His gentle temperament and his growing menagerie of enthusiastically named kittens
A gentle, plump boy-king who inherited a throne built on rather more than the realm has been told, and a mother determined to rule through him for as long as anyone lets her.
The Spare Made King
Born in 291 AC, the youngest of Queen Cersei's three children, Tommen is believed by the realm — and by himself — to be Robert Baratheon's trueborn son. Gentler and softer than his elder brother Joffrey by a wide margin, he takes more interest in his growing menagerie of kittens, each named with more enthusiasm than sense, than in swords or crowns, a trait the text treats as mercy rather than flaw.
He was crowned King of the Seven Kingdoms once his brother's short reign came to its end, a boy of eight elevated to a throne he never sought and barely comprehends, and married almost at once to Margaery Tyrell, whose own match to Joffrey had been cut short within the year, in an arrangement meant chiefly to keep the Reach bound to the crown.
Ruled by Regents
Tommen has been governed throughout his short reign by others — his grandfather Tywin as Hand until Tywin's own tenure came to its abrupt end, then his mother Cersei as regent, with Margaery's Tyrell influence tugging him the opposite direction — and his own preferences rarely factor into decisions made in his name.
As the published chronicle stands, Tommen remains on the Iron Throne at King's Landing while his mother's own standing at court has grown considerably more precarious and his wife's family besieges the last Baratheon holdouts on his behalf — a king in name who has ruled almost nothing in fact.
Appearances
In the novels
A Game of Thrones
A Clash of Kings
A Storm of Swords
A Feast for Crows
A Dance with Dragons
On screen
HBO's Game of Thrones — Seasons 1–6
Key events
291 ACBorn at King's Landing, the youngest of Cersei Lannister's three children, believed the realm over to be Robert Baratheon's trueborn son.
circa 290s ACGrows into a gentler, softer boy than his elder brother Joffrey, fonder of kittens than swords.
300 ACCrowned King of the Seven Kingdoms after Joffrey's poisoning at his own wedding feast.
300 ACMarried to Margaery Tyrell, Joffrey's young widow, within weeks of his coronation.
300 ACGoverned throughout his reign by regents — first his grandfather Tywin, then his mother Cersei — with Margaery's Tyrell influence pulling the other way.
300 ACRemains on the Iron Throne as his mother sits imprisoned by the Faith Militant and his wife's family besieges the last Baratheon holdouts in his name.
Reading the character
Tommen's short reign is less a story about a king than a study in how much of kingship in Westeros is decided by the adults standing behind the throne. His gentleness — treated by the text as a mercy rather than a flaw — makes him one of the few genuinely sympathetic Lannister children, precisely because he never asked for the crown and shows no appetite for the cruelty it seems to invite in others who wear it.
His situation also sharpens the book's recurring question about what makes a king: a boy crowned young and governed almost entirely by the factions around him, each with their own reasons for wanting him exactly where he is.
The arc of Tommen Baratheon
This carries the character’s road through the published novels. Read on only if you do not fear to know.
Joffrey's death at his own wedding feast, poisoned before hundreds of witnesses in what the text later calls the Purple Wedding, is what puts the crown on Tommen's head to begin with. Tywin's own Handship ends just as abruptly and almost as violently: he is found dead in the privy beneath the Tower of the Hand, killed by the son he'd spent a lifetime tormenting. Cersei's regency that follows collapses in turn once the Faith Militant arrests her on charges the text takes considerably more seriously than she initially does, leaving Tommen's throne propped up by Tyrell arms rather than his mother's regency. Tommen's true parentage is one of the text's foundational secrets, too: he is, by every account it treats as reliable, the trueborn son of Cersei and Jaime Lannister rather than of Robert Baratheon, though the realm — and Tommen himself, so far as the published books show — believes otherwise. Whether Tommen ever learns — or has always half-sensed — that Robert was not his father is a question the published text has not yet answered directly.
These partings name deaths, endings, and roads not yet ridden in the books. Unveil them only if both roads are known to you — or if you do not fear to know.
Legacy
Tommen's reign, brief as it has been on the page, mostly demonstrates how much of kingship in Westeros is decided by the adults standing behind the throne rather than the child sitting on it.
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Who is Tommen Baratheon?
A gentle, plump boy-king who inherited a throne built on rather more than the realm has been told, and a mother determined to rule through him for as long as anyone lets her.
Is Tommen Baratheon from the books or the show?
Book canon. This profile follows George R. R. Martin’s novels and histories, and notes where the television series diverges rather than following it.