Gilly Tarly

Gilly Tarly is the mortician of the Night's Watch at Castle Black, and the wife of the maester, Samwell Tarly. She is the mother of Samwell Tarly II and Jon Tarly, and daughter of the wildling hermit Craster. After being raised to provide children to her incestuous father, Gilly and Little Sam were rescued by Sam during the Night's Watch mutiny at Craster's Keep and brought under the Wall. After a time with the Night's Watch, she accompanied Sam to Oldtown, where she became a final care nurse to terminal patients at the Citadel. Having left Sam due to his vows of celibacy as both a maester and a brother of the Night's Watch, she reunited with him when he flouted his vows. After Sam helped establish new traditions with the Night's Watch, he and Gilly married and had a son.

Season Seven
One night after Sam has attended classes at the Citadel, he complains about his day over dinner. Gilly in turn complains that she and Little Sam have little to do but sit and wait for him. She is an outsider here, and does not feel welcome. Sam insists that he'll make a home for them all soon, once he has his purpose. Gilly points out that she doesn't have a purpose herself. Sam is troubled by this, but is not able to reassure her. (7.1, Behind the Wall)

During a sunny harbour walk in Oldtown with Sam and Little Sam, Gilly talks about brothers and sisters. Sam notes that as much as Dickon is kind and occasionally inspirational, he was never especially good to confide in. Talla is much easier to talk to in this respect. Gilly says that her sisters were her strength growing up.

“If it weren't for them, I'd have wished I was born a boy after all.”

Sam notes that her brothers are all now White Walkers, but visibly regrets this immediately. Gilly doesn't appear to notice. She instead wonders aloud whether Little Sam will have brothers or sisters. After a worried pause, Sam smiles and says he hopes both. Gilly smiles, but when Sam isn't looking, she gives him a sharp and concerned glance. (7.3, The Marches)

Gilly stands at the door to her dwelling talking to an old woman. She glances back at Little Sam frequently, with clear anxiety in her eye.

“We never get separated,” she says, “I think he thinks I'll never come back if we do.”

The old woman appears kind and sympathetic, but once it's clear she's to look after Little Sam, she puts out a hand. Gilly sighs and hands over some coins. We see her walking alone through the streets of Oldtown, and then arriving at the Citadel. She receives plenty of dirty and bemused looks from the maesters and novices there. Confused, she tries to find help. She's supposed to meet with an 'Archmaester Abrose'. Eventually she's approached by a white haired but kindly man who suggests that it's Archmaester Ebrose she's supposed to see. Gilly insists on Abrose, but he tells her there is no Abross, but that he is Ebrose, and he's supposed to meet with a vice nice young lady named Gilly. He leads her upstairs in spite of the continued looks.

They come to a small office filled with pieces of medical apparatus and sit down. Ebrose asks about Gilly's thick accent and manner of speech. She initially claims to come from House Umber, but Ebrose laughs this off and tells Gilly to be honest with him. “In my field, I find that transparency helps matters.”

Gilly is reassured and explains that she's from North of the Wall. Ebrose is delighted by this, and admits he has more questions than he knows what to do with. “I do believe that Archmaester Guyne would willingly owe a great deal to speak to a member of the freefolk.” They get to the point; Gilly needs work, and Ebrose requires after-care for those he treats. “A lot of my patients are not long for this world, and my efforts are pedagogical more than strictly medical … I'm sorry. I mean that we can learn from them, but not make them better.” Someone needs to look after them once they're done at the Citadel, and Gilly's experience and background would imply she is tough enough to do it. In return she will receive a stipend from his office that will keep her from all but the largest of wants.

She is delighted, but Ibrose then asks about Sam. As she begins to talk, Pate wanders in and immediately freezes. He didn't expect to see them. Ebrose shouts at him to leave, and he stumbles away. Ebrose immediately returns to his kindly demeanour and urges Gilly to continue. She explains that Sam rescued Gilly from Craster, and from the mutineers who killed him. He has brought halfway across the world and taken on her son as his own. Ibrose looks pained. He tells her that as a Maester, Sam can take no wife and no companionship of any kind. Gilly is stunned.

Afterwards, Ebrose leads her out and tells her to be at a small house by the Citadel tomorrow morning. She walks away smiling, but then the smile crumples and she begins to sob.

At the sunset of another day, Gilly goes to meet Sam with Little Sam, but is clearly upset and angry. Little Sam hugs Big Sam, but Gilly resists his affections and glares at him. The next day, she takes Little Sam for another coastal walk without Sam. (7.4, Castle Black)

Archmaester Ebrose is showing Gilly around a small building near the Citadel, with a doorway that overlooks the water of the Honeywine and the harbours at the mouth. A novice carries two cases of potions and balms, and Ebrose is talking her through their process. Novices will take the dying from the Citadel to this spot discreetly, and Gilly will then take charge. She must approach a man named Janek once they have passed; he will deal with the bodies.

Gilly is nervous. Ebrose mistakes this for he being squeamish about dealing with corpses, but Gilly grew up on a farm without farmhands. She has no such qualms, but instead she worries that she will not be able to comfort the dying. “All they'll have is me and what if I can't even get them to stop crying, or screaming even?”

Ebrose is struck by the question and admits that he doesn't know exactly how much comfort is even possible. “But you're not naïve and you've still got a caring touch, so I suspect that if anyone can make it easier for them, it's you.” He then asks if she's dealt with actual death before, and she confirms that she has; wildlings who tried to plunder Craster's keep, Night's Watchmen during the mutiny, and of course a White Walker.

Ebrose laughs at the last one, then sees it wasn't a joke. He confesses that he didn't know White Walkers did die. She describes the event to him, and he's troubled. “The events you describe are utterly impossible. They cannot be, no more than the fairies and elves of children's rhymes might dance under our beds and steal our dreams. So it troubles me that I don't think you're lying. Perestan might want to quiz you on this subject.”

Gilly and Little Sam return to their lodgings. She is not pleased to find Sam waiting for them, and he gives Little Sam a glowing flower clearly intended for her. He tells Little Sam he can look after it but has to water it very often to keep its light. After a brief chat, Gilly sends Little Sam to his room.

Sam tries to talk to Gilly, but she resists this. Initially it looks like he's going to keep his distance, but then he snaps. He knows that it's difficult with him being away all day and her having to balance Little Sam and her new occupation, but he doesn't have a choice. Punishing him only makes things worse. Gilly counters that she isn't angry because Sam's away all day; she's angry because he's dragging her along where she doesn't belong, from the Wall to Hornhill to the Citadel. Worse still, he's a brother of the Night's Watch and training to be a Maester, positions which must be held by chaste men. They can never marry and any children they have must be bastards like Little Sam and all his brothers sacrificed to the winter. Sam has spent so long now simply living out all the dreams he never thought he could that he hasn't stopped to ask if they can all work together. He isn't a soldier, he isn't a freeman, he isn't a lord. He can't have it all. So he has to choose.

Sam is stung by this, stunned, and rather weakly says that he can't decide. He loves Gilly and wants brothers and sisters for Little Sam, but also that it's his duty to the Night's Watch. He has to help them how he can, which is to study and learn how to defeat the army of the dead.

“So you won't choose then?” Gilly asks. Sam stands silent, so she walks through to her son. (7.6, Home)

Late one night, Gilly puts Little Sam to bed and sets about cleaning the lodgings. Sam returns home, and tells her he is sorry, that he knows he didn't properly think about where she was supposed to fit into his life, and that he always just hoped that things would fall into place for them. But the Night's Watch have their vows, the maesters have their vows, and Westerosi society is such that Sam's only way to be useful are down those paths. He has to be useful now because the White Walkers will kill everyone and everything unless somebody stops them, and now Sam is in a position to help. He loves Gilly, he loves Little Sam, but that's all he knows and all he can say.

Gilly considers this calmly. Then she explains that for a long time, she was happy just to accompany Sam out of Craster's Keep, out of the Land of Always Winter, past the Wall and beyond. If Sam hadn't taken her, she'd be dead and her son would be dead. But she's no longer a scared and helpless wife, she has responsibilities and a place in life, and cannot just hide away in lodgings and be Sam's dirty secret. She understands what he has to do, but she won't be with him unless they can be openly together, and to seven hells with the traditions of the land. Sam is, again, left speechless. (7.9, Defender of the Vale)

After Sam is suspended by the Citadel, he and Gilly lie in the bed together, clearly on better terms than last we saw them, though there is still some tension. “It's a broken system anyway,” Sam says. “If I can't get their help by following their terms, then I'll need to follow my own way. In all things, I suppose.”

“What will you do?” Gilly asks.

“Whatever I have to,” Sam replies.

They are interrupted by a knock at the door, which Sam responds to. It is a messenger from the Citadel, who tells him that he is summoned to attend a meeting with the archmaesters immediately. Gilly is alarmed by the lateness of the call, but Sam shrugs that the Citadel doesn't ever truly sleep despite how hold he is. “Let's get this over with then,” he says. He gives her a reassuring smile, which she returns.

He does not come back, so the next morning, Gilly walks with Little Sam by the sea in Oldtown. The sky has darkened and the air is clearly colder, the city's inhabitants insulating themselves. Flecks of frost and snow fall gently from the sky. Sam appears, exhausted but smiling, and he approaches Gilly and Little Sam. He explains what happened, and that he has spent hours and hours sharing every last morsel of his knowledge about “White Walkers, wights and creepy crawlies.” They are both elated, Gilly almost crying with grinning pride.

“They believed you,” she says, and Sam nods. “I bet they feel stupid for making you leave now.”

Sam's smile fades away. He heavily tells her that he has been readmitted to the Citadel. It is more important than ever that he study and become a maester, for the benefit of the institution and the Seven Kingdoms as much as for the Watch. He has to, for the sake of everyone.

Gilly is devastated. “You've chosen then,” she says, and a sorrowful Sam nods before looking down. Gilly hands something to him and says “I won't be needing this anymore. I'm so sorry, Sam. I love you so much, I'll always love you for what you've done for me, we both will. But I need some place I belong.”

She turns and walks away with Little Sam, while Sam looks out to sea at the burgeoning sky and begins to weep too. He turns the thimble over in his hand, then looks up at the Old Tower looming over the city skyline. Flocks of ravens are leaving the rookery atop the tower.

Gilly takes Little Sam to the old woman, who promises to take good care of the "wildling prince." After a moment, the old woman apologises for her choice of words, but Gilly shrugs. She isn't ashamed of who and what she is, and the old woman is impressed. We see Gilly arrive at the palliative house, which has been cleaned and adorned with beds, furnishings and the means to clean bodies. She briefly stops and weeps, but then composes herself. Young acolytes appear at the entrance, wheeling along a cart on which an ailing man lies. They say that Ebrose has sent them. Gilly looks at the pale and haggard looking man, whose glassy eyes are a milky white. She directs the acolytes to one of the beds, where they set down the dying man. She leads them out then stands at the door and looking down towards the Honeywine. Finally she walks back into the house as the shot lingers on the river.

"How are you there, ser?" we hear Gilly ask the dying man. (7.10, Lord of Light)