Those plans included the death of Ned and his seduction of Catelyn and/or Sansa, and his own rise to power. Littlefinger was shaped by his fosterage at Riverrun. It gave him a taste of the good life and introduced him to attractive highborn women who treated him nicely. Then when he aspired to consummate his affection he was smacked down. He tried to fight a duel for Catelyn and got his face rubbed in his inferiority when Brandon smacked him silly. Then he got banished from Riverrun back to his miserable little excuse for a home castle. On top of that, he thought that he had slept with Catelyn (it had actually been Lysa) and was even more enamored. He wanted all that he had been teased with and deprived of as a boy. The good of the realm was NEVER in it for him. He played the Tully sisters whom he knew very well to get his way, first by inducing Lysa to poison her husband and warn Catelyn, then by blaming Bran's assassination attempt on Tyrion and setting the Starks & Tullys at war with the most powerful House in the Seven Kingdoms. He "helped" Ned just enough to stay ingratiated with him, and was thus in a position to betray him. If Ned HAD accepted his suggestions and gone along with his plan and even enlisted Renly's aid, it would simply have meant a different form of betrayal. Part of his ego-satiation included "proving" to Ned that his honor was worthless by inducing him to utilize dishonorable means, hence his willingness to urge corruption. He was never concerned in the least about the good of the realm, long-term or short. If he had, he would not have deliberately set the Starks & Tullys against the Lannisters. We KNOW he lied about the dagger to turn Cat against Tyrion, and Illyrio and Varys said as much. Ned's choices at that point were all bad, because of his previous DIShonorable choice to warn Cersei. He violated his duties as a subject, as a friend and as the Hand of the King in his attempts to avoid the necessity of having to stop Robert's rage once again. The die was cast once he gave Cersei that headstart. It was a stupid move, but it was in no way honorable. If your position is simply that it was stupid, we do not disagree. However, my position is simply that that choice was his fatal error which undermined his subsequent choices. When it came time to agree to Renly's offer, or take up Littlefinger on his, it was mostly too late already. Do you really think the once Renly, Loras & Ned pulled off their coup, Renly would have stood aside tamely while Ned turned the realm over to Stannis? He was willing to go along with being a guardian and sharing in the rule over his underage nephew, but subsequent portrayals and character exposition by those who know him strongly suggest he would never have willingly submitted to Stannis' reign. In any event, this was a bit beyond the scope of Ned's choices at the time, but his decision was still part of his thinking sentimentally instead of morally. It's one thing to show respect for a deathwatch or take time to mourn a dying friend, but Robert was also the king, and his obligations and duties in this case denied him the right to courtesies like a peaceful death. Ned should have been moving to secure the country, instead of mourning his friend or hoping for a miracle, because he didn't have the stones to do the right thing and force a confrontation with Cersei and arrest kids. He hated the idea of being remembered as the guy who usurped his friend's kids' rights. His sensitivity once again interfered with doing what was right.

From where to you derive that interpretation? An historical conspiracy theory that one Hand poisoned his king to prevent him from ruling the realm? Because what IS known about Viserys III is that he did what Robert said he wanted of Ned - administer the realm while the king carried out his particular passion. Conquering Dorne in the case of Daeron I, propagating the faith in the case of Baelor, and whoring and drinking in the case of Robert. Tywin seems to have done as much for Aerys. There is nothing mentioned in his reign about being kept in check by Tywin.
The office of Hand seems to depend largely on the sort of king (as Cersei unwittingly gets correct when she claims that a strong king does not need a great Hand). For some of the better kings, they only need a Hand who can carry out his plans. A king who is great on vision but weak on logistics or technical details should pick a Hand who can do that sort of thing. A king who is not capable of ruling well needs a Hand who can do that. For Robert, who had no concern for his duties and only the pleasures of the office, the realm needed a Hand who would stick to those duties. The Hand is not simply a keeper (why would they bother with a monarchy where every king needed someone to restrain him? ), but a combination of chief of staff and prime minister.

What in his most unmentioned decisions or acts as Hand were shortsighted? He tried to do exactly what you said was the job of the Hand - restrain the King's extravagance.

More like a dozen, and he did it badly. He let Robert not only empty the treasury, but sink the crown deeply in debt. How on EARTH did he restrain Robert? If the job of the Hand is to restrain the King, well, then you are right about Ned, because that was what he was afraid of doing - stopping Robert from slaughtering innocent children (and Joffrey) for their mother's crime.

Well that has nothing to do with qualifications or job performance as hand, that is simple common sense.

We're focusing on different aspects here. It was both short-sighted and dishonorable. Cersei's departure would not be "honorable" it would be fleeing for her life and evading justice. The closest honorable action to this would be to publicly confess her wrongdoing and join the silent sisters or go into exile in exchange for decent treatment for her children (like Ned agreed to, except he had not done anything wrong).

She had done nothing to deserve it. It was wrong, no matter how convenient it might be. A realm that is run by such principles does not deserve to be saved and protected. "Pragmatists" such as Tyrion and Oberyn like to view themselves (note that they are both full of it, as each is brought down by his own romantic impulses), might laud Viserys III for using such methods to rid the realm of a disastrous monarch, but because Viserys was of such low character, he raised a son who would inherit the throne and be known as "the Unworthy," and whose sins are still plaguing the peace of the realm to this day.

There is nothing to be gained LONG-TERM from dishonorable actions in ruling or administering a kingdom. Poisoning Daenerys was a short-sighted solution to a problem that hurt them more in the long-term. How is Ned being short-sighted there? Furthermore, how can you keep arguing in favor of a move that failed disastrously? It was the assassination attempt that motivated Khal Drogo to seek the invasion of Westeros when earlier that same day he was giving Dany the brush off?

And how is that short-sighted? He knew what he was dealing with in Winterfell and he knew how to do his job as Warden of the North and lord of the North. Yes, he wanted to go for selfish reasons, but he also wanted no part of the immorality you (and others) suggest is "necessary" to rule.

A good usurper can also be worse than an incompetent rightful ruler, because the usurper's very act of taking the throne undermines legitimacy. Because Robert was a usurper, Renly & Balon Greyjoy felt justified in their attempts to seize crowns. The former because he missed the primary motivation for the Rebellion, and the latter because he probably perceived weakness in his new ruler who might not be able to hold the realm together to defeat his powerful navy. Note that the key players in that victory were the morally indomitable Ned Stark & Stannis Baratheon, whose loyalty to Robert would not waver just because his cause was weak. Ned had no strength to hold the throne, even if he was capable of seizing the capital from the Lannisters. Yea, he might have made a better ruler than Robert, but who is to say he would have been allowed to rule in peace? He was already wed to Catelyn and could not offer the most powerful noble in the realm a queen's crown for his daughter. A division of purpose demonstrated by Ned attempting to take Robert's crown would have made the rest of the realm outside the rebel coalition even less likely to bow to ANY of the rebel candidates. The Arryns, Starks, Tullys and Baratheons were none of them equal to the Lannisters or the Tyrells in strength, and the already fractious Dornish and ironborn would have been even less likely to cooperate with the winner. No, Ned's seizing the throne would merely have destroyed even the thin pretext of the rebellion's legitimacy regarding Robert's Targaryen ancestry. He would have sent a message that the new rule was "might makes right" and encouraged anyone else to try to take it based on power themselves. Sitting on an iron chair does not confer magical properties of authority, it is simply a symbol of rule and legitimacy. For a man without the slightest claim on legitimacy to take and hold it would have destroyed that symbolic value.



It would have in Ned's case. Doing the "practical" thing and assassinating Daenerys would have subjected the Seven Kingdoms to a Dothraki invasion, if not for the intervention of Mirri Maez Duur (ironically facilitated by her training under a maester of the Citadel who appears to favor Daenerys' cause). Doing the honorable thing and telling Robert about his wife's infidelity and setting him straight on the proper succession of the kingdom WOULD have been the right thing to do. Had Ned moved right away, he'd have Robert on his side. He'd have all the support of Renly, who would still have been present and leaping at the chance to carry out his plan with Margaery. This would have brought Ned, Robert, Stannis, the Tyrells and Renly together in a common cause against the Lannisters, with the Greyjoys and Arryns POSSIBLY staying neutral, even if they could be not induced to join the side of the angels, Lysa would never have gone with the Lannisters, and her bannermen were pro-Stark/Tully. The scenario Robb's bannermen suggested if they make common cause with Renly would have come to pass under Robert, and with Stannis helping. Not even Tywin Lannister's genius could have outmatched the combined generalship of Ned Stark, Randyl Tarly & Stannis Baratheon, especially with the Young Wolf as the northern field commander. Also, with what we now know of Doran Martell's long-term goal, he would not have joined in on the Lannister side, even if he did refrain from assisting Robert's allies.

In this case, doing the honorable thing in the short term WOULD have been better in the long run.