Arya Stark is my number one Game of Thrones character, ahead of Sansa Stark, Daenerys Targaryen, Sandor “the Hound” Clegane and Olenna Tyrell. I’ll admit it, I re-watch shows. They still have the storytelling power to pull me in, even though I know the endings are coming.
Updated October 24, 2026.
Watching the “how” or digging into the “why” of a story is often way more fun than just knowing the “what.” I rewatched Game of Thrones recently (or A Song of Ice and Fire, as book readers know it), and just for fun, I’ve put together a list of my top 5 Game of Thrones characters, counting down. If you’ve ever tried to explain Game of Thrones to someone who hasn’t seen it, you know the family trees alone take ten minutes.
The series gave us some of the most complex and gripping Game of Thrones characters ever written for TV. These rankings are mine, and they include seasons 7 and 8, which changed my opinion of several well-loved characters a lot. HBO aired the show from April 17, 2011, to May 19, 2019: 73 episodes over eight seasons, created by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss from George R. R. Martin’s novels. It won 59 Primetime Emmy Awards, the most of any drama series.
I would happily recommend a rewatch of any season. It’s still gripping, a show that quite literally reinvented the landscape of fantasy television, and the final season is no less interesting for being the one that split fans the most. Season 8 drew heavy criticism for its short length and its creative choices.
5. Olenna Tyrell: One of the Sharpest Game of Thrones Characters
Rightly called the “Queen of Thorns,” Olenna, played by Diana Rigg, is the lady of Highgarden, home to House Tyrell, overlords of the Reach and Wardens of the South, and the real power behind the family. Careful, cunning, ambitious and sharp-tongued, Olenna is a classic anti-hero, which makes her one of my favorite Game of Thrones characters. Most people know a grandmother who says exactly what’s on her mind, and Olenna is that grandmother with a much darker streak. We root for her, even though guilt never slows her down. She has one big goal throughout the series: raise the standing of House Tyrell, as ruthlessly as possible.
In the end, she fails. Despite her sharp skill at scheming and plotting, she isn’t immune to mistakes. House Tyrell is gone by the finale, wiped out like several other great houses in Westeros. Her ambitions, strong as they were, could not outrun the brutal math of power.
She still has one truly delicious scene, one that devoted fans of the show still enjoy. It comes in “The Queen’s Justice.” Highgarden has fallen to the Lannisters, and Olenna knows her end is near. Jaime Lannister, head of the invading army, comes to her alone in her castle on Cersei’s orders. He carries a cup of poison and insists Olenna drink it. She isn’t eager to go quietly into the night, so she starts one last conversation before giving in.
Jaime kindly assures her that the poison will be painless and her death quick and dignified. Olenna drinks it in one go, smiles wickedly, and says to Jaime: “You know, I’d hate to die like your son. Clawing at my neck, foam and bile spilling from my mouth, eyes blood-red, skin purple. Must have been horrible for you, as a Kingsguard and a father. It was horrible enough for me.”
She pauses, juicily.
“Not at all what I intended. You see, I’d never seen the poison work before. Tell Cersei. I want her to know. It was me.”
Yes, the Queen of Thorns earns her place in these rankings for one spectacular reason: murdering King Joffrey, the nastiest brat in the entire series. At his wedding to her granddaughter Margaery, Olenna used poison that Petyr Baelish had smuggled in, to protect Margaery from his cruelty. That confession, delivered with cold relish, is one of the best exits in television history.
4. “The Hound,” Sandor Clegane
Rory McCann plays Sandor Clegane, “The Hound,” a total realist, and he has an amazing number of memorable quotes. Poetry of the crudest kind. Every group of friends has one person who says the rude thing everybody else is thinking, and the Hound is that guy turned up to eleven. Here are a few:
(On chicken)
“I understand that if any more words come pouring out your c*** mouth, I’m gonna have to eat every f***ing chicken in this room.”
(On loyalty)
“F*** the Kingsguard. F*** the city. F*** the King.”
(On survival)
“Hate’s as good a thing as any to keep a person going, better than most.”
(On fear)
“Of course you are. You’re almost there and you’re afraid you won’t make it. The closer you get, the worse the fear gets. No point in trying to hide behind that face. I know fear when I see it. Seen it a lot.”
(On himself)
“I’m honest. It’s the world that’s awful.”
As a child, the Hound was brutally burned by his cruel brother, Gregor Clegane, “the Mountain”: Gregor shoved his face into a brazier (a pan of burning coals), leaving severe burn scars and a lasting fear of fire. That vicious betrayal by someone he should have been able to trust shaped him for good. He becomes a beaten-down soul, wrapped in a crude iron suit of bloody practicality.
Chance introduces him to Lady Arya Stark. He captures her in the Riverlands to ransom her to her brother Robb. Later they flee the Red Wedding together. She vows to kill him for the death of her friend Mycah, and after his fight with Brienne she coldly leaves him to die. By the time they meet again, at Winterfell and then King’s Landing, they understand each other. She thanks him and calls him by his real name.
They build an odd relationship, a strange mix of admiration on his side and disgust, but grudging respect, on hers. They both understand pain deeply, and both want revenge with no apologies. Sandor insists he’s only keeping Arya for the ransom on her noble head, but as we watch their friendship grow, we know he’s not being completely honest. He sees himself in little, fierce Arya Stark.
Throughout the series, Sandor remains a force of raw physical violence. He’s a survivor, and that’s hard to pull off in the medieval world of Westeros. That alone makes him one of the top Game of Thrones characters.
In the end, he gets the exit he earned. In King’s Landing he fights Gregor as the Red Keep collapses, stabs him through the head, and tackles his brother off a stairway into the inferno. Both die.
3. Daenerys “Stormborn” Targaryen
Mother of Dragons. Breaker of Chains. Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea. Stormborn. Protector of the Seven Kingdoms. Queen of the Andals and the First Men. The Unburnt. Titles, titles, titles.
Quite a grand resume for a woman so small, and Emilia Clarke earned several Emmy nominations playing her. We first meet “Dany” as a shy young princess, bullied by her overbearing older brother Viserys. Naïve and starry-eyed, she gets used to the cold nature of the world after her arranged marriage to Khal Drogo, the imposing Dothraki king. Her naivety quickly vanishes. A dragon is born, breathing fire and blood.
Betrayed by the vengeful witch Mirri Maz Duur, Dany’s hidden power shows itself clearly. Drogo is left in a coma by Mirri’s blood magic, and Dany ends his life herself. She has her khalasar build a funeral pyre and ties Mirri to it. Into the fire she places three petrified (turned to stone) dragon eggs, a gift from the Pentoshi merchant Illyrio Mopatis, and she walks into the flames herself. The audience assumes she will die.
She doesn’t. She walks away miraculously unhurt, holding three baby dragons: Drogon, Rhaegal and Viserion. These ancient creatures of Old Valyria now belong to one woman alone. It is one of the great dramatic entrances in television history.
Dany gathers followers and seeks refuge in Slaver’s Bay. She frees the Unsullied in Astapor, conquers Yunkai and takes Meereen, taking control of the three Ghiscari cities. She builds a young empire and chooses to learn how to rule rather than head west right away. It is a choice that defines, and in the end delays, her destiny.
The attacks by the “Old Masters,” slaveowners whose property Dany took away, don’t stop. Her life is under constant threat. Even a strategic marriage to the Ghiscari nobleman Hizdahr zo Loraq can’t calm the simmering anger. Dany turns her dragons and armies loose. She defeats her enemies with “Fire and Blood,” reducing them to ash, then finally heads west.
Her tragedy arrives in the last episodes. After helping Jon Snow defend the realm against the White Walkers, she finally throws her restraint aside. Euron Greyjoy captures Missandei, Dany’s closest friend, and Cersei Lannister has her beheaded before Dany’s eyes, despite Dany’s attempts to negotiate. Dany’s rage turns into “Fire and Blood.” After King’s Landing surrenders, she burns the city anyway, killing many civilians, a brutal, if understandable, decision. Anyone who has followed a character for years knows how it stings to watch them make a choice you hoped they never would.
In the finale Jon Snow murders her, deciding almost on his own that she is unfit to rule, and she dies in his arms. Drogon melts the Iron Throne and carries her body away. Her death was unfair. She had good intentions, but maybe too much power for one person to hold. In her place, the nobles of Westeros who are left pick Bran Stark as king, his “compelling story” his only apparent reason for the job. Jon is sent back to the Night’s Watch.
2. Sansa Stark: A Game of Thrones Character Transformed by Survival
Weird pick for one of the top Game of Thrones characters, I know. Sophie Turner’s Sansa earns it: much of her appeal comes from how she grows, from the meekest and shyest of women to a calculating and blunt leader of men. Few characters in the series change that much, or that believably.
As a teenager, Sansa wants nothing more than a comfortable castle and a noble prince of her father’s choosing. She gets her wish, becoming engaged to the man-child Prince Joffrey “Baratheon,” heir to the Iron Throne. Joffrey quickly ends any romantic daydream. He sees her as a plaything and enjoys her pain. She puts up with his cruelty with grim patience, learning early that showing weakness can hurt you.
She escapes King’s Landing through the schemes of the mysterious Littlefinger after Joffrey is poisoned: she flees with Ser Dontos, and Petyr Baelish smuggles her to the Vale, where she poses as his niece, Alayne. Littlefinger is obsessed with her and uses that obsession as both shield and trap. From him, Sansa learns politics, the game of thrones itself. She learns to share as little as possible. She learns to trust as few people as possible.
Then comes Ramsay Bolton. After Theon Greyjoy throws Myranda to her death, Sansa and Theon jump off the walls of Winterfell into the snow. Brienne of Tarth, “Brienne the Beauty,” who is sworn to Catelyn Stark to protect Sansa, and Podrick Payne rescue them. Sansa goes on to Castle Black, reunites with Jon Snow, and helps retake Winterfell.
Her education is brutal, and it works. Sansa is now a completely different person, a wise political chess player, sharp at reading people and ruthless at using their weaknesses. Her earlier naivety has hardened into something tougher and far more useful. At the end of the series, Sansa argues loudly for the independence of the North. She gets her way. In place of Jon Snow, she is crowned Queen in the North. Of all the character changes seen across the whole run of the show, Sansa’s is the most complete transformation. She becomes exactly what Westeros demanded of her, and nothing less.
1. Arya Stark
Maisie Williams was chosen from about 300 actresses for Arya, and it was her first acting role. Arya is 11 in season 1. Like Dany, she defies gender stereotypes from the start of the series. In the first season, her father explains what her future as a noblewoman will look like: “You’ll marry a high lord and rule his castle. And your sons shall be knights, and princes, and lords.”
Arya shakes her head firmly: “No. That’s not me.”
One sentence. That single line runs through her whole story. Anyone who has been told “that’s just how it’s done” and thought “no thanks” knows the feeling. She becomes an exile after her father, Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell, Warden of the North, and Hand of the King, is beheaded. She wanders Westeros from one lord’s land to the next, trying to find the scattered Starks. At Harrenhal she recites a list of names she wants revenge on, and she keeps reciting it every single night. It is both chilling and deeply human, a young girl turning her grief into a weapon.
Like the Hound, she is driven by a desire for violent revenge. Revenge, the bitterest of pills, swallows her soul completely. In Braavos she decides to become a “Faceless Man,” a member of the legendary assassin cult, and enters the House of Black and White. She kills Meryn Trant without the Faceless Men’s permission, is blinded as punishment, recovers her sight, and later kills the Waif.
The most electric scene of Arya’s revenge happens at “The Twins,” stronghold of House Frey. Their lord, Walder Frey, had planned the “Red Wedding,” the massacre of Robb and Catelyn Stark, Arya’s brother and mother. Arya returns the favor with cold precision.
She arrives at “The Twins” in disguise as a servant girl, a skill she mastered during her training with the Faceless Men. She kills his sons and serves them to Walder in a pie. Walder reacts with horror. Arya removes her mask and delivers these words:
“My name is Arya Stark. I want you to know that. The last thing you’re ever going to see is a Stark smiling down at you as you die.”
She slits his throat. Catharsis. Justice.
In a bigger, if somewhat anti-climactic blow, Arya also kills the Night King in season 8, the most threatening enemy of the entire series. She stabs him with the Valyrian steel dagger Bran gave her, and the White Walkers and wights are destroyed. A small girl with a small blade ends the apocalypse. It is exactly the moment her story was always building toward.
Arya is resourceful, determined, ferocious, clever and loyal. She is a study in quiet, deadly toughness. If this series has a hero, it is surely Lady Arya Stark, although, as she would say herself, “I’m not a lady.” Truly my favorite of all the Game of Thrones characters. If you finished the show and want more, here are 10 shows to watch after Game of Thrones.
Game of Thrones Characters: Common Questions
Who is the best Game of Thrones character?
On this list it is Arya Stark, played by Maisie Williams, for a revenge arc that runs from the first season to her killing of the Night King in season 8. Sansa Stark, Daenerys Targaryen, the Hound and Olenna Tyrell follow. Rankings are personal, and fans argue about every spot.
Who killed Joffrey in Game of Thrones?
Olenna Tyrell killed Joffrey at his wedding to her granddaughter Margaery. She used poison that Petyr Baelish had smuggled in on Sansa Stark, to protect Margaery from his cruelty. Olenna admits it to Jaime Lannister in “The Queen’s Justice,” just before she dies.
Who rules Westeros at the end of Game of Thrones?
Bran Stark is chosen as king after Daenerys dies. Sansa Stark is crowned Queen in the North, and the North becomes independent. Jon Snow is sent back to the Night’s Watch. The finale aired on May 19, 2019, and ended an eight-season run of 73 episodes.
How many Emmys did Game of Thrones win?
Game of Thrones won 59 Primetime Emmy Awards, the most won by any drama series. It took Outstanding Drama Series in 2015, 2016, 2018 and 2019. HBO aired it from April 17, 2011, to May 19, 2019, across 73 episodes.