Roose Bolton
| House / Order | House Bolton |
|---|---|
| Race / Culture | Northmen |
| Status | Alive (as of A Dance with Dragons) |
| Origin | The North; the Dreadfort |
| Born | c. 260 AC |
| Died | |
| Weapon | |
| Fate | Holding Winterfell and the North for the Iron Throne after the Red Wedding; besieged by Stannis Baratheon |
| Portrayed by | Michael McElhatton |
Roose Bolton is the Lord of the Dreadfort, head of House Bolton, and one of the principal traitors of the Red Wedding. Cold, soft-spoken, and inscrutable, he is a calculating lord who betrays his liege Robb Stark to seize the North for himself under the patronage of House Lannister.
Roose is the very embodiment of the sinister Bolton reputation: his house's ancient sigil is a flayed man, and his pale, almost colorless eyes are said to chill all who meet them. Where his bastard son Ramsay is a creature of mad appetite, Roose is a master of patient, bloodless calculation.
Background
House Bolton of the Dreadfort is among the oldest and most feared houses of the North, once kings who warred with the Starks and who practiced the now-banned custom of flaying their enemies alive. Roose maintains a controlled, watchful demeanor and habits unsettling to others, he believes leeching keeps him calm and long-lived. He fathered the bastard Ramsay by rape, and married into House Frey to seal his alliance ahead of his great betrayal.
Biography
A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords
Roose serves as one of Robb Stark's chief commanders, entrusted with significant forces. But he plays a deep and treacherous game: he conserves his own Bolton strength while spending the lives of rival northern houses, and opens secret negotiations with Tywin Lannister. With Walder Frey, he engineers the Red Wedding at the Twins, where Robb's host is massacred. It is Roose himself who delivers the killing blow to Robb, driving a blade through his heart with the words, "Jaime Lannister sends his regards."
A Dance with Dragons
Rewarded by the crown, Roose is named Warden of the North and granted Winterfell. He returns to a North that loathes him, ruling a land seething with hidden resistance and held together only by fear and the Lannister-Frey alliance. To legitimize his hold, he arranges the marriage of his now-legitimized son Ramsay to a false Arya Stark (in truth Jeyne Poole). At Winterfell, Roose struggles to control the dangerous Ramsay, to manage his fractious Frey and Manderly guests amid a string of murders, and to hold the castle as Stannis Baratheon marches against him through the deadly snows. He is keenly aware that his rule rests on treachery and that the North remembers.
Character
Roose is calm, intelligent, and utterly ruthless, a man who never raises his voice and reveals nothing. He prizes order and self-control, and regards his son Ramsay's wanton cruelty as both useful and perilous. His soft-spoken menace and pale, leech-bled stare make him one of the most quietly frightening figures in the saga. He betrays without passion, purely from calculation, judging that the Starks had lost and the Boltons might rise in their place.
Relationships
Roose's fraught relationship with his bastard son Ramsay, whom he both employs and fears, is central to his late chapters; he is aware Ramsay may one day turn on him. His murder of Robb Stark at the Red Wedding defines his treachery. His alliances with Walder Frey and Tywin Lannister secure his rise, and his hold on the disloyal North is brittle.
Quotes
Jaime Lannister sends his regards. (as he kills Robb Stark)
A peaceful land, a quiet people. That has always been my wish.
In the television series
In HBO's Game of Thrones, Roose was portrayed by Michael McElhatton. His arc follows the novels through the Red Wedding and his seizure of Winterfell, then ends beyond them: in the show he is murdered by his own son Ramsay, who stabs him after the birth of a trueborn rival heir. This has not occurred in the books, where Roose still rules at Winterfell.