The Four major characters

[YOVMO]

On May 15, 2016 at 2:41 PM, delspark said:

Does this mean these four are the protagonists and not just Jon/Dany are heroes? who will stay till the end?

I don't think that "protagonist" is a word that can apply to any character in asoiaf. It is simply too large and too complicated for that. As for chapter number I am  not sure this is a meaningful distinction. We get so much out of the few Sam chapters it is insane. Some characters get no POV. For instance, Arys Oakheart has a POV in Dorne and littlefinger has 0 POV chapters. Does this mean that Arys is more plot relevant than Balish? More influential in westeros? More important to the outcome? 

[bent branch]

3 hours ago, YOVMO said:

I don't think that "protagonist" is a word that can apply to any character in asoiaf. It is simply too large and too complicated for that. As for chapter number I am  not sure this is a meaningful distinction. We get so much out of the few Sam chapters it is insane. Some characters get no POV. For instance, Arys Oakheart has a POV in Dorne and littlefinger has 0 POV chapters. Does this mean that Arys is more plot relevant than Balish? More influential in westeros? More important to the outcome? 

Exactly, chapter count cannot tell us who the most important characters are, because some of the movers and shakers can't have a POV for fear of revealing too much.

[John Doe]

14 minutes ago, bent branch said:

Exactly, chapter count cannot tell us who the most important characters are, because some of the movers and shakers can't have a POV for fear of revealing too much.

Agreed. Stannis, Tywin, Littlefinger, Varys, Bloodraven, and others are arguably much more important than many pov characters. 

[YOVMO]

32 minutes ago, bent branch said:

Exactly, chapter count cannot tell us who the most important characters are, because some of the movers and shakers can't have a POV for fear of revealing too much.

If nothing else, GRRM is so adept at slowly revealing the plot through the neurosis of the POV characters in unexpected ways that we just have to take the story as given. There is no way to say "there is more x POV then y POV." It is just far too deep for that.

[Nevets]

1 hour ago, bent branch said:

Exactly, chapter count cannot tell us who the most important characters are, because some of the movers and shakers can't have a POV for fear of revealing too much.

 

55 minutes ago, John Doe said:

Agreed. Stannis, Tywin, Littlefinger, Varys, Bloodraven, and others are arguably much more important than many pov characters. 

The movers and shakers may be important as far as events in Westeros are concerned, but, for the most part, they are not the main characters of the story.  Those are the main POVs, who are the Big Six plus Jaime, Cersei, and Theon, although I doubt the final three will survive to anywhere near the end.  Of the non-POVs, Stannis is the only one I would add.  

Characters like Varys, Littlefinger, Bloodraven are there to service the stories of the main characters, either through their actions that affect Westeros as a whole, or their interactions with the specific characters themselves.  While they may be important players in the world, the story isn't really about them.  

[Bironic]

22 hours ago, Jairion Lannister said:

 

I'd mostly agree with that, although I'd have Jaime as being more significant than the others included in that top ten. He's been massively influential upon the series: murdered Aerys, fathered Joffrey, crippled Bran, and overall probably done enough to be ranked above the others there who've had a similar number of chapters, but have less influence upon the series.

Also hard not to include Ned/Catelyn in that top ten, or alongside the Stark three. Both obviously die early, but still are massive when they're around.

I'd also say the Kings/leaders could have a category of their own: Robert, Robb, Joffrey, Stannis and Tywin aren't POV characters, but they're crucial to the story and cast a massive shadow over it to the point where they're crucial to the arcs of some main characters. Definitely would say they're all as important as someone like Davos or Sam.

Obviously Tywin, Bobby B, Stannis, Littlefinger and so on are very important but I talked only about POV characters.

There's also a difference between the younger POVs like the stark children and the older ones like Jaime/Eddard. Jaime killed Aerys and fathered Joffrey years ago, Eddard fought in RR years ago. While the stark children will become more influential in the future, eddard most likely will not. This was my reason to not ranking them as high as Daenerys etc.

 

[Elisabetta Duò]

On 22 maggio 2016 at 1:18 PM, A spoon of knife and fork said:

@Elisabetta Duò

re: the romance aspect of the outline - I don't really have a clue.  There MAY be any of the pairings or parts of them that you mentioned.  Sansa and Tyrion will be an interesting one to watch.  They both have a really long way to go yet before a reunion can occur so it's not out of the realm of possibility it could work out as a political union.  Jon X either of his sister cousins is a little distasteful but if GRRM still goes that way then ok I guess.

Or Maybe it's more likely that Tyrion and Jon would both have some romantic feelings towards Daenerys?  In that way a form of the original romance plot makes its way back in, incest and all (but Targs don't count or whatever).

I did think about Tyrion and Sansa's marriage a lot, because in real history the War of the Roses ended when Henry VII Tudor (who was a discendant of an illegitimate branch of House Lancaster) married Elizabeth of York. The couple married only for political reasons but they grew to genuinely love each other, so that when later she died he was incredibly distressed. The Lancasters, red rose (Lannisters) +Yorks, white rose (Starks) marriage resulted in the Tudors adopting the white+red rose as their symbol and it would be like a Lannister+Stark marriage. I wondered if in the books she's still a virgin because, as long as she is, the marriage is still valid (will it come to be relevant again later?).

I don't know about Daenerys, she's already been the object of Joras' unrequited love and personally I would find it a bit repetitive if Tyrion fell for her as well (it would be unrequited), so I hope GRRM won't go for it; the first time he saw her he was more interested in Ser Barristan Selmy than in her, but it was a peculiar situation so who knows, maybe spending time with her he would fall for her… Jon would be a better candidate (and possibly a requited love story) but In the books he still thinks a lot about Arya in a way that is clearly ambiguous on purpose, so I don't know wheter GRRM plans to make him fall for her or not. Personally I think in the end Daenerys will die, Jon will live and I'm sitting on the fence about Tyrion.

Anyway, back to the object, these are all major characters so I hope GRRM has some good stuff in store for them.

[Elisabetta Duò]

On 22 maggio 2016 at 4:38 PM, Elaena Targaryen said:

I think GRRM dropped this triangle since the story grew and Tyrion and Arya have other things going on. But I think this antagonistic relationship was still important to Jon's arc and we are seeing it play out with Ramsay in place of Tyrion, in a different fashion. Maybe romance was not the most important aspect of this storyline or maybe romance will be the outcome. *shrugs*

It seems like GRRM had a bunch of ideas for Arya and found ways to keep storylines he liked with replacements. Possibly Meera, Alys and fake Arya. If you've read the Mercy chapter it seems 

  Reveal hidden contents

the Bonobo and Arya interactions show us what it might have been like with Tyrion and Arya

 

I hope so, I wasn't fond of it to begin with…; I think I've read it ages ago but to be honest I don't remember a thing about it, I should read again. I really hope TWoW does come out this year...