Bullshit. In the first place, handing Stannis the throne as a fait accompli would have choked off a lot of the strife. With the North, Riverlands and Stannis' power combined, with Dorne & the Vale staying out, even an improbable alliance between Casterly Rock & Highgarden might not have been enough to take Stannis down. In any event, leaving aside the what-ifs, Littlefinger is full of it. He was going to screw Ned over no matter what, and his counsel was not remotely based on the good of the realm, but on the opportunities for Littlefinger. He knew Stannis would never put up with his self-serving crap and that was his motivation for opposing that claim. Even setting that aside, he was against Ned from before the man set foot in King's Landing, so don't go claiming it was Ned's actions or obtuse honor that swayed him. Baelish lied about the ownership of the knife used in the attempt on Bran's life, specifically to turn Ned & Catelyn against the Lannisters. He isolated Catelyn, not for her protection, but to prevent her from finding out the truth about the tournament where the knife changed hands. His lies were the reason for her abduction of Tyrion and the cause of the war. He led Ned by the hand along the path of his investigation in order to stay in his good graces & keep him focused on the Lannisters, and he was almost certainly the one who induced Joffrey to execute Ned instead of sending him to the Wall.


He never intended to! And he lingered for Robert to catch up and see Tywin hand over the bodies of Rhaeger's family, denounce it as murder, quarrel with Robert and THEN go south to retrieve Lyanna. They later reconciled when he came back with her body. Pay attention to the timelines, dammit. And even if he had found Lyanna waiting for him in King's Landing, he would not have taken the throne, which he and the rest of his side were already committed to winning it for Robert. This was common knowledge, which was why Jaime made that crack about keeping it warm for Robert. Robert had the best claim, since his great-grandfather was King Aegon V (aka, Egg from the Dunk & Egg stories) and his grandmother a Targaryen princess & the sister of King Jaeherys. Robert's father was a first cousin of the Mad King Aerys, which was probably why Lord Steffon was the one the King sent to the Free Cities to look for a wife for Rhaegar. That was the basis of Robert's claim, not the refusal of Ned or Jaime to take the throne before him!

Actually he DID run the realm a lot. There are references to this in GoT. Martin just didn't bother showing us all the meetings and rulings and administrative work that went on in the days and weeks that passed between each Eddard chapter where he found another clue to the Arryn mystery. There is no sign of any lacking in his performance as Hand, and the few issues we do see him dealing with, he does so in an acceptable manner.


No, actually, they weren't, otherwise no one would trust them with a hostage again, the same way everyone sneers at the Freys over the Red Wedding, even those who profited by their actions. He was stupid for confessing because he failed in his moral duty to uphold the truth and protect the rightful heir of his friend Robert (Stannis, in this case). You seem to be suggesting that his decision would have been acceptable had he a trustworthy guarantee, when in reality, even if they WERE going to kill Sansa to make him talk, that does not preclude his and his daughters' duty to their rightful king. That is the price of the fancy clothes and the castles and all the people jumping to obey - you have to risk your life and your family's lives for your duty to the kingdom.

Maybe it was chemotherapy. In any event, Ned did not "pick" him, he followed the law. Robert had no children, so the throne went to Stannis. Disregarding the law will make it more and more acceptable to break that law. We see how people are willing to rely on military might to put usurpers with no claim on the throne and then justify it in their heads that Robert did the same thing, so what is wrong with depriving Robert's heir of his rights, since Robert denied Aerys' heir the same way. You haven't SEEN a cancer until you see the mess that comes of blowing off the proper law of succession. And besides, who was left? Renly was little better than a Lannister in his self-serving claim and arrogance. Propping up false kings under the pretense of their being Robert's offspring would not have brought peace, since Stannis was willing to fight it out no matter what. Even if Stannis could have been cowed, Ned could not hold the kids against their own kin. Tywin would have been agitating to step into Ned's shoes and who would let their father's old friend, who took them from their mother, have custody over their own grandfather? The Tyrells and the Dornish had no cause to love Ned, nor would they support his regency if Tywin was willing to bribe them.

Um, going back to Winterfell is a far better place to deal with the Others than King's Landing, dumbass. He wanted to go home, that does not mean he wanted to loll around the godswood all day, but rather just rule the North and keep it working. Had he done so, and let the southerners tear themselves apart, he could have kept his people safe and secure with winter coming on, and when the Watch discovered the Others and the walking dead, there would have been a Lord of Winterfell ready to listen. As it was, there was only a boy and a couple of old men, who could not rally the North to fight fables and myths. By the time Mormont's expedition made it back with an idea of the scope of the threat, Winterfell had fallen, which it would not have if Ned had been there with all his power. So yeah. What Ned wanted WAS for the best.

In the first place, you need some evidence that he was a "reactionist," in the first place, and why that is a bad thing in the second place. Reactionists don't cause trouble. Guys like Daeron I and Baelor the Blessed were active kings with long-term agendas and brought the realm strife and disaster. The people with the grandiose plans are the ones who cause trouble. What was wrong with keeping to his own turf? So much that went wrong would have been avoided had he stayed in the North, or returned there instead of accompanying Petyr to the brothel in order to pursue his non-reactionist agenda. As for his supposed lack of ability to make long-term plans, he was issuing orders for the North in anticipation of war the very day he arrived in King's Landing, long before any trouble started. We see in later books that he was making long-term plans for the expansion and settlement of people into the uninhabited areas nearer to the Wall. The very motto of the Starks urges long-term planning. You have no idea what you're talking about and are just throwing around buzzwords because they fit his reaction to one narrow situation.


An ARMY WITH NO BOATS WHO LIVED ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE OCEAN. AND ARMY THAT COULD NOT DEFEAT THE CASTLES OF WESTEROS UNLESS A TOTAL IDIOT LIKE ROBERT CAME OUT TO FIGHT THEM. As Jorah Mormont points out, while Robert might be dumb enough to lose to the Dothraki, Ned, Tywin Lannister, Stannis Baratheon and others allied to Robert would NOT be so dumb. How would all-horse armies get into the North or the Vale or navigate the western hills? How would they forage in Dorne, or conquer the islands of the Narrow Sea or the Iron Islands? Sure, they could run rampant in the Reach, but that was the home of most of the strongest supporters of House Targaryen. Of course, that's typical of Daenerys' way of making friends but does not bode well for their conquest of Westeros.

She was being "poised" to be a wife of a ruler of a highly-specialized people, incapable of taking fortifications or ruling cities or crossing oceans. Let her be the queen of Ghenghis Khan and let him conquer all of Essos from Quarth to Slaver's Bay to the Free Cities. It means nothing to the Seven Kingdoms. Ned COULD see it, and could see better than you or the drunken degenerate whose policies you are repeating. As it turned out, he was RIGHT. Don't you even read the books? It was the assassination attempt that made Khal Drogo willing to fight the Seven Kingdoms. That very day he was blowing off Dany's urging, saying their son would have no need for an iron chair. After he came home and heard about the poisoning attempt, he started vowing vengeance and that he would give his son the iron chair of his mother's father. See, whatever shortcomings you might attribute to Ned when it comes to long-term planning, he is no slouch at remembering history, how he & Robert & Jon Arryn rose in rebellion against Aerys because the man ordered their deaths. As Tywin noted, you do enough to your enemy to beat him - trying to exterminate him to the last drop of blood only hardens his resolve. Aerys tried to wipe out the families he had already offended and leave their Houses in the hands of helpless children, and instead he raised the stakes to "get rid of Aerys or die trying." And Robert did the same thing. Had he not been such a craven, afraid of a shadow in the future, Daenerys would have talked until she was blue in the face without her traditionalist husband ever being motivated to cross any ocean for her.

And even setting the practical matter aside, better a king who is willing to live and let live, than one who murders you for an action your children might take.