ASoIaF spoilers:
I'm rather confused that Jaime Lannister got as far as he did when the writeups treat him as being post-maiming. It's a distinct plot point that he's a totally incompetent fighter after that. Just... zuh? He's not even exceptionally clever or resourceful or anything that would make him good in this format. (He's rather charismatic, but the books provide plenty of evidence that this doesn't help him much in a fight or against someone determined, even pre-maiming he was about to lose to Brienne when their fight was interrupted.) And I say this as someone who rather likes the character overall.
Of course, it's probably part of the overall pattern of who wins having more to do with the popularity of his or her series than anything else, but I guess that's to be expected. Fun enough read otherwise from what I've seen.