First of all, let me warn you that there will be SHOW SPOILERS in this topic, up to and including Episode 10, but NO BOOK SPOILERS. Please keep that in mind while you post, react and speculate.
Since I'm done watching the excellent second season of Game of Thrones, I figured I might as well go ahead and rank what I consider to be the best and 'worst' actors (although there are no bad actors per se, which is quite impressive!). A few things to highlight first before I get into the actual ranking:
1. Actors have been separated into two categories, so as to avoid mixing apples and oranges: "Lead actors" and "Supporting actors." It's very hard to gauge the talent of a one-scene wonder like Syrio with a consistently good actor like Sean Bean - which is why I feel such a distinction is important. Please note, however, that by 'Lead Actor', I do not mean the most important actors, but the ones that, in their scenes, tend to take a leading role. Supporting actors, on the other hand, will be those that tend to be there to provide a foil to the actual focus of the scenes. I fully expect some of my choices to be controversial, but hey, feel free to discuss and criticize. Admittedly, some characters were very hard to categorize.
2. I will only be ranking Season 2 actors. This means no Sean Bean, no Jason Momoa, etc. etc. It's been a while since I've watched Season 1, and I'd rather go with what we've seen all season.
3. Obviously, I will only be ranking actors that actually have material to work with. As fun as Hodor is, there really isn't much to evaluate Kristian Nairn on - good or bad - and I feel it would be unfair to gauge his performance. More importantly, I will admit I have skipped some scenes obecause they didn't interest me (I've read the books and didn't like their S2 plotlines); as such, I will not rank some actors who would have otherwise qualified one way or another. Chief among those are Ygritte, Xaro Xhoan Daxos, Talisa, Qhorin Halfhand and Dagmer Cleftjaw. If they don't appear on this ranking, it's not because I hate them, but because I don't have enough to judge them with.
4. I will try to rank three actors per day. Since I've got 28 supporting actors and 15 lead actors, I will rank 2 of the former and one of the latter each day. I expect that should even things out nicely.
Finally, feel free to speculate while I post the rankings! Some of my rankings will be expected; some might be surprising to some.
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When you have nothing to say, quote yourself ~ Solfadore