There are some serious women in "Game of Thrones," from Arya Stark and her fighting skills to Daenerys Targaryen and her dragons.
We see the political and emotional power many of these female characters possess in the show, especially Cersei Lannister at King's Landing, Sansa Stark at Winterfell and Daenerys Targaryen at, well, pretty much everywhere she goes.
Here's how those characters and more contribute to the show as strong female leads.
We first meet Daenerys when her brother forces her to marry Khal Drogo. We see her character grow in season one from someone who doesn't appear to have any rights into an equal of Khal Drogo. They fall in love, and it's through this marriage and Drogo's death that her dragons are born.
Daenerys becomes a strong leader, fighting to free slaves and conquering town after town before she gets to Westeros.
She escapes a warlock from Qarth, fights in battles with her dragons, becomes the first female leader of the Dothraki and then leads them for the first time across the sea.
Although she is always striving to be the ultimate queen bee, she does appear to try and make decisions based more on kindness, as opposed to a character like Cersei.
From the beginning, we see Arya's strength with her verbally declaring her desire to duel rather than dress like a lady.
At a young age, she outshot her brother Bran with a bow and arrow.
She stands up to Joffrey Baratheon early on, too, when he's tormenting her friend, and she hits him with a stick and then her dire wolf attacks him. After Joffrey has the Hound kill her friend, Arya remembers this and vows to kill the Hound, though when she has the chance to, she leaves him to die a slow death alone even though he begs for her to kill him.
Arya's character evolves to another level with her warrior skills when she travels to Braavos and becomes a master assassin. Eventually going against the principles of the Faceless Men, she decides she cannot kill people who she believes are innocent. Arya is almost murdered by one of the assassins but winds up murdering the woman instead.
Vengeance is a recurring theme we see with her character. Walder Frey killed Arya's mother and brother, so after Arya leaves Braavos, she travels to Frey's castle, murders his children, skillfully hides the body parts in a pie and feeds it to Frey before killing him.
We last left off with Arya working with Sansa to take down Littlefinger.
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Sansa has it rough throughout most of the seasons of "Game of Thrones." At first, she wants to become Joffrey's wife, until she realizes he's insane and dangerous.
But at that point, it's too late and she's stuck in King's Landing. She bides her time, however, and never lets the Lannisters know how much she hates being there.
She is eventually forced to marry a much older Tyrion Lannister. When Joffrey is murdered, she escapes only to be paired up by Littlefinger to marry Ramsay Bolton. We then discover he enjoys torturing almost anyone he encounters.
Sansa survives all of these men and helps take down Ramsay when he fights Jon Snow by getting Littlefinger to contribute troops to the battle.
Sansa winds up back at Winterfell, where she is Lady of Winterfell and holds down the fort while Jon goes off to meet with Daenerys.
Brienne, a fearless warrior who knows a thing or two about sword fighting, is most likely tied for best female fighter with Arya.
She teams up with other women throughout the show, first pledging her allegiance to Catelyn Stark after Renly Baratheon's murder.
Brienne serves her until Catelyn is murdered, but then goes on to serve Catelyn's daughters, Sansa and Arya.
We see Brienne in some pretty intense battles, including one with a bear and one with the Hound, where she nearly kills him.
She is the one who kills Stannis Baratheon, and also saved Sansa and Theon Greyjoy from Ramsay's men and dogs.
Catelyn is fiercely protective of her children. Unfortunately, she doesn't save them all, but she does her best to protect Bran from being murdered in season one, gripping the attacker's knife as her hands bleed before the dire wolf comes to save the day.
She acts in public to arrest Tyrion when she (incorrectly) believes he was the one working to kill Bran.
Catelyn works throughout the show, until her death, to do her best to protect her children, even letting Jaime Lannister out of captivity to return to King's Landing in the hopes of freeing her daughters.
Cersei appears mad with power at times, but as queen, she has had some strong moments.
She knows how serious the game of thrones is, saying to Ned Stark in season one just before he's killed: "When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die."
Cersei loses her children, but goes on being queen and standing up to every one of her enemies.
She gets out of the High Sparrow's jail only to turn around and blow up the Great Sept of Baelor with wildfire, killing him and daughter-in-law Margaery Tyrell. She then takes her revenge on Septa Unella, who had helped imprison Cersei when she was locked up by the High Sparrow.
Cersei is the ultimate master of revenge, also getting it against Ellaria Sand, who murdered her daughter Myrcella. Cersei locks Ellaria up with her daughter, Tyene, and poisons the daughter making her mother watch and remain locked up in the room.
