This past October marked the 22nd anniversary of Gilmore Girls' premiere episode, which prompted Melissa McCarthy to post about her fond memories from the series. Though it has been off-air for fifteen years, the fandom has remained devoted to the series, despite the generally negative response to A Year in the Life. The revival showed where the characters ended up nine years later, and an unfortunately small number managed to stick with their beliefs, while most lost their courage.
On Gilmore Girls, bravery was rarely a matter of running into a fire or jumping off cliffs. Instead, bravery was being strong enough to be yourself, regardless of those who disagreed. While some characters embraced that ideal with everything they had, others lived their lives primarily for comfort, clinging to safety instead of reaching for their dreams. Following that line, the Gilmore Girls characters can be sorted according to their bravery in the face of an uncertain world.
10 Dean Forester
Dean was Rory's first love, but he had a bad habit of lashing out when he was hurt. Rather than confront his feelings head-on, he fought back instead. When Rory didn't say she loved him back immediately, Dean mocked her and ended their relationship. When Rory and Jess started getting close, he started picking fights.
On the rare occasion that Dean wasn't fighting, he was running away. As his marriage with Lindsay fell apart, he cheated on her with Rory. Dean fundamentally couldn't handle complicated situations and painful emotions, when the brave thing would be to sit with the hurt anyway.
9 Rory Gilmore
While Rory had great aspirations for herself, she never really had to risk anything until adulthood, at which point she began to crack under the pressure. Because she was so sheltered in her youth, she rarely had to practice bravery.
She is perhaps best described by her comment to Mitchum in season 5: "I've always done what's asked of me." Rory was expected to live up to the expectations of those around her, which she did for most of her life. However, she rarely took any real chances and never seemed to find her own desires in life, which led her to run away from her mother—to the safety and security of her grandparents.
8 Richard Gilmore
Richard is the epitome of conforming to society, and he never really broke away from that. Though he clearly loved Lorelai and Rory, his actions almost always supported his position. And while he cared for Emily, he let his mother treat her like garbage.
His greatest risk was starting his own firm, but even that was just the next expected step in his pre-planned journey. Because of his wealth and status, Richard never really had to grow. He wasn't necessarily a coward, but he also never had to brave because his money lowered all the stakes.
7 Logan Huntzberger
Logan seems like an extremely brave character given his antics with the Life and Death Brigade, but all of his schemes and pranks were just an outlet for how trapped he felt within the wealthy society he was born into. He could take risks with his health, but not his future.
The exception to that was his relationship with Rory, as Logan consistently chose his feelings for Rory over his family's approval. However, he otherwise conformed to the society of his family and friends. He went into business as expected, and by A Year In The Life, he was engaged to an heiress his family approved of. Despite demonstrating some character growth, his emotional bravery began and ended with Rory.
6 Sookie St. James
It's no secret that the great and quotable Sookie could be a nervous ball energy (and though she took some major risks in life, they always came with a breakdown). She was terrified to pursue her relationship with Jackson, terrified to open the Dragonfly Inn, and terrified to become a mother.
With that being said, bravery is not the absence of fear. It's seeing every potential bad ending and doing the thing anyway, which Sookie did. She wasn't the bravest character on the show by far, but she deserves credit for continuing to push forward despite all of her fears and insecurities.
5 Emily Gilmore
While Emily Gilmore had the opportunity to take big risks in her life, most of them were bolstered by her money and position, which left her with plenty of security. Because of that, the only times she really had to be brave was when she faced emotional turmoil she couldn't buy her way out of.
Generally speaking, Emily followed the rules of society above following her own desires. It took her decades to reconnect with Lorelai, and when her relationship with Richard crumbled, so did she. However, fans saw her true potential for bravery in A Year in the Life, when she had to confront her grief and build a new life for herself without her husband.
4 Jess Mariano
When Jess first came to Star's Hollow, he was a master at escapism. He kept his distance from people with the power to hurt him, and he poured his pain into the books he read and the things he wrote. He also had a tendency to lash out at the people in his life that he was closest to, trying to push them away before they could leave him.
Despite all of that, he grew a lot after he left town, which led him to be the advocate for courage in Rory's life. When she was hiding from the world, he pushed her to embrace her truth just as he had done. After leaving town, he had published his book and learned to appreciate the people around him, thanking Luke for everything upon returning. All in all, Jess learned to be brave and honest about what he truly believed (leading to many iconic Gilmore Girls quotes).
3 Luke Danes
Though Luke rarely made any major life changes on Gilmore Girls, that is more a matter of him liking his life than it is about fear of taking risks. When it matters—dating Lorelai, embracing his daughter, buying a house—he makes quick and committed decisions.
There are two key exceptions to this trend, but his hesitations make complete sense. When Lorelai pressured Luke to elope with her, he hesitated. However, that wasn't a sign of cowardice. They weren't ready, and they both knew the dangers of getting married for the wrong reasons. His other hesitation came when Richard pressured him to create a franchise, which he had never wanted to do. Luke had the quiet bravery to both embrace change and reject it when it was a bad idea.
2 Lane Kim
Lane spent most of her life hiding who she was, being rebellious in her clothes and music choices but only in secret. Lane's first relationship fell apart for exactly that reason, as she wasn't brave enough to confront her mother or fight for what she wanted.
However, that all started changing when Lane snuck out of the house to play with her band. Her secrets were revealed, and rather than begging for forgiveness, Lane stepped up. She went out on her own, got a job, and found a place to live, all while keeping her music as top priority. For a character who had so much to hide, it only took one big moment for Lane to become brave enough to build the life she wanted.
1 Lorelai Gilmore
Lorelai is the bravest character in Gilmore Girls, pushing to accomplish her dreams no matter what obstacles she faced. She drove herself to the hospital when she went into labor, and she then ran away from home with no support system to get away from the restrictions of her home life.
Even once Lorelai had a relatively stable life in Stars Hollow, she continued to take risks by reestablishing contact with her parents and starting her own inn. While she frequently ran away from relationships when they got too serious, she eventually grew out of that, becoming courageous in her love life as well as her social and professional life.