Loras Tyrell

Born at Highgarden in 282 AC, the youngest son of Mace and Alerie, Loras built a tourney record by his mid-teens that older, more seasoned knights spent whole careers failing to match — most famously unhorsing Ser Jaime Lannister at the Hand's tourney in King's Landing by mounting a mare in heat, a tactic more cunning than chivalrous and exactly the sort of detail the text uses to complicate his reputation as a simple golden boy.

Renly Baratheon's closest companion and, the text makes reasonably clear without ever stating it outright, his lover, Loras's devotion outlasted every political calculation his family made after Renly's murder, leaving him, by several accounts, close to unhinged with grief and fury in the weeks that followed.

He was named to the Kingsguard for King Tommen — a striking political move that removed him from Highgarden's succession entirely in exchange for direct influence at court, secured as part of the price of continued Tyrell loyalty to the Iron Throne.

He led the assault to retake Dragonstone from its last Baratheon-loyalist garrison, fighting with the same reckless daring that had made his tourney career, and was grievously wounded there — burned by boiling oil, pierced by crossbow bolts, and by the last reports reaching King's Landing, feverish and failing. Whether he survives is not resolved in the published chronicle.