I think people who pick one character from AsoIaF/GoT to be The Protagonist are missing the point, because pretty much all of the characters think THEY are The Protagonist⢠and thatās ultimately what screws them over.
(I also want to preface this by saying that thatās the reason I find these characters so interesting, and that this is not meant to insult any of them. I LOVE this story, and this is one of the many reasons why.)
Cersei thinks sheās the Villain Protagonist⢠of a gritty drama. Even if it doesnāt make sense for things to work out for her, she assumes they will, seeing everyone around her as faceless idiots serving her narrative. Anyone and everyone will betray her because thatās what always happens in stories like this, so she wonāt give them a chance to ever get there. People will move the way she assumes they will; everyone is predictable and stupid and shallow and cowardly. And as such, no one possesses the necessary skills to take her down. If sheās more ruthless and ambitious and paranoid than everyone else, sheāll get what she wants. But thatās not how life actually works, so all she does is alienate those around her, even necessary allies. People arenāt always predictable, not all of them are compliant or subservient or easily-frightened or incompetent. And if you prioritize ruthlessness and distrust, the people who arenāt those things arenāt going to see any reason to keep you around or give you aid.
Jaime thinks heās a Cynical Misunderstood Antihero. He doesnāt need to work on bettering himself or de-internalizing his violent impulses, because heās not the problem, itās society, itās peopleās incorrect assessment of him. Look, he made a friend in Brienne, that must mean heās not all bad, right? He thinks this story ends in a Public Image Rehabilitation, but he still conflates love with violence, and he still has a fucked up relationship with consent, heās arrogant to a fault, he still insults Brienne (and just about everyone else) when the opportunity presents itself, and he never bothers trying to change that. And itās all of this that prevents him from every truly becoming a good person. Heās so mired in this idea of being misunderstood that he doesnāt make a concerted effort to prove that he actually is. People think heās an oath-breaker, that he has too big of an ego, that he doesnāt care about the people he swore to protect, and he thinks that simply going, āYeah, but they donāt have the whole pictureā is enough in and of itself to prove them wrong because, in a lot of stories, it is. But all his behavior does is cement his reputation as these things.
Dany thinks sheās The Chosen One, which means whatever she does is automatically the right decision. People will accept her rule because itās hers, she deserves it, itās morally right. All of her enemies are blanketedly wrong on all accounts in all cases. Her goals supersede anyone elseās because those goals are the way to a Happy Ending, and she doesnāt consider that other people might not see it that way. Many peopleās gripes with her stem from gross places like misogyny or wanting to continue keeping slaves, but she forgets to acknowledge that some peopleās issues with her might actually be valid. And that The Chosen One is actually a terrifying idea to people outside that personās immediate personal context. She has three sentient WMDs, essentially. And if she thinks that using them is always morally correct, that the fallout from doing so canāt possibly be a problem because sheās using them and itās for a noble cause, you end up with what happened in Astapor; and you end up with Drogon killing a child in Mereen and, eventually, her demise at the end of the show.
Sansa starts out thinking sheās an Optimistic Child Hero in a fairytale. This leads to her being held captive at court (she trusted that the authority figures were benevolent), writing a letter to her family that almost comes back to bite her to a deadly degree once her sister finds out in the show (she thought she could solve everything herself via a peaceful resolution), and to her trusting a complete monster of a boy until itās too late (she thought he was Prince Charming). She thinks that being the Soft, Beautiful Heroine means people will love her and everything will end nicely and neatly, but sometimes instead of āloveā, people just take advantage of you. And sometimes their reaction to your beauty isnāt innocent appreciation-sometimes you end up with Littlefinger. (Or Tyrion or The Hound who...letās just leave it at āthey have their own issues,ā especially book-wise.) This morphs into assuming that a fairytale-esque betrayal will befall her with every new person she meets. Itās why she defends Petyr after his murder of Lysa, and itās why she doesnāt leave with Brienne; if sheās going to be betrayed anyway, she might as well at least stick with a villain she understands.
Ned thinks heās the Noble Hero in a typical fantasy series. He doesnāt consider everyone elseās capacity for cruelty or the idea that honor alone might not be enough. Sometimes there are no perfect choices, sometimes mercy does not give you the end goal you envisioned, and sometimes you can try your best and that can all be undone by one impulsive, unforeseeable action. You canāt honor your way out of ruthless political conflict.
Robb thinks heās a Romantic War Hero, and thus everything will magically work out for him. His ideals and his marriage will conquer everything. But he broke a marriage promise to a powerful family, and that has consequences. The world wonāt bend to his will, not even if he is doing the right thing or has noble goals, not even if heās had war success, not even if the people at home love him, not even if heās in love (show) or doing the most honorable thing he can (books). He thinks that being the hero means he can make it through Westeros without having to play the game, and he gets murdered for it.
Theon thinks heās an Underdog Outcast Hero. Heāll come up from behind with an unsuspecting War Victory, and that will earn him respect, the love of his family, and a legacy he can look back on with pride. And that mindset leads him to murder two children, to drive away any allies and good grace he had at Winterfell, and the reason that the War Victory he imagined was so unexpected is because itās completely untenable. He gets more and more desperate and itās increasingly harder and harder to hold onto the control heās managed to obtain. He has reasons for wanting this that make sense, and heās been dealt a pretty bad hand in life, and he thinks thatās and his determination to overcome his personal identity struggles is enough to not only justify his actions, but ensure that those actions will be successful. And then his plan blows up in his face, he assumes heās been miraculously saved (probably still having something to do with seeing himself as The Unexpected Hero), and ends up at Ramsayās mercy.
Arya thinks sheās a Badass Heroine in the making, a skilled swordslady and Rebellious Princess whoās destined for more than this stuffy life of politics and dresses and formalities. But rebelling isnāt always enough. It doesnāt help with the Mycah situation, and she still needs to rely on othersā help in getting out of the city after Ned is executed. When she does try to embrace theĀ āfully self-sufficient sword ladyā idea while with the Faceless Men in Braavos, she is told to functionally discard her identity completely. She does an unauthorized kill because she, not her assassin-persona-in-training, wants to (though the victimās identity differs in books and show), which leads to her being temporarily blinded and prevented from going on assassination missions, and outright forced to beg for food in the show. In the show, after being reinstated as an apprentice, she is tasked with killing an innocent person, refuses (rebels), and realizes that this life is one she canāt handle. She goes home, and her heading straight for her sword is one of the things that almost completely ruins her relationship with Sansa. In the upcoming Winds of Winter release, her chapter excerpt has her prioritizing revenge over her apprentice duties, and she remarks that her new identity is ruined with this rebellious action. When you rebel, there are consequences-this doesnāt change just because your intentions are good or because you are or think you are important.
Jon thinks, similarly to Ned, that heās The Good Guy, that doing the right thing, that following The Code is paramount. He thinks that, because heās The Good Guy, that doing the right thing with the maximum amount of good for everyone will always be a workable option, and that the heroic option will always yield the best result. This is why he thinks proclaiming his love to Ygritte in the show will end well (because love is good and conquers everything) and is, instead, shot by her several times. Itās why he doesnāt foresee a mutiny in either medium, which leads to his (temporary) death. (Letās be real, heās getting resurrected in the books, too, this is the one thing Iām sure of.) Because yes, everything is tense and heās on bad terms with the Watch, but surely they wouldnāt go that far. Itās rough going, and he has to juggle the needs of several widely different groups of people, but heās doing the right thing and that will win out; his conviction will protect him, at least for the time being while he tries to manage the bigger threat of the White Walkers. The real fight is with them, the mysterious overarching enemy, not within his own ranks. This is a story where everyone puts aside their differences to fight a greater threat-except for the times when it isnāt.
Even Catelyn isnāt immune, as she assumes that Petyr, since heās her childhood friend, is invested in solving the mystery of what happened to Bran when he tells her the dagger used in the attack was Tyrionās. Lysa is her sister, she canāt possibly be suspicious.Ā She thinks the Lannisters are evil, her instincts tell her that they were behind everything, sheās the Protective Mother Heroine, so she must be right. But although she is to a certain extent correct, thatās not the complete picture. And this slightly-misplaced confidence leads her to arrest Tyrion, the retaliation of which is Tywin siccing his forces on her homeland, one of the major first steps in the upcoming political war. Then, her continued focus on saving her children-something that must take precedence because they are her children, and this is her story-leads her to taking Walder Freyās supposed offer of a fix-it solution for Robb breaking his marital pledge at face value, despite House Freyās reputation, and despite this neat resolution seeming far too good to be true. Sheās so focused on the Lannisters-the Obvious Endgame Enemy-that she doesnāt consider the possibility of betrayal from the Freys. She thinks that the world is giving her a break-because she is so desperately looking for one, because she deserves one, because her family deserves one, and those are reasons enough for her to have one-that she doesnāt even bother to re-evaluate the situation until itās too late.
Melisandre thinks sheās a Religious Hero, but she ends up burning a child alive and alienating one of her few remaining allies in the process (and Davos was barely an ally to begin with). She thinks sheās Doing What Needs To Be Done to serve her savior, but it hurts Stannis more than it helps him, and he just ends up being murdered by Brienne. This is obviously in the show only (at least at this point), and I donāt know if Stannis is going to burn Shireen in the books or not. Stannis thinks heās the Lawful Hero, and thus, because according to law heās the Rightful Ruler, anything he does is automatically excusable; heās just righting a wrong. And in the process, he imprisons his closest friend, has a hand in murdering his brother (when kinslaying is one of the most universally hated breaches of conduct in this fictional universe), allies with a dangerous woman that much of his own court despises, and, in the show, murders his only child and drives away most of the rest of his remaining team.
They all think that, since they are the main characters of their own stories, that theyāre the main character of the larger, overarching narrative. That having understandable reasons or sympathetic qualities or even just having a clear goal that they desperately want, thatās enough to cement their importance. And they think that means that theyāre justified in everything they do, that everything will work out for them, that the consequences will be lesser for them than for others, because thatās what itās like to be the main character. The whole point is that there is not A Protagonist⢠and that maybe we should examine why a story needs A Protagonist⢠in the first place and what that narrative tradition tells us. When GRRM said he turned down adaptation offers because they only wanted to focus on Jon and Dany, this is why.