My therapist asked me who my favourite character was. Obviously, I said Javert. Because really, what other choice is there? Come on. My therapist seemed concerned that I liked the 'villain'.
But the thing is, Javert isn't the villain. He's not even morally ambiguous. He's definitely ignorant, though. He is a character who sees only in black and white, and since Val Jean broke the law (and then continued to do so by breaking his parole and then lying about his identity for years as well as running from the law after he had been caught), Javert sees him as a criminal who has proven he cannot change and will continue to break the law and should probably suffer the consequences of his actions.
Having said that, Javert is most certainly the main antagonist of the piece as most of the story involves a conflict between him and Val Jean, who is obviously the protagonist of the story.
But anyway, Javert is clearly misunderstood by anyone who would call him the 'bad guy'. The man is a police officer who is simply going above and beyond the call of duty to get his job done well.
Let us also talk about Jaime Lannister.
I love Jaime.
And yet people seem to really hate him.
It might be his incestuous relationship with his twin sister, the fact that he's a bit of a snot, that he killed the king he was sworn to protect, or perhaps it is that he pushed a child out of a tower window.
None of these things actually bother me. I can't remember if they ever did, to be honest. But I think it was after he lost his hand that I started to absolutely adore him.
Let'a first look at that incest. Is it gross? I dunno. I mean. They're twins, so it seems a bit more like masturbation, really. They're also a pair of consenting adults and although I suppose it sort of icks people out, I don't see anything really morally wrong with it. To be honest, I'd have no big issue having sex with my own twin brother - if I had one, that is. I mean, aside from the fact that it would be cheating, which I wouldn't do. So yeah. I see it as kind of the same thing as eating dead people to survive when stranded in the Andes or whatever. Possibly gross, definitely frowned upon, but not actually a bad thing to do.
As for him being a snot, it's funny. He's funny and sarcastic and annoyed. It's just that he's cocky because he really is that good at sword fighting. He's the youngest man ever chosen to be a member of the kingsguard. He was knighted in battle by The Sword of the Morning when he was fifteen. He's from the richest family in the seven kingdoms. He's beautiful. Why wouldn't he be cocky? Also he's really over everyone's bullshit and has been for years.
I don't think anyone outside of series characters really care that he broke an oath and killed the king. But in the event that anyone uses that against him, he killed Aerys because he'd had wildfire stashed under all of King's Landing and was going to set the entire city on fire rather than let it be taken by Robert Baratheon. So Jaime killed the king to save about 500,000 people, and then didn't tell anyone about it because Ned Stark was the first person to find him and Ned didn't care for his excuses.
As for pushing a six year old out of a window, that boy caught he and his sister committing treason. By which I mean they were having sex. So pushing a kid out of a window in reaction to brig caught having sex is definitely a fucked up thing to do. But it was also being caught in a treasonous act. So pushing a kid out of a window so that you, your sisterlover, and her three bastard children she had that are kind of yours, aren't executed for treason is really something else. So... Yeah it wasn't a good thing that he pushed Bran out a window, but it was certainly understandable.
I could go on forever about characters that are seen as 'bad', but that would take hours. So I'll just say that Stannis, Melisandre, and probably Jorah are also very misunderstood.
But if you ever get the idea that Euron Greyjoy is probably not a good person: you're definitely right and I'm pretty sure he's the closest the series has to an actual villain. (See also: Roose Bolton, Walder Frey, Ramsay Snow)
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