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Who do you consider the "main characters"?


Aenarion

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On 10/29/2016 at 1:23 AM, Drogonthedread said:

It's amazing how someone who knows so much about the world and GRrm..can't remember  this one fact..

That GRRm originally intended targs to have a power of wielding Fire magically like in avatar air bender movies ..but changed that into dragons..

So the point is Targs and dany especially is always meant to wield an important power only that it was changed to dragons. 

 

I'm so glad he didn't go this route, I doubt I could've made it this far if those Silvan elf looking shits were any more special.

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Who do you consider the "main characters"?

There are five main characters within the story but among the five, Daenerys Targaryen is the top character.  She's number 1 and stands first in the ranking.  Jon Snow and Tyrion Lannister rank 2 and 3, respectively.  Arya and Bran follow right behind at 4 and 5.

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Bran will come to the epilogue of dreams almost certainly spring, it is one of the most important.
Jon is overrated, bored.
Theon is one of the major players, do not know why nobody puts it.
My list:

1.Bran

2. Daenerys.

3. Theon.

4. Tyrion.

5. Jon.

6. Sansa

7. Arya

8. Jaime

9. Cersei

10. Davos

 

Brienne, Sandor Clegane, Litterfinger, Varys... They are secondary.

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On 10/1/2016 at 9:03 PM, Aenarion said:

Today I read something about how GRRM refers to some characters as part of a "Big Six" (a.k.a. the six main characters). 

 

Just curious: 
a) Who they are? 
b ) Do you agree? 
 

For me, Jon, Dany, Tyrion, and Arya are definitely main characters. Beyond that, I'm not quite sure. I know that some will be very important despite not being main characters (Aegon, Samwell, Littlefinger), but I'm not sure who else I'd call main characters. 

The big six are Jon, Dany, Bran,Tyrion, Arya and Sansa. The whole story is about their journey. I have never seen GRRM explicitly mention these are the most important characters, not even with Jon or Daenerys, but it is clear that these are his central characters. These are the people we are going on a journey with. In one of the interviews where GRRM talks about people approaching him to make his books into a movies with a focus on Jon and Dany. He felt if that had happened they would've missed out 90% of the story. So to the people saying Jon or Dany are the only important characters, you sure can't be that important if the author thinks you only make up about 10% of the story. 

Here are some quotes where he talks about his characters. 

"I had no idea when this all started where it would lead… or how long the road would be. That picture of me up above was taken in 1995 in Scotland, after I’d signed the contracts for the first three books but before I’d delivered any of them. Back then, I’d thought the whole story could be told in three books, and that it would take me three years to write them, a year per book. That picture was taken just a few weeks after I blew my first (bot not my last, oh no) deadline on the series. Ah, how innocent I was… little did that guy in the picture imagine that he would be spending most of the next two decades in the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros with Tyrion, Daenerys, Arya, Sansa, Jon Snow, Bran, and all the rest." - GRRM

“The kids [Sansa, Arya, and Bran] are a huge part of the story, in many ways the central part of the story. And I always intended to separate them and set them on their own paths.” - GRRM

 

When you went into this, did you intentionally take the children, put them in an adult setting and force them to be in very adult and complex situations?

MARTIN: Yeah, the children were always at the heart of this. The Stark children, in particular, were always very central. Bran is the first viewpoint character that we meet, and then we meet Jon and Sansa and Arya and the rest of them. It was always my intention to do that. As for the harshness, the whole series is harsh. 

 

 

 

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3 hours ago, sia345 said:

So to the people saying Jon or Dany are the only important characters, you sure can't be that important if the author thinks you only make up about 10% of the story.

I know one thing for sure, if we had just Jon and Dany as viewpoint characters I would have given up this series long ago.

Bran, Arya, Sansa, Theon, Tyrion, Jaime, Cersei, Stannis, Catelyn etc. really make the series what it is. All of them are very unique - it's what makes ASOIAF different from stock fantasy books where you have one main angsty hero and at best,one or two sidekicks and a secondary heroine character who are the only focus of the book.

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Jon, Daenerys, Tyrion, Arya, Bran, Sansa, Jaime, Cersei, as of where we are in the novels now. Just my perspective on who the "main" characters are. I don't consider characters without POV chapters to be "main" characters, but if I did, characters such as Stannis, Varys and Littlefinger would likely be up there.

Also, I have never heard of this "big six" thing, but if I had to take a guess, I would likely go for:

. Jon

. Daenerys

. Arya

. Tyrion

. Bran

. Sansa

 

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Quite clearly it is Tyrion.  I don't think there is a so called main character mentioned that has not been affected in one way or another by Tyrion.

He also has a good relationship with Jon and I assume he will meet Dany in Winds and hopefully have a similar relationship.  He will basically unite those two in the endgame.

 

 

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On 10/3/2016 at 2:27 PM, DutchArya said:

 

I love how GRRM corrects an interviewer who poses a question that claimed "Tyrion and Dany are two of the most compelling/vivid characters in the series". GRRM disagreed and named Jon & Arya instead. Aww!

 

Actually he never said anything about any of them being vivid. The interviewer did.

Tyrion and Daenerys are two of the series' most vivid inventions.
Well, they're two of the more popular characters, although I think the two most universally popular are Jon Snow and Arya. Every character has his or her fans – and detractors, which I take as a great compliment.

Martin would never describe them in that way, he just said some of his characters are popular and he thinks Arya and Jon are the most popular, he could be right. But he usually does not say what a an amazing job he did developing a character. For Martin I would guess he sees Tyrion the most vividly and Bran the least. Because those are the two he says are the easiest and the hardest to write for him.

It's a compliment to Martin and but he has not generally been the type to say man "I hit that character out of the park." All in all I think he does a very good job of developing his characters, even if it can be a slow process. We know who he thinks are the central characters are, we know his favorite characters, we know he feels each character is central to their own story. Except maybe with the exception of Davos. Who he said he wrote to give a POV of Stannis, he is there so we can see Stannis and follow his story without giving to much away early. More than likely he would of spoiled several surprises.

With his central characters whatever number someone wants to put on them. I think a big part of what he has simply been doing is preparing them for what they need to deal with when he starts moving pieces around the board. Generally you find them for good or bad in a sort of training phase. Dany learning to rule, Jon learning command, Arya learning to be Faceless, or lethal or something, or that she is not faceless, but still learning a skill. Sansa learning from LF, and Bran learning about Greenseeing. Tyrion I think is meant to be learning he matters. Things like that.

The full development of the characters is obviously more in depth and complex than that, but generally that is where we find them.

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In terms of protagonists, the ones who drive the story and whose decisions seem to matter the most to what the audience sees and feels, I think Jon and Dany are the main characters of the series as a whole.

Each novel has its own main character on top of those two, such as Ned for the first book.

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