Characters / A Song of Ice and Fire - Ned Stark

For the main House Stark entry, see here

Lord Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell, Warden of the North, Hand of the King, Regent, Protector of the Realm

Ned Stark, The Quiet Wolf, The Ned

"The winters are hard, but the Starks will endure. We always have."

Lord of Winterfell and head of House Stark, Eddard, better known as Ned Stark, is a man of deep integrity and honor who is devoted to those he loves. However, he is unbending in his honor, which gets him in trouble. At the beginning of the series, he is appointed Hand of the King and thrown into the nest of vipers that is the royal court.

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A-F

• A Father to His Men: Ned values his household and the people of Winterfell greatly, earning their loyalty.
• Anxiety Dreams: He fears that Cersei's children will share the same fate as Rhaegar's children if Robert finds out the truth about them.
• Arranged Marriage: He married Catelyn in his brother's stead in order to maintain an alliance with House Tully during Robert's Rebellion.
• At Least I Admit It: The philosophy behind "The man who passes the sentence must swing the sword". Most Westerosi lords pass sentences without facing up to the fact that they are actually killing or executing people. Stark Kings and Stark Lords personally execute criminals as a point of honor, to show that they don't pass the buck on the messy aspects of rulership or back away from the implications of their orders. Ned invokes this principle to Robert asking him to execute Lady when the latter tries to wash his hands from the incident, leading Ned to execute his own daughter's direwolf instead.
• Always Second Best: To his brother Brandon. He has a tendency to beat himself with this fact, even when he is no less a man and a lord than what his brother was.
• Ambiguous Syntax: In a vision of a younger Ned praying once at the weirwood, he says a rather cryptic prayer about his hopes for Robb and Jon growing up close as brothers, which may mean either that they're half-brothers who should grow up loving each other like full-blooded brothers or that they aren't blood brothers at all, depending on Jon's parentage. Ned's prayer for Robb and Jon is granted because Jon and Robb do have a very close relationship as brothers.
  Young Ned: ...Let them grow up close as brothers, with only love between them, and let my lady wife find it in her heart to forgive.
• Being Good Sucks: He is one of the few Honor Before Reason people in the series, and he ends up suffering for the trust he puts in people.
• Beneath the Mask: As Bran pointed out, there are two Eddard Starks. His father and Lord Stark of Winterfell. Lord Stark comes off as cold, grim and dutiful. Ned is warm, kind and doting to his kids. More importantly, Ned carries a great deal of guilt and trauma from his early youth, possibly related to Lyanna.
• Benevolent Boss: He makes a point to regularly dine with the Winterfell staff so he can better understand their labor and to ensure that he's not overlooking any of their needs.
• Berserk Button:
  • Jon Snow's mother is a touchy subject for Ned.
  • Somehow related, he lashes at Catelyn for mentioning Ashara Dayne, who Catelyn wondered was Jon's mother.
  • The mention of Jorah Mormont; he's irate at both Mormont's dabbling in slavery and his fleeing the rightful justice that entailed for the crime.
  • Petyr Baelish tells Ned he's taking him to see his wife. When he realizes Baelish has led him to one of his brothels, Ned nearly kills him right there for the Stealth Insult against Catelyn. Good thing Littlefinger was telling the truth; Catelyn was just hiding out there while in the city.
  • Harming children is one for him. He had a major falling out with Robert over the latter seemingly condoning the murder of Rhaegar's family by Lannister soldiers.
• Beware the Honest Ones: How Cersei reacts to him.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Ned is a Nice Guy but he really can be as frightening as his reputation claims. Catelyn found out the hard way after asking if Ashara was the mother of his illegitimate son, Jon Snow; his reaction to her question was the one time in their marriage that he legitimately frightened her, and it's implied that this had no small part in why she dislikes Jon so much.
  "Never ask me about Jon," [Ned] said, cold as ice. "He is my blood, and that is all you need to know. And now I will learn where you heard that name, my lady."
• Birds of a Feather: Ned and Ser Barristan Selmy quickly develop a tremendous mutual respect for each other, as they're the only two men at court who value honor.
• BFS: Ice, his ancestral blade, is taller than an adolescent Robb.
• Bookends: Ned's first appearance where he beheaded a deserter before three of his sons: Robb, Jon and Bran. He is beheaded with his own sword before his daughters: Sansa and Arya.
• Break the Haughty: Learns the hard way that adhering to a strict moral code doesn't always work.
• Broken Ace: Ned is seen as one of the great heroes of the rebellion and a model of what a noble lord should be but he's also plagued by feelings of inferiority (he believes his older brother would have been the better lord) and fears that bad things will happen to his family because of his participation in the rebellion.
• Broken Pedestal: He experiences this to King Robert Baratheon several times in the course of the story. In the backstory, it's when Robert condones Tywin's slaughter of Rhaegar Targaryen's childrens, and later, Robert's indolence as a King. Ned is disappointed by Robert's continued whoring, despite his responsibilities, and more or less concurs with Robert that the latter's real merit is "better than Aerys".
• The Call Knows Where You Live: He knew that Robert would try to appoint him Hand. He didn't expect his king to actually travel North.
• Cannot Spit It Out: He never found a good time to tell Robert about Joffrey's paternity. When he does, he made the Tragic Mistake of telling Cersei.
• Captain Obvious: Littlefinger taunts him for this when he led him through a secret passage to find Catelyn.
  Ned: We’re outside the castle.
  Littlefinger: You are a hard man to fool, Stark. Was it the sun that gave it away, or the sky?
• The Chains of Commanding: Ned takes his role both as a battlefield commander and as leader of the biggest part of Westeros very seriously and passes along the same ideals of honor, justice and responsibility to his children. It's why he insists on personally executing those condemned to death as he sees it as a grim but necessary part of being in charge and refuses to pass the buck to anyone else, always facing those who die under his rule face to face.
• Cincinnatus: When Jon Arryn dies, leaving the Seven Kingdoms without a Hand of the King, Robert seeks out Ned and asks that he take up the post, knowing he is best suited to rule Westeros.
  • Also, this was his role during the rebellion. Cersei even tells him it was he who won the rebellion, but never took advantage of this in any form and as soon as Robert sat on the throne, he missed the early stages of Robert's reign and went straight to Winterfell bringing baby Jon Snow and his sister's remains with him. He has never left the North since this time, save for the Greyjoy Rebellion.
• Contractual Genre Blindness: It's tough being heroic in a Crapsack World. He also fails to realize that the Hand of the King is not just an advisor but a ruler in all but name.
• Cryptic Background Reference: His POV makes it clear that he was a man with a lot of secrets and he kept them well:
  • The events that transpired at the Tower of Joy and the promise he made to Lyanna at her deathbed;
  • The mother of Jon Snow. He is very staunch of revealing her identity to very many people, including his wife; he does tell Robert that her name was Wylla (Wylla was Jon's wet nurse, so Ned might just have said her name to get Robert off his case);
  • Eddard was fostered at the Eyrie as part of his father's "Southron ambitions". It's still not clear what his father intended with this engagement or what these ambitions consisted of;
  • He was somehow involved in the incident with the Knight of the Laughing Tree during the Tourney at Harrenhall. Meera states that she is amazed that Ned never told Bran the story;
  • He apparently had a relationship with the Dornish noblewoman Ashara Dayne; she killed herself after Ned returned the body and sword of her brother, Ser Arthur Dayne, to Starfall. He never discusses Ashara, puts a stop to rumors about her being spread at Winterfell and is not very fond of hearing anything spoken about her; also, for some reason, he's in surprisingly good standing at Starfall, where they sing praises about him and it's even implied that Edric, the young lord of House Dayne is named after him;
  • For obscure reasons, he didn't bring the mortal remains of his companions that stormed the Tower of Joy, nor did he return to collect these remains. Eddard made a point in burying Lyanna and Brandon at the crypts under Winterfell when only the Kings in the North and the Lords of Winterfell are supposed to be buried there. Though he argued to Bran that he did it to pay tribute to his siblings, there are undertones of ulterior motives for this decision; for example, he did not pay nearly the same respect to his fallen comrades by not even bringing their mortal remains and choosing to bury them at Dorne, and gave no reason for the slight, which made him the enemy of Barbrey Dustin, the widow of Lord Willam;
  • There are also questions regarding the nature of his friendship with Howland Reed and why the latter didn't himself swear fealty to Robb when he called the banners to rescue Ned;
• Deadpan Snarker: Several times. Most notable when Cersei slaps him in the godswood and he answers, "I shall bear that as a badge of honor", echoing what she says when her husband beats her.
  Grand Maester Pycelle: My lord Hand, I urge you to remind this good knight that Lord Tywin Lannister is the father of our own gracious queen.
  Eddard: Thank you, Grand Maester Pycelle, I fear we may have forgotten that if you had not pointed it out.
• Death Glare: An unintentional master of the trope. He can't really help it; that's just the way his face looks. Jaime still hasn't gotten over Ned's glare even after 17 years and still sees Ned in the eyes of every character who looks down on him.
• Decoy Protagonist: The story begins with him as the center of everything, and his honorable personality is reminiscent of typical fantasy heroes. He dies before the end of the first book.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: As much as Ned loves his daughters, his wife, and his sister Lyanna, he does have a patriarchal view of society.
  • He feels that his sister was too "willful" and Arya is the same and this will bring problems for the latter. Even though he indulges Arya by having her train in the Braavosi manner, he sees this as a passing fancy and hobby that he doesn't take seriously, hoping that eventually Arya will outgrow it and have an Arranged Marriage like other noble women. This makes him a product of his time and place in Westerosi customs not far away from the nobility's values. However, he is being very fair for his time in allowing this, and in a conversation with Arya, it's implied that parental worries is in play - per Ned, both Lyanna and the infamously impulsive Brandon died because they were ruled by "the wolf's blood", implying that Lyanna did at least initially run away with Rhaegar willingly. Arya is often noted as Lyanna reborn. The conclusions aren't hard to draw.
  • For this reason, he also underestimates the threats posed by Daenerys and Cersei, which leads to very dire consequences (though it probably doesn't help that he is abominably bad at court politics).
• Didn't Think This Through: According to the app "A World of Ice and Fire", Ned suggested the betrothal between Robert and Lyanna. Given what is stated about Lyanna's personality and Robert's behavior before and after being married, the marriage would have likely ended very badly.
• Doomed Moral Victor: Subverted. He died a traitor after being forced to plead guilty to prevent war, at which Joffrey executed him anyway. However, this ends up Double Subverted in the long run, as Ned is still very well respected outside of the Lannisters and remembered in a positive light by many of the Lannisters opponents, with many fondly recalling his rule, seeing his death not as that of a traitor but as a wrongful execution and remaining loyal to his children in his name.
• Doting Parent: Practically spoiled his kids. In turn, his daughters tended to overwhelm him.
• The Dutiful Son: Knows his place is always at Winterfell and he married his dead brother's fiancée to cement the alliance between the North and the Riverlands.
• Establishing Character Moment: Killing a Night's Watch deserter while forcing his son to watch then lecturing that son on the nature of duty.
• The Everyman: Ned is caught up in a power struggle beyond his control and is killed for not having the savvy to end it.
• The Executioner: Eddard "Ned" Stark himself is introduced executing an Oathbreaker (a member of the Night's Watch who deserted their post), a firm believer in the adage "The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword." He also finds no pleasure in doing so, seeing it only for the grim business that it is. Other executioners in the story will later been contrasted to him.
• Face Death with Dignity: When he is faced with his execution, Ned doesn't cry or beg for mercy, calmly accepting his fate and praying quietly as the sword comes down.
• Failure Is the Only Option: He eventually learns these lessons but he is executed anyway.
• Family-Unfriendly Death: Beheading is pretty mundane in this series, but there is a strong overtone of parental fears in place when Ned is executed in front of his daughters.
• Fantasy-Forbidding Father: 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 Proper Lady and have an Arranged Marriage. Arya bluntly tells him, "That's not me!" and it's the only point on which she disagrees with him.
• Fatal Flaw: In series, players of the game like Petyr, Varys, and Tyrion deride Ned's honour as having doomed him. Indeed, Ned is a threat to every 'viper' in King's Landing much as Stannis precisely because of his honour: both are essentially wrecking balls that cannot be manipulated into complicity in greater schemes. Closer examination, however, shows that Ned's main flaw as King's Hand was seeing himself as "first among equals" and not as the man second in authority only to Robert himself. It was 100% within his powers to clean court and stack every office back into his, Robert's, and the Realm's favour - as Stannis actually intended. It is Ned's (begrudging) trust in Petyr that ultimately led to his fall, as Ned dispatched the bulk of his swords and could only challenge Cersei with the City Watch. It could be said that Ned's ideals blinded him to the full extent of his options, eventually cornering him into checkmate.
• The Fettered: Honour, loyalty, courage, duty, friendship... all these traits are valued by Ned and he displays them frequently.
• Flashback Nightmare: The events at the Tower of Joy, where his sister died after a hard-fought battle to reclaim her. Her memory still haunts him to this day. Also, the promise she made him give her, whatever it was, seems a major part of that haunting.
• Fish out of Water: Country Mouse in a Decadent Court, roughly (he's not precisely rural, but he is from the Westerosi equivalent of Alaska).
• Foil:
  • Tywin Lannister. A recurring element in the Starks' and Lannisters' collective family arcs is how they were shaped by their patriarchs' extremely different approaches to parenting and rulership.
    • Among the family, Tywin hoards power for himself, and while focusing his attentions on Jaime over his other children he makes little practical effort to promote independence in his preferred heir or including him in the House's leadership; this is in contrast with Eddard's relationship with Robb, whom he's careful to include in his lordly duties from a young age, and his sharing affection with all of his children. This is particularly marked in their relationship with their respective "disfavored" sons, Tyrion and Jon — Tywin despises his deformed heir and refuses to even consider him as such, excluding him from all of the privileges and duties that would come with being a high lord's son, while Ned treats his bastard with the same love and affection that he has for all of his other kids. As a result, all of Eddard's children remember him fondly and try to live up to his example, Robb leads the Northern armies to war and secession to avengre his death, and Jon remains unshakeably loyal to his father's memory and legacy long after his death. By contrast, all of Tywin's children hate or resent him, and mostly define themselves in opposition to him, such as Jaime refusing to become the heir that Tywin wanted him to be or Tyrion gladly killing his father for revenge after years of abuse.
    • They also have opposite approaches to rule, as Eddard worked hard to maintain a fair and respectful relationship with his bannermen, visiting them regularly and listening to their concerns, while Tywin rules through fear, power, and the threat of retribution and extirpation — the Stark bannermen do what Ned or his heirs say out of love and respect, while the Lannister ones do as Tywin orders because their fear him. This becomes especially marked after they both die. The Northmen remain so loyal to Ned that they first march south en masse to avenge him, and afterwards continue to either openly rebel or secretly plot against the Lannisters and their allies for the sake of protecting Ned's heirs. The westerlander lords, instead, simply abandon Tywin's cause once he's no longer around the enforce threats, leaving his heirs behind in the capital to fend for themselves.
  • Jaime Lannister. Ned believes in doing the right thing, is honorable and is known for these qualities, but will compromise this in some instances to do the right thing — however, he’s more discreet. Jaime very publicly gets his hands dirty all the time when he does the right thing, earning him an unsavory reputation that damages his self-esteem, even though he claims he doesn't care what anyone thinks.
• Forced to Watch: It's indicated that Ned always made his sons (except Rickon, who was too young at the time) watch him execute criminals to toughen them up at a certain age and prepare them for the reality of their duties and to demonstrate that he is not someone who passes the worst parts of his role in to someone else. From his perspective, when they become Stark lords, they would have to execute prisoners too. Two of his sons, Robb Stark and Jon Snow, do execute traitors in their ranks later on, so it certainly helped.
• Freudian Slip: Ned is a man with secrets which he keeps well, but occasionally he lets something slip, like when he speaks with Arya about how the wolf blood took Brandon and Lyanna to an early grave. Brandon found his death by threatening Prince Rhaegar and getting killed by the Mad King, but Lyanna's case sounds weird since the accepted story of her death puts her as a Damsel in Distress rather than dying due to her wild nature. This may indicate something more about her death, but Arya doesn't notice something is off.
• Frontline General: During Robert's Rebellion, he always led his forces from the front, and passes on the importance of this to his son Robb.

G-M

• The Good Chancellor: He attempts to be one towards Robert after being named Hand of the King, but Robert proves to be such a Pointy-Haired Boss that the good Ned achieves under his rule is minimal, and after Joffrey becomes king the Lannisters attempt to vilify him as an Evil Chancellor who betrayed his old friend to seize power for himself, when nothing could be further from the truth.
• Good Counterpart: Amongst the Lannisters, he may be best compared to Kevan of all people. Both are highly capable and basically decent — or at least, principled — men who are loyal to less scrupulous, more murderous lords they regard as family (Robert and Tywin, respectively, though Tywin actually is Kevan's family), generally ignoring the faults that ultimately get those men killed (ie. their whoring and their treatment of the rest of their family) because they think said men deserve to be in charge — Ned gets a twofer since he thinks his older brother Brandon would have been a better head of House Stark, just as Kevan thought that Tywin was most suited to heading House Lannister. Both men die pretty much because they followed their principles and both mens' deaths serve mainly to make Westeros more unstable; it's less direct with Ned, but both are also killed by children.
• Good Is Not Nice: Ned's probably one of — if not the most — just and righteous characters in the entire world of Westeros, particularly amongst the nobility. He also happens to be hard, stoic and difficult to connect with for outsiders, who subsequently view him as cold and (at times) terrifying.
• Good Parents: He's probably the only father in this setting who is not an asshole. He loves all his children, including his illegitimate son, Jon Snow, whom he raises alongside his trueborn children.
• Happily Married: Despite it being an Arranged Marriage, to the auburn-haired Catelyn Tully.
• Hates Small Talk: Ned is quite abrupt and straight to the point.
• Hero with Bad Publicity:
  • Ned is generally viewed as a very honorable man, but people who want to speak ill of Ned will bring up that he dishonored his wife. Ned doesn't hide that he fathered a son with a woman out of wedlock (after he married Catelyn) as, according to Catelyn, he openly calls Jon his son and he went farther than most nobles, by raising and educating Jon along with Ned's other trueborn children in Winterfell.
  • As long as no one knows the truth of Joffrey's paternity, Ned will always be the traitor who tried to deny the throne to his friend Robert's son. However, many people in King's Landing believe the accusations about Cersei, and the North still loves him and is rooting for his family. Meanwhile, in Renly's camp, no one seems to buy Ned's false confession, at least when Catelyn is present.
  • Daenerys thinks of Eddard as Robert the Usurper's cold-hearted CoDragon alongside Tywin Lannister. Barristan Selmy tries to tell her that Ned had always been a good and honorable man who tried to stop Robert from ordering her death, but Dany doesn't want to hear it.
    And with him stood the great lords her brother had named the Usurper's dogs, cold-eyed Eddard Stark with his frozen heart, and the golden Lannisters, father and son, so rich, so powerful, so treacherous.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners:
  • He and Robert were fostered together under Jon Arryn, becoming very close.
  • Howland Reed is also often recounted as Eddard's closest living friend and ally.
• Heroic BSoD: He goes catatonic when Lyanna dies.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation:
  • Helped overthrow a 300-year-old dynasty but doesn't feel that he deserves his roles as Lord of Winterfell or Hand.
  • On a more literal level, when Cersei notes that he should have taken the Crown for himself, he states that is one of the few things he doesn't regret at all.
  Eddard: I have made more mistakes than you can possibly imagine... but that was not one of them.
• History Repeats: Eddard finds himself living Brandon's life; he has Brandon's title, Brandon's keep, marries Brandon's betrothed and ends up imprisoned under the Red Keep while trying to right a wrong by overstepping his boundaries just like Brandon did years before; he even gets treacherously executed like Brandon did. Both their deaths started huge wars, only that the Starks lost the second time around.
• Honor Before Reason: His main flaw. He will do the right thing, despite the fact that his enemies all play dirty. When he's arrested, he tells Varys that he is fully prepared to die of starvation/thirst rather than dishonor himself.
• Honest Advisor: One of the few in Robert's council who honestly wants what's good for him and the realm. He doesn't hesitate to call out Robert on his behavior when he sends an assassin against the 13-year old Daenerys Targaryen.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Zig-zagged.
  • His trust in Petyr ultimately got him killed, but this trust was not without great misgivings to say the least, only given at Catelyn's behest.
  • However, upon first arrival in King's Landing, Eddard actually does a rather good job at identifying the potential threats: he dislikes Varys the most (who is plotting civil war), he is enraged by Petyr (who is plotting civil war as well), and catches onto Pycelle's true loyalties.
  • Subverted in the fact he was clearly aware Roose Bolton was a nasty piece of work and didn't fall for his Villain with Good Publicity front. He also recognises fairly early on that Grand Maester Pycelle is a Lannister stooge.
  Eddard Stark had never had any reason to complain of the Lord of the Dreadfort, so far as Jon knew, but even so he had never trusted him.
  • Before the series began, Ned brought a betrothal suit between Robert and Lyanna to his father. Between Robert’s womanizing and Lyanna’s forceful personality, it’s a wonder that Lyanna didn’t turn out like Cersei.
• Humiliation Conga: Ned wasn't at Bran's side when the boy was crippled, was forced to kill Sansa's pet direwolf, and was almost crippled in a fight with Jaime Lannister. He was then betrayed, imprisoned and killed along with his entire retinue. Even in death, he is in a bind — as his mortal remains disappeared without a trace on the way to Winterfell — which was razed to the ground.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: He was a much better peacetime leader as Lord of Winterfell than Robert was as king and as Hand, he was far more involved in the running of the kingdom.
• Hypocrite: Varys lays into Ned that his Honor Before Reason attitude makes him just as guilty as the other High Lords that Ned likes to hold in contempt. Varys rants that Ned values his personal honor over the wellbeing of the common-man and didn't pay any consideration how many lives would get caught in the crossfire in a war just because Ned would prefer Stannis sitting on a throne rather than the Lannisters keeping control. Though given later reveals, one could argue Varys might have been projecting. And, given how bad the Lannisters' rule ends up being for the common people, it's hard to say Ned didn't have a point.
• Icy Gray Eyes: A Stark family trait, although only Arya and Jon inherited it from him. His gray eyes help emphasize his cold and stoic personality and contribute to his rather unintentional Death Glare.
• I Gave My Word: Ned had promised her. That was his curse. Robert would swear undying love and forget them before evenfall, but Ned Stark kept his vows.
• I Have Your Wife:
  • Ned himself is planning on using this tactic to get the Greyjoy Fleet from Balon when he prepares for war.
  • Ned is on the receiving end of this when Varys threatens to have Sansa killed if he doesn't confess treason and get Robb and the Northern army to back off.
• I Let Gwen Stacy Die: He has never truly recovered from his sister's death, as his POV shows, and has kept The Promise he made to her until his last day.
• Inspector Javert: Jorah Mormont sees Ned as merciless and not caring why he resorted to slavery. To Ned, it's Nothing Personal and Jorah is guilty twice over for fleeing instead of facing judgment like a man.
• Keep the Reward: As surprising as it might sound, Ned did not receive any spoils from winning Robert's Rebellion; if anything, he actually lost more than he gained. He was already Lord Stark when Jon Arryn started the rebellion, he lost his beloved sister when the whole point was to rescue her, he lost several important bannermen in battle and he did not get to exact revenge upon Aerys for the deaths of his father and brother; as such, there's little wonder in the fact that he is not nearly as nostalgic about the whole affair as Robert is. When he is asked by Cersei about why he didn't claim the throne for himself, he outright tells her that he was actually glad that he didn't even have the tiniest bit of intent of sitting on that damn chair.
• The Lancer: To Robert during the Rebellion.
• Madness Mantra: Mild example. His POV shows how his sister Lyanna's last words —"Promise me, Ned..."—and what they represent have taken a notable root in his thoughts, mindset, and inner monologue over fourteen years—he even wakes in a panic when he hears Lyanna's words whispered to him in a dream. Ned remembers Lyanna's last words to him in his POV chapters no less than seven times in A Game of Thrones.
• Mangst: He doesn't speak of his family much, but he's apparently the first Stark to give his siblings statues in the crypts and visits frequently.
• Master Swordsman: While we never get to see him in a full-on sword fight, he is a good enough swordsman that it's said he killed Ser Arthur Dayne, "The Sword of the Morning", in single combat.^note Bran, however, remembers Ned telling him that Dayne would have killed him if Howland Reed hadn't come to Ned's aid And Dayne, according to Jaime, could have slain six knights "with his left hand while taking a piss with the right."
• Middle Child Syndrome: Not as obvious as some later characters, but he still feels unworthy of the position that his brother Brandon was going to inherit.
• Morton's Fork: Whatever he'd done or for whatever reason he would have done it, it's strongly implied that the result would have been roughly the same even if he'd suddenly turned savvy. Between Varys and Littlefinger, he was going to be schemed into a losing position simply to start a civil war. And, that's without Tywin also taking a hand to outmaneuver him (if not to actually create a civil war in his case).
• Motif: Ice. His greatsword is called Ice, Littlefinger refers to him as a man "dancing on rotten ice", is described as cold and 'frozen' in temperament, is tied to the icy and stoic North while struggling to survive in the South, and is fixed and immovable in his values and honour.
• My Greatest Failure: It is believed its his infidelity to Catelyn. Bran even has a vision of him praying to the old gods to help Catelyn forgive him. His POV, shows that he's actually haunted by the memories of Robert's Rebellion, particularly the death of Lyanna at the Tower of Joy

N-Z

• Nerves of Steel: Comes with being stoic. He stays perfectly calm even when Jaime ambushes him with 5 times his number... until the Lannister soldiers start cutting down his men, which drives him to a Big "NO!".
• Nice Guy: Although distant, Ned is amiable enough, A Father to His Men and loves his children unconditionally especially so when compared to the likes of other lords such as Roose Bolton or Tywin Lannister.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: He warned Cersei that he would reveal the secret of her children to Robert as soon as he got back, causing a chain of events that end very badly for him. Varys calls him out on this the following chapter.
  • Worries he might've done this in executing Lady after hearing how Summer saved Bran's life, believing he might've left Sansa without her protector sent by the old gods. We have yet to see how Sansa will end up and we'll never know how things might have played out differently had Lady survived, but it surely wouldn't have made Sansa's circumstances worse to have had a direwolf ready to defend her or to develop more of the abilities her direwolf-bonded siblings have.
  "Bran's wolf had saved the boy's life, he thought dully. What was it that Jon had said when they found the pups in the snow? Your children were meant to have these pups, my lord. And he had killed Sansa's, and for what? Was it guilt he was feeling? Or fear? If the gods had sent these wolves, what folly had he done?"
• Nice to the Waiter: He is always polite and respectful with his servants. He regularly invites one peasant to dine with him for a night to better understand the needs of his smallfolk.
• Noble Male, Roguish Male: He's described as one of the nobler characters in the series, wise enough to involve himself in politics while he's surrounded by cunning enemies and dubious allies. Robert, on the other hand, is reckless, wasteful and loves a good battle. The contrast is further exemplified by their weapons of choice, with Ned favoring the sword and Robert preferring a massive warhammer for savage blows.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Warning Cersei that he found out her secret so she could take her children and leave results in his imprisonment and later on, his execution on the orders from the same kid he tried to protect.
• No Historical Figures Were Harmed: He's a composite of Richard, Duke of York, of The House of Plantagenet, and alongside Tyrion, Stannis and Theon, a Decomposite Character for the Duke of York's son Richard III.
  • Like Richard, Duke of York, his death in the early Wars of the Roses as a result of Margaret d'Anjou(a Cersei inspiration) sparked the Cycle of Revenge when his sons avenged him. His body was also beheaded and submitted to a mocking Decapitation Presentation, with the Duke of York having his head outfitted with a paper crown. His young son, the young Edward IV (an inspiration for Robb Stark) marches to war to avenge his death.
  • Like Ned, Richard III, Duke of Gloucester was popular and loved by Northern England for being a fair lawgiver and defender of their homeland. Richard of Gloucester was also named by Edward IV (a Robert Baratheon inspiration) as Regent of his children and tried to prove his children as bastards. Ned was also framed as an usurper and submitted to an in-Westeros Historical Villain Upgrade by his enemies, which is believed, by some historians, to have happened to Gloucester.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Cersei pulls this card during their meeting in the Godswood. Ned concedes, though not for the same reasons. He understands that Jaime crippled Bran to hide the secret of their incest (since if discovered Joffrey, Tommen and Myrcella would be killed) and he briefly wonders if he or Catelyn would do differently if it was their child against someone else:
  If it came to that, the life of some child I did not know, against Robb and Sansa and Arya and Bran and Rickon, what would I do? Even more so, what would Catelyn do, if it were Jon’s life, against the children of her body? He did not know. He prayed he never would.
• Number Two: Robert names him Hand of the King, which theoretically gives him the second greatest authority in the kingdom.
• Odd Friendship: It doesn't get any stranger than grim, stoic, duty-bound Ned Stark with hard-partying, hedonistic playboy Robert Baratheon. Yet, the two were fostered together and developed a brotherly relationship during their youth. Though this trope is deconstructed when they become men grown and high lords with responsibilities and commitments to their people and the realm. Their differences in personality lead to a considerable amount of friction when they finally meet up again, though they're still quite clearly devoted to each other underneath it all.
• Only Sane Man: For all the flack he gets about his honor leading to disaster (In-Universe and out), it's hard not to view him as this when you compare him to the other people at Robert's court: Robert himself is a profoundly depressed Fat Bastard drunk, Cersei is an Ax-Crazy Manipulative Bitch, Joffrey a Royal Brat as well as The Caligula (while in power), and later on, it is revealed that Littlefinger is a murderous chess master who wanted a civil war and probably realized that Eddard's death was the best way to incite it - as well as being personally satisfying, thanks to his love for/obsession with Catelyn. Ned is one of the few out to do what he thinks is right for the kingdom as a whole and has no personal ambition for himself, and little for his family beyond keeping them safe. Given what later books reveal, whether he knew it or not, he was probably damned no matter what he did. He was also the only one trying to figure out who killed his predecessor Jon Arryn.
• Our Hero Is Dead: Varys told Ned he is already a dead man for his failed coup. What's sad is that he dies a traitor instead of a martyr - though he is later made a martyr as the extent of Joffrey's misrule in particular become clear.
• Papa Wolf: Not only a pun; a clear example is his anger when his youngest daughter isn't brought before him first after Joffrey ends up mauled from her protective pet direwolf. It even makes him forget he's speaking to his King. Not that the King minds. He’ll even abandon his honor and lie over his true role in exposing Joffrey and his siblings true parentage as a means to protect Sansa from imprisonment or death. This gets him beheaded, in front of Sansa no less.
• Parental Favoritism: Not explicitly said, but heavily implied that Arya is his favourite. It's probably because she reminds him of his sister.
• Parental Substitute: As he fostered Theon Greyjoy in Winterfell, he's this to him. Theon always longed for Ned's or his actual father's approval — which Theon never really gets. Ned is a deconstructed father figure as he probably meant well, but his gentle-yet-distant approach to Theon aggravated Theon's already existing daddy issues and sense of estrangement, which influence Theon's future choices and also his mental health.
• Past Experience Nightmare: Dreams that he will go to a frozen hell reserved for Starks after killing Lady.
• Perfectly Arranged Marriage: Though his marriage to Catelyn was a political arrangement, they came to love each other and build probably the happiest highborn family seen in the series.
• The Peter Principle: Ned is a brilliant Lord Paramount of the North, perfectly understanding the regional dimensions, traditions, and the unique ideas of justice that work in the North, but that doesn't quite translate into being a Hand of the King for the Seven Kingdoms, a fact which he is himself aware of and tries his best to overcome but fails. Unlike most examples, Ned didn't actually want the role but took it as a favor to Robert and a mark of respect to Jon Arryn:
  • In the North, where a lot of his power and authority depends on the personality and honour of the Lord, in King's Landing, a lot of the power is based on information, leverage and threats, since unlike the North where the Starks are the unquestioned masters of the land, in King's Landing he's merely first among equals, and while he understands the need for being collegiate, his unfamiliarity, distrust as well as justified paranoia prevents him from perfectly utilizing his office leading to a Golden Mean Fallacy where on the one hand he cannot trust the people within King's Landing but on the other hand his mindset is committed with traditions, which hampers him from throwing his weight around, and hire and fire people and surround himself with his own appointments which is what Tyrion does in Book 2 (Bringing in Jacelyn Bywater and Bronn into his team).
  • Ned Stark also doesn't quite get into the intricate Byzantine nature of King's Landing where one has to pretend to be nice socially while secretly plotting your colleague's death and disgrace. He assumes that despite his personal dislike with Varys, Petyr and even Cersei, he should try and find some common ground with them and work consensually, which leads him to agreeing things he didn't agree on (like financing an expensive tourney which he didn't want) without actually putting forth his own ideas, and likewise leading him out of basic decency to warn Cersei to protect her children.
  • Ironically, the one remaining legacy of Ned Stark's tenure as Hand comes as a cascading effect from the one time he is shown sitting the Throne in rulership. With Gregor Clegane marauding amok in the Riverlands, Ned attaints him as disturbing the King's Peace and charges Beric Dondarrion and other lords to intervene under the banner of the king, a host that Tywin would have to attack and be labelled as treason. Proclaiming Gregor Clegane a traitor itself puts Tywin in the catch 22 of either discarding his most prized knight to the King's Justice, who may potentially squeal, or defending Gregor and thus defending treason and making it his own; though Tywin ultimately escapes these outcomes after Ned's fall, Beric Dondarrion's party eventually leads to the formation of the Brotherhood Without Banners which is one of the staunchest enemies to Lannister rule in the Riverlands, and is currently being led, fittingly enough, by his reanimated wife.
• The Promise: He made promises to his sister Lyanna and keeps them until his death. What he promised is still a source of Wild Mass Guessing and Epileptic Trees.invoked
• Pyrrhic Victory: Ned became a hero who overthrew a hated king but he lost almost all of his family. The friend he made king never wanted the throne and seriously considered abdicating, making him and everyone who helped him feel their sacrifices were for nothing.
• The Quiet One: In his youth, he was known as the "Quiet Wolf" among his energetic siblings.
• Rank Up: Robert kept promoting Ned, believing he is the only one who can keep Westeros stable.
• Real Men Love Jesus: Ned is an extremely devout worshipper of the quasi-druidic Gods of the First Men and the Children of the Forest known as the Old Gods. That said he is fairly tolerant. When Catelyn, a Southron woman who follows the Faith, arrived in Winterfell, he built a sept for her, and their children were raised in both religions.
• Resign in Protest: He attempted to do this to protest Robert's decision to send assassins after a teenage Daenerys, but was injured when attacked by Lannister men before he could storm away from the city. As such he was forced to remain in Kings Landing and Robert immediately reappointed Ned to the position.
• Retired Badass: Ned's had enough of fighting in war and clearly intends to spend his remaining years governing the North with his family. That is, until Robert showed up out of the blue, hellbent on making him the next Hand of the King.
• Sacrificial Lion: He dies early in the series, establishing that Anyone Can Die and that the world is going to hell.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: He tries to follow his own code of honor even if it goes against his king's orders.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After a bitter argument between himself and Robert over the latter seemingly condoning the brutality displayed by the Lannisters in sacking King's Landing, Ned departed the capital, first to relieve Stannis at Storm's End, then headed for Dorne to find where Rhaegar had been holding his sister.
• Second Love: Catelyn was originally betrothed to his eldest brother.
  • Many characters think Ned loved Ashara Dayne and that she was Jon's mother. However, Ned never has a single thought about Ashara Dayne in his internal narration.
• Secret-Keeper: The hidden meaning of his nickname "the Quiet Wolf." As one of the only two people to survive the Tower of Joy bar possibly Jon (who would, in any case, have been a newborn if that was the case), Ned took many secrets about the event to his grave.
  • This is also one of the many reasons he got killed. Instead of telling Robert that his kids were illegitimate, Ned decided to let his friend die content and handle the matter his own damn self.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: The Rebellion traumatized Ned, particularly the deaths of Rhaegar's family and Ned's sister Lyanna. Ned's recurring nightmares and flashbacks — mostly concerning Lyanna, the Tower of Joy and the Sack of King's Landing — in addition to his avoidance tendencies surrounding discussing these topics — seem to suggest he suffers from PTSD. Along with his Honor Before Reason, it has a strong influence on his decision-making, as he tries hard to avoid every possible bloodshed and subconsciously avoid having to re-experience the traumatic days that shaped him.
• Shoot the Dog: He kills Sansa's direwolf, Lady, knowing it is more merciful than letting Cersei handle her execution.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog:
  • Ned gets killed after stumbling upon a Lannister conspiracy, that has nothing to do with Jon Arryn's death.
  • Seems to be a pattern in his life. Robert's Rebellion cost him more than he earned, went through it hoping to avenge his father and brother and rescue his sister...but as soon as he finds her, she died in his arms.
• Shrinking Violet: Ned was incredibly shy in his youth. At the Tourney at Harrenhal, he couldn't work up the nerve to ask the beautiful Ashara Dayne for a dance, so his older brother Brandon asked her to dance on his behalf. Even as an adult, Ned isn't particularly outgoing.
• Spanner in the Works: Ned heats up the cold war in the capital by declaring Stannis the rightful heir instead of throwing in his lot with either Joffrey or Renly.
• Spare to the Throne: He grew up expecting his older brother Brandon to become the next Lord of Winterfell — then both Brandon and his father were executed by Mad King Aerys. He's spent all the time since then living in his brother's shadow.
• Spell My Name with a "The": The northern mountain clans call him "The Ned".
• The Stoic: Sometimes called "cold-hearted", Eddard is a very reserved man.
  • Meera Reed called him "The Quiet Wolf" as she told the story of the Knight of the Laughing Tree.
  • When railing against the Usurper and his dogs to his sister Daenerys, Viserys Targaryen referred to Ned as "cold-eyed Eddard Stark with his frozen heart".
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: While his family tends to find him kind and loving, others tend to find him cold and disdainful.
• Sympathy for the Devil: Towards Cersei, he feels bad for Robert's Domestic Abuse and especially for his Wrong-Name Outburst of "Lyanna" on their wedding night.
• 10-Minute Retirement:
  • He relinquishes his post as Hand of the King after Robert orders the assassination of Daenerys Targaryen, who is at the time a thirteen-year-old girl in the far east. After Jaime injures Eddard in retaliation to Catelyn arresting Tyrion, Robert gives Ned back his position.
  • Also in his backstory during Robert's Rebellion he had a huge argument with Robert for the gratuitous violence used against Rhaegar's family and went off to fight the Last Stand of Targaryen loyalists and find his sister. Only her death could reconcile him with Robert.
• This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself: Averted. Ned was on his way to lay siege to King's Landing and kill Aerys Targaryen, but the Lannisters already sacked the city through deception and Jaime unceremoniously dispatched The Mad King. It's possible that Ned's cold attitude toward Jaime is partly due to the fact that he robbed Ned of the chance to avenge the deaths of his father and brother personally. Their individual recollections of their encounter before The Iron Throne and Aerys' corpse lends some credence to this.
• This Is Unforgivable!: The Faith of the Seven are outraged by Eddard's execution outside the Sept of Baelor (particularly since the High Septon had been promised Ned would be spared and allowed to join the Night's Watch). After his beheading, the Faith brands the execution an outrageous and unforgivable act of sacrilege that profaned the holy precincts with blood.
  • Ned was also appalled by the brutal murders of Elia Martell and her children by Rhaegar and that Robert condoned the children's deaths as "dragonspawn". It caused a falling out between the two that was only reconciled by their shared grief over Lyanna's death.
• Tragic Hero: Doing the right thing the right way gets Ned killed and invites disaster to The North and the rest of Westeros.
• Undying Loyalty: To his friends. Even when he loses faith in Robert after realizing that he had become a mean drunk who neglects his kids and his duty and sends assassins after kids, Ned still tries to save him.
• Unexpected Successor: He did not expect to be Lord of Winterfell and still believes his brother Brandon would have been a better choice than him.
• Walking Spoiler: It's impossible to describe the plot of the rest of the series without mentioning the fact that Ned is killed at the end of the first book.
• Was It Really Worth It?: Ned feels this way after having to kill Sansa's direwolf Lady.
• We Can Rule Together: Both Cersei and Littlefinger make him this offer. Naturally, he refuses.
• What You Are in the Dark:
  • His entire conversation with Cersei. Of course, Ned remains as heroic as ever during the encounter.
  • Despite what Jon says, he is not actually one of Maester Aemon's 1 in 10,000 to choose duty over love. When threatened with death if he does not declare Joffrey the rightful heir, Ned is unconcerned. It is only with the threat to Sansa that makes Ned capitulate. He chooses to disgrace himself and lie before the world that he is a traitor for the lives of his daughters.
• Will Not Tell a Lie: Believes strongly in this and practices it to the hilt as much as possible: however, there are some hints in his P.O.V that he actually has lied a whopper for someone he loved — although, it seems to have done a number on his mental health to do so.
• The Wise Prince: Ned is known for being a competent ruler, though not savvy in manipulation. It is this trait that ensures the North's Undying Loyalty towards him; one of his vassals explains to Bran that when Ned was in Winterfell a woman in The North could walk down the King's Road "In naught but her name-day gown" and not be molested; a far cry from what happens to the North later in the series.
• Would Not Hurt A Child: After seeing the savagery by which the Targaryen childrens were killed during Robert's Rebellion, Ned does not want to see history repeat itself. He protests Robert demanding Daenerys Targaryen's death, even if her claim to the throne is greater than Robert's. Unfortunately, this is one part of Ned's undoing. Robert's brother Renly offers to raise up many swords to help him arrest Cersei, Joffrey, Myrcella and Tommen in the middle of the night, but Ned refuses to traumatize three young children like that. One of those children later has him executed.
• You Killed My Father: Eddard's father Rickard and his brother Brandon were both executed by Aerys II Targaryen; they were shortly followed by nearly all of Brandon's noble entourage and eventually their fathers as well, leading to Eddard, Jon Arryn and Robert raising their banners in revolt. While their rebellion is a success, he doesn't get to take direct vengeance, as Aerys was killed by Jaime Lannister during the Sack of King's Landing.
• Younger Than They Look: His greying hair makes him appear older than his 35 years.
• Your Worst Memory: He's still haunted by his sister's death, continuously remembering a "bed of blood" and her last words to him: "Promise me, Ned." As such, it's the big focus of his fever dream after being given milk of the poppy for his crushed leg, in which he relives both Lyanna's death and the events leading up to it.

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