Connington here. Let’s keep talking about what BEST means. How do you rate the inherent worth of a TV show character? (Set aside, if you will, the fact that it’s a frivolous endeavor and a total waste of time. It is. But if you’re reading this you’re totally okay with that, so let’s get down to business.) Probably you start by looking at the TV show at hand. What is specific and unique about HBO’s G.O.T.? When I made my picks I broke things down into six categories and gave each character a rating on a ten-point scale. These point values, along with my gut, determined my picks in each match-up.

To be clear, the system I’ll describe here is NOT how the Bracket Breaker higher-ups put the bracket together. I don’t know exactly how they came up with the match-ups on the bracket we are all playing. (Based on the way they spell Olenna Tyrell’s name, I think they probably got some chimps to pull ping-pong balls out of one of those spinning cage thing-ies.) No, what I’ll describe here is Connington’s Criteria for Determining Best Character.

I should say that many of my own picks are also colored by knowledge of the books. This here Bracket Breaker battle is about the TV show not the books, but anyone who’s read the “A Song of Ice and Fire” source material will naturally have their decisions colored by that knowledge.

Connington’s categories, in no order, are CUNNING, VIOLENCE, ACTING, ATTRACTION, IMPACT, and PROMINENCE.

Let’s start with Cunning. This is a skills-based category that measures how well the character plays the actual titular game. It clocks things like the character’s ruthlessness, trickery, gamesmanship, double-dealing, political savvy, and manipulation. For any G.O.T. character to truly have a chance at “best,” they must possess prowess in manipulation and intrigue. That’s not to say that a character who has no cunning should be ruled out. Cunning is not the only category. And some good characters (the Clegane boys, for instance) eschew cunning in favor of brute force. But it’s a key aspect. It might be possible for a character to advance with scant cunning, but I can’t imagine that a character with zero savvy would make it to a late round.

Hodor comes to mind. Hodor is a great character but he doesn’t even know there is a game afoot. As we now know, he’s extremely pivotal in the grand scheme of things. But his influence does not derive from inter-personal manipulation. Hodor’s not winning this bracket. He’s not a major character. And cunning-wise, he’s in the basement.

But there are also major characters who are complete and utter cunning-vacuums. (Jon Snow just gulped and backed out of the room. But so did Ned Stark.) Robb never learned the skill and lost his head, along with a slew of other lives. Jorah tried in earnest to be tricky and two-faced but he sucked at it and kept getting caught. Theon fancied himself a trickster until Ramsay taught him otherwise.

Examining this quality in G.O.T. characters is fun because they each manifest cunning in such different ways. You’ve got Cersei’s family-motivated savagery, Littlefinger’s slithery lies, Varys with his courtliness and shadowy minions. Then there’s Tyrion’s combination of egghead smarts, big-picture perspective, and canny reading of other people’s motives. Arya’s arc is a story not just of an assassin’s training, but of learning the power of deception. And some characters learn the hard way. They begin the saga as cunning-vacuums and the story forces them to develop the skill. Sansa, for sure, but maybe Jaime as well.

If you want to get on board with my system, give each bracket character your own rating from 1-10 on the Cunning scale. Over the next couple of days as we near the bracket-submission deadline, I’ll be adding breakdowns of my other categories.

Remember that you can enter your bracket picks NOW but you can hold off on clicking ‘submit’ until the last day, after you’ve had the full period to consider. That’s what I’m doing. I like my picks but I might tinker throughout the week, and I won’t click ‘submit’ until the 9th.

Check back here tomorrow and every day until the ninth of May, if you want to know what I mean by VIOLENCE, ACTING, ATTRACTION, IMPACT, and PROMINENCE. After that, my coverage of the match-ups within each round will continue as the rounds progress.