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

2. Ramsay Bolton

Although he shares some of the same sadistic tendencies as Joffrey Baratheon, Ramsay Bolton is much scarier because he is more cunning. He enjoys cruelty and even torturing others, flaying them in the old custom of House Bolton.

Ramsay is also very good at manipulating others, as seen in A Clash of Kings. While Roose Bolton is fighting in the south, Ramsay builds up an army and begins tormenting the neighboring Hornwood lands. He kidnaps, forces marriage upon, assaults and eventually kills the widowed Donella Hornwood. He is able to avoid capture by Stark loyalists and position himself as a friend to Theon Greyjoy, who recently captured Winterfell for his father.

Ramsay does this by disguising himself as a common servant. When Winterfell is being surrounded by the Northern forces threatening to take the castle back from the Greyjoys, Ramsay convinces Theon to send him to the Dreadfort to get reinforcements. However, Ramsay returns with a Bolton army, wipes out the Stark loyalists, sacks Winterfell and burns the castle. Theon is taken captive, flayed and tortured to the point where he becomes a new man named Reek, a servant loyal only to Ramsey.

In A Dance with Dragons, Ramsay marries a girl named Jeyne Pool, whom the Boltons claim is Arya Stark. He abuses her and keeps Jeyne starved in a tower. Perhaps his most evil habit is chasing naked girls through the forest with a pack of wolves. If he deems them to have given him good sport, Ramsay kills the girls quickly. If not, he skins them alive.

For me, Ramsay answers the question of what would Joffrey do if he was older and smarter. Although Ramsay’s actions are truly despicable, there is one more guy in the books who takes the position of the most evil man in Westeros.