Which Game of Thrones Characters Are You Most Like? (Infographic)
Just when it seemed like springtime had finally arrived, winter is coming once again. Game of Thrones is back, and despite a low-quality online leak of the first several episodes of the season, about 8 million viewers tuned in to Sunday’s premiere to see what George R. R. Martin and screenwriters David Benioff and D. B. Weiss had in store for the characters we’ve come to love and loathe over the years.
To celebrate the new season, the gang at ThinkGeek conducted a poll asking fans of the show to choose which characters they identify with the most and which they identify with the least. More than 1,300 people cast their votes, and from the myriad Game of Thrones personas, the three most relatable and the three most deplorable emerged.
The Most Identifiable:
Arya Stark
With 19.6 percent of the “Most Like” vote, Arya ran away with the competition. Willful and independent, Arya has always been a scrappy girl of action. Even before the Stark family’s fortunes fell so dramatically with the deaths of Ned, Robb and Catelyn, Arya was more interested in fighting than in learning to be a proper lady of the court. Throughout the series, Arya has had the chance to observe and train with some truly formidable people, including First Sword of Braavos Syrio Forel, Sandor “The Hound” Clegane and a Faceless Man who, at first, goes by the name of Jaqen H’ghar. She is now heading to Braavos to continue her Faceless Man training.
Arya is a solid choice for a Game of Thrones role model, but no character of the show is without her flaws. Those who claim to identify with Arya may be a bit on the vengeful side, and may be prone to losing some of their compassion in the face of monumental hardship. Valar morghulis.
Daenerys Targaryen
In a distant second to Arya, Daenerys Targaryen rallied 9.9 percent of the vote. Daenerys has grown a great deal as a character since the series began. After being given to Khal Drogo, she quickly outgrew her brother Viserys as a viable leader and earned her place as a Dothraki khaleesi. Since then, she has fostered three dragons, gathered an army of Unsullied and liberated many of the slaves of Essos, all while preparing to venture across the Narrow Sea to restore the Targaryen name to power.
Daenerys is powerful and conscientious, but she also has a tendency to be somewhat impulsive and naïve.
Jon Snow
Just behind Daenerys and somewhat surprisingly beating out fan favorite Tyrion Lannister, Jon Snow earned 8.6 percent of the votes. A sworn brother of the Night’s Watch, Jon is honorable, skilled and far more open-minded with respect to his Wildling neighbors than many of his peers. He’s demonstrated his abilities on both sides of The Wall, and during last season’s climactic battle with the Wildling army, he proved that his fellow Night’s Watch brothers could look to him for leadership.
Jon’s main character flaw is that he just doesn’t know anything, as his Wildling lover Ygritte pointed out ad nauseam. There’s a good chance anyone who identifies most with Jon Snow knows nothing.
The Least Identifiable
Joffrey Baratheon
Easily one of the most hated characters in recent television memory, Joffrey Baratheon is by far the character that most people want to be least like. With more than 24 percent of the vote, Joffrey more than doubled the tally of the next most terrible character in the poll. A brat as a prince, a tyrant as king, a murderer of Starks, an abuser of women, a sexual sadist, a coward at the Blackwater and a general all-around psychopath, Joffrey is not the type of person you would want to model your life after. When you’re poisoned at your own wedding and almost everyone in attendance, including your own family, is a viable suspect, you’re doing something wrong.
Ramsay Bolton
Theon Greyjoy is no boy scout, but watching Ramsay Bolton gleefully transition him into “Reek” through gruesome torture and the removal of prized body parts was uncomfortable to say the least. Ramsay delights in inflicting pain, taking liberties under the flayed man sigil of House Bolton for the sake of his own personal entertainment. The fact that a monster like Ramsay Bolton only managed to secure a distant second with 11 percent of the “Least Like” vote shows just how deep the villainy in Game of Thrones runs. In Season 5, Ramsay’s influence may broaden now that he is a full-fledged Bolton, promoted from the bastard moniker Snow.
Cersei Lannister
Cersei obviously has some character faults, often standing by and allowing terrible things to happen without much cause, and sometimes orchestrating atrocities through manipulation. She also has an unwarranted hatred for her brother Tyrion, and an unnatural closeness to her brother Jaime, neither of which are particularly admirable traits. Now, early in Season 5, we see Cersei becoming more involved with Maester Qyburn and a group of religious fanatics known as the Sparrows who may give viewers even more reasons not to identify with her.
