top 5/whatever starks. Rank the starks
AH this is so hard. okay disclaimer that i love everyone who gets ranked they are all deeply special to me
CATELYN!!! the absolute fucking goat. a stark by marriage, but still, pivotally, a stark. she just hast some of the craziest prose and some of the most interesting perspective in the books.... the scene with her in the sept in acok, her narration at the red wedding, her early perspectives on robb's kingship, her interactions with brienne and renly, HER CONVERSATION WITH JAIME, it's literally hit after hit after hit. can't wait to be her zombie incarnation for halloween in a few days.
sansa. bottom text. sometimes things are beloved because they are good. we sent a normal mostly-nice middle schooler who is one of the late 2000s' fabled 99% of girls who would cry if justin bieber jumped off a building and we put her to the torment nexus (violence of patriarchy edition). you won't believe what happens next! just SUCH an engaging narrator and i'd love to one day find out what she is up to up in the vale (no pressure george. but –)
jon. HE COUNTS! i started reading the books like yep that's my fantasy protagonist all right and then somewhere around late acok/early asos (likely place for this to happen) i got diehard attached. need him to get spookily resurrected so that he can make it to leftist infighting with his deuteragonist
arya. i can't believe arya is so low, she just does not have as many of the themes that are personally deeply special to me as the above three especially catelyn and sansa, but she is still easily one of my favorite protags in the books. we sent one of the 1% of girls who would get popcorn and yell 'do a backflip' if justin bieber jumped off a building to the torment nexus (horrors of war edition). She's narrating them like a plucky middle grade protagonist and yet the horrors are neverending.
bran. he's a little bit disadvantaged in this power ranking by being Only Eight Years Old but i love him still do nottt get me wrong. i think the stuff with ways of seeing and mysticism and old magic and forbidden knowledge that kick in with bran, it is some of the stuff that is most inspiring and thought provoking for my own writing. Love that guy love that he's a single digit number of years old and already committing multiple wargbominations. This can only end well –
honorable mention: ned. he is disadvantaged by dying in book one but i do think he's an awesome perspective chapter. i love repressed rule abiding freaks who terminally live in a society and i think anyone who underplays ned's flaws is doing him a great disservice because they are literally what makes him a good character. i also think hiding r+l=j is so awesome of him, he pulls of the worlds greatest con and his reputation is so sold that nobody questions him despite the suspicious ass circumstances. the fact that everyone in the story won't stop either disparagingly or admiringly calling him ~honorable~ and yet the best thing he ever did was an act of treason? it's SO good, it embodies the asoiaf capital t THEMES to me. Also my favorite ned scene / establishing character moment is when he and catelyn are finished having sex and then he has to go step out onto the freezing cold balcony because having sex with your beautiful wife in your toasty warm room makes him too warm and he likes to be cold because hes a stark and winter is coming or whatever the fuckkkk he is so spiritually russian and i mean that as an insult
