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Original proposal was apparently plagiarized, so this could be considered not only a re-proposal, but a follow up to my first ever PE proposal on Karl Tanner.

What is the work?[]

Most of us are probably aware of what A Song of Ice and Fire is by now: a dark fantasy series set in the fictional Medieval continent of Westeros written by George R.R. Martin. A brewing feud between noble families causes the already cutthroat Westeros to spiral out into a warzone and political trashfire... but unbeknownst to everyone south of "The Wall", ancient creatures from the far north, the Others/White Walkers, have reawakened to massacre all of humanity. Only the Night's Watch, a neutral military force made up of dead-end volunteers and convicted criminals, is there to combat the White Walker threat before everyone is killed, while simultaneously holding back the Free Folk, tribal residents Beyond the Wall desperately trying to get passed the Wall before they are killed by the Others/White Walkers.

There's also the TV adaptation Game of Thrones which follows more of the same mentioned above, except everyone now remembers it as the show that went from being one of the best things on television to a wet fart when the writers infamously botched the final season. But I digress.

Who is he? What has he done?[]

Craster ASOIAF
Craster3x03

To preface something obvious to readers of this proposal, I'm discussing both versions of Craster here since his brief storyline and atrocities in the books and show are mostly the same. As are the overall heinous standards.

Craster is among the first of the Free Folk/Wildlings we see in the books and show, and the one with perhaps the nastiest reputation Beyond the Wall. Living in an isolated hut called "Craster's Keep" not far from Beyond the Wall, Craster mingles with Lord Commander Jeor Mormont and the Night Watch by trading supplies and intel on Mance Rayder’s Wildlings with one another in an uneasy alliance. All it does is help Craster survive, as he hates the presence of the Night's Watch, and the feeling is mutual: the rangers in the books suspect him to be involved in kinslaying, slavery, making deals with demonic forces, rape, lies and all around cowardice. Unfortunately, some of these rumors are partially correct.

You see, Craster's other method of survival lies in the hands of numerous wives (up to 19 of them in fact). Keeping them isolated from the world outside of his keep and making them adopt a fanatical rhetoric of worshipping the Others/the White Walkers as "Gods", Craster locks his wives in a highly abusive relationship where he regularly beats them, forcibly "marries" them and rapes them by the dozen over the course of their life time for the purpose of breeding. Once his wives give birth to daughters, he waits until they are just barely fertile so he can take them into his harem to rape and impregnate them as well. And on and on it goes. Should any guest get too curious or interested in his wives and daughter-wives, Craster will threaten with violence out of sheer possessiveness. These are threats he is more than willing to act on, as evidenced by him once cutting out the tongue of one of Mance Rayder's envoys in the books.

Furthermore, all the incestuous raping and abusing Craster has gotten up to throughout his lifetime has lead to him raising dozens of baby boys (in the show, he keeps count and mentions he's had almost a hundred). However, whenever Craster has a boy, he sacrifices them to the cold woods at night so that the Others/White Walkers can snatch them away, never to be seen again. In the books, we're not quite given a confirmed answer as to what happened to Craster's baby boys, but it can't be anything good. Apart from Craster deliberately abandoning them to the cold to be taken away by evil ice creatures, Craster's daughter-wives suspect that the Others take them away to transform them into more Others, while Old Nan living at Winterfell tells a tale of the Others using babies as dinner for their Army of the Dead. In the TV show on the other hand, we are actually shown what happens to them: the babies are taken to the Night King, who strips them of their humanity and transforms them into White Walkers by simply brushing his thumb against their cheek.

Craster's luck eventually runs out when he hoards his food supply from the Night's Watch rangers while they are starving. His selfishness and verbal abuse towards the rangers instigates a violent mutiny that begins with him getting his throat slit (by Dirk in the books; by Karl Tanner in the show). Nobody will weep for Craster, I imagine.

Mitigating Factors[]

No. A vile, abusive, domineering and baby-killing pervert, through and through. Even though he was born an illegitimate child Beyond the Wall and takes offense at being called a bastard, the circumstances behind his birth are not treated with sympathy and mainly serve as stings to his "Godly" ego. His apparent alliance with the Night's Watch is tense at best, as he has no love for the Watch beyond extorting supplies from them for his own survival; hell, one of the reasons he bothers letting them into his “keep” is out of cowardice over the fact that they outnumber him. He never hides his disdain for them, believing that they can die to the cold, starvation or simple weakness for all he cares. In the show, Craster even mocks them for vowing to never lay with women while he is forcing his daughter-wives to "warm his bed".

He will get angry at guests for taking even a mild curiosity in his wives and his defense for keeping much of his food supply from the Night's Watch is that he needs to feed his daughter-wives. But this is only because his daughter-wives are his key to surviving the Others/White Walkers, not because he wants to protect them out of the milk of human kindness. He has no real standards beyond playing by his own selfish rules, right down to his mantra of claiming the Others/White Walkers to be the true Gods, and whatever possessive and lustful fondness he might show for his daughter-wives is only that.

Heinous Standards[]

The world of ASoIaF/GoT is messed up to say the least. All sorts of atrocities like mass murder, pillaging, war crimes, rapes, maiming, torture, scheming run so rampant in this universe that even a typical sadist like Locke or TV Polliver have fat chances of making the cut. These works have even given birth to two famous (or infamous) PEs: Joffrey Baratheon and Ramsay Snow/Bolton. So if guys like Ramsay or Joff are present, what makes Craster stand out from the rest you might ask?

Simple: minimal resources. Similarly to Rorge, Karl Tanner and the Betrayers, Craster is very low on the totem pole compared to the bigger players in the books and show, as well as a minor character in overall narrative. He's a powerless, normal Wildling living in a wooden hut built in the snowy wilderness, and he gets very little pagetime/screentime (all the chapters and episodes Craster appears in can be counted on one hand). And what is Craster doing with so little resources and time in the story? Routinely taking in his wives and barely-fertile daughters as sex slaves so he can rape and abuse them by the dozen over a LIFETIME. Although we don't see the actual rapes occur, it's made clear what's going on: his routine is described through the words of the rangers, and then confirmed by Craster's children being birthed as products of his rapes. The daughter-wives are also clearly terrified by his presence, and are all of different ages, so Craster's pattern of incestuous rape has been going on for a long time. Without question, this makes him one of the most prolific rapists in the entire franchise, even when compared to the likes of Rorge, Karl, Gregor Clegane, Ramsay or Euron Greyjoy.

With everything described above, Craster carves out a very unique niche for himself that easily trumps the actions of common rapists in the universe. And even then, Craster has yet another unique atrocity on his hands: he's sacrificing dozens of his infant sons to the Others/White Walkers (almost a hundred in the TV show), a process that is once again established as a pattern through descriptions and what's shown. Even if you disregard the fact that what happens to them (getting turned into White Walkers, a fate that may as well be murder for humans) is confirmed in the TV show and not in the books; even if you disregard the suspicions of them being turned into Others or fed to Wights in the books; even if you disregard him leaving them in the middle of the harsh cold, Craster sacrificing his sons to the Others/White Walkers is still treated with horror by characters in both timelines as it's believed he may as well be killing them. Craster knows he isn't doing anything good for the babies by sacrificing them, but doesn't care.

Given his lack of resources, time in the story and what he gets up to, I'd say Craster marks a good threshold for other villains in ASoIaF/GoT to measure up to.

Final Verdict[]

"Craster's Keep"? More like... Craster keeps.