From its very first episode, Game of Thrones impressed audiences by doing what few fantasy shows on TV had before. The pilot episode ended with Jaime Lannister shoving a small child out the window of a castle tower. From then on out, he was just one of many horrifically cruel villains in the series.
The show was often described as a fantasy tv show for people who don't like fantasy, but this was a description mostly used by people unaware of just how smart, dark, and nuanced fantasy stories can be. But beyond the sex and violence, it was the characters which gave the series widespread appeal, including quite a few of the villains. The following are the ten cruelest Game of Thrones characters, ranked.
Khal Drogo
Khal Drogo is one of the few likable characters to make this list. The Khal is Daenerys's first and only husband and a Dothraki war-leader. He is absolutely fearless, reveling in his victory over others. The Dothraki are a culture inspired by the Mongols of the real world, whose language had no word for "peace" and who conquered half the known world from the backs of their horses.
Khal Drogo is portrayed sympathetically after he and Daenerys come to love each other, but he is a man who exalts in the screaming of people dying beneath the arrows and blades of his men and who rewards his soldiers by giving them women as prizes.
Littlefinger
Petyr Baelish, or Littlefinger as he is commonly known, is the type of cruel person most visible in the real world: a person who wraps themselves in wealth and respectability with no respect for the humanity of others.
Littlefinger has allowed people he professes to care for to be tortured and murdered. He sold Sansa out to Ramsay Bolton, knowing what would befall her. He betrayed Ned Stark, and in fact betrayed just about every person ever to be his ally. He does not care in the suffering of others at all but he revels in having power over them, whatever the cost may be.
The Hound
Like Khal Drogo, the Hound is another character who becomes increasingly more sympathetic as the series continues. He is consumed with hate and rage, vengefully lashing out with his sword at anyone who mouths off to him. As King Robert's personal enforcer, he has the ability to literally get away with murder.
Eventually, he finds peace and turns away from his murderous habits. Then, the show's producers abandoned all internal character consistency in the final two seasons, ensuring that the Hound returned to his life of hate and murder-obsessed savagery.
The Mountain That Rides
The Hound's brother is Gregor Clegane, known to most of Westeros as the Mountain that Rides. During the overthrow of the Mad King, Ser Gregor cornered Princess Ella, smashed her baby's brains against a wall, forced himself on her, and then murdered her, a crime for which he went unpunished.
After losing a joust to the Knight of Flowers, he beheads the other man's horse and tries to kill him. Time and again, the Mountain massacres innocent civilians, apparently because he is angry at them for existing.
Walder Frey
Walder Frey is a man of family values, specifically, he values his family above all else. He has a huge ego and an even bigger appetite for power. He is also prickly and insecure, taking even the smallest slights as great offenses upon his house. After Robb Stark breaks off an engagement with one of Walder's daughters, Walder arranges for Robb and his entire family and all of his bannermen to be murdered in the infamous Red Wedding. He even kills Robb's pregnant wife and his direwolf.
Beyond his penchant for murder, Walder is verbally abusive to pretty much everyone he encounters and has an appetite for wives barely out of puberty.
Euron Greyjoy
The Ironborn of the Iron Islands are a culture loosely inspired by the real-life Vikings. They are a maritime society who frequently raid, reave, and murder for sport. Their religion involves the worship of the Drowned God and involves drowning rituals as a Lovecraftian reinterpretation of baptism. Of all the Ironborn, none is crueler than Euron Greyjoy.
Euron has traveled all over the world, learning from different cultures on his voyages. He is a wild, unpredictable man who inspires loyalty in some, but he mostly rules through fear. In the final season of the show, he murders one of Daenerys's dragons, while in the books, she is warned to fear Euron above any other enemies.
The Masters Of Slaver's Bay
There are three major city-states in Slaver's Bay: Yunkai, ruled by the Wise Masters; Astapor, which is governed by the Good Masters; and Meereen, where the Great Masters are in power. Slaver's Bay appears to be a mixture of different cultures, taking inspiration from several real-world slaver societies and employing some of the worst tortures and beliefs of both ancient Persia and the American Antebellum South.
The Masters believe themselves superior to their slaves, whose humanity they invalidate through violent tortures. The Good Masters of Astapor train the Unsullied, not even allowing them to have permanent names, while the Wise Masters of Yunkai deal in sexual slavery.
Cersei Lannister
Cersei Lannister is quite possibly the greatest femme fatale in all of literature. She was blessed with wealth, ambition, brains, and beauty but was born into a world that does not respect women. As such, she has learned to use sex, treachery, and manipulation to get what she wants.
Cersei is ruthless to a fault. She does not merely destroy her enemies; she enjoys making them suffer in the cruelest ways possible. The nun who shamed her is subjected to prolonged abuse by the Mountain, who by that point is undead. She kisses Tyene with poison on her lips, then makes Tyene's mother Ellaria watch her daughter die as the two are chained in front of each other. Cersei even risks all of humanity succumbing to the Night King just to hurt her political rivals and remain on the Iron Throne.
Ramsay Snow
Ramsay Snow is easily the most sadistic person in the whole series. His father and he both enjoy flaying their enemies, while their house's heraldric devices even feature a flayed man. But while his father Roose is cold and calculating about killing others, Ramsay actively enjoyed torturing people, sometimes for no other purpose but enjoyment.
In truth, the inventiveness of Ramsay's malice borders on artful. He spends years physically and psychologically breaking Theon Greyjoy. He uses his hunting dogs to hunt down men. Repeatedly, he tempts people with freedom, then snatches it from them. No death would be cruel enough for this monster.
Night King
Ramsay Snow may be the cruelest living man of the main characters in the series, but the Night King is a literal monster. The Night King may not enjoy flaying people alive and murdering them in front of their family members, but that is because he does not enjoy anything.
The Night King's sole purpose is the destruction of all life. It is just a pity his story has such a weak anticlimactic conclusion. An undead lich like that should have had an appropriately dramatic end to his arc.