Twitter's Most Loved & Hated 'GoT' Characters Are *Totally* Not Who You'd Expect

While the weather may be getting warmer and you might have bid your winter coat goodbye for another year, there should be only one thing on Game Of Thrones fans minds. Winter is well and truly coming. The eighth and last season of the show will start on April 15 on Sky Atlantic and it is nearly time to say goodbye to one of the most popular shows in the last decade. Death isn’t exactly uncommon on Game of Thrones, many characters haven’t made it to the last season. So, who are the most loved and hated Game of Thrones characters?

Exchange website musicMagpie analysed tweets from GoT fans to establish all this and more, including which death you were saddest about — because let's be real, they haven’t exactly been few and far between. MusicMagpie analysed over 131 million tweets and the most loved character was totally not who I expected. It turns out that with 57 percent of joyous tweets being sent in his direction, it is Tormund Giantsbane who comes out at top spot as the favourite character in Game Of Thrones. Coming next with 49 percent of joyous tweets, is Brienne of Tarth, followed by Samwell Tarly and Tyrion Lannister in joint third place with 42 percent. In fourth spot is Ygritte with 37 percent.

However, just because you are most loved, doesn’t mean you are the most talked about. It appeared that the characters that appeared in the show for the longest period of time fared better when it came to mentions. MusicMagpie revealed that Jon Snow was the most talked about character on Twitter with an astounding 2,910,331 mentions. Well, I suppose there is a lot to say about Snow. Creeping into second place was the Mother of Dragons herself, Daenerys Targaryen, with 2.6 million mentions.

Both Arya and Sansa Stark were popular on twitter racking up 1.3 million mentions and 1.08 million mentions respectively. Tyrion Lannister proved popular again, receiving 991,965 mentions — I guess it pays to be a little bit of a scoundrel.

Watching GoT can be pretty emotionally exhausting. You only needed to get to the end of the first season to realise that building emotional attachments only made character deaths all the more painful. It was the death of Viserion which made fans the most upset, with 82 percent of tweets about the dragon invoking a sad sentiment. Jon Snow’s "death" also got a massive sad reaction, with 75 percent of tweets being unhappy.

One of the better things about GoT is that the show didn’t only create characters fans could love. It is pretty tough to work out who exactly has created the most anger over the last seven series, but Bronn took the top spot as most hated character with 24 percent of tweets about him being angry. Shockingly the number two spot is shared by Theon Greyjoy, Bran Stark, and Joffrey Baratheon with 17 percent of tweets being angry about them. Taking third spot is the terrible but still painfully attractive Jaime Lannister, with 16 percent of tweets about him being angry.

So, do you think your favourite character will make it to the end of season eight? There aren’t many of the OG cast left and to say that this season promises to be bloody is probably a great understatement. It is going to be seriously thrilling though. The final series of GoT premieres on Monday, April 15 on Sky Atlantic at 9 p.m.