...
All right, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt on that. Fair is fair, I might have misread the tone of your post on that and took an unnecessary tone in response. For that, I apologize.
With that being said and returning to the original topic, there's no reason why a black/white perspective or a shades of grey one makes liking a character easier or harder when it comes to ASOIAF. For my part, I like to examine characters as they are, both within the setting and out. And in regards to Barristan Selmy...
Barristan Selmy to me is a yes-man, someone who exemplifies the very worst of chivalry and knighthood in much the same way someone like Dunk or Brienne exemplify the best of it. And I'll add, I think he does so in a way completely different than say Gregor Clegane.
Selmy is someone completely and utterly warped not only by the imagery or reputation of the Kingsguard (leaving aside how ridiculous that institution is) and the implicit ties between it and the King or Queen in charge. When the King is great, the Kingsguard is great. When it's the opposite, then so it follows.
To me, he seems like a genuinely well-meaning person who enjoys and perhaps supports the principles of knighthood as defined in ASOIAF, but in many ways struggles to up hold it. In the case of Rhaella Targaryen, Queen to Aerys he and none of the other Kingsguard are said to intervene in her abuse, due to it being the King doing the abuse. IRL, that's man-beating-woman and not very nice. It's also domestic abuse and a whole heap of other things. In-story, it's clear that a knight is expected to safeguard the helpless, which often times includes women and children. This duty for which he was anointed and knighted he does not uphold.
Hell, he has the gall to demand that Jaime Lannister take the black for slaying the Mad King, even when he himself cowardly stood by when Aerys did more and worse. Jaime broke his oath yes, but so did Barristan and far earlier than Jaime did.
Furthermore, Ser Barristan is a seemingly key yet inert figure in the court of King Robert. In the wake of the Rebellion, he does nothing to stem the decline of the Kingsguard and the joining of various unacceptable or inept members. He does not counsel Robert to do better, nor does he aid Jon Arryn or Eddard Stark as Hand of the King. So morose is he over having traded a Targaryen kingship for a Baratheon one, that he is one of many who helps effect the Lannister domination at court that leads to the War of 5 Kings.
He does little to rectify this error in judgment once he is stripped of his oaths as a Kingsguard. Despite his protests speaking of how he'd die a knight, he doesn't remain in Westeros to safeguard those hurt by the war, nor does he declare to Stannis who is perhaps Robert's rightful heir. Contrast this to perhaps Brienne who never ceases to continue serving Catelyn Tully even in death, and you have Selmy's failings out on display.
Instead, he elects to take ship to Essos to rejoin Daenerys, a person he has never met or known and as far as he knows could be Maegor the Cruel come again or Aerys the First or any other Targaryen archetype. Why? What is it about Daenerys and travelling across half the realm that makes him think this teenage girl is going to solve his problems?
Why, she's a Targaryen of course. And when she's a Targaryen and Selmy is a man who remembers the "good old days" of House Targaryen, then that's more than enough. Leave aside the people suffering in Westeros, and reach for that faint dream of yesteryears. A girl who hasn't lived in Westeros or seen it will save the realm, heal the hurts and bring peace where there is strife.
You're reading this all now and going "Man, Danwaka really hates Selmy".
And you know what?
I don't. I don't hate Barristan Selmy. He's a man out of time, someone without the backbone or heart to stay and fight for a cause he can't champion. He doesn't believe in Renly or Stannis, doesn't care for Joffrey or Tommen. Balon Greyjoy and Robb Stark might as well be spectres in his mind. Ser Barristan the Bold turned his tail and went to Essos and I pity him for that. I don't hate him, I pity him.
Because in his own way, he's a broken man. A broken man like so many other men broken, only he broke on the Ruby Ford when Rhaegar died, when the perfect prince every royalist envisioned would take the crown and lead the realm to a new age fell to Robert's hammer. He's a broken man chasing broken dreams, dreams that may very well never come to fruition in ASOIAF. I see that clearly and when I think it, I don't hate him. I don't wish him ill or hope he suffers.
I just feel bad.