You Win Or You Die: Ranking the 99 Game of Thrones Deaths

Image credit: HBO/Helen Sloan

Walda Bolton

She might be a Frey and a Bolton both, but you’ve got to feel for Walda. The girl changes hands from Walder to Roose. It’s hard to decide who’s worse, although at least Roose had some dignity about him.

There was perhaps a smidgen of hope for Walda at some point. But once her son was born, that sort of flew out the window. Roose’s trueborn son posed too much of a threat to Ramsay, a legitimized bastard whose wife had escaped before providing him an heir. Even if Sansa had borne him a son, Roose’s own would take precedence over Ramsay.

And so Ramsay did what Ramsay does best: He fed Walda and his new baby brother to the hounds. Although viewers had to see it coming, all things considered, it was still a shock to see that level of brutality. Game of Thrones may be abundant in its violence, but there remain certain lines that are surprising when crossed. If you watch the show, you should prepare yourself for the unimaginable. But when you can’t imagine that it will “go there,” it’s difficult to steel yourself against it.

While the Freys and Boltons alike are guilty of so many ugly crimes, Walda herself was an innocent. She couldn’t help what family she was born into. Nor was it up to who which she would marry into later. Walda simply did her duty as it was expected of her, and was forced to pay a heinous price.