What characters have you changed your opinion on?

[Blood of the Trout]

Sandor. I was sort of indifferent towards him but a friend of mine helped me to appreciate his character better.

Arya. I was torn about her in the first book, now I just love her.

I used to hate Cersei and Jaime in AGOT, but I've become more sympathetic towards them since ASOS.

Tyrion and Dany started out as my favourites, but some of the things they've done on the latter novels are really off-putting. They are still on the top 10 though.

Jon Snow has always been a divisive character for me, but the whole R+L=J disconnected me with his storyline.

I have always liked Sansa and Catelyn so all the hate they get only made me like them much more.

[K.C.]

Dany and Stannis are definitely the big ones. Originally loved her and thought he was meh, but now I want her to stay in Essos and hope he comes to a glorious end.

I'd put Sansa on my list because I admit I disliked her early on. I only started to appreciate her as she developed in the later books and particularly on reread. I think I get all the love for her now even if I still don't understand SanSan.

[Florina Laufeyson]

E-Ro, this thread shall not be long and full of Stannis. :P

Tyrion

Oh man. I loved me some Imp. I was totes all about Tyrion and supported him, even with his lecherous ways. And he proved to be pretty sharp and i loved that. But then....ADWD rolled around. I had a solid ambivalence for Tyrion's deeds at the end of ASoS. But when ADWD happened, i realized i wasnt growing fonder of Tyrion. Quite the opposite. His character was taking a turn for the uncomfortable and finally, his lecherous ways manifested in a really horrible manner. All of his issues came out for all to see plainly and i just...couldnt love Tyrion anymore. I find his character arc fascinating on a meta level, but personally, not so much. It upsets me.

Sansa

I didnt like her much in the beginning but then did grow to love her. Only for her to slide back down off the faves list. Im a bit uncertain as to the cause, but there were things about her character that just made me mind go "wut." I cant quite "get" her and so shes kinda on the low tier list. Doesnt mean i hate her or anything.

Sandor

Started out loving this guy. Nowadays, he just annoys me. Sorry Hound fans. I do like his character for the most part but im not exactly a fan of his fanbase. Im not on board the S.S. Sansdor anymore either. (Has mostly to do with the tumblr/deviantart fanbase, btw)

Jaime

Found him to be Ser Douchecanoe to begin with and grew to like him and now it is extreme ambivalence.

Cersei

I always disliked her as a person, but i did originally find her character very entertaining and fun. I dont like her at all now.

Robert

Kinda thought he was just a bumbling dude originally. Now i hope he is frying in the Seven hells. No es bueno.

Theon

Hated him for a long time. Now? No i dont like him. More like indifference.

Asha

She irritated me to begin with. Now she is the only Ironborn i do not want to see destroyed.

Jon

I always liked him but he wasnt number one fave. Somewhere along the line (i believe it was ADWD), he became the Ultimate Win.

Daenerys

I still like her...but...Ive been realizing that a lot of her actions are a bit dodgy and her Meereen stint wasnt too bright on her part.

[Stannis the Wight]

Yes I forgot about Asha. I don't really remember why or how I stopped disliking her, but it happened somewhere in ADWD I think.

[*Ceallach*]

Varys. It's weird but i can see that even though he's all for the realm and i really couldn't stand him at the start, i have come to appreciate the things he tries to do - Get Ned to say he's a traitor and take the black to save him and Killing Pycelle was awesome.

also, i loved Arya in the start but this whole dead and death thing is creepy. I find im liking her less and less as the books continue.

hated cersei in the beginning, hate her now. blah

[Blood of the Trout]

Asha had the opposite effect on me. I liked her quite a bit during her interactions with Theon in ACOK, now I absolutely detest her since we got her POV. She's so bland.

[Winterfellian]

The Hound- I used to be pretty indifferent to him and found him mildly interesting in ASOS but after reading one too many a post excusing his behavior (including one that stated that killing a 13 year old Mycah was actually an act of mercy of his part) had led me to completely despise the character. Not to mention Sansan.

Sansa- She used to be in my top three and was definitely my favorite female character but somehow I don't care much for her anymore. Is not that I dislike her is just that I find myself caring a lot less about her some reason.

Dany: I started with her as one one of my favorites but she started to loose me around ASOS and now after reading about many of her cruel or careless acts she's definitely on the bottom.

Tyrion: Like most everyone I began loving our clever imp but my eyes have been open to many of his faults that I didn't see before. Although, I still like him a lot because to me he remains interesting, dark as he is.

Jaime- Completely hated him but now he's become one of my very favorites

Stannis- Like Jaime, I completely hated the guy, especially after Cressen, but somehow he has grown a lot on me and am not even sure how that happened.

[ServantOnIce]

Brienne

Theon

Stannis

[SerDavosShepherd]

Dany- never loved her but i used to be on her side. now i hope one of the other potential targs ends up with the dragons and that drogon kills her.

Jaime- never hated him like a lot of you do, but now i absolutely love him.

Davos- At first i thought he was just stannis little man servant, but he's a total stud and in my opinion the most honorable person in the story.

Loras- The jury is still out, as of now i can't stand him, but if he is at dragons end doing something completely BA, i'll love him for it.

[franko99]

I think the whole point in Jaime and Tyrion storyline was to made the reader change their mind about them, to show that characters are not black and withe, GRRM is a genius in making us "like/unlike" character and then make a complete turn, there was a thread about how GRRM wrote some characters more sympathetic than others. Same thing can be say about Sansa, Theon and Stannis.

With Dany, I feel different, I don't think it was George intention to drove away so many fans from her,,, I like her during GOT, but I lost interest in her in ACoK/SoS and now I can't stand her anymore.

[MyLittleDirewolf]

The usual suspects. Tyrion - thought he was awesome at first, but he started to lose me after killing Shae and Tywin. Then he went on a journey of self-pity in ADWD and I found him awful. Jaime - Hated him at first for pushing Bran out the window, thought he was a total ass. Then he gets a POV, meets up with Brienne, and now I actually root for the guy. Jon - So whiny at first, boring, boo hoo I'm a bastard. Then? He got interesting, he grew up, he made bold decisions. Now I'm all OMG don't be dead Jon!

[LoyalStarkBannerman]

I really disliked Sansa all the way up until the PW. However, after that, her story has risen to become one of my most anticipated.

I liked Dany in AGOT. But soon she started getting really insufferable. Arrogant with a huge Targaryen ego. Being forced to read "do not presume to teach me lessons, I'm not a child, I'm the BLOOD OF THE DRAGON!" in every single chapter of hers quickly reduced her to one of my least liked characters. Ah, also all her fanboys/girls on the internet certainly haven't helped her image, either.

[The Mountain That Flies]

Loved but now hate: Jorah Mormont. He started out as a bad-ass warrior who was willing to defy his king and Dothraki hordes. Unfortunately, the creep factor in his interactions with Dany starting in CoK made him overly melodramatic, and the fact the man was too dense to apologize for spying on his "lady love" made me instantly give up on him.

Hated by now love: Jon Snow. Most of his existence on GoT and CoK felt like a necessary window to view events at the Wall, not as an engaging character with a genuine personality. That all changed with him having to kill Qhorin Halfhand, and his storyline in SoS is fantastic (I must be one of five people who don't hate Ygritte).

Honorable mention: Gendry. He shows flashes of character potential, especially as a hero of the common people, but that gets mixed with a healthy dose of bitching and moaning.

With Dany, I feel different, I don't think it was George intention to drove away so many fans from her.

With the amount of time DwD was delayed just to write her story in Mereen, I certainly hope not. Though you're right about GRRM intentionally flipping the table with Tyrion and Jaime, and this thread just goes to show hos successful he was.

[Winterfellian]

I used to like Jon, but then on my re-reads I kept noticing cues that made me feel like I was being manipulated into liking him (and the same goes for Arya and Tyrion), so it put me off him and now I just feel quite ambivalent towards him.

Not to start a fight but in the spirit of comparing different point of views, but what led you to think that you were being manipulated into liking Jon? Am curious because I feel the exact way of Dany but I haven't picked up the same vibe so to speak from Jon's chapters so am interested in reading your interpretation since is so different from mine.

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

To kind of go back to Tyrion a bit, I have to side with the person who said that ADWD was what drove them away from Tyrion, but a subsequent reread of his chapters revealed, in hindsight, character flaws that were always there. A similar thing happened to me with Dany — after reading her ADWD arc and turning off of her, I found that in hindsight, her attitude and actions were more troublesome than I'd seen them the first time around. The warning signs were "there" earlier on, but it took a hindsight reading to pick them up.

I am also a big believer that GRRM "curates" POVs in such a way to carefully control and/or limit how we view certain characters. For instance, I think it's very deliberate that Dany never appears in-person in any other POVs (she is thought of and remembered in Barristan and Quentyn's but not seen during the POVs themselves). Tyrion, while he does have other POVs in which he appears, also benefits from being considered by POVs whose views might make us likelier to sympathize with him and thus overlook, at first, his compromised morals. Cersei's hatred of him is, as we know, largely irrational, and Jaime still loves him because he's his brother. Catelyn has him arrested for a crime we know he didn't commit, and Sansa views him as, more or less, one of her captors. It's easier to buy Tyrion's self-pity and justifications for what he does in those instances. But when you peel away the other POVs, you realize that while Tyion is subject to unfair criticism and prejudice because he's a dwarf whose mother died birthing him, he is a morally flawed character who's capable of cruelty and who may, in the end, not be "good." It's just easy to miss that subtext given that Tyrion is favorable to himself in his own mind (like Dany is in hers), while his POV critics, if you will, have flimsy reasons for their opposition — the trick is to dismiss that flimsy opposition without dismissing the idea that Tyrion is still flawed even if, say, Cersei hates for all the wrong reasons.

I hope that made sense.

[The Mountain That Flies]

Sansa views him as, more or less, one of her captors.

I actually thought Sansa's interactions with Tyrion helped his image. While she never really trusted him, his saving of her from the naked Kingsguard beat-down happened in her POV, as did their first night of married life when he proved to be a reasonable guy wen it came to his marriage (not wildly progressive, of course, but better than most).

[James Arryn]

Progress of books changed:

Like more:

Jaime, The Hound, Varys, kind of Cat, Sansa, Maesters/anything to do with Oldtown in general.

Like less:

Tyrion. Arya, Cersei, Theon...Greyjoys in general have hugely disappointed, Barristan as a person...as a legit fighter he's gone up with last book, Dany except I blame most of this on knot. Essos ranks with Greyjoys, serious let-down, as is Dorne. Generaly the ideas of non-standard Euro models have always excited more than the realizations, so far.

Show, like more, Tywin, Tywin, Tywin. Maybe Cersei. More Tywin.

Discussions in this forum:

Like more: Robb, Red Viper...didn't appreciate either as fulcrums for excitement until discussions here made me isolate same. Jon Arryn. Hus accomplishments stand out more upon reflection. Rhaegar and Renly...weird unjust criticisms have had me take their side more than I'd have thought I would.

Like less: Stannis, Cat, Sansa and to a lesser degree LF. IMO their advocates are extremely selective in their renditions, which has done the opposite of Rhaegar/Renly. Same would be true of Cersie if POV hadn't already reduced opinion of her to sad joke.

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

I actually thought Sansa's interactions with Tyrion helped his image. While she never really trusted him, his saving of her from the naked Kingsguard beat-down happened in her POV, as did their first night of married life when he proved to be a reasonable guy wen it came to his marriage (not wildly progressive, of course, but better than most).

Yes, that's true, too. I wonder if that might have prevented people from seeing him in a problematic light — he's the least-worst of the people holding Sansa captive, but that's not really a ringing endorsement.

[Zupoleon]

Thinking ahead, there's still a good chunk of story to be told, and I'm willing to bet that Martin has a couple more 180's in store for some of the characters. For example even Dany, who is on plenty of people's s..t lists these days, is only a couple of plot twists away from gaining some sympathy back...

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

Thinking ahead, there's still a good chunk of story to be told, and I'm willing to bet that Martin has a couple more 180's in store for some of the characters. For example even Dany, who is on plenty of people's s..t lists these days, is only a couple of plot twists away from gaining some sympathy back...

That would take quite a bit, speaking for myself.