Who will be the Baddie?

If I had to vote right now, I'd say that in the mind of the Westerosi, there will be two antagonists: Dany and the Others.

Since the Others were made to defend the children and we've seen Dany as sympathetic re: her childhood, not sure anyone is "the" baddie.

Though a few of us, I think (sweetsunray, maybe Maester Sam), are seeing Tyrion as going nowhere good fast.



Interesting--why do you see Benjen as fishy?

Mankind.



A Storm of Swords - Bran IV

As the sun began to set the shadows of the towers lengthened and the wind blew harder, sending gusts of dry dead leaves rattling through the yards. The gathering gloom put Bran in mind of another of Old Nan's stories, the tale of Night's King. He had been the thirteenth man to lead the Night's Watch, she said; a warrior who knew no fear. "And that was the fault in him," she would add, "for all men must know fear." A woman was his downfall; a woman glimpsed from atop the Wall, with skin as white as the moon and eyes like blue stars. Fearing nothing, he chased her and caught her and loved her, though her skin was cold as ice, and when he gave his seed to her he gave his soul as well.

He brought her back to the Nightfort and proclaimed her a queen and himself her king, and with strange sorceries he bound his Sworn Brothers to his will. For thirteen years they had ruled, Night's King and his corpse queen, till finally the Stark of Winterfell and Joramun of the wildlings had joined to free the Watch from bondage. After his fall, when it was found he had been sacrificing to the Others, all records of Night's King had been destroyed, his very name forbidden.

He brought her back to the Nightfort and proclaimed her a queen and himself her king, and with strange sorceries he bound his Sworn Brothers to his will. For thirteen years they had ruled, Night's King and his corpse queen, till finally the Stark of Winterfell and Joramun of the wildlings had joined to free the Watch from bondage. After his fall, when it was found he had been sacrificing to the Others, all records of Night's King had been destroyed, his very name forbidden.

"Some say he was a Bolton," Old Nan would always end. "Some say a Magnar out of Skagos, some say Umber, Flint, or Norrey. Some would have you think he was a Woodfoot, from them who ruled Bear Island before the ironmen came. He never was. He was a Stark, the brother of the man who brought him down." She always pinched Bran on the nose then, he would never forget it. "He was a Stark of Winterfell, and who can say? Mayhaps his name was Brandon. Mayhaps he slept in this very bed in this very room."

No, Bran thought, but he walked in this castle, where we'll sleep tonight. He did not like that notion very much at all. Night's King was only a man by light of day, Old Nan would always say, but the night was his to rule. And it's getting dark.



Agreed.



Agreed again. I know it's not your cup of tea exactly, but that's what I was trying to get at in my Weirwood Ghost thread. Jon absorbs the ills, is poison, the lordly outcast, and is both the bane and absolution of the people.

I also thought of Dany as "the" baddie, in the sense that she has lots of power while being a "broken man" type with no deep affiliation to anywhere or the inclination to gain one. She also roams in huge geographical quarters, so her influence is somewhat global.

As for the Stark Children (Jon or Bran as the forerunners) or Tyrion specifically, I never thought of them as the baddie candidates, as their influence and motivations are quite local. Since they have a connection to both the land and the people there is less of a "anything goes" mentality to achieve their goals.

The fact that we have a handful of human characters who are straight up rotten to the core, as well as literally zero purely good human characters, is a pretty good indicator that voice and wolfmaid7 are right.
We'll leave non-humans off the protagonist-antagonist spectrum since we haven't been given enough info to really understand what motivates them beyond survival.

ETA: I'll go ahead and say that the answer to the question of the main protagonist is also "mankind," and that this knowledge is given its voice through the Faith of the Seven.

I think Jon is destined to always be viewed as a traitor.He will certainly do things that will look treasonous i believe.

web.archive.org/web/19991013131915/http://cyberhaven.com/books/sciencefiction/martin.html


Amazon.com: Do you have a favorite character?

Martin: I've got to admit I kind of like Tyrion Lannister. He's the villain of course, but hey, there's nothing like a good villain.

So Tyrion is a good villain, and we need some of them to balance the bad do-gooders.
Having got revenge for his beloved Tysha, he can move on to addressing the challenges that matter, he knows both the Wall and the dragons. Not many do.

Sometimes i think he represents carpe diem in the story.