"Where is the Brotherhood?"
―The Tickler[src]

The Tickler was a soldier serving under Ser Gregor Clegane who specialized in interrogation and torture techniques.


Season 2

After Arya Stark, Gendry and Hot Pie are imprisoned at castle Harrenhal, which has been taken over by the Lannister army, they hear the agonized screams of a prisoner being tortured to death by the Tickler. The mother of the prisoner reveals that each day a prisoner is chosen to be tortured and killed, and that her daughter and husband had died in this manner. The following day, another villager is selected by Gregor Clegane. The Tickler has the prisoner strapped and a bucket with a rat inside put over his chest. He interrogates the prisoner about hidden gold, jewels and the whereabouts of "The Brotherhood" and which villagers are helping them. When the prisoner denies knowledge, the Tickler has Weasel heat the bucket with fire to make the rat claw its way through the prisoner's chest. After a short time, the prisoner denounces a butcher named "Ganes" and his son. The Tickler callously thanks him but continues with the torture, killing the prisoner.[1]

The next day, it is Gendry who is chosen and the Tickler goes through the same process again, but Gendry is saved when Tywin Lannister arrives and decides it's wasteful to kill able-bodied workers.

The Tickler dead

The Tickler dead of a broken neck in "The Ghost of Harrenhal".

Jaqen H'ghar wants to repay Arya for saving his life, when he was trapped in the burning wagon. He offers Arya Stark three deaths as balance for his life and the lives of Rorge and Biter. She robbed the Many-Faced God of three deaths and must name three to replace them. The torturer is the first man she names (she doesn't know his real name, just that they call him the Tickler). Arya is talking to Gendry when they hear a scream. They run out to see the Tickler dead on the ground, his neck broken. Above him on the walkway, Arya sees Jaqen H'gher. He places one finger up next to his cheek.[2]


Season Two appearances

In the books

In the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, the Tickler is an associate of Ser Gregor Clegane and serves in his band of man-at-arms alongside Polliver, Chiswyck, Raff "the Sweetling", Dunsen and others. His face is so ordinary and his garb so plain that Arya might have thought him one of the villagers before she had seen him at his work. His real name is not revealed.

The torturing takes place during stops on the forced march to Harrenhal, not at Harrenhal itself. Sometimes Chiswyck assists the Tickler with the torturing, sometimes others of the Mountain's men. Every day the Tickler picks people at random from the captives (but not Gendry). He always asks them the same questions:

  • Was there gold hidden in the village? Silver, gems?
  • Was there more food?
  • Where was Lord Beric Dondarrion?
  • Which of the village folk had aided him?
  • When he rode off, where did he go?
  • How many men were with them? How many knights, how many bowmen, how many men-at-arms?
  • How were they armed? How many were horsed? How many were wounded?
  • What other enemy had they seen? How many? When? What banners did they fly? Where did they go?

None of the tortured captives survived the Tickler's interrogation. The strongest lasted past evenfall. Their bodies were hung beyond the fires for the wolves. The answers they gave were contradictory: that Beric had ten starvelings with him, or else a hundred mounted knights; that he had ridden west, or north, or south; that he had crossed the lake in a boat; that he was strong as an aurochs, or weak from the bloody flux, etc. - but the Tickler did not seem to care. The Tickler's great cruelty was that he knew that nearly all of the people he tortured were being honest when they said they had no more gold, and that they knew nothing about the Brotherhood, but he tortured them to death anyway simply because he could.

Tywin Lannister does not come to Harrenhal while the Tickler is there (he is one of Gregor Clegane's men and Tywin Lannister doesn't come until later). Unlike his television counterpart, he is not killed by Jaqen H'ghar. The Tickler leaves Harrenhal and his story continues in the books.

Arya and the Hound encounter the Tickler, accompanied by Polliver and a Sarsfield squire, at the Inn at the Crossroads. During the ensuing brawl Arya kills the Tickler by stabbing him repeatedly in the back. With every stab, Arya sarcastically screams the questions the Tickler used to ask his victims.

See also


v  d  e
Lord: None, extinct Heir: None, extinct
Seat: Clegane's Keep Lands: Westerlands
Title(s): None
Deceased members:Clegane · Gregor Clegane · Sandor Clegane
Household:Joss Stilwood · {The Tickler} · Weasel
Overlord:House Lannister