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Is there a character that you really like? Is there a character that you just can't stand? Good characters always make the books so what characters stand out to you?

As I mentioned in another thread, I like Tyrion quite a bit.

I like Jon Snow, Arya, and Dany....

But my favorite has to be Sandor Clegane. He is such a delightful villain-type.

I, too, like Tyrion. He seemed like the most believable character with both good and bad qualities.

I really couldn't stand Viserys and I actually loved it when he got his "crown."

I like Arya, but I always like the female character that is allowed to be a tomboy and not fit into the mold around her. I also like Sam Tarly again just because he is different. I love the fact that he knows who he is and although it is hard he is finding his way.

As far as villians, I hate Cersei and I think that you are supposed to, thus my passion. And I'm not too thrilled with Littlefinger either. He seems slimy, not a very good word but I think that it fits him to a tee.

I'm also disgusted with Lysa, and I just hope that someone would smack her upside the head.

i agree with you Julie with regards to Arya that's reason why i like her too.
other then her i like Ned quite a bit and was a little shocked at what happened. And i thought Dany was an interesting one as well.

with Villians i guess i'd have to go with Tyrion's highered sword,wrighting this i can't remember his name, dam i hate that, Brom i think it is not sure.

Tyrion is my favorite. His intelligence and humor make me love him. He's really gotten the shaft his whole life, but he makes the most of what he has.

I also really like Sandor. Even though he's done some truly terrible things, I just can't help but see the good in him.

I also agree with Julie. I hate Cersei so much that I suppose that makes her a good villain.

I like Jon because, while so many started out as vivid characters, he is growing into something. I enjoy the progression.

My favourite character is Little Finger. His superb reasoning and political shrewdness left me in awe... The character is dislike most is Cersei...

I love Tyrion and Arya the most. I was disgusted by Viserys and Cersei and Joffrey are those love to hate type of characters.

I love Tyrion for the reasons I've already mentioned in another thread. I love Arya for her spunk. I love Jon Snow as well. Sansa annoyed me in this book, but I love to see her development over the course of the series. Littlefinger is great in his own way (don't want to give away too much from later books). Viserys and Cersei are easy targets for hatred. Caetlyn annoys me pretty much throughout. I understand her and the way she thinks she's doing the right thing, but she annoys the heck out of me.

I am totally on Team Tyrion (along with, apparently, everyone else in the world). I think it has to do with his wit and wiles, which entertains us and prompts us to cheer him on. I also really like Sandor Clegane - there is something compelling about his stoicism and moral ambiguity. Arya and Jon's POVs are also enjoyable.

S wrote: "I am totally on Team Tyrion (along with, apparently, everyone else in the world). I think it has to do with his wit and wiles, which entertains us and prompts us to cheer him on. I also really like Sandor Clegane - there is something compelling about his stoicism and moral ambiguity. ..."

Oh, yeah! Love the "Team Tyrion"! Also, agree with you on Sandor. I find him quite interesting.

I have make two points to start:
1) I finished A Game of Thrones over a month ago and I'm on book 3 now, so my opinions of some of the characters have probably changed.
2) I think it's inaccurate to classify anyone in the series as a Villain. Sure the Starks are honorable and the Lannisters power hungry, but not one character is a pure evil antagonist. No Sauron, no Dark Lord imposing his will, no genocidal Necromancer. All the characters are just, well, human, and I can't help but feel some empathy for even the most vile. I think Martin does this purposefully, and that's one of his biggest strengths. That being said:

Least Favorite:
Joffrey Lannister & Viserys Targaryen - I hate these two little... Aggh! I can't type the names I would like to call them, they're too terrible. Nor can I type the horrible things I wish upon their heads. These two are tied at the bottom.

Littlefinger (Petyr Baelish) - A banker and power broker. He's always looking out for number one. Embodies the greed and selfishness of our modern economic elite that I so despise.

Cersei Lannister - A part of me feels for her, being married to a drunken lecherous adulterer like King Robert. Another part thinks she deserves much worse. But she is in love with another man(though it's her brother) and that's kind of sad for her.

Sansa Stark - She's by no means a bad person. In fact she's almost innocent of any wrongdoing, except for being mean to Arya and that bit with Joffrey and the Wolves. She's just so naive, so willfully ignorant, that I can't stand reading from her POV. I don't hate her, but I don't like Disney Princesses and I don't like Barbi Dolls.

(It's in the next book so I probably shouldn't mention it, but there is a certain woman in red that I just despise)

Favorites:

Hodor - Hodor hodor, hodor. HODOR! Hodor?

Jon Snow - Dresses in black. Has a damned wolf. Smart & bitter.

Daenerys - My favorite next to Tyrion. I find myself rooting for her more and more. She seems wise for her age, not at all arrogant, and just. I believe she'd make a good queen. Plus, that whole bit at the end was awesome.

I also like Bronn & Arya.

Tyrion Lannister - By far my favorite. GO TEAM TYRION! But I have to say, he is designed specifically to be all of our favorites. What type of person reads fantasy, mostly? Intelligent, bookish folks typically. Most of us have never felt totally accepted, or else we wouldn't retreat into escapist fiction. We have our sarcasm and wit though, which we use to outsmart the handsome quarterback / popular cheerleader.* Who is Tyrion, you might ask? An intelligent, bookish fellow. He has never felt totally accepted, so he retreats into books of history and legend. He has his sarcasm and wit though, which he uses to outsmart his handsome brother / sister-Queen.
*Don't mean to offend anyone, maybe that's just me...

A note on the women:
I think Martin might just hate women. They're all either conniving fiends, brainless twits or really boring to read about. The only exception is Arya, who is almost a boy. Some of the whores are alright, but that suggests that whores are the only women worth their salt.

I've gone on too long again...

Matt - I loved your well thought out post here until the end. Martin hates women? I don't see that. I don't think we can put value judgments on a man based on his characters.

But that being said, an exception that you mentioned yourself is Daenerys. Arya is a tom-boy, but that doesn't make her less of a girl. It's just a trait she has as a child.

Now as far as Sansa goes, I'll agree with her personality that grates on most peoples' nerves. But I'd like to point out that she's what, 11 when this story starts? She has lived a sheltered, pampered life and dreams of courtly knights and flashy balls (the kind you dance at). That's where Sansa started. I'm curious to see where she ends up when this epic journey concludes. To me, Sansa has some of the most potential for character growth in the series. We'll just have to see where Martin takes that.

Caetlyn. Annoying, sure. Unfair, yeah. But much of that can be attributed to her being a mother and being enraged at what happened to her son.

Cersei. She's nucking futs. Another product of her world, she is what Sansa needs to strive to avoid becoming.

These last two aren't my favorite to read about, but they're essential to the story.

Just to back up what Chris is saying, I think it's important to keep in mind that one of the things Martin seems to be doing is taking a lot of the fantasy tropes and turning them sideways, and one of those is the romanticization of medievalism/feudalism. Martin, instead, is presenting a more "realistic" version of a feudal society... and one fact about those societies is that women tend to be marginalized, with their roles often being in relation to a man. I think the result that Martin explores is the way that this can warp (is that too harsh a word in this context?) some of these women. As Chris pointed out, what's most annoying out Caetlyn comes out of her role as mother and wife. The same might be said of her sister. Cersei is ambitious, but the only way she can find to gratify that ambition is through marriage... to a man she despises.

On the other hand, we have Arya, we have Danaerys... since you've read beyond the first book, you should think of Brienne of Tarth in this light--although she's marginalized as a freak, she's also one of the knights who most embodies the chivalrous ideals of knighthood.

The only value placed on the women in this book is their relationship to power - whether or not it's portrayed "accurately" in a male dominant society doesn't matter. It's a terribly one faceted view.

That most of the men are portrayed the same way is more believable - because we are shown to some degree (as in Tyrion's case) what has frustrated them, and we see the interplay of passions that drive him.

The men serving on the wall are not politically power struggling. That gives the range of character.

What stood out for me was how the massive impact of event tore apart this family - but none of the players, particularly the women, changed by it.

Danerys adapts the most intelligently of them all.

Yes, Sansa was 11 and held a childish outlook. The fact her bubble never burst throughout all the life threatening events lost my credibility with her character.

I will not go into subsequent volumes, because on the whole, the first book held up the best (for me).

To be fair, the "I think Martin might just hate women" comment was a (sort of a) joke. I don't mean to call someone I've never met a sexist here, it just seems like his female characters are a bit weak. It's true that the Stark daughters are young and therefore not fully developed characters, but while Arya grows in later voulmes it seems like Sansa just doesn't. Nor does their mother, aside from a growing sadness and desperation. They're almost like the stereotypical 50's woman. Catelyn is a woman that needs her husband's love to thrive, Sansa is the well behaved young lady that does whatever she's told, and Arya is the gap-toothed tomboy with grass stains on her dress.

As for Cersei. I had to look long and hard to find something nice to say about her. She and Joffrey are both bad people. But these books seem to be about looking beyond the obvious compartmentalizations.

**spoilers** from here down

Two last things about women in the later books.
John mentioned Brienne of Tarth. As a character I like her quite a bit, but just like Arya Stark she seems to be as much of a man as a woman can be. It's almost like he's saying that for a woman to be interesting she should act like a man. Or else sell her body. Maybe it's femininity rather than women he has trouble with.

On the other hand...
Two women show up later that I rather like, both very feminine. Shae is very feminine, albeit not a proper lady, and also very likable. Even more so, north of the wall we have Ygritte and the other wilding (free folk) women. Ygritte is strong willed and intelligent, stubborn, powerful, yet very feminine and sensual. We also see a barbarian that marries his daughters and kills his sons up there. Those women are little more than his incestuous harem. But hey, they're free to do as they please up[ there.
We also see Danerys grow into her feminine side while at the same time growing stronger. She also turns aside the advances of many men, because she doesn't want them.
So here's a new thought.

Shae, Ygritte, and Danerys are all well written women who are strong, smart, sensual, and sexually liberated. These women all have two things in common. They grew up outside of the patriarchal society of the Westeros Nobility. They weren't married off for alliances (except for Dany, but to a different culture), and they weren't forced to behave like "proper ladies." Shae was raised in Westeros, but as a lowborn girl, without the strict rules of the nobility.

Cersei, Catelyn and Sansa on the other hand were raised in that strict society. They were married off for politics rather than love, and they were forced to act like ladies. And they're boring and predictable to read.

Arya and Brienne were raised in that suffocating climate, but they reject it in the best way available to them, by acting not like ladies but like men.

So maybe Martin has written an indictment of typical western views of femininity. The women we like practice free love and have their own identity. Either that or they fight the chains of male oppression.

The women we don't. Well, they're very well behaved.

I'm seeing things in a whole new light. Thanks!

Okay, Matt. I can buy that.....

I do see a common thread between Tyrion, Brienne, and even Sam Tarly. It isn't just women that are oppressed by this feudal society, but men too. Tyrion and Sam don't fit into the "normal" scheme of things and are considered regects. Tyrion is a dwarf. Sam is physically weak and has no stomach for combat. Brienne is overly tall and "ugly", so doesn't fit into even the oppressed role of a woman. She's doubly oppressed.

Well, all three have to do what they can to get by, and they do so in different ways. Tyrion by manipulation and grand scheming, Brienne by taking on a "man's" role, and Sam by going to the Wall.

** SPOILER ALERTS **
Help me jump on the Tyrion wagon.
Other characters I like are Jaime,Sam.

martin makes it hard to call anybody a villain. Only Littlefinger comes near it(or perphaps the fat magister).

For all the Cersei haters out there, I would like to point out that she and Catelyn are very much alike. (Though Cersei really has a wicked streak in her.) They would do anything for the people they love(their children), but while Cersei has a possessive streak, Catelyn doesn't have one. (The new undead Catelyn seems even worse than Cersei.)

Other characters I find interesting are Brianne,Onion Knight,Sendor and the red witch.

Martin's treatment of women seems to be appropriate for the setting, since in both the Westeros and Horse Warrior culture, women derive power from their spouse's positions and/or their sexuality, but not their personalities. If you want a strong female character, consider the Queen of Thorns. She ruled through her husband's and then her son's positions by dominating them. She is neither described as mannish or as whorish.