10 TV Characters They Wanted You To Forget

You could have the most emotional, exciting, and compelling story in the history of all stories, but without characters that an audience can connect to, it would mean very little. What is the point of a strong narrative if no one cares about who the events of the story are happening to?

The goal for every story is to create wonderful characters with which audiences can form strong connections, whether this is in a good way, with a protagonist viewers truly want to see win, or with villains that people crave to see get their just desserts.

However, there are occurrences throughout such stories that, for a certain amount of time, writers need characters to be forgotten completely. WhatCulture has already delved into what this looks like on the big screen, but what about on TV?

Here, a character could be gone for years before showing up again to make their dramatic, comedic, or fan service-led return, though that's not to say there aren't occasions where the forgotten character would return within that same episode. Ranging from nameless background characters to the lead role of an entire series, making certain characters disappear can bring with it a wealth of rewards when they return.

Game of Thrones boasts a cast of characters unlike any other TV show. From the north to the south of Westeros, beyond the Wall, and across the Narrow Sea, there were almost countless developed characters with stories that viewers genuinely cared about. In this sense, it was relatively easy for one character to get lost in the intertwining stories.

When Joffrey Baratheon took the Iron Throne as his own, one of the first things he did was relieve Ser Barristan Selmy of his duties as Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, essentially sending him into exile.

Barristan the Bold was a swordsman and warrior of legendary prowess, and in doing this Joffrey both deprived himself of a strong and reliable ally, and allowed his enemy to gain one. This however, didn't become apparent until Selmy returned to the show sporting a full beard across the Narrow Sea in season three.

A mysterious hooded figure was revealed to be Selmy when he saved Daenerys from an assassination attempt, before pledging his sword to his new Queen. By this point, no one was expecting Barristan the Bold to ever turn up again, as even book readers were forced to second guess themselves as the show went on.