Mance Rayder

"The freedom to make my own mistakes was all I ever wanted."

- Mance to Jon Snow.

Mance Rayder is a character featured in A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones. He is a former member of the Night's Watch who defected to the Free Folk (AKA the wildlings), his real people, eventually rising to become their leader, officially styling himself as the King-Beyond-the-Wall.

In the television series, Mance is portrayed by Ciarán Hinds and serves as one of the main antagonists of the Night's Watch storyline during Seasons 2, 3, and 4 (despite not being seen in Season 2.)

Though he is considered a villain because he is a major enemy of the Night's Watch, Mance Rayder is not inherently evil and is more of an Anti-Villain, because he genuinely cares for the well-being of his people and has many honorable qualities.

History
Mance was born beyond the Wall from a wildling family. After the Night's Watch killed a group of wildling raiders, the child Mance was taken as a captive and raised as a member of the Night's Watch. Because of this, he was since when known as "Mance Rayder".

Years later Mance made escort as a ranger of the Watch for Lord Commander Qorgyle at Winterfell. There he met Lord Eddard Stark and his young sons, Robb Stark and Jon Snow.

Mance remained loyal to the Night's Watch for most his life. He lived in the Shadow Tower along with his old friend, Qhorin, who would be later known as "Qhorin Halfhand".

During a ranging beyond the Wall Mance was attacked by a shadowcat, he was wounded, and healed by a wildling woman. She mended his torn cloak with swatches of red fabric. Upon returning to the Wall, Ser Denys Mallister required him to replace his mended cloak with one of uniform black. This infringement of freedom caused Mance to abandon the Shadow Tower and live with the free folk, his real people, in the way he wished.

At some point, the Others returned, they started showing up at night, attacking the Free Folk. For many years Mance desired to unite his people. All the Kings-beyond-the-Wall always failed to conquer the Wall, but this time the wildlings were following a man who actually knows the Night's Watch and their ways. After many years, Mance Rayder succeeded to unite every Free Folk clan who lived in the villages or caves beyond the Wall, even the giants.

Main Series
Mance Rayder is an infamous enemy to all the North. Every northern lord hates the wildlings for their raids in the land of the Gift. Women tell their children horrifying stories about the Free Folk, talking about murders, rape, skinchanging, and cannibalism. Bran Stark was always scared about the stories of Mance Rayder the King-Beyond-the-Wall. Ironically, the wildlings have infamous stories for their children about the living legend of the Night's Watch, Qhorin Halfhand, Mance's old friend.

When Eddard Stark executes Gared and listens to his mad talk about the Others, people at Winterfell and Lady Catelyn start to worry about the possible threat of Mance invading the North. Ned plans to ask his old friend, King Robert I Baratheon, to visit the Wall.

From the Night's Watch, Mance hears the news about the death of Jon Arryn and King Robert visiting Winterfell. Inspired by the Bael the Bard legend, he decided to partake in the event. He scales the Wall near Long Barrow, purchases a horse south of the New Gift, and journeys to Winterfell.

At Winterfell Ned Stark doesn't recognize Mance, nor Benjen Stark, who had never met Mance in his life. During Robert's visit Mance is disguised as a musician and plays the lute. He notices the 14 years old, Jon Snow.

Later he returns to his lands beyond the Wall, where he meets his wife Dalla.

In the last months of summer, the number of attacks by the wights start to increase. Many wildlings who go hunting or scouting don't make return to their huts. Instead some of them return as walking corpses. The wildlings always burned their dead for centuries. Even rangers from the Night's Watch are gone missing, including Benjen Stark and Ser Waymar Royce. Mance Rayder and his people are blamed for the disappearances. At some point a deserter of the Watch named Stiv flees from the lands beyond the Wall with a wildling group, including Osha, Wallen, and Hali, heading for Dorne. All of them except Osha are killed by Robb Stark, for attacking his brother Bran. At the end of the summer time Mance started amassing his army and every wildling family beyond the Wall, preparing to march to the Wall before winter comes. Mance and his people avoid Craster and his family: incest is a strong taboo for the wildlings, and they don't want to have anything to do with Craster, especially with rumors coming about him and the white walkers. Craster also works as an ally for the Night's Watch and doesn't really care for the rest of his people.

After the death of King Robert I, and the asciension of his false heir, Joffrey, the wildlings start to abandon their villages, heading for the mountains known as the Frostfangs. At Castle Black, the Lord Commander Jeor Mormont keeps receiving disturbing reports from the other two castles of the Wall and the rangers: Cotter Pyke’s men have reported mammoths and huge misshapen tracks near Eastwatch. Denys Mallister has reported that the wildlings are abandoning their villages near the Shadow Tower and Qhorin Halfhand has taken a captive who revealed that Mance Rayder, the King-Beyond-the-Wall, is massing his people in some secret stronghold for an unknown purpose. Jeor is tired of hearing weird reports and failing to get clear informations, so he organizes a ranging beyond the Wall. The main party leaves Castle Black, while Qhorin Halfhand leaves the Shadow Tower with another party. The goals of the ranging are find out why the wildlings who live close to the Wall are leaving their villages, learn more about Mance Rayder, find Benjen Stark, Ser Waymar Royce and the other missing rangers,  and discover further information on what caused the corpses of Jafer Flowers and Othor to rise from the dead. With the looming threat of the White Walkers and their army of undead wights, Mance manages to unite all of the warring wildling clans into a single army with himself as their King-Beyond-the-Wall, seeking to launch a massive assault on Castle Black, take every other castle at the Wall, and force his way through the main tunnel separating the Seven Kingdoms from the lands Beyond the Wall in order to escape the coming winter, though his plans are temporarily derailed when Jon Snow infiltrates his army and learns of his strengths and weaknesses, which he relays to his sworn brothers in the Night's Watch, who use the information to keep Mance's forces at bay in the ensuing battle.

Before Mance can strike again, he and his remaining men are ambushed and captured by Stannis Baratheon. Though Stannis pursues an alliance with Mance in retaking the North from Roose Bolton in exchange for clemency for deserting the Night's Watch, Mance refuses to bend the knee and is subsequently executed.

In the novels, Mance is still alive, as  but is being held captive at Winterfell by Ramsay Bolton after Jon sent Mance to Winterfell to try and rescue his sister, Arya Stark (actually Jeyne Poole.)

Personality
Mance is a charismatic, calm, and determined man with strong leadership qualities. It is these qualities that allowed him to defect from the Night's Watch to join the Free Folk, and quickly rise to the title of King-Beyond-The-Wall. Mance's exceptional social skills enabled him to unite the diverse wildling clans, no matter how different they were from one another or how much they wanted to kill one another.

Mance is also very aware of the threat the White Walkers will pose to the entire world and used it to his advantage in convincing the wildlings to unite as a singular army. Because of his honest yet stern persona, he earned the respect and admiration of the toughest of wildlings and even giants. Mance states himself, however, that his trusting nature is also a weakness of his; having honestly let himself believe that Jon Snow was truly defecting from the Night's Watch as he did.

However, even when faced with such betrayal or adversity, Mance keeps a calm and level-headed attitude, not even growing overly angry when discovering Snow's attempt to assassinate him. Above all else, Mance cherishes the Free Folk and their culture, performing dangerous and world-changing actions in the hopes of finding them safety from the coming winter.