What BEST means: Installment 4.

Attraction. Visibility.  Impact.

We are cruising toward the final day for bracket submission and soon Connington will go deep on commentary regarding the specific match-ups. As we make our final bracket decisions, let’s look at the three remaining Criteria categories. The first three were CUNNING, ACTING, and VIOLENCE. Here are the rest.

ATTRACTION

This next rating criteria category is called ATTRACTION because Connington is a bit of a prude and is embarrassed to call this what it really is, the SEX category. If you are like me, you cringe at the word “sexy” and you are mortified to be seen as rating someone’s “hotness.” That’s not what I’m doing. In a similar way to the Violence category, this is a pulse-quickening, pulpy aspect of a pulse-quickening, pulpy show. The sexuality of the characters is very often tied directly to their approach to intrigue and violence and family and the rest. For those of us here in the bracket brigade, this character-based sexuality is what’s relevant, not the kind of sex where they pan across a room in Littlefinger’s brothel and you see a bunch of nameless people going at it. When I rate a character’s Attraction factor, I mostly think about how the character’s sexuality fits into the larger struggles for power.

Mostly. As high-minded as I’m trying to be, old-school sex appeal is part of this as well. And it’s all very subjective, isn’t it? Only you know who you think is “hot.” Some characters who absolutely ooze sexuality for you may leave me utterly cold. And, obviously, vice versa. You are pretty much on your own here. There is no point in arguing over the #1 “sexiest” character, because A) people will always differ on what they find sexy, and 2) regardless of your sexual orientation, the answer is Jason Momoa’s Khal Drogo.

VISIBILITY

Visibility means prominence as measured in screen-time. This is a show business category more than a narrative or literary category. You can be a great Game of Thrones character and check a lot of boxes and be really awesome but you also need to be graded in minutes, in playing time. For this category we ask the question, does this character have enough flat-out VISIBILITY and SCREEN-TIME to earn a place in the final rounds? It’s an easy one to score. This is where Ned scores low, and also favorites like Khal Drogo and Lady Olenna. This is where we notice that Jorah has been onscreen for a hell of a lot of this show, and also the Hound. If a character is introduced late or dies at all, they suffer in the Visibility column. You end up with a lot of 7’s. You also end up with a bunch of 10’s, though. It’s a huge, sprawling cast, and I can’t think of another show with as many roles that could legitimately be called leads.

IMPACT

The next Criteria Category is more of a literary and narrative category. For this one we look at the over-arching narrative and we ask, how much of a role does this character have on a macro level? The show is epic in scale, and it contends with potentially world-ending concerns. Even though the world that’s presented is completely imaginary, the stakes could not be any higher within that world.

Some of the best characters have no magnitude in terms of the overall saga. Bronn is great and in some ways Bronn is the quintessential G.O.T. character, but Bronn scores pretty low here. Some minor-key characters like Hodor actually score rather high, if you are tracking all of the supernatural lore. (“Hold the door!”) I’ve heard people talk trash about Jon Snow’s impact, since he is so rarely triumphant. But even if you were to accuse Jon Snow of losing the battles at Hardhome, Castle Black, and Winterfell, only to be saved by outside parties swooping in at the last second, his actions have still had tremendous IMPACT. He’s not just a witness, he is altering the larger narrative throughout the series. A character like Brienne scores higher than Bronn but still does not score very high. Some characters are really just adjuncts to others, and don’t drive or effect the larger arc. And some characters who have a sneaky but profound level of impact didn’t even make the bracket, like Qyburn, but the major players are all there on the board. If you are using this Connington metric to score your bracket, the way that you rate characters in this Impact category could make or break your final four.

On to the match-ups!