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:

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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.