivia[]
- While in the novels, it is theorized that Euron hires a Faceless Man to assassinate Balon, in the TV series, Euron kills Balon himself. There is a theory he used the dragon egg he had as a payment to the Faceless Men for Balon's murder.
- It is also theorized that Euron is a skinchanger and greenseer, and might even have a connection to the Three-Eyed Crow, possibly as his former apprentice. The evidence of him having greensight is that he had a similar dream to what Bran had in the first book of him falling and flying. Also his sigil depicts a red eye with a crown carried by two crows, and the current Three-Eyed Crow has one red eye. Also the Northmen and the Ironborn are both descended from the First Men.
- In the TV Series, Euron is not seen using magic and wins the Kingsmoot without using the Dragon Horn.
- The HBO Viewer's Guide family tree still lists Euron as older than Aeron Greyjoy - despite the fact that TV-Aeron is presented as an older priest with greying hair. Thus it might be a plot point even in the TV show that Euron's appearance hasn't changed - possibly due to the dark arts he learned in his voyages.
- Euron's appearance in the TV Series is more plain and normal without the blue lips and an eyepatch. The actor claimed that the eyepatch was not used as it would be too much of a cliché.
- George R.R. Martin compares Euron with Ramsay.
- There is a fan speculation that Euron has some control over Victarion via either of the two people he has given him as servants: Maester Kerwin and the mute dusky woman.
- Actor Pilou Asbæk later directly confirmed in pre-Season 7 interviews that "The guy you met at the Kingsmoot is not the guy you will meet on his ship — he’s different with different people to get what he wants".
- Euron actually does have a somewhat similar act in the novels - tailoring his manipulations to the mental level of his audience. When he is feasting his men after their victory in the Shield Islands he heaps them with praise and panders to their basic attitudes to rape-pillage-and-burn, but in private he shows a much higher level of intellect and expresses disdain for the ironborn who he has duped into following him with false gifts and empty praise.
- This is actually symbolized by Euron's eye patch. He shows the world his bright blue eye, called his 'smiling eye' which shows his charisma and intelligence. His eye patch covers his 'blood eye' which represents his sadism and hunger for apocalypse, the true Euron.
- In the television series, Euron's character has been merged with his brother Victarion (who was cut from the show), as he is seen fighting the same way Victarion does in the books, with an axe combined with Euron's insanity. In the novels, Euron does mostly strategy and politics, but prefers others do the fighting for him. His battleaxe is wrought in the shape of a golden kraken, a reference to Victarion, who wields a similar weapon.
- In the television series, the story revolving around Euron against his brothers has been given to Yara (Asha in the show) and Theon, who both have a greater enmity towards their uncle than in the novels. Whether this means they might get Aeron and Urrigon's backstory with Euron is still unconfirmed. Aeron's opinion on Euron in the show is unknown and since there is no given reason for Euron's exile in the show, it is theorized that Balon might have banished Euron for sexual abuse towards Yara and Theon when they were children. In the books Balon exiled Euron for disgracing Victarion by impregnating the latter's wife, so in the show Euron might have been caught raping Yara as a child, after Robert's Rebellion (thus when Theon was already gone) and got banished by Balon for it, merging Victarion and Aeron's stories with Theon and Yara.
- Like the novels, season 7 of the TV series introduces a personal sigil for Euron, but because he isn't missing an eye in the TV version and is never called Crow's Eye, the crow element was removed, and just combined with the regular Greyjoy heraldry: as a result, Euron's personal sigil in the TV version is a gold kraken on a black field, with a third red eye inscribed onto the head of the kraken.
- The Iron Fleet is known for being able to defeat everyone at sea and Stannis Baratheon was the only one who succeeded to destroy it, with Victarion remembering it as a nightmare and his only defeat. Both books and show mentioned the Battle off Fair Isle as one of Stannis's best achievements, and since the show has merged Euron with Victarion, Stannis was the only person to defeat Euron at sea.
- Euron can be seen as GRRM's reinvention of the 'dark lord' archetype in fantasy, being a pure evil and powerful sorcerer. In most fantasy stories, the dark lord is already very powerful at the beginning. Euron, however, gains power through democracy and manipulation. As opposed to causing chaos of the series, he is a symptom of the chaos. The anarchy spread by the War of the Five Kings gave Euron the opportunity to finally seize power for himself.
- Euron possesses all four traits of the Dark Tetrad in psychology: narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and sadism.
- Narcissism is when someone has an extremely high view of themselves. Euron is one of the biggest narcissists in the series, possessing an out-of-control ego and god complex. He boasts of his travels and crimes across the world and sees himself as a god, and looks down on his own people.
- Machiavellianism is defined by the amoral use of cunning and manipulation to get what they want, usually to gain power, regardless of the consequences. Euron is an expert in manipulation, playing mind games with everyone around him. He manipulates the Ironborn into naming him king, turns his enemies into allies by giving them lands and even marrying one to his niece. He also convinces Victarion to sail to Meereen to bring him Daenerys Targaryen. Although Victarion plans to betray Euron out of revenge, but it is possible that Euron is anticipating this; it is possible Euron is counting on Victarion to betray him.
- Psychopathy is a disorder defined by an extreme lack of empathy or remorse, manipulation, arrogance, and antisocial behavior. Euron is shown to have zero empathy or compassion for anyone, including his own family. He admits to giving less thought to his children than he does the contents of his chamber pot. He has committed horrific crimes throughout his entire life including murdering and sexually abusing several of his brothers when they were children, without any sense of guilt. When confronted by his rape/seduction of his brother Victarion's wife, Euron makes fun of him. He boasts of killing, raiding, raping and burning across the known world, even destroying entire cities.
- Sadism is when someone derives pleasure by inflicting pain and suffering on others. Euron is by far one of the most bloodthirsty and sadistic characters in the series, possibly the most. His love of violence rivals the likes of Gregor Clegane, Vargo Hoat, Joffrey Baratheon, and Ramsay Bolton. He gets immense satisfaction from inflicting physical and psychological harm on anyone and everyone around him. His favorite method of torture is to cut out peoples' tongues. He also likes to torture people in ways that mocks said person's religious beliefs such burning a Red Priest, dismembering a lord who worshiped the Seven, and forcing his brother Aeron to endure nightmarish visions depicting Euron as a terrifying dark god, demanding Aeron worship him instead.
- Euron is considered by many fans to be one of the best villains in the series due to his terrifying nature and rich characterization, to the point that many fans call him the "Sauron" of the series. As such, many fans were disappointed with the way he was portrayed in the show due to behaving more over-the-top.
- His popularity increased drastically after the release of the sample chapter, "The Forsaken" which gives insight into what Euron's ultimate goal is. It follows Aeron being held captive by Euron. In this chapter we see two terrible and possibly prophetic visions depicting Euron as a destructive entity bringing death and darkness to Westeros and the world, killing all the known gods of the world and naming himself the new god. Apart from the visions, Aeron also sees Euron gathering wizards, warlocks and priests in what appears to be a powerful dark magic ritual involving a massive blood sacrifice.
- The chapter's significance has led many fans to suspect Euron will be the overall main antagonist of The Winds of Winter and possibly the final human big bad of the series aside from the Others.
External Links[]
- Euron Greyjoy on the Pure Evil Wiki.
- Euron Greyjoy on the Game of Thrones Wiki.