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| “ | Jon Snow: Was that their king? Tormund: Giants have no kings, no more'n mammoths do, nor snow bears, nor the great whales o' the great sea. That was Mag Mar Tun Doh Weg. Mag the Mighty. You can kneel to him if you like, he won't mind. I know your kneeler's knees must be itching, for want some king to bend to. Watch out he don't step on you, though. Giant have bad eyes, and might be he wouldn't see some little crow all the way down there by his feet. |
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| ~ Tormund Giantsbane to Jon Snow on Mag the Mighty. |
Mag Mar Tun Doh Weg, called Mag the Mighty, is a minor antagonist in the A Song of Ice and Fire novel series and the TV series Game of Thrones.
An ally of the King-Beyond-the-Wall Mance Rayder, he was the leader of the giants and is something of a chieftain. He is referred to as the "king of the giants" by the Free Folk.
In the show, he was portrayed by the late Neil Fingleton in his first villainous role. He also portrayed a Giant Wight in the series, Ultron in Avengers: Age of Ultron, and The Fisher King in the Doctor Who series.
Appearance[]
Mag Mar Tun Doh Weg has a white-streaked grey pelt, while his mouth has square-shaped teeth. He is smaller than Wun Weg Wun Dar Wun. His mammoth, which acts as his mount, has the same coloring as him and is also larger than other mammoths.
Biography[]
Background[]
Mag Mar Tun Doh Weg is one of the largest and strongest giants and seemingly has leadership over his kind, as he seems to act like a leader among them. Because his fellow giants seem to follow him around, the Free Folk took to calling Mag the "king of the giants." However, it is unknown if he is a hereditary chieftain, a chosen chieftain, or if he has no formal position at all, though the giants would simply tend to follow his lead.
A Storm of Swords[]
Mag Mar Tun Doh Weg is first seen when Jon Snow is residing at Mance Rayder's moving great camp near the river Milkwater, as the giant is leading his army of giants into the camp while astride on their woolly mammoths. Tormund Giantsbane shouts up a greeting to him in the Old Tongue before telling him something, causing the giant to let out a bellowing laughter. When Jon asks Tormund if Mag the Mighty is their king, Tormund explains to him that giants do not have kings and reveals to him Mag's full name. He states to Jon that the giant won't mind if Jon wants to kneel before him.
When asked what he said to the giant, Tormund translates, "I asked him if that was his father he was forking, they looked so much alike, except his father had a better smell, which was what caused Mag the Mighty to laugh in amusement. Jon asks Tormund on what the giant said to him and a smiling Tormund tells him, "He asked me if that was my daughter riding there beside me, with her smooth pink cheeks." It turns out that Mag the Mighty mistaken the boy Jon for a girl because he is clean-shaven. Unsure of it, Tormund says it may be because the giant had never seen a beardless man before.
Mag the Mighty laying dead in the gate tunnel.
Later, during the battle beneath the Wall, Mag leads the assault on the gate of Castle Black, in which he tears off the outer door of studded oak. Within the gate tunnel, he is attacked by a dozen crossbow quarrels and stabbed by spears by the black brothers of the Night's Watch and Donal Noye, the blacksmith and armorer of Castle Black, as well as its de-facto commander during the wildling invasion. Despite the defense of the Night's Watch, Mag the Mighty, because of his strong durability, is able to survive enough to wrench the bars and chains of the iron gate before tearing off the head of builder Spotted Pate of Maidenpool. Within the tunnel, Mag and Donal come to clash against each other, and the latter's small company of defenders is killed in the process.
Though he was able to crush the spine of the last surviving defender, Donal Noye, the one-armed armorer was able to drive his sword into the giant's throat. It's unknown who died first. In the aftermath of the assault, Jon Snow went to the gate tunnel and found the bodies of Mag the Mighty and Donal.
Despite Tormund's explanation that giants do not have their own kings, Jon nevertheless thought of Mag Mar Wun Doh Weg as a king of the giants. After Mag's death, the Battle Beneath the Wall continues after several days of break, as Mance Rayder asks the Night's Watch to negotiate. During the parley, Jon and Tormund drink mead in honor of the fallen Mag and Donal.
Mag's force of giants and their allies of the Free Folk are defeated and driven back to the Haunted Forest by the mounted army of King Stannis Baratheon. Refusing to abandon their mammoths, the giants are the last to remain standing after all the wildlings declare defeat and begin to retreat.
Legacy[]
Ser Godry Farring, one of King Stannis's vassal knights, becomes known as Godry the Giantslayer for having killed a small giant of Mag's host in the battle beneath the Wall. A long time later, during the same year, Jon Snow, now Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, encounters a giant from Mag's host, Wun Weg Wun Dar Wun, along with a group of starving and freezing wildlings in a grove beneath a heart tree in the Haunted Forest. Thanks to the new Night's Watch recruit, a wildling known as Leathers, Lord Snow's group of black brothers convinces the giant and his group to avoid fighting and even return to Castle Black with them.
Later, while the Wall is controlled by Lord Jon Snow and Queen Selyse Florent, Tormund Giantsbane brings nearly two hundred giants and eighty mammoths back to the Wall, along with a host of roughly 4,000 wildlings. They accept the Night's Watch's terms for passage south of the Wall, but only because they suffered many constant attacks of the Others, which decimated their numbers, and their suffering and struggling with survival beyond the Wall only kept increasing. Because the mammoths are too large to pass through the tunnel at Castle Black, the giants and mammoths are allowed to cross the Wall from the east at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, where they can pass at the edge of the Wall from the sea. The giants are allowed to settle in the lands of the Gift under Night's Watch rule, along with the majority of the Free Folk refugees. Thus, despite failing to conquer the Wall with Mance, Mag the Mighty still posthumously got his wish to see his kind safe in the green lands before the arrival of winter.
Game of Thrones[]
Mag the Mighty is the leader of the giants that joined forces with Mance Rayder's united army of Free Folk. He was "king of the giants" and the last of a bloodline that stretched back thousands of years before the arrival of the First Men in Westeros.
Season 4[]
The Watchers of the Wall[]
During the battle for the Wall, Mag is seen riding a mammoth. Riding up to and dismounting at the front gate, he and another giant called Dongo, along with several wildlings, tried to pull the gate with the mammoth and ropes, but were thwarted when men of the Night's Watch dropped explosive flaming barrels, causing the frightened mammoth to run away. After seeing Dongo get killed by a ballista while attempting to chase after it, Mag the Mighty lets out a cry of anguish before lifting the gate open with his bare hands, allowing him to pass through.
He then charges through to the portcullis in the middle of the tunnel. There, three black brothers, Grenn, Donell Hill, and Cooper, are awaiting him. Though they were terrified of the giant, Grenn rallied them and led them to recite the oath of the Night's Watch. At the same time, Mag the Mighty continued charging as he came closer and closer. Just as the trio had finished, Mag collided with the iron gate.
In the aftermath of the battle, the giant's body, along with those of Grenn, Donnell, and Cooper, were found by Jon Snow and Samwell Tarly while a hole had been made in the gate. The three black brothers were successful in holding the gate, as they sacrificed their own lives to do so.
The Children[]
When Mance Rayder was treated with Jon, the King-Beyond-The-Wall asked what happened to Mag the Mighty, as he managed to get into the gate of the Wall but never came out. Jon explains to him that the giant died while killing six black brothers, including Grenn, who is a friend of Jon. Saddened by this, Mance tells Jon of Mag's name and the last of a bloodline that stretched back long before the First Men came to Westeros. In an act of mutual respect, he and Jon drank to honor the memory of Mag and Grenn.
Notable Victims[]
Books only:[]
- Spotted Pate of Maidenpool - Head twisted off during the Attack on Castle Black.
- Donal Noye - Spine snapped during the Attack on Castle Black; managed to fatally stab Mag in the throat in the process.
TV Series only:[]
- Donnel Hill, Cooper, and Grenn - Mutually killed each other during the Battle for the Wall.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Mag's kind, the giants, once used to live in many regions across the whole Known World but are now only found in the far north of Westeros. Whether there are giants living in the most unknown or undiscovered parts of the entire world remains a mystery.
- In the novels, Mag is so huge that he has to crawl within Castle Black's tunnel, barely fitting. In the TV series, Mag is smaller and can walk and run within the tunnel.
- In the novels, Mag personally kills the steward Donal Noye, who was the blacksmith and armorer of Castle Black. Donal, who was Storm's End's blacksmith until the end of Robert's Rebellion, led Castle Black's garrison during the Attack on Castle Black and the Battle Beneath the Wall, while Bowen Marsh and his warriors defended the Shadow Tower at the west.
- In the TV series, Donal's role was replaced by Ser Alliser Thorne, who in the books is helping to defend the Wall from Eastwatch-by-the-Sea. However, in this version, Thorne is not killed by Mag the Mighty, as Donal's role and death against the giant are given to Grenn, one of Jon Snow's closest friends. In addition to Grenn, Donnel Hill is also killed by Mag in the TV version.
- In the novels, both Grenn and Donnel are still alive and never fought Mag (although they both survived the Great Ranging beyond the Wall), and the latter also claims to be a bastard of House Lannister.
- In the TV series, Donal's role was replaced by Ser Alliser Thorne, who in the books is helping to defend the Wall from Eastwatch-by-the-Sea. However, in this version, Thorne is not killed by Mag the Mighty, as Donal's role and death against the giant are given to Grenn, one of Jon Snow's closest friends. In addition to Grenn, Donnel Hill is also killed by Mag in the TV version.
