Dontos Hollard (Dontos the Red)

Ser Dontos Hollard, called Dontos the Red, was the last surviving member of House Hollard, son of Ser Steffon, who died of a fever while Dontos was still a boy. When the Defiance of Duskendale ended in the destruction of the Hollards in 277 AC, only young Dontos was spared, for Ser Barristan Selmy begged clemency of King Aerys II Targaryen and was granted it; the boy was carried to King's Landing to serve as a squire. A portly, perpetually drunken man who won no renown at arms, he came to grief at the tourney on King Joffrey's name day, arriving in the lists too drunk and half-naked, and was stripped of his knighthood and made a fool in motley rather than drowned in a cask of wine. Fancying himself the Florian to Sansa Stark's Jonquil, he passed her an amethyst-laced hairnet and pledged to spirit her from the Red Keep on the night of Joffrey's wedding. On the first day of 300 AC, after he and Sansa slipped from the keep, Oswell Kettleblack rowed them out into Blackwater Bay to Petyr Baelish's waiting ship the Merling King; there, his service done, Baelish had Dontos shot dead by crossbowmen, and Ser Lothor Brune torched the skiff. His tale unfolds across A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, and A Feast for Crows.