Popular Game of Thrones Characters I Didn't Like Part 2

Jaime Lannister


It's hard to tell which of my Game of Thrones opinions are the most unpopular, but I'm guessing one of them is that I don't like Jaime Lannister and I never have. There are a few reasons why I hate him:

1) He tried to murder a child: During the first episode of the show there's a kid named Bran Stark who accidentally sees Jaime and Cersei Lannister having sex. Cersei Lannister is married to the King, who is not Jaime. Jaime throws Bran off a tower. He's essentially trying murder Bran in order to keep him from telling anyone about their affair. Let me repeat: Jaime Lannister tried to murder a child in order to cover up his affair. That's monstrous behavior no matter how you look at it. Jaime never expresses remorse for this in either the show or the books. 

2) He's having sex with his sister. And it indirectly kick started a massive war: First of all, incest is absolutely disgusting. Second, his affair with his sister indirectly led to the war that happened during the next two books / seasons. What kick-starts the war is that Ned Stark finds out that Joffrey and his siblings aren't children of the king. Ned eventually learns about Jaime and Cersei's affair. Ned told Cersei that he knew about her affair. Cersei refused to back down and leave with her children, the Lannisters seized control and Joffrey had Ned Stark executed for treason.



Eventually Stannis and Renly Baratheon, the younger siblings of King Robert, find out about the incest affair. Stannis proclaims that he is the rightful king (to be fair, he is since he's Robert's oldest brother so naturally he would be the rightful king) and refuses to bow to Joffrey. So now we've got claimants competing for the Iron Throne. Plus the truth behind Joffrey's existence led to Ned's death which is what caused Robb and the rest of the Starks to declare war on the Lannisters.

If Joffrey didn't exist, then Ned would never have found out and Stannis would have probably gotten the Iron Throne instead of fighting for it in a war. Considering all the major consequences from Jaime's affair I'd say it's good enough to consider his irresponsible affair a major reason why the war even happened. Obviously I feel the same way about Cersei too. It would have cost him nothing to not have sex with his sister, but he did anyways and now there's a war for succession.



3) Jaime Lannister is a Rapist: Here comes the most unpopular opinion regarding Jaime. In Season 4 he rapes Cersei shortly after Joffrey dies. He rapes his sister in front of their dead son. That's all kinds of screwed up. 

Now this happened in Season 4, back when the show was still adapting the books. So the scene I'm talking about was the show adapting a scene that Martin wrote. The popular consensus among the fanbase is that the book version of that scene was consensual. I disagree with this. 

My unpopular opinion here is that even the scene written in the book is actually rape based on how it's written. Jaime tries to have sex with Cersei, she says "Not Here", but he still has sex with her anyway. Afterwards, she says "that was folly". If a woman says "Not Here" I would take that to mean that she hasn't given consent. She later says "that was folly" and the book brings up other instances during that scene where she's obviously protesting and shows signs that she doesn't want to have sex with him. The only reason why she didn't get traumatized is because Martin didn't consider that a rape scene so he didn't write her getting traumatized from it.

Let's put a pin on this for now, but I plan on coming back to this point when I criticize the books. One criticism that I have about the way the books are written has to do with the way Martin writes rape and other sex scenes. This is a prime example right here and the fact that there's plausible deniability doesn't help his case either.



If this wasn't bad enough, there's still one more incredibly screwed up element to all of this. The show-runners didn't depict that sex scene as rape on purpose. Those idiots actually thought they were portraying consensual sex. Holy crap! Where do I even begin with that? Everyone else who saw that scene and their mom knew that was rape! How in the flying heck did the show-runners seriously think that was consensual? That is super messed up!

Other Popular Game of Thrones Characters I Don't Like

I'm going to do a rapid fire session because the sooner my anti Game of Thrones posts finish, the sooner we can all start gushing Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Theon Greyjoy


For the sake of time I'm going to copy / paste a bit about Theon from a Reddit post that explains him quite well:

"Theon essentially spent his entire life as a hostage and torn between two lives, two identities, two families, and two cultures with the ever present threat that he may be killed if his father decides to rebel again.

His blood family scorned and mocked him for his lack of Ironborn upbringing. He was forced to choose between one family he could never be a part of and the another family who mocked him. He chose wrong. He picked blood over the Starks and did whatever he could to sever any links he had to the Starks. 



He wanted to prove that he was Ironborn and a Greyjoy of Pyke in the most extreme way possible. He did horrible things out of a deep and desperate desire to belong and to prove himself to his family... 

The tragedy of Theon Greyjoy is that he had the family he always wanted but didn't recognize in time and no one ever told him. He was a Stark but not by blood or by name, he was brother to Robb, and a son of Winterfell. He picked the wrong side, the wrong culture, and the wrong family" 

(Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/2ex2gj/spoilers_all_what_is_your_opinion_on_theon_greyjoy/) 



One of the "horrible things" Theon did back when he betrayed the Starks was murder two innocent children so that he could pretend that he held Bran and Rickon Stark hostage. That's when I lost all my sympathy for him. People felt sorry for him because he eventually got tortured by Ramsay Bolton. By "tortured" I'm including the fact that he got castrated and eventually Ramsay broke him. The thing here is that if Ramsay Bolton had simply beheaded Theon instead of torture him I would have been okay with that. Theon murdered children. I'm not forgiving him for that. 

I also don't sympathize with him for wanting to be part of the Greyjoy family. He should have figured that they hated him and that he would have been better off with the Starks than the Greyjoys.

The Hound

Why I Don't Like Him: In the books he comes really close to raping Sansa Stark. By "really close" I mean that he holds a knife to her throat. He also murders a child and then makes a joke about it. In the show a lot of his dialogue can be boiled down to "F*** this. F*** that." What a swell guy.

Bronn


Why Do I Hate Him: In the books (and I think the show, but I'm not sure on that) he brings up the fact that he would murder a baby if he were paid enough to do it. Thankfully he never does in either series but the fact that he would openly admit to doing such is enough to make me despise him. Remember how I brought up when Book!Tyrion had a singer boiled in stew? Guess who did Book!Tyrion's dirty work? Bronn did. 

Bronn is one of the few characters who survives all the way through the show and there really isn't a good reason why. He doesn't actually do much from Seasons 6 - 8. Somehow this guy winds up with a position of leadership at the end of the show. Bronn ends up with the title "Master of Coin" which means that he's in charge of the kingdom's money. The problem here is that Bronn has done nothing to earn this position. It feels like the show kept him alive as an act of fanservice.

Tywin Lannister


For those of you who haven't seen the show, Tywin is Tyrion, Cersei and Jaime's dad.

Why I Hate Him: Here's a list of stuff this monster did:

1) Ordered his soldiers to gang rape his son's wife: The only reason why he did this was because he was pissed off that his son Tyrion was marrying a commoner.

2) He lied to Tyrion, telling him that his wife was a "whore" who was paid to have sex with him: Tyrion eventually learns the truth that his wife actually did love him and that she wasn't a prostitute. In the books, this revelation is what causes Tyrion to kill his dad.

3) He openly admitted to Tyrion that he thought about killing him when he was a baby:  Tyrion's mom died in childbirth and Tywin hated Tyrion for that. Also, Tyrion's a midget and Tywin hates him for that too.

4) Tywin knows that Tyrion didn't kill Joffrey but puts him on trial for it anyway and plans to screw him over: Tyrion wouldn't have faced the death penalty. He probably would have been sent to the Night's Watch before he decided to ask for a trial by combat. Still, a father putting a son who he knows is innocent on trial is a monstrous behavior.

5) He helped orchestrated the Red Wedding: One of the major reasons why Walder Frey even carried out the Red Wedding to begin with is because Tywin Lannister offered to protect him if he did. Tywin is considered to be one of the main orchestrators of that slaughter. Tyrion calls him out on this and Tywin actually tries to justify the slaughter. 

_____________________________________________________

Final Words: Like I said before, there's a lot of awful, monstrous characters in A Song of Ice and Fire / Game of Thrones. John Barkmeyer hit the nail on the head: These characters aren't shades of gray. They're shades of black. 

My Beef with Daenerys Targaryen

Daenerys Targaryen

So before I get into why I never liked her as a character I think it's important for us to understand what George RR Martin was trying to convey through her character. I recently come across a thought provoking analysis of Daenerys from a hardcore fan of the series that sums her up better than I could:

"[Daenerys's character arc] challenges people to consider how they think about and perceive violence and warfare... because we consider violence against “bad” people to be inherently justified — justifiable — most of us don’t put up a fuss if Dany crucifies slavers or feeds nobles to her dragons or burns Dothraki khals alive.

The problem comes when the perspective shifts — our perspective — but Dany’s doesn’t. People cried foul...because she’d never hurt “innocent” people before. It’d be more accurate though to say that she hadn’t hurt people the audience considered “innocent” before.



For a very long time, her foes were our foes. She beat up on comic book villains and many people (though not all) cheered, until our context changed but hers didn’t. Suddenly the people she was immolating didn’t look too villainous to us. 

So that’s one part of it. It forces the audience to reckon with our own blood-lust and how we evaluate justifiable violence and atrocities. Because what Dany did to “bad” people was still atrocious — people just didn’t care because her victims weren’t sufficiently sympathetic, and her overall goal — protecting people from other, worse people — looked “noble.”

The other part of it — and the one with real-world parallels in recent history — is that, to be blunt, people were deluded into rooting for a stone-cold tyrant and didn’t realize it until it was too late and the jig was up.

The combination of a compelling life story, a pretty face and violence we can agree with — against other people, people not like us, people we find morally wrong — can lead to horror. You know, “first they came for the Jews, then they came for the unionists, then they came for me,” in so many words (I know that isn’t exact). The violence is always ratcheted up, and up, until one day it isn’t violence you agree with anymore. But by then it doesn’t matter, because the tyrant is too powerful, too convinced of their own righteousness (because you’ve told them for so long that they’re right) and too far gone to go back.

Tyrants rarely look like tyrants immediately — they might make promises, they might have good intentions, they might hurt all the “right” people, they might seem sympathetic, they might seem to want to do good (for the “right” people, the same way they want to punish the “right” people). But the mask will always drop. The trick is seeing them for what they are before the mask drops, because by then it’s too late.

Despite this being a HUGE wall of text, this isn't even the whole answer. If you'd like to read the whole thing here's the link: 

https://www.quora.com/What-is-GRRM-s-point-with-Dany-s-character-arc-Is-he-stressing-that-those-who-seek-power-cannot-also-be-good-What-do-you-think-he-s-trying-to-say-by-having-her-turn-villian/answer/Kelsey-L-Hayes

As I'm sure you would have been able to guess from all the memes in this post, she's supposed to be a 21st century Darth Vader. The major exception is that you're supposed to cheer for her and then feel horrified that you cheered for "Stalin with tits" (which is a phrase that the linked answer uses to describe Daenerys). 

I love the idea behind this arc. Had it been executed well, I think it could have been powerful and it would have given us all the opportunity to reflect on our views of violence. Unfortunately the execution in both the books and the show is rather poor. 

 In the books it's a little too obvious that Daenerys is a bad ruler and that she's eventually going to turn into a tyrant. She has the reverse of the hand of Midas. Instead of everything turning to gold, for her it turns into crap. So anytime she tries to do something good you can basically expect it to go wrong and to have major negative consequences. As a result it's really hard to root for her. And her list of atrocities increases over time which makes everything completely obvious.

The show takes a different approach that ultimately bit them in the rear end. In the show, each of Daenerys's actions from the books is framed in a heroic light. Sure she had moments where she was violent toward certain people, but there always a justification present for each of those actions. It's easy to see why people thought of her as a hero, it's what the show wants you to think.

Then George RR Martin told the show-runners how the story in the books would end. I'm guessing that the show-runners must have realized that they were in trouble because their depiction of Daenerys prior to the final season doesn't logically lead to her becoming a tyrant. As a result the show tries to aim for the same ending of the book, but does it in the dumbest way possible.

This is where the comparison between Daenerys Targaryen and Anakin Skywalker further comes into play. In Episode 3 Anakin starts slaughtering children on the turn of a dime with zero build up. This is exactly what happened with Daenerys. Before the second to last episode of the show Daenerys was like:

"I'm going to kill Cersei Lannister and liberate King's Landing from a tyrant."

And then 1 - 2 episodes later she proceeds to massacre all the men, women and children in King's Landing for no reason. The show did not build this up at all. Prior to the last two episodes of the entire show one would think that she'd be a little power hungry sure, but not a mass murderer. It's not a logical conclusion one would come to and I don't blame show-only fans for feeling like the show threw her under the bus.

What I find to be further hilarious about this entire ordeal is that THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO NAMED THEIR CHILDREN AND / OR THEIR PETS AFTER HER! And not even after Daenerys either, they named their kids or pets "Khaleesi", which is one of her titles. It's not even her proper name.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/13/us/game-of-thrones-baby-names/index.html

https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/tv/lil-joffrey-game-thrones-baby-names-n1004541

Stephen Colbert recently did a sketch on this subject. In this sketch he made fun of all the people who named their kids after characters from Game of Thrones:

And you know what? I'm right there with him. Moral of the story: If you're going to name your kid after a fictional character you should wait until after their story arc is complete before you give your kids that name.

 It's going to be really embarrassing when the kid finds out that they were named after a genocidal maniac....and I'll laugh my rear end off. It feels really nice to know that my dislike of Daenerys has been exonerated. I'll just end with his little gem of a video:

Popular Game of Thrones Characters I Didn't Like Part 1

Okay so who were the popular Game of Thrones characters I Never Liked? Oh boy, this list is going to be long.

# 1 - Sansa Stark


Sansa is a character that I would have stayed neutral about if it weren't for her legion of self-righteous white knights who get super defensive anytime someone dares to criticize their precious angel.  

I've criticized Sansa Stark before so I'll my past words do the talking: 

       "Something that I find interesting is that many of the arguments used by Sansa Stark apologists are similar to arguments that Screen Prism used to defend Cinderella in their video: “Cinderella Stop Blaming the Victim”.

Why am I bringing this up? Well, on the one hand I agree that characters who act more stereotypically “feminine” shouldn’t be shamed, degraded or hated, but on the other hand there’s a couple of issues that I have with the “feminine strength” crowd.

For starters, “feminine strength” is being unintentionally linked with abuse victims, and I don’t think it’s a good idea to suggest that feminine strength is only useful when you’re in an abusive situation.

I could also see people come to the conclusion that “feminine strength” is only useful in scenarios where “masculine strength” isn’t applicable or even a viable solution. It would be far better if “feminine strength” were shown in a context where the masculine alternative was viable too but the character chooses not to. A better example of a “feminine” female character would be….

One poignant example is when Winry goes face-to-face with Scar, the man who murdered her parents. There’s even a scene where she’s pointing a gun at him and comes super close to pulling the trigger. She doesn’t go through with it and the narrative of Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood portrays this as a positive. Here is a clear cut example where Winry had a choice: She could take vengeance on her parent’s murderer, or not. Winry chooses not to and her choice is viewed as a morally strong one. This is a much better way to handle characters like that.

Getting back to Sansa, the fans were completely justified in being annoyed with her behavior in Season 1 / the first book. Sansa came across as bratty, failed to stick up for her family and saw Joffrey through rosy tinted goggles even though it was completely obvious to everyone else that Joffrey was a spoiled psychopath. 

Sansa fans will point to her age as a common defense, but Arya is two years younger than her and was instantly able to see Joffrey for who he was so that defense doesn’t hold up. After Season 1 most people felt sorry for Sansa and her popularity has increased since then." 

(Source: https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-most-unpopular-opinions-you-have-about-A-Song-of-Ice-and-Fire/answer/Grant-Boothe)

There's a couple of other things I'd like to say: I don't buy her character arc. 

The idea behind Sansa is that she starts the series off from being a pawn that people used to being someone become a political mastermind, or a "player" in her own right. The problem is that neither the show nor the books have done a convincing job showing this transition. Both series spend more time on her being abused, and less time on her "learning to play the game." 

In order for this arc to be convincing we would have needed more scenes showing her being taught how to play the game. We also would have needed to see a gradual transition where she starts progressively starts making bigger and bigger political moves and power plays. We never got that. As a result, her character development feels hollow and unconvincing and her supposed victories in the show feel unearned. It's a real shame too, because if her arc were written better I could have actually found myself liking her.

# 2 - Jon Snow

Jon Snow is a walking contradiction of everything Game of Thrones claims to stand for. 

 In the latter seasons of the show he gets put into some really dumb and dangerous situations. One example was the idiotic "Wight Hunt" in Season 7. Or how about in Season 6 where he charges headlong into an enemy army when his army is really far behind him? 

^ What's worse about that situation is that he had a brilliant strategy in an earlier scene that the show went out of its way to display. But once his little brother gets killed Jon throws his entire battle plan out the window and suddenly he acts like he can face down the entire enemy cavalry by himself.

Just like every male Stark ruler before him, he gets betrayed and killed by his allies. Unlike Ned or Robb though, Jon gets brought back to life. Everybody in the fandom saw his resurrection coming a mile away and in the show his resurrection has zero consequences and no effect on his personality. This is a huge departure from the books as well since George RR Martin strongly believes that resurrection should come with a price. 

Game of Thrones is supposed to be a story where nobody is a hero, but in the show (and to a lesser degree in the books) he is that hero. It's also revealed that he's actually the heir to the Iron Throne this entire time. For a fantasy series whose calling card is genre deconstruction that's a pretty big fantasy trope to have. Having well recognized tropes isn't a bad thing, it's just that once again the show and the books defeat their own premise when they do stuff like that. 

In the last two seasons of the show he turns into a spineless Daenerys yes man. In the second to last episode Daenerys massacres King's Landing, the place where the Iron Throne is. Jon Snow witnesses the entire thing, but still has the gall to defend her behavior when Tyrion's calling her out. Jon Snow needed to have a pep talk from Tyrion about why his girlfriend was a genocidal tyrant that needed to be put down. It also doesn't help that he's characterized as being emo, brooding and does a lot of sulking. 

In the show he has sex with Daenerys...who is his aunt. Ew! The show also tries to portray his relationship with Daenerys as romantic (there's romantic music being played during their sex scene). This is a massive double standard because when Jaime and Cersei committed incest the show portrayed that as a bad thing (which it rightfully should have done). For some reason Jon and Daenerys committing incest is somehow okay and romantic. Double Standards much?

Plus the actors of Jon Snow and Daenerys had zero chemistry whatsoever, which made the whole thing even less believable! 

The Characters on Game of Thrones I Actually Liked

So here's the thing about Game of Thrones: I could forgive the series for having brutal, monstrous characters if the show (or the books) actually bothered to give me characters worth actually rooting for. Unfortunately it does not. To be fair, the show TRIED to give me characters worth rooting for, but they always miss the mark. 

Before I begin, you might be wondering if I liked any of the characters in the show. Well, there are a few:

• Ned Stark:

• Robb Stark:

• Arya Stark:

• The Show Version of Tyrion Lannister during Seasons 1 - 4:

• Davos Seaworth:

_____________________________________________________

Ned and Robb Stark were honorable, heroic characters so of course I was going to root for them. It sucks that they died in such brutal ways. Ned and Robb stood out from most of the cast for having an actual conscience. It's kind of sad when that's what separates you from most of the pack.

Now as I'm sure you've figured out, the poor Starks get brutalized by the narrative a lot. This is what makes Arya such a compelling character, she's a Stark that actually got to fight back. Arya develops a hit list against every person who either wronged her, or somebody she cared about. Since I hated most of these characters, I could actually relate to her hit list and I was hoping she would get to put down these ruthless a**holes. Thankfully the show gave me what I wanted. 

Remember that Walder Frey monster? In the show, Arya killed him! And she wiped out his evil children. Arya avenged Robb Stark and that was the happiest moment for me on the show. Feel free to watch the video I posted where Arya takes some sweet revenge against the people who slaughtered her brother. It's glorious.

Arya is basically the Game of Thrones version of The Punisher, and I am okay with that. There were other characters that she got to kill too, and I cheered for her the whole time. It was nice to see someone stand up for the Starks. 

Plus Arya was the kind of character who wouldn't take crap from anyone. Considering how any female characters got threatened with rape, torture or death I respected her for standing up for herself.

Tyrion was a character that I initially liked because he was a character who at least had some morality while also having political skills. It was nice to see him outmaneuver some of the vipers in King's Landing. Plus every now and then he stood up for the weak and the downtrodden. Tyrion was also one of the few characters in the story who had the balls to stand up to Joffrey. Heck, he's the first character to actually smack the little runt. You know what, let's post another video of him smacking Joffrey around because that never gets old.

Tyrion was also sympathetic because of all the crap his dad, Tywin put him through. In both the show and the books it's revealed that Tywin ordered his soldiers to gang rape Tyrion's wife. That kind of crap boils my blood. Later on in the show Tyrion gets framed for Joffrey's murder. Tywin put him on trial even though he knew that Tyrion was innocent, and was going to have Tyrion killed anyway. Tyrion got to kill his old man and it was a really satisfying moment to watch. 

You're probably wondering why I mentioned only the show's version of Tyrion and why I also mentioned the early seasons. One of the biggest complaints that people had was that the show "whitewashed Tyrion." You see, Book!Tyrion does a slew of awful things that the show version of Tyrion never did. Things like:

• Helping Daenerys in exchange for the opportunity to rape and murder his sister: I hate Cersei too, but that's crossing several lines. It's impossible to sympathize with a character who wants to rape his sister. 

• Turning a guy into stew: In the second book there's a random bard that blackmailed Tyrion. In response to said blackmail, Tyrion had that guy killed and then later had him cooked in a stew that was served to people. 

• Rapes a Slave Girl

So let me ask you this: Is Book Tyrion really more interesting than his show counterpart? Do any of those things make him a more interesting character? I would say no. The show version of Tyrion is actually worth caring about. This is one area where the show made a change for the better. Making Tyrion a more heroic character was the right call to make. The show's version of Tyrion was a character that I was interested in which means that whenever something bad happened to him, I actually cared. 

Then everything changed when the show-runners attacked. This is where I have to address what happened to Tyrion in the latter seasons of the show. One of the biggest issues with the latter seasons of the show is that a lot of characters suddenly became stupid. Tyrion's intelligence took a major hit. Every plan, every political scheme that he came up with failed. And it usually failed hard. He also came across as a spineless Daenerys yes man until the very last episode of the show. As a result, he just wasn't worth rooting for anymore. Instead of saying legitimately witty or funny things he made dick jokes all the time. It's really sad when you stop to think about it. But yeah, the Tyrion we saw in the latter seasons of the show was a HUGE disappointment. 

• Davos Seaworth: A character with integrity who isn't a naive moron who doesn't get killed off by the show?

Sign me up.

My Issues with Game of Throne's Characters Part 1

Remember back when I talked about why Game of Thrones was popular?  There's another reason why I did that. It is my personal opinion that both Game of Thrones and A Song of Ice and Fire fail to live up to the premises that they've constructed for both themselves and their audience. 

Today, I'm going to talk about how both the show and the books fail to live up to its premise of "Gray Morality." One slogan that fans of both series love to trot around is this idea that there are no good guys and bad guys in Game of Thrones. To that I say,

There are plenty of good guys and bad guys in Game of Thrones! I have maintained for a long time that Game of Thrones has far more Black and White morality than it gets credit for. 

So who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? Well I'm glad you asked. Let's start with the bad guys, because there are a lot of them.

The Bad Guys

# 1 - Joffrey

I can think of no other name in fictional media that elicits repulsion, disgust and pure hatred than the name of Joffrey. Everybody in the Game of Thrones fandom hates this little turd with a burning passion! Why? Well let's discuss.

If you've never seen Game of Thrones then the easiest way to describe Joffrey is that he's Draco Malfoy dialed up to 15. That's right. Not 11. Not 12. Not 13 or 14. 15. Here's a list of reasons why people like myself hate this piece of crap:

• He's a Bully & A Coward: Joffrey pushes people around and uses his privileged upbringing to torment people to no end. One notable instance where he does this is with a random peasant boy in the second episode of the show. Arya Stark eventually stands up to Joffrey. What does he do? He tries to kill her. He even says "I'll gut you, you little cunt!" Arya's wolf saves her and bites his hand. Then when the tables turn he acts like a total bitch and pleads for mercy.

The video I linked to is pretty much the event I described in full. Now this is far from being the only time where Joffrey pulls a stunt like that. Earlier in that episode on Joffrey tries to pull a tough guy act but then proceeds to get slapped by his uncle Tyrion. There are whole YouTube videos dedicated to just Joffrey getting slapped and smacked around.  

I think it says something about how awful a character is when a fanbase universally loathes and despises him.

He's Cruel To People And Animals For No Reason: Joffrey is extremely cruel to people for no apparent reason. The show adds a scene of him making two prostitutes torture each other. He even turns one into a pincushion with his crossbow. In the books it's mentioned that Joffrey cut up a pregnant cat just to see the kitten inside. Afterward, he triumphantly shows the cat carcass to his dad.

He eventually strips Sansa, the woman he was originally going to marry, naked and has one of his knights beat her. When he finds out that a bard made a song that mocked his dad he asks the bard "your fingers or your tongue?" The implication here is that the bard either gets his tongue ripped out or gets his fingers chopped off. In the show the bard got his tongue ripped out.

Joffrey eventually does get poisoned at his own wedding. This event is referred to as "The Purple Wedding." Guess what the fan reaction was when they saw Joffrey dying? Joy. Pure, unadulterated joy. And I was one of those people. Everybody hated Joffrey. He was a tyrant, he was a literal psychopath, he was a coward and he was a bully. Joffrey is a clear-cut case of pure evil that I've witnessed in any fictional story.

# 2 - Ramsay Bolton

You want to know why some people don't consider Joffrey to be the most evil character on the show? It's because Ramsey Bolton exists. Ramsay arguably gives Joffrey a run for his money in terms of atrocities committed. Atrocities such as:

- Raping his wife (Sansa Stark. Interesting how Sansa's been a victim of both of these monsters) during their honeymoon

- Starving his dogs on purpose

- Torturing people. This guy castrates a character called Theon Greyjoy, then mentally broke him to the point where Theon turned into "Reek." Prior to this point Theon was seen as a douche bag by the fandom, but thanks to all that torture he received at the hands of Ramsay Bolton, Theon became instantly sympathetic. 

The book version of Ramsay is even worse. I'll let you use your imagination for that one, because I think I've gotten the point across.

# 3 - Cersei Lannister


Meet Joffrey's mom. She's the main reason why he's such a spoiled runt. Remember how I mentioned that Joffrey carved up a cat in the books? Well his dad got so horrified that he straight up punched Joffrey in the face for that. Cersei actually stuck up for Joffrey. She threatened to kill Robert if he did something like that again. That scene is a good representation of how Cersei parented that little runt. 

She's also shown to be manipulative of her brother (who is also her lover. Ew) and she's the reason why their relationship is toxic. When she finds out that her husband cheated on her and sired bastard children she orders them to die. Even though there's a cruel logic to it, that still doesn't change the fact that she ordered the slaughter of children.

And the list could keep going on. The point here is that both the show and the books portray her as ridiculously evil. Even the show sets her up as a Big Bad / Final Boss type villain in the end for Dany to defeat. 

# 4 - Walder Frey


Walder Frey is the prime perpetrator of The Red Wedding. This monster betrayed Robb Stark and had his men butchered like animals at a wedding. Speaking of animals, after Robb Stark dies Walder Frey and his evil sons cut off his head, cut off the head of Robb's pet Grey Wolf and then sew that wolf's head onto Robb's decapitated body and parade that body around. 

Keep in mind that the moral universe of both the show and the books hold guest right as sacred. You are not supposed to harm any guest under your roof. Even by the super low moral standards of the show, Walder Frey is a monster. The books keep saying that "the gods will have their vengeance." That's how awful the Red Wedding was. Walder Frey is viewed as someone who will "burn in the seventh hell for what he did." When a character in The Song of Ice and Fire says you're going to Hell, you know you screwed up big time.



Why did Walder Frey commit such an atrocity? Because Robb Stark broke a marriage vow to marry one of his [Frey's] daughters. No really. That's it. Robb went back on his word and Walder Frey felt so insulted by that he decided to massacre his former ally. 

On a side note, Walder Frey is the character I hate the most out of all the nasty monsters in this story. Don't get me wrong, I hate Joffrey. I hate Ramsay. I hate Cersei. But Walder Frey is the character I wanted to see die the most. He's dead in the show. He's still alive in the books, mainly because the show surpassed the books. The last time I hated a fictional character this much was...



Yep. I used to hate Alvis an awful lot. Just ask DRP. 

The point is, Walder Frey is an evil, petty, spiteful monster born from the depths of Hell as far as I'm concerned. In case that wasn't enough, there's this little bit too:

"Lord Walder Frey...has been married 8 times and has fathered at least 28 children. Lord Walder Has known ninety-one name days, but only recently took his eighth wife, a girl seventy years his junior." (Source: https://iceandfire.fandom.com/wiki/Walder_Frey)

Ew. That's just...ew. 

_____________________________________________________________________________

You want to know what the really sad part about all this is? This isn't even the full list of character who have done some extremely horrible things. Hopefully this should give you an idea of what type of evil characters inhabit this fictional world. And here's the thing: 3 of these 4 characters are never portrayed in a sympathetic light. The show doesn't even bother to redeem them. Cersei's the only exception, but even the show's attempts to redeem Cersei fall flat. The point here is that to say that there are no bad guys is wrong on a major scale. 

Well if those are the bad guys (or at least a handful of the worst characters on the show) then who are the good guys? That too has an easy answer:

The Starks

Some Game of Thrones / A Song of Ice and Fire fans might still go "nuh uh" but I think the evidence for the Stark family being "the good guys" is pretty overwhelming. For example,

The Starks are the only noble house that aren't power hungry

The Starks are the only noble family that don't want the Iron Throne. Literally every other major noble house wants control of Westeros. When Robb participates in the War of the Five Kings he's the only king that's not competing for the Iron Throne. The only reasons why he fought the Lannisters were:

1) His father had been unjustly imprisoned and then executed.
2) Northern Independence.

To go off of Point # 2, throughout the entire show the Starks are fighting for their independence. No Stark has ever shown an interest or a desire to rule over the other houses. Given all the nastiness and petty politics that goes on, I can't say that I blame them for wanting to be free of all that crap. Fighting for independence is a significantly more noble goal then control over an entire continent. Now that I think about it, the Starks are essentially this show's version of the Scottish. 

Here's another reason why the Starks are the main characters: Why did George RR Martin predict that people would think that these guys are the heroes? If they're not meant to be, they sure do seem to act like how a hero would. That's why Ned and Robb Stark's deaths are seen as shocking, subversive and traumatic. Because they're set up to be the main characters of the story. 

Here's an interesting pattern to think about: Whenever a Stark dies their deaths are seen as pretty shocking. No other noble house gets this treatment. Sure a few other individual characters have deaths that cause people to cry, but no other major house gets the same treatment as the Starks. 

Furthermore, most of the major characters that survive at the end of the show are Starks. The character who ultimately sits on the Iron Throne in the show is a Stark. Furthermore George RR Martin in his original letter to his agent had this to say:

"The five key players are Tyrion Lannister, Daenerys Targaryen, and three of the children of Winterfell, Arya, Bran, and the bastard Jon Snow."

(Source: https://www.theringer.com/tv/2019/4/3/18293309/george-r-r-martin-original-game-of-thrones-pitch-season-8-clues)

Now to be fair here, a lot has changed since he wrote that letter. Still, I think it's safe to say that Arya, Bran and Jon Snow will survive until the end of the books. (In Jon's case he'll be resurrected but you get the point) Sansa also survived at the end of the show. I think it's safe to say that she'll probably survive the end of the books too. 

One last point. Here's a breakdown of all the major points of view characters in the first novel of the Song of Ice and Fire series by character and by Noble Family:

Bran - 7
Catelyn - 11
Daenerys - 10
Eddard - 15
Jon - 9
Tyrion - 9
Arya - 5
Sansa - 6

And broken down by families:
Starks - 53
Targaryens - 10
Lannisters - 9 

(Source: https://www.quora.com/Did-George-R-R-Martin-deliberately-make-the-Starks-the-heroes-of-Game-of-Thrones)

It's really hard not to see that Starks as the main characters with a breakdown like that.

______________________________________________________

So here I've spent this entire post talking about good guys and bad guys. Now you might be wondering "why is that a bad thing?" or "Don't you like Black / White Morality?"

I do enjoy Black and White Morality, that's not the issue. The issue is this: If Gray Morality is one of the premises and appeals of a series then I think it's fair to expect that series to live up to its premise. 

The issue here is that A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones fail to live up to this premise. They clearly have Black / White Morality going on. A lot of the Gray aspects are in all the other characters and in the fact that being a good person can nasty consequences. There are shades of gray, don't get me wrong. It's just that a lot of what happens in the series also has plenty of black and white going on.

Neither the show nor the books are honest about this representation and that bothers me. There are plenty of good characters. There are plenty of evil characters. Trying to pretend otherwise comes off as disingenuous to me. I still have more to say on this topic, but I've been writing for hours now and I need a break. Until then I look forward to seeing your comments.