Every Game of Thrones Maester Ranked: From Saintly Saviors to Sinister Schemers

Maesters in Game of Thrones are the ultimate background MVPs: healers, teachers, historians, and the sober voices in rooms full of hotheads. They stitch up wounds, shape young minds, and keep Westeros' past from getting buried under all that spilled wine and blood. Of course, not every chain-wearer is a saint. Some are noble. Some are opportunists. A few are straight-up hazards. So, here’s my read on the most important maesters in the show, ranked from the saintliest to the most wicked.

From steady hands to bad medicine

1. Maester Aemon

   Before Daenerys ever crossed the Narrow Sea, there was Aemon Targaryen, who gave up a prince’s life to take the black and serve as both a maester and a brother of the Night’s Watch. He spent decades at Castle Black, advising Lord Commander Jeor Mormont and later earning the trust of Jon Snow and Samwell Tarly. Kind, razor-sharp even in extreme old age, and blind for most of the show, Aemon is one of the vanishingly few people in Westeros who actually dies of old age. Imagine that.

2. Maester Luwin

   Winterfell’s quiet backbone. Luwin is fiercely loyal to House Stark and basically a second father to Bran and Rickon. When the Ironborn take Winterfell, he keeps doing the work: counseling, problem-solving, and getting word to Robb about what happened at home. He’s stabbed by Dagmer during the chaos but manages to reach the godswood, where Bran, Rickon, Osha, and Hodor find him. Loyal to the last breath.

3. Maester Cressen (played by Oliver Ford Davies)

   Short stint, big swing. Cressen serves Stannis Baratheon and spots trouble immediately in Melisandre. When he can’t talk Stannis off the red priestess bandwagon, he tries to poison her, fully ready to go down with the ship if it means saving his lord. It backfires, and Cressen pays with his life, but the intent is clear: unwavering devotion to what he believes is right.

4. Grand Maester Samwell

   Sam starts as Jon Snow’s awkward, lovable friend at the Wall, meets Gilly, and then does the very Sam thing of deciding to become a maester because knowledge might just save the world. He studies White Walkers when nobody wants to hear about White Walkers, and by the end, he’s wearing the big chain himself as Grand Maester. Quite the glow-up for the guy who used to apologize to books for turning their pages.

5. Archmaester Ebrose

   The Citadel’s top dog and Sam’s teacher. Ebrose is calm, learned, and very good at reminding people that the past is full of panics that didn’t end civilization. The downside: he’s so committed to process and precedent that he blocks Sam from digging into White Walker intel and bars him from attempting Jorah Mormont’s greyscale cure. Smart, steady, and a little too in love with the status quo while the world is changing outside.

6. Maester Wolkan (played by Richard Rycroft)

   Wolkan is the slippery kind of dangerous: the functionary who does what he’s told, no matter how ugly. He knows Ramsay Bolton murdered his own father and still parrots the official line that Roose was poisoned. He’s aware of what Sansa suffers under Ramsay and does nothing. It’s not cartoon villainy; it’s the quieter complicity that lets villains thrive.

7. Maester Qyburn

   They took his chain away for a reason. Qyburn’s obsession with pushing science past any ethical boundary gets him expelled from the Citadel, and he just keeps going anyway. His alliance with the Lannisters (especially Cersei) gives him room to tinker with horrors, like what he does to the Mountain. Brilliant? Sure. Moral? Not remotely.

8. Grand Maester Pycelle

   Pycelle plays the long game in King’s Landing politics, hiding behind a doddering-old-man act that’s more costume than reality. He loyally serves the Lannisters and sticks his nose in plenty of nasty business, from backing moves to assassinate a young Daenerys to very possibly helping pave the way for Jon Arryn’s death. Also, yes, he sleeps with Ros. He survives by being useful to the powerful, ethics optional.

Why the chain matters

Maesters are the keepers of knowledge and the ones who patch up the bleeding. But as you can see, some wield that power with integrity and some with... flexible morals. That tension is part of why they’re fascinating, even when they’re in the background stirring a pot of herbs or writing letters nobody reads until it’s too late.

Game of Thrones ran for 8 seasons from April 17, 2011 to May 19, 2019. David Benioff & D.B. Weiss served as showrunners, adapting George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. On Rotten Tomatoes, the series sits at 89% from critics and 85% from audiences. You can stream it on HBO Max.

Got a favorite maester or a ranking you’d flip? Drop it in the comments.