"Game of Thrones" is winding down with its eighth and final season, which means the power struggle the HBO series is named for may soon have a declared winner.
Given there are so many possible rulers vying for power on "Game of Thrones," we wanted to determine who fans considered likeliest to sit on the throne, and who fans considered actually best suited to rule.
You can see the results of our matchup generator in the chart below:
To accomplish this, we developed a simple matchup generator, and asked readers on social media to weigh in on it.
People would see two characters randomly selected from a group of 20, and asked to select the one that they thought would be the better ruler, or in the other case, the likeliest to win the Iron Throne.
Forcing people to decide between two random options helps mitigate the impact of any vote stuffing, and we drew these conclusions from the 10,694 individual matchup choices users made.
The results: Great news for Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen
Tyrion just edged out Jon Snow as the character people think would be the better ruler, but Jon has the better chance of actually being in power by the end of the series. Daenerys was behind both of them in terms of being a better ruler, but fans think she has the best chance behind Jon Snow of being queen at the end of it all.
Sansa Stark is notably almost tied with Daenerys as both likely ruler and best leader.
The Night King, Arya Stark, and Cersei Lannister also rank higher as "most likely to rule" than the rest of the characters.
Samwell Tarly is the most neutral character on the matrix. Folks seem to think he'd be a perfectly fine leader and also has a middling chance of ruling by the end of "Game of Thrones."
Bad news for Euron Greyjoy and Melisandre
Fans think the Night King and Cersei Lannister would be worse leaders, but still have a better chance of sitting the Iron Throne than most of the other characters. But Euron Greyjoy would apparently be the worst possible ruler in Westeros — even more terrible than the Night King. Theon Greyjoy and Melisandre are only just above the Night King in the ranking of worst leaders.
People voted Melisandre and Grey Worm as the two characters least likely to rule by the end of the series.
Of course, there's a very strong chance the Iron Throne ceases to exist by the end of the series, but we're betting one person will hold some main seat of power.
"Game of Thrones" season eight premieres Sunday, April 14 at 9 p.m. ET.
- Read more:
- Why the Iron Throne might not matter by the end of "Game of Thrones."
- WHERE ARE THEY NOW: 31 actors who were killed off 'Game of Thrones'
- See which 9 'Game of Thrones' characters were recast
- An essential recap of everything that's happened on 'Game of Thrones' so far
Win percentages were determined from the results of 2,303 head-to-head matchups evaluating the likeliest ruler and 8,391 head-to-head matchups picking the best one.
