Game Of Thrones: All 26 Characters From Season 1 (Who Aren’t Dead Yet) - Ranked

5. Arya Stark

Arya should probably be in the top two of characters, and she would have been if it wasn't for that horribly distracting Braavos "education" sequence that felt like it lasted about three and a half years. In having Arya ridiculously follow Jaqen H'ghar's teachings to become a Faceless Man in order to gain her revenge, despite the fact that doing so would expressly stop her from doing so, the show killed her momentum.

It wasn't wholly unwatchable, of course, but the most interesting part of Arya's character was watching her fight from the shadows without training, with her emotional wounds guiding her sword and her anger. Putting her in a sanitised situation where none of that was possible, and where she was removed from her targets was just silly.

She did get an almighty injection of cool in the climax of season 6 (and it was no accident that it came when she cast off Jaqen entirely), but the scars of that boring sojourn will still take some forgetting even after she put the Frey in Fray Bentos pies.