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For years now, the staff at BOP has argued behind the scenes over the statuses of the various characters on Game of Thrones. Some of us have a 15-year advantage on the others because they’ve read the books. For our part, David watched the show from week one and Kim quit after three episodes. She kept falling asleep while watching it, and she took that as a hint that it wasn’t very good. After THAT BIG THING happened toward the end of the season, David pushed Kim to catch up to the point that she’s a bigger fan than he is. She’s read all the books, but David didn’t want the books muddying his perspective on the television series, so he’s stayed away from reading them.

During the course of the show, Kim has bit her tongue while the fates of various characters have unfolded. Meanwhile, David has been clobbered when George R.R. Martin’s hatred of the Stark family has revealed itself. David suspects Martin has a tattoo on his groin that says, “Kill the protagonist.”

Over the last couple of seasons, Kim has discovered that knowledge of the books can be a detriment as David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have meandered further away from the literature. As the series enters uncharted territory, the two of us are on relatively equal footing. Now that we can no longer spoil anything for our readers, we’ve decided to post power rankings for the characters on the show. Some weeks we’ll update the main ones, while other weeks we’ll throw in something sillier, such as “horniest characters.” (Hint: The Spider won’t win that one.)

This week, we’re going to start off basic. The underlying infrastructure of Game of Thrones as a series is “who plays the game the best.” These are not necessarily the people you’d want fighting by your side when the White Walkers arrive. They are, however, the finest tactical minds in all of Westeros based on what the series and novels have demonstrated.

If you’ve paid any attention whatsoever, the top two won’t be a surprise. If you haven’t, you’re about to be so confused.

1) Petyr Baelish, aka Littlefinger

Some of the greatest philosophers in history believe that what drives men to greatness is wanton desire. Preteen Littlefinger could never have dreamt that he’d make this list. All he wanted was for his pretty friend Catelyn to requite his love. This simply shows that preteen boys have terrible taste in women. The guy’s entire life is defined by a crush on a heinous shrew who maliciously used him repeatedly, never once indicating that she even tolerated him as a human.

Catelyn lack of emotion in her dealings with Baelish strangely embedded themselves in his conscience. By watching the girl of his dreams act like user behavior was totally okay, he learned to do it himself. Look at him now. We’re looking at a guy who trains a hooker as a protégé, and the moment she shows any talent of her own, he’ll sell her to the crown for a night of inaccurate archery.

Martin’s work emphasizes that the two most dangerous players in Westeros are diametrically opposed. One wants righteous rulers, while the other believes that chaos is a ladder. We haven’t seen much of Littlefinger lately, and we might not for a while. He’s currently off building/acquiring an army. When he returns, no matter what else is happening, he’ll direct his officers straight to King’s Landing. His reign as king of the seven lands will cause Joffrey to seem like the ruler of Camelot by comparison.

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