Not everything about all 73 episodes was great, so let's start with:
The Worst
6. Catelyn Stark. Maybe it's a surprise for Game of Thrones enthusiasts to see her on this list, but after I watched the first few seasons a few times, it was a relief when she died. She is sooo grim. Always talking about awful things that will happen, always deadly serious. She's right about the big things, but that makes me wonder if part of her function is to make us think that actions that don't seem quite right, like beheading Ned Stark, or the Red Wedding, are not quite as unlikely as they seem when they happen, because, hey, Catelyn Stark warned us.
5. Joffrey Baratheon. I did not mind Joffrey too much, but his character is predictable, and I did not like the portrayal of him as a head-cocking teenager. Game of Thrones features a bit too much cruelty as a form of psychotic personal entertainment for my taste, and that's Joffrey in a nutshell. His death is entertaining though.
4. The High Sparrow. I think people get one of two very different messages from religion. One message is that we should treat other people with kindness. The other is that we should seek out those who do not conform to our beliefs and punish them. The High Sparrow is that second type of zealot, and his messages of faith come off as transparently phony. His agenda is to hurt people.
3. Ramsay Bolton. Ramsay really is the worst, but the next two characters are so deserving of their rankings that somehow Ramsay only places third. Ramsay is involved in a large number of the worst scenes in the show, and we always know that he will show his big smile and then choose the most horrific option available to him. Also, he gets away with everything. Can we imagine Robb killing Ned Stark, and then all of the Stark men just going along? When Tyrion murders his father, he has to hide on the other side of the world. But when Ramsay murders Roose Bolton, none of the Bolton men raise a finger. Weird.
2. Cersei Lannister. Cersei is not as bad as Joffrey or Ramsay, but she is in as many episodes as anyone other than Tyrion, and she is always predictably horrible and has no redeeming features. But wait, she does love her children, we hear that a lot. Thing is, even that is not true. When Tommen gets real joy out of marrying Margery Tyrell, Cersei has Margery imprisoned an then murders her, causing Tommen to kill himself. She wants control, not happiness for her children. As Jaime puts it, some of the worst things she does are in the name of protecting her children.
Also, Cersei lives in a world where she can tear up the King's decree, sleep with her brother and her cousin, murder hundreds of the most important people in the country, and reduce her support to Jaime, Qyburn, and dead Gregor, and she just keeps rolling, even appointing herself Queen after Tommen dies - is that how the line of succession works? Like Ramsay, she eventually faces consequences, but she survives way longer than seems reasonable.
1. Euron Greyjoy. I read that the actor who played Euron came up with the idea to make the character like a rock star, and that seems about right. He fits into Westeros about as well as David Bowie or Mick Jagger would. I hate this portrayal; he just seems modern and out of place. And he keeps showing up in just the right place and the right time and having incredibly easy successes. And, when he attacks Yara's fleet, he fights one on one with a Sand Snake and kills her, then goes up against another one and kills her, then fights Yara and beats her, but then later when he fights Jaime "Lefty" Lannister (and why are they even fighting?), even though he mortally wounds Jaime, Jamie kills him. The lesson: even seasoned women warriors (other than Brienne, who is a physical freak) are easy marks for a man.
The Best
There are a lot of good characters in Game of Thrones - Tyrion, Jon, Sansa, Bran, Davos, Sam, and more - who have good storylines and keep the plots going, but these are a few of my favorites:
6. Theon Greyjoy. There are four characters that I think of as having long redemption stories, each a bit different in nature. Jorah Mormont did not make the cut for this list, but the others are here, starting with Theon. We have a very low opinion of Theon early in the show, after he attacks Winterfell and burns two kids to prove how tough he is, then an even lower opinion when he cowers from Ramsay rather than escape with his sister. But then he helps Sansa escape, rescues his sister, and defends Bran against the Night King's army. These stories all end in an emotional death scene, so Theon meets his end fighting for Bran, but we almost like him in the end.
5. Jaime Lannister. When we first get to know Jaime, he screws his sister, throws Bran out of a tower, is known for stabbing his own king in the back, and attacks Ned Stark in the street. Over time though, we see some decency in the man, especially in his treatment of Brienne. His story is different in that he turns to the dark side in the end, but by then we don't hate him nearly as much as we did earlier.
4. Ygritte. Of all the women in Game of Thrones, Ygritte is not necessarily the prettiest, but she's the one most men would want to spend some time with. She's feisty, tough, capable, smart, witty, and passionate, and her relationship with Jon is the best love story in the series.
3. Olenna Tyrell. Olenna is maybe the smartest person in Westeros, sharp-tongued and blunt, and she doesn't take any crap from anyone. She's the one I would go to for advice.
2. Sandor Clegane. The Hound seems like a fearsome villain when he chases down and kills the butcher's boy on Joffrey's orders in episode two, but really he turns out to be mostly a decent guy. He's very rough around the edges, and when he asks Sansa to leave King's Landing with him, it doesn't seem like a realistic offer. However, when you get to that scene on a second or third watching, you want to scream at Sansa to go with him, and he shows later with Arya that he is about as good of a protector as you could hope for. When he comes back after nearly dying, he is just one of the good guys from there on.
1. Arya Stark. Arya's time in The House of Black and White gets to be a bit tedious, but she is a fun character from beginning to end, eventually turning into a smaller, female version of the Hound - a killer who is unsentimental, practical, and impatient with conventional niceties. When the series ends, the last few minutes of the last episode switch back and forth between Arya on her ship going west of Westeros, Sansa getting crowned queen in Winterfell, and Jon going north of the wall with Tormund and a large group of wildlings. It's Arya we want to go with though; that has the potential to be a great story.
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