Warning: There Be Spoilers Ahead
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everybody’s rooting for Bronn Stark. We all love Jon Snow, and we all want to see if Tyrion Lannister ever runs out of snappy comebacks — though anyone who’s read the books knows that (spoiler alert:) he doesn’t. HBO’s Game of Thrones, based on George R. R. Martin’s fantasy epic novel series A Song of Ice and Fire, is a TV show for the ages. Violent, sexy, dramatic, and, well, more violent, it’s got more characters than you can count and enough plot for three spinoffs (and who wouldn’t want to see Baelish Knows Best?).
It’s the kind of show you wait all week to watch, stewing on the previous Sunday’s cliffhanger until finally 9PM rolls around and you can once again be immersed the drama of Westeros. With the second season finished, we thought it was high time to take a look at some of the players in the Game we most love to hate. Here are the Top 5 least likable characters in Game of Thrones:
5. Viserys Targaryen
“Hi I’d like a kingdom for nothing k plz thx.”
One thing Game of Thrones has done really well from the start is show that not all noblemen are noble, and that privilege can be a vice just as much as booze, whoring or whatever other iniquities Westeros might have to offer. For example, when we see Viserys here for the first time, the whiny, obnoxious jerk is about to sell his angelic sister, Daenerys, to the Dothraki horse lord Khal Drogo in an attempt to “retake” the Iron Throne that once belonged to his crazy-ass father. Hardly a charmer. He’d be higher on the list, but Drogo gives him more than suitable comeuppance:
4. Theon Greyjoy
“Hey baby, you look kind of familiar.”
Barely there in the first season, we really get to know Theon in the second — or rather, we get to know the real Theon. Taken in as a ward of the Starks after his father, lord of the Iron Islands, suffered a defeat at the hands of Ned Stark, Theon later proved you can never trust a ginger by — after returning to his father, who hates him, and feeling up his own sister — betraying his oath of loyalty to Ned’s son, Robb, and overthrowing the guard to take control of Winterfell, his former home. If you haven’t watched the show, probably none of that makes any sense to you, but suffice it to say, it’s a moment to cheer when Theon’s own soldiers turn him in to Robb Stark in exchange for free return to the Iron Islands.
3. Joffrey Baratheon
“Wait. My uncle and my mother did WHAT???”
Kids can be so cruel. “King Joffrey” earns his place here by being the embodiment of what happens when power goes unchecked. Not only does he keep sweet Sansa Stark prisoner at King’s Landing as a political move to undercut her brother Robb’s rebellion in the north, but he beats up hookers, be beheaded Ned Stark, he refuses to acknowledge that his uncle, Jaime Lannister, is also his father, and in general is sniveling sociopath. He might be the least likable character on the show, but for the fact that none of this stuff is really his fault. He’s just the monster he was made into. We blame the parents.
2. Melisandre of Asshai
Hard to make Stannis look likable in comparison, but she does it.
What’s hotter than a fire witch? On paper, Melisandre should be one of the BEST characters on the show, but instead of smokin’ hot, dangerous and arcane, she’s just creepy. What happened there? It’s like HBO was like, “Sorry, Game of Thrones is already well over its quota of awesome. We need to cut back on it.” One minute she’s giving birth to a shadow demon — excellent — and the next she’s sniveling next to Stannis after he loses the battle to Joffrey. He starts strangling her and I was actually hoping he’d just kill her off and we could all be done with it. Yeah, she’s got her role to play in the story and all, but it might have been better for Stannis to just cut his and our losses and move on.
1. Robin Arryn
Further proof that children are awful. Just awful.
We’ve only seen him in three episodes (so far) but Robin Arryn, son of Catelyn Stark’s sister, Lyssa Arryn, was positively excruciating to watch. Nothing against the kid who played him, it’s the character, and actually it’s to actor Lino Facioli’s credit that I wanted to throw him down that hole in the floor and “make him fly” on his way to the bottom of the Vale. Even if you take out that whole creepy “still breastfeeding” thing (anyone ever see Little Britain?), the sickly noblekid reminded of that episode of 30 Rock where Jenna tries to seduce the Austrian prince Gerhard Messerschmit Rammstein Von Hab. This is what happens when rich people inbreeding goes very, very wrong.
