Game of Thrones: Top 10 most evil villains from the books

7. Roose Bolton

Similar to Walder Frey, Roose Bolton is willing to do horrible things to improve the position of his house, even if it means betraying his own countrymen and participating in their slaughter at the Red Wedding. Roose is the one who delivers the killing blow to his king Robb Stark by plunging a knife through his heart.

What separates Roose from Walder Frey is that Walder participated in the Red Wedding because he felt betrayed by Robb. Roose did it to become the new lord of the North. From the jump, Roose’s priority is gaining power for House Bolton. He frequently weakened the Northern cause when he could while keeping his Bolton men safe, even going as far as to order Northerners into a battle he knew they’d lose and then lying about it.

During A Clash of Kings, Roose presumably orders his bastard son Ramsay to kill the garrison left at Winterfell and burn the castle. By A Dance With Dragons, Roose holds a questionable grip over the Northern lords, and it remains to be seen if he will be killed by Ramsay like in the show.

A side detail is that Roose once held a war meeting while he was naked and being leeched by maesters. Not really evil but definitely a Human Resources concern.

6. Craster

When Lord Commander Jeor Mormont leads a massive Night’s Watch force north of the Wall, we are introduced to a despicable wildling named Craster. Although Craster is relatively friendly to the Watch as far as wildlings are concerned, he is a truly awful human being.

Craster shares his small keep with 19 of his daughters, with whom he has incestuous and probably non-consensual relationships. When new daughters come of age, Craster marries them. In the books, there is speculation that Craster kills his sons by sacrificing them to the Others. This is more or less confirmed on the show.

In A Storm of Swords, the Night’s Watch returns to Craster’s Keep after their defeat at the Fist of the First men. Weakened, cold and starving, the remaining Night’s Watch members are not happy with their Lord Commander and have little patience for Craster’s nastiness. They also believe that Craster is holding back food and supplies that they desperately need. Eventually, tensions boil over and a full blown mutiny sees Craster get his throat slit. That fate seems too lenient for Craster if you ask me.