Walder Frey
| House / Order | House Frey |
|---|---|
| Race / Culture | |
| Status | Alive (in the novels) |
| Origin | The Riverlands, at the Twins |
| Born | 208 AC |
| Died | — |
| Weapon | |
| Fate | Orchestrated the Red Wedding; presides over the Twins as an aged and much-married lord |
| Portrayed by |
Walder Frey is the Lord of the Crossing and head of the vast and prolific House Frey, whose seat, the Twins, commands the only bridge across the Green Fork of the Trident for hundreds of miles. Ancient, spiteful, and grasping, Walder is notorious for his enormous brood of descendants and for the monstrous betrayal he committed at the Red Wedding, where he slaughtered his guests in violation of all the laws of hospitality.
Background
Walder Frey has lived more than ninety years and outlasted seven wives, fathering a staggering number of legitimate children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, along with assorted bastards. He rules the strategically vital crossing at the Twins, a position that has made House Frey wealthy through tolls even as it has earned them the contempt of older houses, who view the Freys as upjumped and grasping.
Walder is petty, suspicious, and acutely conscious of every slight to his honor and his house. He earned the mocking name "the Late Lord Frey" for arriving with his host at the Trident only after the battle in Robert's Rebellion was already decided, a nickname he never forgave.
The War of the Five Kings
At the outset of the War of the Five Kings, Robb Stark needed to cross the Twins with his army. Catelyn Stark negotiated passage and an alliance, the price of which was that Robb would wed one of Walder's daughters or granddaughters once the war was won. When Robb instead married Jeyne Westerling for love, breaking his oath, the proud and vengeful Walder seized on the insult.
The Red Wedding
Conspiring with Tywin Lannister and Roose Bolton, Walder feigned reconciliation and offered to host the wedding of his daughter to Robb's uncle Edmure Tully at the Twins. Under the sacred protection of guest right, Robb, Catelyn Stark, and the flower of the Northern host were welcomed as guests. Once the bread and salt had been shared and the feast was underway, the Freys and Boltons fell upon them. Robb and Catelyn were murdered, along with most of the Stark army, in the atrocity known as the Red Wedding, the most infamous breach of guest right in living memory.
Aftermath
For his treachery, Walder was rewarded with the lordship of Riverrun for his house and the title of Lord Paramount of the Trident, granted to his son. Yet the Freys earned the lasting hatred of the Riverlands and the North, and members of the family begin to die mysteriously, some at the hands of the vengeful Brotherhood Without Banners under Lady Stoneheart. As of the latest published novel, the aged Walder still presides over the Twins, surrounded by his endless, quarrelsome descendants.
Character
Walder Frey is one of the most loathed figures in the saga, a small, mean spirit elevated by accident of geography. Cunning rather than wise, he nurses grievances for decades and answers a broken betrothal with mass murder. His violation of guest right is regarded across Westeros as a crime so foul that even those who profited from it speak of it with disgust.
In the television series
In HBO's Game of Thrones, Walder Frey is portrayed by David Bradley. The series stages the Red Wedding and later depicts his death at the hands of Arya Stark in vengeance, an event that has not occurred in the published novels.