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6. Lord Commander Jon Snow (Season 5)

Recap: After Stannis saves the Watch from Mance Rayder's horde, Stannis offers Jon Snow a spot in his army as Lord of Winterfell. Jon declines and is instead elected Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. His mission: to fortify the Wall for the incoming winter and the White Walkers. One cornerstone angle: to evacuate the Free Folk from beyond the Wall into the Seven Kingdoms, which involves sailing to Hardhome and facing the White Walkers head-on. Jon is eventually assassinated in a mutiny by Alliser Thorne and other brothers of the Watch.

This is it.

Jon's reign as Lord Commander of the Night's Watch is magnificent to watch. It takes four full seasons of moping, awkwardness, and pouts. It takes the traditionally most interesting characters being separated from one another or killed off. It takes time, pain, and the sweat and tears of a viewer. It's a certainty that this arc is not as good if Jon is not as miserable to watch in the early seasons - and it might also be the case that it's less prominent if it's ensconced amid a better season. But during what many agree was the worst season - a season of Sand Snakes, c*** merchants, floozy Loras, and Maggy the Frog - Jon Snow shines as the best character of the show and leads one of the best arcs of the series.

Has moping ever been a better default face? We all know that bearing the crown is a terrible weight for any good leader, and this is the logical climax for Jon. He has seen what's out there, and thus, despite the obvious appeal of shedding his bastardry - 'Kneel before me and you will rise as Jon Stark, Lord of Winterfell' - Jon continues with his brothers and no assurance that he'll be elected Lord Commander.

Part of what makes Season 5 Jon better than Season 6 Jon - aside from the obvious 'he's not basically a walking corpse for most of it' angle - is his interactions (that I've already alluded to) with Stannis. Jon has some decent chemistry with Ygritte and can occasionally crack a smile around Aemon and Sam. But for the most part, he's brooding and solitary and loves to make that pouty face where he stick his chin out. He's trying to be tough for the world and it looks dorky and you kinda hate the insecurity. Stannis, however, is the One True King, and it's genuinely fun to watch Jon earn the respect of the humorless one.

For Jon, being a leader is about putting up or shutting up. 'Kill the boy, Jon Snow,' intones Maester Aemon. 'Kill the boy, and let the man be born.' Early in Season 5 is possibly the season's best scene: faced with a disgusting show of insubordination from Janos Slynt, Jon seizes Slynt and demands Longclaw. The startled look on Ser Alliser's face - the fact that he rises but does not step in the way of his Lord Commander - says it all. This dude is serious. And with that, Jon kills his first defenseless enemy, unwittingly avenging Ned Stark... and earns a nod from King Stannis.

The second instance of 'put up or shut up' is, of course, the trip to Hardhome. Killing Mance Rayder loses Stannis the support of the Free Folk, effectively dooming his campaign for Winterfell. Jon manages to curry some wildling favor by sparing Mance from burning, but in order to regain all of it, he has to show he's willing to be one of them. It's an incredibly simple demand and one that soaks up the middle part of the season and HOLY s*** THAT BATTLE. Everyone knows how great the massacre of Hardhome is.
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness