Otto Hightower

A younger brother of House Hightower, Otto rose to become Hand of the King to Jaehaerys I, to Viserys I, and finally to Aegon II — one of the few men in Westeros to hold the office under three crowns. Sharp-eyed and patient, he read the succession better than his masters did: within days of Queen Aemma's death he had presented his daughter Alicent to the grieving king, and through her placed his blood one heartbeat from the throne.

He was removed from office more than once — dismissed when his manoeuvring grew too open, recalled when the realm found it could not do without him. He pressed Aegon's claim for years before the war, then led the Green council that crowned Aegon II on the night Viserys died, and returned a second time as Hand when his grandson's conduct grew reckless.

His reward was the fall of King's Landing in 130 AC. The queen's men seized him, and Rhaenyra — who remembered him as her father's Hand and the author of her ruin — made him the first traitor to lose his head beneath the Red Keep. The Hightower beacon that lit the war was among the first things the war extinguished.