6. Jaime Lannister: King And Slayer
It takes a special type of writer to make the audience empathise with a character who, early in the books, attempts to kill an eight-year-old boy, and is revealed to be in an incestuous and increasingly manipulative relationship with his twin sister. GRRM manages it by, throughout the course of the series, gradually revealing Jaime to be a nuanced and complicated individual, shaped from light and shadow, simultaneously hero and villain. The original plot paints Jamie as a more one-dimensional antagonist: a megalomaniacal monster who butchers swathes of his own family to ascend the Iron Throne. He then frames his brother Tyrion to take the blame for these murders. When asked which character from Lord of the Rings is his favourite, and why, Martin is open about his somewhat predictable attraction to complexity: I love Tolkien, and many of his characters, but if I had to pick one favourite, it would probably be Boromir. I love grey, tormented characters he stated. As GRRM constructed Jaimes arc, he probably believed this incarnation to be too out-and-out evil. He preferred a grey, tormented and nuanced version - transferring the megalomaniacal lust for power to twin sister Cersei (who isnt mentioned in the original draft). In the finished series, Jaime is famously indifferent to any desire to sit the Iron Throne, and his love and compassion for brother Tyrion - in spite of the contempt most other characters feel for the Imp- is one of his early redeeming qualities.