History Characters / GameOfThronesHouseStark

* DeadlyDecadentCourt: ''Strongly'' inverted, and in very significant fashion. The Starks run one of the most informal and utilitarian courts in the series, which plays into their HundredPercentAdorationRating, since such practicality plays into [[HadToBeSharp the unity the North needs to survive winter.]] As for deadly, almost everyone can count on the Starks’s honorable nature ensuring their safety, unlike in other courts... unless, like Littlefinger, you try and act like your in the usual DeadlyDecadentCourt and spend your time trying to turn people on each other only to find [[GoodIsNotNice your throat being slit in the main hall.]]

* TokenGoodTeammate: To the DeadlyDecadentCourt of King's Landing.

* NotLikeOtherGirls: When Talisa explains to Robb why she left Volantis to become a field nurse, she tells him that a slave saved her brother's life (even though he would be put to death for doing so), which inspired her to go do something with her life, not like "all the other highborn maidens who only cared about dancing at balls". Unfortunately for her, her viewpoint is [[https://turtle-paced.tumblr.com/post/130331693072/a-waste-of-time anachronistic and misunderstanding of their society can be found]].

** NotLikeOtherGirls: When Talisa explains to Robb why she left Volantis to become a field nurse, she tells him that a slave saved her brother's life (even though he would be put to death for doing so), which inspired her to go do something with her life, not like "all the other highborn maidens who only cared about dancing at balls". Unfortunately for her, her viewpoint is [[https://turtle-paced.tumblr.com/post/130331693072/a-waste-of-time anachronistic and misunderstanding of their society can be found]].

* YourCheatingHeart: Subverted. His wife Catelyn died believing that Ned Stark betrayed his vows to her and fathered Jon Snow out of wedlock, when it turns out that he did no such thing.

* YourCheatingHeart: She had a romance with Rhaegar while betrothed to Robert and knowing Rhaegar was married to Elia Martell, eventually eloping with him.

* GoodIsNotSoft: They are heroic and nice. However, those who bring them harm should expect from them the same mercy that they dish to House Stark. In fact, by the end of Season 6, they've killed most of the perpetrators of the infamous Red Wedding, with Arya killing Walder Frey, and Jon and Sansa wiping out House Bolton, who are largely responsible for their suffering and deaths in their family.

* DeathByChildbirth: Dies minutes after giving birth to Jon.
* DidntThinkThisThrough: Her fling with Rhaegar was consensual. But she somehow believed that running away with an already married man, the crown prince no less, who had two kids, when she was already betrothed to another powerful lord could possibly end happily. Instead her former fiancé concluded she was kidnapped, her enquiring father and eldest brother were tyrannically killed by the king, father of her new lover, and it all led to a bloody civil war.

* IconicOutfit: The Stark army tend to wear a common outfit of a brown leather brigandine over a green tunic when in the field. It's far more modest and showy than other armour seen elsewhere and the fact that it's worn by soldiers and commanders, regardless of rank, suggests the FrontlineGeneral ethos espoused and followed by Ned and imbibed by his kids

* AdaptationDeviation: Their sigil in the books is running wolf, but the show changes it to a wolf's head.

* HelloNurse: When presented to Walder Frey, he understands why Robb romped with her. That didn't make him any less angry, however.

* FantasyForbiddingFather: While he loves his daughter Arya, and even appoints a tutor to teach her basic swordsmanship, Ned never sees it as more than a hobby and doesn't quite understand why Arya takes it as seriously as she does. He still expects that when she grows up she would become a ProperLady and have an ArrangedMarriage. Arya bluntly tells him, "That's not me!" and it's the only point on which she disagrees with her father.

* SilkHidingSteel: Don't let her ProperLady demeanor fool you: she'll cut your damned throat if you think to touch her children with anything less than a hug.

* TeamMom: To the Starks, in addition to being their actual mother.
* TomboyAndGirlyGirl: Girly Girl to Brienne's Tomboy.

* DecompositeCharacter: Jon Snow essentially takes her place as the resurrected Stark in the books.

* GoodParents: If there's ''anyone'' who can illustrate this trope, it's Ned. In fact, he's probably the only father in this setting along with Davos Seaworth, who is ''not'' an asshole.

** Specifically [[{{BandOfBrothers}} Ned-Robert]] in the previous generation; and [[{{FireForgedFriends}} Arya-Gendry]] in the current set (with bonus points for managing it without even knowing he's Baratheon). Catelyn also invokes the Stark-Baratheon bond when brokering an alliance with Renly.

* YokoOhNo: Her marriage with Robb was already widely frowned upon while they were still alive. Years after the Red Wedding, even previously loyal Stark bannermen don't remember her as their late queen, but instead as a "foreign whore" (-- Robett Glover) who brought the bane of House Stark and the whole Northern cause. [[invoked]]

* DidntThinkThisThrough: Her fling with Rhaegar was consensual. But she somehow believed that running away with an already married man, the crown prince no less, who had two kids, when she was already betrothed to another powerful lord could possibly end happily. Instead her former fiance concluded she was kidnapped, her enquiring father and eldest brother were tyrannically killed by the king, father of her new lover, and it all led to a bloody civil war.

** Her son Jon also winds up looking more like her than Rhaegar. Like her, Jon also winds up falling in love with a Targaryen royal.

** House Targaryen likewise inflicted the worst humiliations and suffering on the Stark before the start of the series. It was believed by most of Westeros that Prince Rhaegar kidnapped Lyanna Stark and held her hostage and raped her but it is revealed in Season 7 that Lyanna and Rheagar were in love and she willingly married him. Lyanna's brother Brandon and her father Rickard were sadistically murdered by the Mad King Aerys II, and Eddard Stark was more or less declared {{Outlaw}} by the same king, provoking House Stark to join Robert's Rebellion. The bad blood between the two houses hasn't dissipated in light of their other grudges, and Sansa hasn't forgotten what happened to her grandfather and her aunt, and publicly scolds her brother Jon for parlaying with the daughter of the Mad King. Daenerys for her part has a grudge on Ned Stark because she believes, wrongly albeit due to ignorance, that the latter was a sidekick to King Robert and more or less enabled him to make repeated assassination attempts on her. The tragic irony of course is that Jon Snow, the current King in the North is unknowingly the son of Prince Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, and as Daenerys notes, between Torrhen Stark bending the knee to Aegon I and her father, House Stark [[WeUsedToBeFriends loyally served House Targaryen for nearly 300 years]] and had a strong relationship.[[labelnote:From the books...]]Before the Mad King, House Stark and House Targaryen had only a small rough patch when Jaehaerys I and Queen Alysanne on a visit to the North gave land to the Night's Watch over House Stark's objection, said land is the same Gift, where Jon Snow controversially proposed settling Wildlings in Season 5. Lord Cregan Stark served the Blacks during the Dance of the Dragons famously clearing in his legendary one-day in office as Hand of the King, while another Stark lord marched alongside Daeron I the Young Dragon in his conquest of Dorne. King Aegon V, Dany's grandfather in the Show!Canon, also provided many food provisions to the North during a harsh winter.[[/labelnote]]

-->'''Robb:''' He once told me that being a lord is like being a father, except you have thousands of children and you worry about all of them. The farmers plowing the fields are yours to protect. The charwomen scrubbing the floors, yours to protect. The soldiers you order into battle. [[note]]This is a major alteration from Book!Ned. Jon Snow in Literature/ADanceWithDragons remembers Ned telling him and Robb that a Lord shouldn't be ''too close'' or fraternize too well otherwise that would complicate TheChainsOfCommanding, namely that they are the ones commanding those beneath them to fight and die for House Stark and that being a Lord or a leader meant [[ThisIsReality responsibilities, loneliness, distances and no true equals]] [[/note]]

** In the Season 6 finale, it's revealed that Catelyn wasn't so much Jon's wicked stepmother as his wicked aunt. Lyanna Stark is Jon's mother and Ned is [[FamilyRelationshipSwitcheroo Jon's uncle]]. After Lyanna dies following childbirth, [[TheGreatestStoryNeverTold Ned adopts his nephew Jon, raises him as his own, and passes Jon off as his own illegitimate child to protect Jon from Robert Baratheon's wrath]]. Catelyn would likely have acted very different if she'd known Jon was her nephew instead of the child her husband conceived with another woman as a result of infidelity.

** In the Season 6 finale, it's revealed that Catelyn wasn't so much Jon's wicked stepmother as his wicked aunt. Lyanna Stark is Jon's mother and Ned is [[FamilyRelationshipSwitcheroo Jon's uncle]]. After Lyanna dies following childbirth, [[TheGreatestStoryNeverTold Ned adopts his nephew Jon, raises him as his own, and passes Jon off as his own illegitimate child to protect Jon from Robert Baratheon's wrath]]. Catelyn may have acted very different if she'd known Jon was her nephew instead of the child her husband conceived with another woman as a result of infidelity.

* DeconReconSwitch: House Stark's fate, for most of the series, has been a by-word regarding how [[CrapsackWorld a family of honorable fantasy heroes, good politics and Westeros don't mix]]. At the beginning of the War of Five Kings, House Stark (similar to the Greyjoy-led Ironborn) had the smallest army and fewest allies. After the Red Wedding, their ranks and leadership were virtually annihilated -- the house itself functionally extinct. Their only remaining clanspeople (Sansa, Arya, Bran, Rickon and Jon) were either tossed around like bargaining chips or hunted like fugitives. And yet, by Season 6, they have a) retaken their ancestral seat and destroyed their centuries-long rivals, b) regained the support of the North and re-established their independent Kingdom, and c) pieced together a standing army through assimilating the Free Folk and allying with the knights of the Vale and d) killed off the men responsible for the murder of their family and supporters. By contrast, the three-way alliance that brought them on their knees -- Boltons, Freys and Lannisters -- are respectively literally extinct, functionally extinct, and currently on the verge of collapse.

* EarnYourHappyEnding: After collectively enduring the most suffering, trauma, pain, and humiliation of any of the major houses in the series, the Starks [[spoiler:end the series not only in a much better position than they started, they essentially become the ultimate winners in the Game of Thrones: they achieve Northern independence with Sansa becoming Queen in the North, Bran sits on the throne in King's Landing, and it's implied that Jon may become King-Beyond the Wall.]]
* ElectiveMonarchy: The North chooses a Stark king after rebelling against the Iron Throne at the end of Season 1. Robb Stark doesn't declare himself King in the North but is chosen by acclamation by the Northern bannermen and other allies. This also happens with his successor Jon Snow.

* MsFanservice: While mostly dresssed conservatively, Talisa ends up naked when making love with Robb, conplete with an [[MaleGaze emphasis]] on her rear

* DeadlyDecadentCourt: ‘’Strongly’’ inverted, and in very significant fashion. The Starks run one of the most informal and utilitarian courts in the series, which plays into their HundredPercentAdorationRating, since such practicality plays into [[HadToBeSharp the unity the North needs to survive winter.]] As for deadly, almost everyone can count on the Starks’s honorable nature ensuring their safety, unlike in other courts... unless, like Littlefinger, you try and act like your in the usual DeadlyDecadentCourt and spend your time trying to turn people on each other only to find [[GoodIsNotNice your throat being slit in the main hall.]]