Who is the main antagonist in A Song of Ice and Fire?
A Song of Ice and Fire is an epic novel which strikes people’s minds. There are several dynasties with their own histories and a big number of characters. Every hero is thoroughly described, they reveal their characters in different situations following no particular pattern. However, there is an exception.
Joffrey Baratheon, First of His Name, King of the Andals and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms. He is a whimsical and chicken-hearted person with a greedy for fame and on top of that he is an outspoken sadist. One can think that Joffrey’s bad upbringing and his absolute unreadiness to govern the state are connected with his father’s devil-may-care attitude and his mother’s constant concessions.
Eddard Stark, Sansa’s father has been wrongly accused for betrayal and Joffrey promised Sansa to show mercy towards her father, but he broke his word. He sentenced the ex spear hand to death through the beheading. All the more, he forced his bride to look at this horrible action. This reckless order, delivered against his mother’s wish and against the whole Counsel served as an additional impulse to spark a civil war which went down in history as the War of Five Kings. Joffrey is an unruled, unpredictable and cruel king, hated by the public. The new king did not feel pity neither for his people nor for his future queen Sansa because often he ordered to beat her in front of everybody. He did not do it himself seeing that it’s not honorable for a king to beat his dame, that’s why his servant did it for him.
Joffrey is a young man with an attractive appearance but he is a selfish tyrant inside, suffering from narcissism. When Joffrey came to power, he lived in complete permissiveness, one could often hear such phrases as “I am the King, I will punish you,” “All clever women must do all what they are said,” “I may torment anyone, remember it” (Martin, 2011).
All his actions lead to the people’s hatred. One shall not forget that people are starving due to this boy, but when a starvation death menaces to people they can be very challenging.
From these facts, one may conclude that though Joffrey Baratheon is a negative hero, he is an important and charismatic person. He is one of the most interesting characters of the Saga as he has merited a general hatred.
