List of Thrones: NOT Bran the Fucking Broken

After finishing a Game of Thrones re-watch and starting a books re-read, I decided to rank the top 100 characters in the show and books. My opinions are based on an amorphous mix of show and book stuff, even when they contradict. I don’t have something interesting to say about all 100, so they’ll be listed without comment.
100-81 | 80-61 | 60-41 | 40-21 | 20-11 | 10-1
10) Tormund Giantsbane
I think this is just from the show. He’s not much in the books. But damn do I love him in the show. His love for Brienne is both pure and creepy at once.
9) Samwell Tarly
Everyone needs a Sam. He’s us, if we were stuck in this world. He’s a coward who finds his inner hero. He finds a way to do his duty, and to love. He’s the heart that holds the whole thing together. And he killed a White Walker, AND a Thenn.
8) Quentyn Martell
The grand Dornish plan I mentioned earlier involves Doran Martell his son Quentyn to Viserys in Essos. Then Viserys dies and Quentyn decides he’s going to marry Daenerys, just cuz he actually thinks she'll be into him. When we meet Quentyn, he’s a clueless rich asshole — with a frog face — acting like a swashbuckling pirate, while Gerris tries desperately to keep him on track. It’s hilarious. Everything keeps going to shit and he keeps making worse and worse decisions. He gets to Meereen, and Dany is already marrying Hizdahr, so he tries to steal a dragon and gets burned alive. That’s it. That’s his entire story. Four total chapters, and he makes more of an impact than Bran does in four books. I want a spinoff series just about Quentyn, then reveal that in the show, he survives and he’s actually that rando Dornishman at the council in the finale.
7) Bronn
Every show about rich lords needs one guy to not give a shit about their posturing or position. Bronn hangs in with Tyrion for almost the entire series, stays completely and openly self-serving, and wins the second biggest kingdom as his reward. Bad. Ass.
6) Margaery Tyrell
The genius of Margaery’s character is that she’s better at being Cersei than Cersei. She’s smarter, more manipulative, and bigger in her schemes. She effortlessly manipulates Joffrey then Tommen, then cuts Cersei down without breaking a sweat. Cersei just tolerated Robert and put up with his disdain because it meant she could be Queen. Margaery could maintain a lie her whole life and pretend to be happily married to whomever is king. She’s the perfect foil to Cersei, and the best justification for Cersei to do something as stupid as side with the Faith Militant.
5) Tywin Lannister
If the entire saga was just Tywin cutting into people for 8000 pages, I’m not entirely sure I wouldn’t love it more. He’s the smartest, most ruthless person in the entire series, and his death opens the floodgates the same way Ned’s did. He’s the most powerful man in Westeros, and he knows it. He tears down his children. He tears down the king. He trods over everyone. Before he rides his horse into the throne room to become Hand, his horse takes a giant shit. Charles Dance brings this already killer character to life. Obviously he had to go, but man do I want more of him.
4) Brienne of Tarth
I’m with you Tormund. We all love the big woman. She’s honor personified. She reminds everyone around her they can do better. And if you thought she was great on the show, wait til you read the best parts of A Feast for Crows, where the wanders the Riverlands learning about the human toll this war amongst the rich is having on the common-folk. The show did her dirty with Jaime, but there’s time to course correct.
3) Olenna Redwyne (Tyrell)
This ranking is almost entirely because of Diana Rigg. With all the self-seriousness going on around her, it was genius to put this relatively minor character front and center. She isn’t even a Tyrell in the books. But in the show, she steals every scene. She puts everyone in their place while pulling the strings behind the scenes. We see through her how Maegaery became so good at deception. The show kind of forgot how to write her toward the end, but hopefully the books can do better.
2) Arya Stark
Do I even need to write this? Arya’s a fucking bad ass. And with all the show had to rush through, there are so many of these beats that could have been done by Arya. I still believe Arya will kill Cersei in the books. She killed the fucking Night King. On this last re-watch, when Ned says she’ll be a lord’s wife and have lots of kids, and she just straight-forward says, “No, that’s not me,” that hit me so hard. More than anyone else, Arya plays her life by her own rules, and truly finds herself buried under the expectations of who she was supposed to be.
1) Tyrion Lannister
GRRM clearly wrote himself into these books — a fucking bookworm whose wisdom comes from a keen mind sharpened by endless reading. And Peter Dinklage is a god damned star. Combined, you have the clearest character in the story played by the best possible actor. The show spends a whole season showing us how well suited Tyrion was to being Hand, then spends the rest of the show tearing that away from him and letting him claw his way back to it. He was done a great disservice by the last two seasons, probably because only GRRM can write him. That just means more room for Tyrion to grow in the books. Also, Tyrion is a secret Targaryen and he will get his wish from early in the first book, to one day ride a dragon and look down on all the people who looked down on him. I mean, come on, Rhaegal is color-coded Stark and Viserion is coded Lannister. It’s gonna happen.