On the Ringers list of top 25 Game of Thrones villains they have the High Sparrow at #6, ahead of both Boltons.
However, if you think about it the High Sparrow is not really a villain. While most claimants to the throne only want to enrich themselves or their family, the High Sparrow has not interest in house or in wealth. He wants what is best for the common people. As adviser to the king he gets Tommen to get rid of trial by combat which allows the wealthy and powerful to be above the law.
When he holds trials for Cersei, Margery, and Loras he treats them like everyone else and not as special because they are rich and powerful. The crimes he arrests them for with the exception of Loras are actual crimes, perjury and incest.
He treats them badly while they are arrested but that is just the way prisoners are treated in Westeros. Justice is harsh for everyone. Ned kills a guy for running away from the white walkers, Dany roasts two people who refuse to betray their house, and Jon executes a child. Unlike the others when they make a confession he offers forgiveness and a new start.
He is instrumentally bad in that he temporarily helps Cersei against the Tyrells but that is only for a short time and he comes closer than anyone else to bringing Cersei down.
Viewers hated him because he represented the antithesis of what makes GOT great, the scheming, the violence, the sexiness, the love of family before everything else. However in real life a person like the Great Sparrow would have made the best leader out of anyone with a plausible claim.
The High Sparrow is every bit as scheming as anyone else. He’s just as bad as the rest of them; he plots and maneuvers to exert power over King’s Landing. The fact he doesn’t seek wealth is really quite irrelevant; indeed, if you think about it, Cersei Lannister isn’t seeking wealth either. She’s already wealthy. She seeks power largely out of a sense of self-preservation.
He’s a religious fanatic. I think he’s probably a villain, just not the worst of the lot. He’d be a better ruler than Cersei or Joffrey, but worse than many other claimants (Dany, Stannis, Jon, the Tyrells, etc.).
I see the High Sparrow as essentially one of the medieval Popes–scheming to take power for himself. The twin pillars were supposedly the Crown and the Church, but the pillar of the Church did everything it could to erode the pillar of the Crown. And up until the end, he was always two steps ahead of Cersei.
At it’s core, Game of Thrones is a show about power. Who has it? Who’s trying to get it? How do you define it?
I think a good amount of what defines the villains on the show is “How do they treat those who are a threat to their power?” Do they behead them? Hang them? Torture them? Feed them to their dogs? Parade them through the streets naked?
The Boltons had people skinned alive, tortured Theon for months, hunted people for sports, betrayed and murdered their liege lord, fed a new mother and her baby to dogs, killed Rickon in front of his family, and repeatedly raped Sansa.
The high sparrow had people who commited perjury locked up until they confessed and had them occasionally hit with a spoon.
The Boltons goals were power for their house and their own personal enjoyment.
The high Sparrow’s goals were a world where the rich and powerful were treated like everyone else.
There was a whole lot more torture that was not quite covered on the show. It was pretty brutal, and it did not stop until the person “confessed” to whatever they wanted them to say. And I’m not talking about the accused only, but witnesses as well. The high sparrows goal was to force his religion on the country, and his religion was pretty shitty. The seven kingdoms under Roose Bolton would have been a much better place than under the High Sparrow.
100% he’s a villian. He used lofty rhetoric as a cover story for gathering power and running a brutal violent mob.
Wants what’s best for the people?! Is interested in justice?! I feel like we watched a different show. He sent groups of armed thugs to assault private citizens and tortured his enemies until they confessed to crimes.
You can argue that the High Sparrow was completely full of it and was just as manipulative as anyone else. But even if in his heart of hearts he was 100% sincere he would still be a villain. Every villain thinks they are the hero of their story.
I always thought he was entirely sincere, but also a villain. He wanted to set up a theocratic state with himself pulling the strings and directing the mobs. Although personally austere and not into women, wine or luxurious living - to his credit, he at least wasn’t a hypocrite - he clearly wanted to wield absolute or near-absolute power for religious purposes. Not cool.
Yes, of course he was… his particular drug was power and control over the people.
Granted, there is such a thing as magic and God-like creatures in the universe of GOT, but he was clearly on it just for the thrill of being the main guy, and to do that he tortured and brainwashed countless victims.
This is nuts. He definitely was trying to force his religion on the country but it is not that bad a religion. In his first scene he is handing out soup to the poor and hungry, and that is something none of the other characters ever does. He has trial by combat outlawed and says that all people should be equal before the law. Brother Ray was an example of the type of person who was a septon.
Roose raped Ramsay’s mother under the tree where the dead body of her husband was still hanging. His crime was failing to ask permission to wed.
If Roose Bolton were king it would be a place where any woman who struck his fancy or that of his son could be raped with impunity and anyone who complained would be eaten by dogs or skinned alive. Torture for anyone accused of a crime. People could be hunted for sport by anyone with power.
Being slightly better than Roose Bolton does not equal “good guy.” Betsy DeVos is slightly better than Donald Trump. As others have noted, the Sparrow was attempting to implement a theocracy, a political system where everyone must profess to the same religious beliefs and failure to do so is harshly punished. That’s not something good, it’s just another form of bad.
Oh cool, so if I volunteer at a soup kitchen, torturing innocent people on suspicion of something that violates a personal moral code is totally cool? Forming vigilante gangs to roam the streets and beat the shit out of people we don’t like gets a pass?
He’s better than Joffrey and Cersei and Aerys II, but by no means good. Give me the lazy neglect of Robert or the benelovent inexperience of Tommen over an autocatic religious fundamentalist.
I would note that the criteria that The Ringer used are quite different from what most people are using.
They ranked the villains on five criteria:
Most people seem to be focusing on whether the High Sparrow is more evil than the Boltons. Whatever the case, he’s certainly far more interesting in terms of motive or complexity. The fact that the Boltons are essentially pure evil without any mitigating factors actually counts against them in this ranking. The fact that the High Sparrow may have high motivations and may do some good makes him a more interesting villain.
If you consider the High Sparrow a villain you also have to consider that Dani might also be one. She has a high purpose in freeing slaves, but she is really driven by a lust for power and revenge. And she is capable of extreme cruelty against her enemies, burning them alive, crucifying them, or sealing them in a vault to die slowly of starvation.