Tywin Lannister

Eldest son of the weak Lord Tytos, Tywin spent his life ensuring no one would ever mistake a Lannister for a laughingstock. As Aerys II's Hand he ran the realm for twenty years, paid the crown's debts, and ended the rebellion of the Reynes and Tarbecks so completely that the singers still hum the song about it.

He left office in disgust but never stopped playing: he married his children into every ambition he had — Cersei to Robert, Tyrion to Sansa, Jaime to the Kingsguard — and when Robert died he marched Lannister men through the Riverlands faster than any rival could answer. The fire at Harrenhal, the relief of King's Landing, the sack of the city: every masterstroke of the war was his, and the Red Wedding was his last.

He was found on the privy with a crossbow bolt in his belly, shot by the son he had spent a lifetime despising — Tyrion's answer to a lifetime of contempt, and the one move Tywin never saw coming. The lion's roar outlived the lion, and the debts he left behind took a kingdom to settle.