Best/Worst 5 POV characters?

[Dark Knight]

he's not perfect at all. maybe he's a bit fortunate, yes, but how did you come to perfect?? the fact that he constantly contemplates what he should do and gets advised a lot(Aemon, Old Bear, even Ygritte) by itself should make him less than perfect.

"Shut up, Jon, compared to your half-siblings you have nothing to whine about" - I don't get the connection. each individuals' problems are his own, and to ourselves our misery and suffering seems the greatest. when something bad happens to you, I guess you don't think "well, children in Somalia are starving and thousands are killed for no reason in Darfour, so my troubles are no troubles"...

And yes, maybe Jon has the typical issues of a teenager - but hey, that's what he is, and that's why his character is very credible and that's another reason, for me at least, to like him.

[redxavier]

Best:

Tyrion - he always seems to be in the thick of things.

Davos - mainly because of Stannis, arguably the most interesting of all the Kings.

Ned - a good soul, with the benefit of hindsight everyone calls him naive but his principal failings was that he trusted too much in his wife's trust of people and couldn't conceive the notion that Robert himself was vulnerable until it was too late.

Worst:

Dany - so much so in fact, that I have never finished reading the chapter where she's in the Undying ones temple or whatever it was. Boring and cryptic isn't a good combination. I can't even remember what she does in ACOK. It's only when Selmy turns up and shakes things up with Jorah that things get interesting again - although the sample chapters lead me to conclude that her chapters are likely to get even more dull and trivial.

And that's it, some of the AFFC POVs I didn't much care for, simply because they seem so random and unnecessary - especially this late in the game and with characters that we haven't yet seen at all. One Dorne POV, from Arianne, would have sufficed. And I can't help but think that the Greyjoys just suddenly appearing in the East would be more dramatic that getting all too fleeting glimpses of this and that.

[Lady Blackfish]

I agree that sometimes it feels like she's just being, I don't know, pushed by Martin?

It felt to me like the story grew around her, she started solidly enough (if you like the fantastical aspects of the series to begin with) but then she landed in a bit of a holding pattern. And her chapters did drop off good bit in number after AGOT (I don't know about quality; I did really like her House of the Undying chapter). I don't think her journey to Westeros is mere filler, but her date with destiny means that her storyline isn't open-ended and since I could sense that as a reader, it might've had something to do with my perception that it was less organic. But the flipside is everyone really anticipates her future and knows that she's very vital.

She's sort of what I wanted Catelyn to be, if that makes any sense?

Well, I guess in the sense that Catelyn never got to "win", all her social realities caved in on her and took her right out of POV-hood. Arianne has the chance to evade all those issues entirely, but that signifies that they're pretty different people. Catelyn is responsible, restricted, and has everything to lose, while Arianne is immature, empowered, and has nowhere to go but up.

[maxlongstreet]

I find it fascinating that the characters I enjoy/don't enjoy seem to be the polar opposite of most people here.

I look forward to Bran's chapters more than any other - not getting his view in AFFC was the hardest thing for me to get over about the book.

I love Bran chapters because they're so completely different from everything else in the series, and show the huge range of what Martin has created. Gone are the court politics or the shifting tides of battle or the other intrigues between the nobles of Westeros - instead you get something alien and wild, the embodiment of the North, even more than Jon Snow's chapters. Jon's plot may deal with the north, but he's still dealing with the betrayals and intrigues of human beings. Bran's chapters are like a dark fairy tale where strange, wonderful characters like Hodor, Nan and Jojen share time with the ominous wolf PoV. More please!

[Radio Changes]

1. Tyrion - Not only is he clever, brilliant and sympathetic, he's usually in the thick of things and sparring with interesting characters and big players.

2. Jaime - An interesting and wholly unexpected sort of redemption. I like reading him so much it's to the point where I'll let the whole Bran thing slide.

3. Davos - Sort of became the moral center to me after Ned died, and I totally disagree, I don't find him boring, I find him to be fascinating as a tired old man and a fish out of water who just wants to do right and what's up with these fanatics around me? I love the everyman quality. Also, the Blackwater was an amazing scene.

4. Catelyn - While she wasn't totally interesting herself, she was such a realistic PERSON, and are there for so many major events she is witness to or takes part in. To top it all off, she also pours gas on the flames when she kidnaps Tyrion. Interestingly is the only person besides Littlefinger, in my mind, who directly escalated the political situation in Westeros, because frankly none of the major players were expecting a Stark/Tully to kidnap a Lannister, and things started to spiral after that. Might not be remembered as such by history, but I see her as one of the more important non-Kings during the War of the Five Kings.

5. Sansa - Started off annoying but interesting, and became tragic and still interesting. Her points went up significantly post-Joff's death, due to the emergence of Littlefinger as my favorite character. Just because a character might take a passive role doesn't make them boring to me, it makes them a witness, and that's a plus if you're the person someone like Littlefinger confides in and you're the firsthand witness to the insanity of Sweetrobin, while also being set-up for an important marriage that could cause more political instability if Sansa Stark is outed as the wife of the Lord of the Vale, which boasts the most impregnable fortress in Westeros and nobility and great houses whose military numbers and supplies haven't been diminished by the war.

Honorable Mentions: Ironborn Characters. I differ completely from everyone with my opinion of the Ironborn, the honest pillagers. I like that they are an X factor on Westeros, they could show up in Kings Landing if they wanted to for Gods sake and take over the place. Also the Dragonhorn is really interesting and I want to see how important these wizards that Euron has are. Basically, they're an entire people whose desire is to be a wrench in everyone's plan and I respect that to a degree.

Least Favorite:

1. Brienne - After my read through, Brienne came off the worst with a second glance. Not only does she lack moral complexity and plot complexity, but she isn't even smart. I don't sympathize with her and I HOPE that she died on that noose.

2. Bran - The only uninteresting part in ASOS. Should get more interesting, hopefully. The last cool thing I remember him doing was waking up from that coma and looking around blankly, saying 'I'll call him Summer.' But him in Winterfell was a nice break from the political chaos and was well written with nice supporting characters like Luwin and Hodor, Old Nan and the asshole Frey kids.

3. Samwell - Another momentum killer, and also considering how most people talk about Randyll Tarly as one of the fiercest lords in Westeros and from what I've seen is a capable lord who can restore order and have an iron will but still have some sense of Justice, I think he was a little more than justified in trying to drown this coward.

4. Arys Oakheart - He wasn't boring, but in retrospect was the most pointless POV in the series.

Those are the only characters I've actually been bored with when I read the books. Everyone else is interesting and fun to me.

[Caine]

Love reading:

1. Jon

2. Tyrion

3. Jaime (though not so much in AFFC)

4. Davos

5. Theon

What can I say, I'm a sucker for the farmboy angst. Can't get enough of it. GRRM's version of it is fun to say the least. I just wish there was more stuff happening up north compared to King's Landing and out east with Dany. Things just seem irrelevant up north.

Hate/dislike reading:

1. Brienne

2. Cersei

That's about it. Those 2 are not fun reading experiences at all. Brienne especially is a chore to read. Then again, all of AFFC was a chore to read. If you find Jon's character and personality lacking substance, then Brienne's rigid loyalties and morals can't be much better.

[AryaSnow]

I don't count the characters who have 2-3 chapters, because it's too easy to put them among the worst PoVs.

In this list, I also talk about the literary value, not about the sympathy or the goodness.

I'll give them a score from 1 to 10 :laugh:

Best Written:

Theon: I detest him as a person. He's stupid, bad and inwardly weak. But he's also very human, very "true" and well written. I'm sure there are a lot of people like him. His motivations and his psychology are well explained. He is also a character that I can't associate to any clichè. I like dark characters (and Theon's isn't totally black, he's a darker shade of gray) who are well written but not cool: they are unpopular, and deepen them is a brave author's choice. By now, I can't find any flaw in his characterization!

Vote: 9

Jaime: I don't feel much empathy towards him and don't like him very much as a person. But I have to admit that he's a rather original and complex character, there is a lot to think about him. His evolution isn't predictable. He has particular and not banal reasons to be as he was in the first books and to change later. He's very grey (and I can't tell if he's a lighter or a darker shade of grey!) and this is another thing that often makes a character more interesting.

The only problem is that I feel that his evolution was too fast, so I can't consider him totally beliveable.

Vote: 8,5

Arya: I really don't understand who thinks she's a not well written character. She starts like a (rather) sweet and innocent tomboy, but then becomes a grey and morally shady character. All that would have been banal if she had been an adult: there are too much heroes who become darker because of traumas. But the difference is that she's still a child and it's very important! It makes her a surprising distortion of modern views of childhood, it goes against the common association between "child" and "innocent". In ASOIAF, she is one of the most disturbing elements for the common moral. Still, in spite of all that, her reasons are understandable, she also has light and human traits. She's grey, neither white nor black, and she's one of the most controverisal characters in ASOIAF (and this is what Martin wants).

The only flaws are that in some points her adventures are not totally believeable (but the psychological characterization is!) and in AFFC her evolution is not very clear. I also want her to grow up and to show new and more adult traits.

Vote: 8,5

Tyrion: Grey, funny, very important in the whole story, complex. He's the most popular charactes and I have nothing particular to add to what almost all the people say. A very good character.

The bigger flaw is that I think Martin makes feel too much that he's his favourite, and it makes him a little Gary Stu (because Gary Stu also means a self insertion of the author in the novel!). Also, some of his survivals aren't totally beliveable (in particular, he was too much a good fighter and too lucky in the Black Water Battle!).

Vote: 8,5

The 5 place is really difficult.

There are: Catelyn, Eddard, Sansa, Brienne, I rate them 8! I'm writing too much, maybe I'll talk about them in another post :P

Then there is Cersei: 7,5. Complex and well characterized, but I've already seen too many woman villains more or less similar to her. Also, she's a too dark. The most interesting characters are usually those who are closer to the grey, not very good and not very bad. It's a little easy to hate Cersei from a moral point of view.

The less well written are Jon, Dany, Bran, and Sam.

Jon: I love him as a person and as a man. But he's not among the most interesting characters from a literary point of view. Too Gary Stu (even if not a total Gary Stu). But I still don't think he's a bad character. The classical fantasy heroes in many other fantasy novels are muuuch worse written than him! Also, in the last book he's becoming greyer and maybe he'll have an interesting evolution.

Vote: 7

Dany: Too Mary Sue. She is more grey than Jon and the moral ambiguity is the better thing about her. It's the reason why she's a fairly good character. But she has also too much of magical and incredible traits and superpowers, she gained too much power in a short time and, overall, she has too much prophecies about her future, which make her too predestined.

Vote: 7

Bran: He's too much a good and a quiet child. He doesn't have the moral ambiguity which makes ASOIAF great. He's too quiet for all the horrible things happened to him and doesn't show enough signs of sufference for having lost his home and his relatives! His chapters are also a little too slow and dull. He's too much a fantasy character and I don't like very much the classical fantasy.

But, on the other hand, his evolution is based on a great idea: his fall from the window! This is a not very predictable event, and makes start a not predictable evolution. I hope it will lead to something interesting...

Vote: 7

Samwell: Too much a clichè. His chapters are well written and I enjoy them, but he's the more clichè character in the book. Fat, shy and good. I see no really original trait in him. He's also totally lacking in moral ambiguity. He's a coward, but he becomes braver when he has to protect somebody: a reeeeally too classical fantasy white character!

Vote: 7

If made a list of my favourite and least favourite characters, it would have been pretty different, but it's more interesting judging them this way.

[Radio Changes]

Why was Brienne an Eight for you? I personally detest her chapters. She's like the typical honorable Knight except she was a women who people considered ugly. I don't think it's cliche but it doesn't exactly make her that good of a character, and in fact Brienne is one of the least grey characters in the novel. It's half of what's so annoying about her is her honor.

[AryaSnow]

Yes, she isn't very grey, but in her character there is also a great idea. She's a subversion of the warrior woman clichè. Warrior women are usually presented as beautiful, and Brienne is ugly. Warrior women are usually cool, and Brienne is shy and clumsy. Warrior women usually have an aggressive and rebellious personality, Brienne isn't that way. I think that if she wasn't so ugly she would become a normal lady.

I never met a character like her and I think this idea is very smart.

[Alexia]

I liked Brienne best as a non-POV character; I found her fascinating all through ASOS. Then we got inside her head and, well...

She's believable, she's well written, but the storyline GRRM put her in was just a drag to read, especially given that she obviously was not going to succeed and wasn't very good at it. The concept completely rocked and I liked a lot of her introspection about her situation (Hyle and the other suitors, et al) but it wasn't really enough to make up for the doomed search for Sansa.

AryaSnow, I love your character summaries and for the most part agree. ;)

[feardeathbywater]

Not to mention she was cut off right when things got interesting...way to leave us hanging, Grim.

She got a ridiculously difficult assignment. I was actually impressed that Brienne accomplished as much as she did. It's not like she could investigate openly, much less set up a dragnet and conduct tap into networks of informers, offer rewards etc. a la Varys. Incedentally, she's run into the one group of people who can actually supply her real information (about Arya at least.)

It was the details of her story, and the fleshing out of the underclass of Westeros that redeemed the material itself.

I never met a character like her

Britomart from the "Faerie Queene"' maybe?

[AryaSnow]

Britomart from the "Faerie Queene"' maybe?

I didn't read it :-/

[MirriMaz]

Best:

Sansa - I just love how her character develops from book to book and at the same time I can relate to her actions and the way she thinks.

Tyrion - I think he is universally liked because he is written so well and his thoughts and views are usually very clever.

Cat - She's around some of the most important events in the books and her thoughts at the Red Wedding always fascinate me.

Theon - I hate him as a character but I loved how incompetent and stupid he was while trying to rule Winterfell and the glimpses of his insecurities.

Worst:

Cersei - Not that I hate the character or didn't enjoy the chapters, it's just that I found her very disapointing in AFFC, she was supposed to be clever and she just turned up to be mad it made me sad.

The Ironborn/ The Dornishmen - Because there were so many of them and I just couldn't care for all of them, Dorne could have been only Arianne and the Iron Isles could have been Damphaire and Asha (Vicatrion is the most boring character in the books so far).

Bran - Angsty teenagers are never fun to read and I struggled to maintain my intrest in the chapters when he went on and on and about walking and the wolf dreams.

Brienne - I didn't see the point in her chapters, until she was captured by undead Cat she was just running around in circles doing nothing.

[Songlian]

I've only read the first two books so far, so this list isn't worth much at this point (and I'll most likely get back to it once I've finished the series), but here goes:

Favorites:

1. Ned (favorite character by far)

2. Catelyn (for her hindsight)

3. Tyrion (where interesting things always happen)

4. Sansa (same as the Imp)

5. Theon (I like him as a character)

Least favorites:

1. Daenerys (I really can't connect with her story)

2. Bran (nothing ever happens in his chapters)

3. Jon (I love the character, but he has the same problem as Bran)

4. Davos (I just don't find him particularly interesting)

And that's about it for now.

[Fireball07]

I might have posted in this thread before, but I can't be bothered checking atm, so:

Favourites

1. Tyrion (my favourite character, best chapters aswell)

2. Jaime (his POVs were fantastic, and really developed as a character too)

3. Arya (good character, but her chapters aren't on the same level as the above 2)

4. Ned (good chapters, but I'm not a big fan of him)

5. The Ironborn (I like them)

Least Favorite

1. Bran (Don't like the chapters or the character. Too much whining.)

2. Davos (Reasonably interesting chapters, not a fan of the character)

3. Brienne (I liked her chapters too, Randyll Tarly ftw, but I don't like her)

4. Sam (His arc was quite boring, I thought, and I don't like him.)

5. Theon

[IceNeedle]

I'm dismissing anyone that didn't get at least 3 POV chapters, since it's hard to honestly evaluate those on so little data.

1) Tyrion. Favorite by far. I love watching major events unfold through his clever mind. He's mercenary, and Lannister at heart, but he does have a conscience and reacts like a human when his family uses him to win battles and make money, then spits on him.

2) Jaime. Good character development, interesting insights, sardonic wit. Needs to permanently lose the fleeting fantasy that Cersei still wants him.

3) Arya. I like her journey, all the way through, and her transformation from unconventional tomboy to hardened child killer is fascinating and dark. Almost no one has had to deal with the kind of crap she's been dealt. More than any other character, I want her to have a satisfying resolution.

4) Bran. Not a whole lot usually happens in his chapters, but there is the feeling of impending portent with everything he does. He's a break from the constant politics most of the others are embroiled in. I want to see where his journey leads him, and I love the Hodor/Meera/Jojen company he keeps. And we often get a direwolf POV for free ;-)

5) Dany. I think she's still a bit too grey, with subsurface Targaryen madness waiting to erupt, for her to be a Mary Sue, at least for now. Plus, I love her implacable determination to abolish slavery.

Least favorite:

1) Cersei (by a country mile). Once we realized that she was unrepentantly evil, manipulative, and selfish, there was no real character development. I found it incredibly tiresome to be in the head of a ceaselessly conniving bitch. Gah!

2) Samwell. I don't know if anyone could really be so self-disrespecting after having fought beyond the Wall and slain a wight, but I do know I get tired of hearing it. One could argue that his external character has developed, but internally he's still the same guy Randall Tarly gave up on.

3) Catelyn. Yes, she's reasonably realistic, and we did see a lot of major events through her eyes. But I despised being in the head of a mother with such an unreasonable hatred towards the stepson who had really done nothing to give her cause, and who was willing to cripple her own son's strategic position in the war for "kinda maybe if I'm really lucky and the Lannisters can be trusted I just might happen to get my daughter back". *headdesk*

4) Davos. I do like the character, but much of the content of his chapters was for the purpose of viewing the Stannis/Melisandre story -- and I found the former boring, and the latter annoying with all her inane devotion to her Fire God. If Davos breaks away and starts to get his own real story arc, I imagine he will move up quite a bit.

5) Brienne. I actually like her character, and as was pointed out earlier, she isn't a typical "woman warrior". But the story arc she was given in AFFC was ultimately pointless, and could have easily been reduced to just a couple of chapters. If she lives, and actually finds a relevant plot, I might start to enjoy her chapters.

[Queen in the North]

Best:

1. Arya

2. Dany

3. Jon

4. Eddard

5. Brienne

Worst:

1. Catelyn (by a mile)

2. Dorne perspectives

3. Ironborn perspectives (Theon, too)

4. Cersei

5. Bran

[Dalfiatach]

Best:

1. Arya

2. Tyrion

3. Jaime

4. Bran

5. Dany

Worst:

1. Catelyn - that combination of snobbery, incompetence, arrogance and overwrought prejudiced emotionalism. Grrrr.

2. Theon - what a little emo twerp. The Ironborn as a race are fun though

3. Dorne. It's made out to be different and exotic for ages and then we finally get inside their heads and it's...meh

4. Davos - always a vague sense of some potential but never actually goes anywhere, Stannis is just a bonehead

5. Sansa (but improving rapidly, and I've a suspicion by the end of the series she might get into the Favourites list)

I don't get all the Jon and Brienne hate, I've no objection to their stuff at all, they just aren't my favourites. I quite liked most of Sam's stuff, clichéd though it might be, but all this "oooh I'm a worthless craven" is starting to really weary me now for someone who has seen more of the world than most ordinary people, undertaken and survived a few dangerous and important battles and missions, killed an Other, and nailed a hot chick. So if Sam doesn't pack the whining in, he's in danger of slipping into the 5 Hates

[feardeathbywater]

The Catelyn hate is refreshing. She is really a pathetic character, and her second act is a big improvement.

Having Brienne as a POV actually raised my opinion of her. Before she was a sort of big, blunt, boring placeholder. Getting inside her head shows what a truly worthwhile human being she is. The lack of grey is actually a good thing: in a world with so many flawed, self-pitying idiots and self-involved butchers it's nice to catch a glimpse of one of the dutiful, slogging, genuinely good people who carry on with little or nothing to help them, and certainly with little hope of success. The world is built on people like this. She is also the perfect expression of the knight-errant ideal to which all the Sers are theoretically committed but toward which very few have any real loyalty. Her closest spiritual relative in the series is Barristan Selmy. Jaime is still way, way the hell beneath them.

[FatCatOberyn]

Best:

1. Jaime - Sometimes he reminds me of myself :)

2. Tyrion - He sometimes reminds me of myself as well :)

3. Cersei - By personality, she reminds me of my sister, a lot.

4. Damphair - I'm curious about the bad blood between him and Euron

5. Daenerys - Although I find her irritating, her chapters can be interesting.

Worst:

1. Jon - The only ones I found interesting were the ones when he was with the wildlings. The character is too common and uninteresting.

2. Brienne - For now, uninteresting. She spends time looking for Sansa and not finding her.

3. Catelyn - Because I hate her and 50 % of the chapters always consist of her whining.

4. Samwell - I find the night watch generally boring due to uknown reasons. Why do we only get nightwatch POVs from people who are good an honorable?

5. Arya - An 11-year old maniacal killer that needs to be put down.