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GRRM hasn't really killed off that many main characters


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I can't believe I'm writing this I feel like GRRM will kill off all the Starks now that I've written it. However after I see everyone commenting about GRRM killing off of so many main characters in the Red Wedding, I've starting thinking about who are the main characters of the book and that most of them are still alive.

So who are the 'main' characters of the books? For me its all the POV characters from the first three books, plus Cersei and Brienne.

Main POVs:

Arya

Bran

Brienne

Catelyn

Cersei

Dany

Davos

Eddard

Jaime

Jon

Samwell

Sansa

Theon

Tyrion

Of the main POVs its only Ned who is 100% dead and GRRM had to kill him, otherwise by keeping him as a POV he would have given away some of the mysteries of book such as R+L=J. Yes the Red Wedding did kill off a significant amount of characters and it still hurts to read it, but Robb was never as an important character as his siblings and Catelyn is kinda still alive.

So who do you think are the main characters of the series and has George killed many of them off.

Edit: Forgot to add Samwell in the list of main POVs

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Cat, is dead. Lady Stoneheart is not the same Cat, she's pretty much dead. Even if they aren't POV's, Shae, Tywin, Robb, were pretty much main characters, imo.

Kevan, Karstark, Oberyn, Viserys, Drogo, King Robert, Joffrey, Renly, etc...not main characters, but all important to the plot or fan favorites.

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Maybe not main, but definitely lots of fan favorites. You don't have to kill off a main character to get a reaction, as long as the character was interesting and well-liked. Personally, I liked a lot of the lesser characters as opposed to the main PoV ones. That's why I was sad to see some of them killed off, while I didn't really care about Robb's/Cat's death.

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I can't believe I'm writing this I feel like GRRM will kill off all the Starks now that I've written it. However after I see everyone commenting about GRRM killing off of so many main characters in the Red Wedding, I've starting thinking about who are the main characters of the book and that most of them are still alive.

So who are the 'main' characters of the books? For me its all the POV characters from the first three books, plus Cersei and Brienne.

Main POVs:

Arya

Bran

Brienne

Catelyn

Cersei

Dany

Davos

Eddard

Jaime

Jon

Samwell

Sansa

Theon

Tyrion

Of the main POVs its only Ned who is 100% dead and GRRM had to kill him, otherwise by keeping him as a POV he would have given away some of the mysteries of book such as R+L=J. Yes the Red Wedding did kill off a significant amount of characters and it still hurts to read it, but Robb was never as an important character as his siblings and Catelyn is kinda still alive.

So who do you think are the main characters of the series and has George killed many of them off.

Edit: Forgot to add Samwell in the list of main POVs

You have a broad term for "main character" which I dont think exists in these series. The running joke when the first 3 books were released was that if you got attached to any character chances are GRRM was going to kill them off, it was never about killing off POV characters.

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Main = POV seems a bit arbitrary to me, not least because POV characters have an extra reason to stay alive - they're our eyes and ears and it would be cumbersome if we had to switch out our eyes and ears constantly.

Another idea is to look at favourite and least favourite characters, on the basis that those who elicit strong emotions likely played some significant role. Looking at the top lists from the big towerofthehand poll, what we get is:

Top 30: Tyrion, Jon, Arya, Jaime, Sandor, Dany, Ned, Davos, Bran, Littlefinger, Barristan, Bronn, Robb, Sam, Varys, Aemon, Brienne, Sansa, Oberyn, Blackfish, Tywin, Rhaegar, Jaqen, Cersei, Arthur Dayne, Stannis, Syrio, Cat, Robert, Dunk

Hated 15 (despite the name, they are 20): Joff, Walder, Cersei, Gregor, Theon, Roose, Lysa, Cat, Ramsay, Tywin, Viserys, Slynt, Littlefinger, Mel, Thorne, Brienne, Pycelle, Balon, Sansa, Sweetrobin

Both these polls were after Feast, so there is of course a bias for characters who made it that far (cause they get more screentime and appear as current). And still, a lot of them are dead: 11/30 for the good guys and 9/20 for the bad guys. All in all (and if you eliminate double mentions) that's slightly over 40%.

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If you compare it to J.K. Rowling, the list is actually fairly even:

-Dumbledore

-Sirius

-Snape

-Voldemort

-Lupin

-Fred Weasley

-Tonks

- Bellatrix

-Cedric Diggory

And then look at the list for GRRM:

-Neddard

-Bob

-Robb

-Cat

-Drogo

-Viserys

-Oberyn

-Tywin

-Gregor (sort of)

-Jeor

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I see so far only Ygritte is forgotten.

Never really understood why she's so hated, especially since she's central to Jon's development, and their interactions were really sweet at one point.

of the non-main characters Ygritte and Oberyn were my absolute favorites that he's killed. I was genuinely sad when those two died. Other than that Mormont's death really got to me and the Maesters Aemon and Luwin.

Heartbroken when Cat and Robb died though (I knew about Ned from the show, but even then it was still pretty sad )

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If you compare it to J.K. Rowling, the list is actually fairly even:

-Dumbledore

-Sirius

-Snape

-Voldemort

-Lupin

-Fred Weasley

-Tonks

- Bellatrix

-Cedric Diggory

And then look at the list for GRRM:

-Neddard

-Bob

-Robb

-Cat

-Drogo

-Viserys

-Oberyn

-Tywin

-Gregor (sort of)

-Jeor

10 minute timeout for mentioning Harry Potter.

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I know, its a heinous crime, can I pay the fine instead?

the only crime is mentioning Twilight :D

HP is extremely well written. Twilight is what you use when you run out of toilet paper....

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the only crime is mentioning Twilight :D

HP is extremely well written. Twilight is what you use when you run out of toilet paper....

Shh, don't mention *that* series..

I share your views about HP :cheers: I don't get all the hate about it on here

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what's hypocritical about it? HP is objectively a quality Novel, Twilight is a joke

:bang:

The hypocrisy is telling me not to make fun of HP because "people enjoy it" then you turn around and do the same thing to Twilight, which is OK because you don't like it. Thats maddening.

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