Who Exactly Is Euron Greyjoy? What to Know About Game of Thrones' Villain

By Maggie Panos
HBO
HBO

There are a lot of players battling for supremacy on Game of Thrones, but Euron Greyjoy (Pilou Asbaek) might be the most sinister since we still don't know much about him. He makes his first appearance on the second episode of season six, and what does he do within minutes of being on screen? He murders his brother Balon Greyjoy like it's no big deal. After that, he claims the Iron Islands from Yara and vows to murder her and Theon, and now he's currently wooing Cersei over in King's Landing. Here are the basics of what you need to know about him.

  • He is one of the middle Greyjoy brothers. Euron is older than Victarion and Aeron Greyjoy but younger than Balon, the now-deceased King. This makes him Yara and Theon's uncle.
  • His nickname is Crow's Eye. In the books, Euron wears a patch over one of his eyes, though he does have an eye under there. According to Theon in The Winds of Winter, it's "a black eye shining with malice."
  • In the books, he's banished from the Iron Islands. In George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, Balon bans Euron from the Iron Islands for raping the wife of Victarion, the Lord Captain of the Iron Fleet.
  • He's basically a pirate. He and Balon briefly chat about this on the show, but Euron is the Game of Thrones version of a pirate. He's been sailing around on his ship, apparently going somewhat mad and cutting out the tongues of his crew. In the books, he rapes and pillages towns, and it sounds like the show is following the character laid out by ASOIAF pretty closely; Euron mentions to his brother that when people see his ship coming, they start praying.
  • He has been mentioned before. Way back on the first season, Tyrion mentions Theon's uncles having fought in the Raid on Lannisport, one of the first battles of the Greyjoy Rebellion.