"Ned was an idiot"

>"Ned was an idiot"
What did Ned do wrong besides warning Cersei that he was going to tell Robert and trusting Littlefinger, who'd given him every reason to trust him to that point?

He made a promise he couldn't keep. Jon got murdered.

Marry that old cunt Catelyn

He went against his gut instinct and trusted little finger

His only mistake was being the only honorable man in a world full of cunts and assholes. It was a pretty big mistake.

>trusting a guy that runs a brothel in King's Landing

To be honest the entire initial premise and setup of the books is bizarrely convoluted.

John Arryn died and it is initially a mystery as who killed him but that fizzles out without major consequence.
Same thing about the dagger that the assassin had that tried to kill Bran.

He wasn't even an idiot, sure he lost "the game of thrones" and was basically an outcast, but he got a pretty sweet deal.

All he had to do was say he was a traitor and then get shipped off to his adopted son and live out his days as a crow fighting the good fight.

Joffrey fucked it up, and no one accounted for that, not even Cersei or Tywin.

He didn't do anything wrong. He got fucked over by Joffrey

He was an idiot for supporting Robert. He should have told him that Lyanna was not raped at all, and that he was just a cuck who needed to move on and get another pussy.

t. hasn't done a close reading of the books

He was not an idiot but nor was he a very good schemer

For those of us who read the book without knowing the story beforehand, how many of us knew how Ned should or shouldn't trust, what move he should or shouldn't make? Ned made some bad decisions in hindsight but he was also hampered by ill fate as well

Sansa leaked to Cersei which meant she was captured in the coup

The ambush by Jaime, which by coincidence was during the time Ned had given up his position as hand, left him crippled.

He lost a valuable week or more of time in bed and after that had to hobble around with a cane

Despite all that he discovered the truth was poised to act... but then Robert returned from the hunt fatally wounded

Had the plot to kill Robert in the hunt not succeeded then Ned would have won the game

The real idiot is Robert for not publicly announcing his will in front of the small counsel instead of privately to Ned.

Why did Ned tell Cersei in first place? Did he think that she'd change her life for better? Was it because he was honorable and didn't want to backstab her? Why is Littlefinger faggot? He was Ned's friend, what's his endgame?

He should have returned north and than made his play, doing it while in city controlled by lannisters was a major mistake

Lannisters would have no choice but to give up joffreys claim to the throne once armies of Starks, Arryns and Baratheons rolled up on them

The only mistake Ned make was being a loyal friend to a moron like Robert

That would not have mattered.

>who'd given him every reason to trust him to that point?
Littlefinger literally told Ned not to trust him.

>Didn't tell Robert about Lyanna being a dumb slut thus making Robert think that he missed the one true love, making him extremely depressed and hurling the realm towards utter decadence
>Blaming Jaime for killing the Mad King thus creating a lot of friction between the Lannisters and the Starks.
>Convinced Robert not to kill Dany
>increasing tension between house Lannister and house Stark even more by refusing to help Jaime find his brother.
>not heeding Renly's advice on Cersei and the Lannisters.
>not getting the fuck out of King's Landing as soon as he learned of Robert's "suspicious" death
>thus not uniting with Stannis and marching both of their combined forces against King's Landing and fucking shit up

tl;dr, Ned was extremely stupid.

He probably should've listened to that poor guy that tried to warn him about white walkers in the first episode. Ned deserved what he got.

implying thats is not enough

I can't remember, was Littlefinger aware of the plot to kill Robert?
He may have just been helping Ned to get cozier with Robert, when Ned got BTFO he had to rapidly shift.
I really can't remember all the context from the book though.

the plot decided he had to die

most characters still alive in the show are complete idiots except davos and the nightking, but the plot didnt protect them.

any other answer is false

Ned's father didn't prepare him for the intrigues of court politics.

He showed all his cards before playing them.

Didn't get Stannis and his men to the city the minute he became hand of the king.

>you'll never see Stannis and Ned lead an army against King's Landing, killing every Lannister in their path and saving the seven kingdoms from The Others

what? arryn's death was a plot orchestrated by Littlefinger

>we'll never get to see Ned join the Night's Watch to fight off undead with his brother and son

why'd it have to be like this bros

...

>Convinced Robert not to kill Dany
this actually didn't make a difference. by the time he had convinced him varys had already sent out the assassin, who failed.

>What did Ned do wrong besides warning Cersei

He went south for muh honor.

He wasn't realistic, he didn't learn from history (his ancestors were killed doing the same shit). He didn't listen to his wife and put his family and his country first.

>It was a pretty big mistake.

Actually I'd like to interject for a second. At the cost of death of him, wife, and two sons.
>his one daughter is an assassin
>his other daughter is practically queen of the north
>his son is the three eyed raven
>his nephew is about to fuck the queen of dragons

Ned's honor lead to all of this.

>who'd given him every reason to trust him to that point?

Except for when he literally told him not to.

ditto. plus he acted as if honor was the most valuable thing in the world and everyone was honored as he was. he had it coming

>He wasn't realistic, he didn't learn from history (his ancestors were killed doing the same shit
his ancestors were killed because his brother ran in front of the keep and yelled for the prince's head, and his father answered a summon from a mad tyrant


it's pretty retarded to conflate that with just "going south"

he was a soldier, not a politician

Hate to admit but this is all valid. I liked Ned as a person but he was a simpleton.

It's really obvious GRRM doesn't know what he's doing anymore.

>Crows was shit
>Dragons was shit

Gee I sure wonder if Winds will be a good book or not.

best case scenario is he pulls a Robert Jordan

This. There should have been other witnesses.

I think he warned her so that she's escape and take the children with her. Even if she was guilty Ned knew the kids were innocent and if the incest were revealed they might die along with their mother (and Jaime).

>Trusted LF at all
>didn't immediately ship his daughters back to Winterfell when shit started going down
>renounced his power due to him pussing out about killing Dany and leading to Jaime fucking him up
>kept sending off his guards for every little thing, didn't bring enough in any case
>didn't let Loras take command of killing the Mountain
>Didn't demand Stannis return to KL at once with the Royal Fleet
>Didn't listen to Renly and take him up on his offer when Robert dies.
>Trusted Slynt and the Goldcloaks
>killed Lady

>Ned was an idiot.

It's true actually. Ned was an honorable man, the most honorable the series has had, BUT he's used very early on to show you that honorable men won't have the type of invincible plot armor on this show that they have in virtually every other fantasy before. And though some characters obviously have quite a bit of plot armor (Jon Snow for instance), NONE are invincible and it's truly one of the only fantasy universes that operates similar to our world. Being good is no guarantee of success just like being evil doesn't necessarily mean you'll be brought to justice.

Ned was honorable. Ned was brave. Ned was smart. But he has literally NO cunning or mind for politics, and is completely blind to the cunning political schemes of others. In any type of realist universe, Ned would always be the first to go...

Ned trusted a man who was ALWAYS after his wife's pussy and showed every sign that he still was, he trusted a brothel keeper and a man who ALWAYS manages to retain power regardless of who reigns (meaning that he'll always be working for the side he thinks can win, loyalty is fickle). He let Cersei know in advance what he was planning, giving her ample time to address the threat

Ned was an idiot. He acted every bit like one of the lawful good stooges in every fantasy series that always plays the hero. And he suffered the exact same fate he would in the real world. It was a really clever illustration that this is NOT any other fantasy series.

>>Didn't tell Robert about Lyanna being a dumb slut thus making Robert think that he missed the one true love, making him extremely depressed and hurling the realm towards utter decadence
I'm still hoping there will be something addressing this. At best, considering the show is now claiming Rhaegar ended his first marriage and likely married Lyanna, as dumb as that is, maybe Ned didn't want to break Robert's heart or something.
>>Blaming Jaime for killing the Mad King thus creating a lot of friction between the Lannisters and the Starks.
This was straight up stupid and hypocritical of Ned.

And I agree with the rest.

Season 1 Littlefinger was when Aiden actually tried to act like someone who could trick others into trusting him. After that he may as well have been twirling his mustache.

>And though some characters obviously have quite a bit of plot armor (Jon Snow for instance)
As much shit as Jon gets for being a lame character (and he is), I think he broke the Stark mold and was not honorable, at least from the start. Robb is a better example, since like Ned it was his sense of honor that did him and killed a lot of people. Jon on the other hand was willing to trick people, dump Ygritte when necessary and broke his vows. In a way it's probably while he lived longer than others while his attempt at making right by everyone is what got him stabbed, ultimately.

>This was straight up stupid and hypocritical of Ned.
How? Jaime was still sworn to defend Aerys, and everyone else ever has taken that oath pretty seriously. Jaime could have just held the mad king at sword point, or knocked him out until Ned shows up, he had already foiled his wildfire plans by killing the alchemist.

Ned never swore to protect Aerys, and although he wanted him dead for killing his father and brother, he didn't want a Kingsguard to do it.

Cersei sure was lucky that a pig managed to kill what once was the strongest man in the seven kingdoms so easily

I hope so, I like Sanderson's writing

It was autism, pure and simple. He knew the events that led to Aerys getting a sword in the back and he still gave Jaime shit for it when it was clearly an impossible situation to get out of. Ned similarly did "dishonorable" things but it's fine as long as he could justify it in some way?

You're right. This is what caused the rebellion.

If not for his honor and his promise, there would have been peace.

>Trusting a guy who wants to fuck your wife who was also humiliated and permanently scarred by your brother

Ned was a moron

I hadn't think about that. Fuck, Ned was such a coward. He was always looking for himself first.

He gave Jaime shit for it because he was Kingsguard and killed his King. It wasn't an impossible situation, he stopped the alchemists already, he could have just choked the King out and waited and it wouldn't have been so dishonorable.

The only dishonorable thing Ned did was keep Jon as his own, rather than see him killed by Robert. Saving his nephew's life by pretending he's your bastard is far less "dishonerable" than needlessly killing the King you were sworn to protect.

>letting the mad king go unchecked
>the man who would burn people alive as trial
>the man who burned Ned's family
>the man who was going to blow all of Kings Landing away

Yeah, Ned was TOTALLY an idiot for not keeping the Targs in power.

Ned didn't even let Jaime explain what was happening. It's actually sad because Jaime really admired Ned Stark and felt treated unfairly by the way he was treated.

As for what he did with Jon, it was extremely honorable in a convoluted way. He put a mark of shame on his name and broke the heart of his wife by coming home with a child he claimed as his just so he could protect his life and his sister's last wish.

Beyond what others said, Littlefinger was obviously trying to manipulate Ned, anybody with an ounce of common sense would have seen that. When those farmers came to KL and complain about being attacked by the Mountain's men, the moment they dropped the sack of fish they left behind, Littlefinger did his best to imply that it was a message sent straight at him by the Lannisters, just so that Ned would stir shit up. Anybody else would have told Littlefinger to fuck off with his "subtleties" and would have never trusted him.

Ned has a very soft spot for children, even bastard children born of incest from enemy house. He spazzed out when he heard about Rhegar's children before the ToJ incident, and was still advocating to spare Danny despite her being more adult than child. Must be something to do with the fact that he's harbouring a Targ that should have been killed.

I think he overestimated how delusional and obsessed with the past Robert became.

While Ned eventually forgot about Ashara and built a happy and loving family while being a good warden of the North, Bobby kept obsessing with the rebellion as the greatest moment in his life and built up Lyanna as a perfect waifu that never existed while ignoring his duties as king and his 10/10 wife.

>reminder that Bobby B was the only man in the show that made Cersei laugh
>reminder that Bobby B is the only man that hit Cersei in her smug bitch face

She kind of laughed at Tyrion a few times.

>He knew the events that led to Aerys getting a sword in the back
No he didn't, Jaime explicitly told Brienne that he never told Ned the full story because he figured Ned judged him the moment he saw eyes on him.

From Ned's point of view Jaime stabbed the King in the back likely in service of his father.

At not with

>his daughter was mindbroken and became an assassin willing to threat her own sister
>her other daughter got raped and humiliated by two dipshits
>his son has autism, and most likely Bran is dead and it's just his 3-eyed raven inhabiting his body
>his nephew is going to bang his aunt, hung a child, let the wildlings into the country disgracing the night's watch, got killed and his best friend is Sam

It sounds like it lead to some pretty bad shit desu senpai.

To be fair to Ned, that is clearly what it looked like.

Yeah I know, Jaime never told the story to anyone, so everyone just naturally assumed he went turncloak for his father, which is a reasonable assumption.

It can be hard to remember these sorts of details because the show implied that Ned knew more about it and Jaime did sort of talk about it in his presence.

Sounds like being suicidely retarded is the Starks most notable trait and not muh honor.

>meaning that he'll always be working for the side he thinks can win, loyalty is fickle

>not using a semicolon

i unironically think this post is very keen, though i wish its punctuation had more flourish

No it didn't. Brienne explicitly asks Jaime "Why didn't you tell Ned about this?" and he says something to the effect that Ned judged him the moment he walked in the Throne Room.

Jaime never told anyone aside from Brienne about why he did it, so everyone just assumed he did it for Tywin.

It only pops up occasionally, Ned's father didn't really act stupidly. Plus Benjen, Bran, Arya and Rickon seem relatively fine.

Ned's father in hindsight shouldn't have gone, but it was either show up to his son's trial or go in open rebellion when the King has his son hostage.

dude didn't really have a choice

Ned isn't dumb, he's just not cut out for scheming. He had a somewhat decent plan in place to remove Joffrey, but he trusted the wrong people and chose the wrong time and place to strike.

After all, he had the opportunity to get rid of the Lannisters by siding with Renly, but his honour and his support for Stannis stopped him.

I thought Littlefinger at least had subtlety that made sense up until this last season. He had himself well surrounded by allies (or at least all the allies that mattered). He always had himself in a position where he was relatively untouchable. He maneuvered all the key players from a position where he could never be blamed.

But this last season he's became fucking sloppily written, doing many things that the earlier seasons' wiser Littlefinger never would have done.

He never would have went to the Stark family crypt (a place where virtually anyone but the starks or the crypt's keepers would have been unwelcome), to tell Jon Snow that he wants to bang his sister and his dead step mom right next to his (alleged) dad's grave. He gave Bran the dagger meant to assassinate him which just reeks of creepiness and the fact that he probably had a hand in it. He never would have been so primitively playing the Stark girls that literally all they'd have to do is have a good honest chat to realize Littlefinger is fucking them all along. Also, why doesn't he go back to the Vale where he can play at being Sweet Robins Lord and Protector where he's in a relatively untouchable spot as long as he bring Robin gifts and stays in his favor.

He just literally makes no sense. He's behaving like a guy with a death wish. But I suppose that's how they have to write him for his final arc. The earlier seasons' Littlefinger would have essentially remained untouchable and a power behind the throne (whoever happened to sit on it) until he dies at the ripe old age of 90.

Ned didn't tell Robert because Robert was insane with rage and was fine with slaughtering targ women and children. What the fuck do you think he would have done to Jon if he knew the truth

Ned & Ashara is the best ship

>Benjen volunteered to join the Nights Watch and most likely was eager to go ranging with little support past the wall which got him killed
>Bran would climb on the roof of Winterfell like a retard

I'll give you Arya but Rickon isn't even a character so he doesn't count.

especially with Jon being Rhaegar and Lyanna's son

only a moron would tell robert. But he probably should've told Cat.

>Ned's father didn't really act stupidly.
Shame he still got one of the worst deaths mentioned. It sucks to be a Stark.

He had another son so putting himself on the line and abandoning the North like that was stupid. The Starks are about muh honor and duty only when it suits them.

>his 10/10 wife
that cheats on him with her own brother?

Nah, in the first three seasons Cersei and Tyrion used to get along pretty well.

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

it was either that or declare open rebellion

nobody expected that King Aerys would murder him. He at least expected a trial.

>>Benjen volunteered to join the Nights Watch and most likely was eager to go ranging with little support past the wall which got him killed
Stark tradition and it was seen as a relatively honorable thing to do. Plus as nobility he wouldn't have it as bad as the lower level men. And he had support, he just encountered some supernatural shit out there.
>>Bran would climb on the roof of Winterfell like a retard
Nothing wrong with that.

Have you seen the show? he did admit he was a traitor and Joff still killed him.

Littlefinger in Episode 3 was absolutely pathetic. Not only that he made that absolutely bizarre speech to Jon, but he acted like a retard all around. He tells Sansa that he knows Cersei best, Sansa makes fun of him by telling him that SHE knows her better and all of a sudden he's a bumbling fool who stutters and can't find his words. And right afterwards he tells her to be prepared for absolutely everything, but her quip from seconds ago sent him into full panic mode.

And to make matters worse on his decision to stay at Winterfell, if nothing else would convince him to leave, Bran knowing about the "chaos is a ladder" thing should have told him to run away as far as he can right at that moment. Like yeah sure, it's nice that he tries to pull off retarded schemes, but when you have a dude that literally knows everything that you ever did and that can undo every lie you told and you still stay...

that's what he's saying. he got a good deal and took it, but joffrey fucked it up which nobody expected

She was perfectly willing to be his wife at first.

She only went back to fucking Jaime because Robert called her Lyanna in their wedding night.

>Bran knowing about the "chaos is a ladder" thing should have told him to run away as far as he can right at that moment. Like yeah sure, it's nice that he tries to pull off retarded schemes, but when you have a dude that literally knows everything that you ever did and that can undo every lie you told and you still stay...
I try to justify it as LF assuming he had a mole and wants to figure it out or something, since there's really no way he could know about all the supernatural magic stuff with Bran. But you are right.

>but his honour and his support for Stannis stopped him.
and honestly Stannis kinda fucked up as well for staying completely silent all through Ned's tenure as Hand.

Stannis could have sailed a large amount of his men to KL and told Ned, Renly and Robert the truth about Cersei, all before any of the bad shit went down. Renly could have proposed to execute/exile the Lannisters and have Robert marry Margery and everything would have been fine.

No he hasn't dumbass

Cersei is the true victim of the series.

she probably still would've fucked Jaime on the side

she was fucking him well before wedding robert

>But he probably should've told Cat.
There was no guarantee that she could've kept her trap shut or that she wouldn't blow his cover. By lying to her and making her think that Jon is Ned's bastard and therefore be mad at both of them over it, there was little suspicion to be had. If people would have sniffed Jon's true heritage, Robert would have had him killed on an instant and possibly tried to kill Ned as well once he realized that Lyanna only loved Rhaegar.

Robert would have gone total Ape shit.

If he told Robert the only way to keep Jon safe would have been to kill Robert and become King because any other party would have had Jon killed as well.

He didn't want the kids murdered like Rhaegar's were. He saw the Mountain's aftermath.

>There was no guarantee that she could've kept her trap shut or that she wouldn't blow his cover
I think after years or marriage and love he could be reasonably certain she wouldn't say shit, and it would do a lot to ease the tension with them.

Cersei is a whore, she would have happily traded away Jaime for the better looking Rhaegar or prime Robert.

Especially since they were a prince and king respectively.

He made the mistake of not following Littlefinger's plans. If he chose to obey Littlefinger's plan, Ned would still be alive as hand of the king to Joffrey. Cersei would be imprisoned or executed. Joffrey would be a puppet.

Not a mistake he made, but a mistake everybody else made was thinking Joffrey was going to obey Cersei's command of not executing Ned and using Ned as a bargaining tool.

she would've just fucked them both

The way things played out she would have sold Jon out in a heartbeat if it meant getting her girls back.

Your theory sounds plausible but it doesn't fit. He knows that Bran was North of the Wall for years, there was no way he could have had a spy network set up while on the run.

But assuming you are correct, LF is still a moron for staying. Bran having a mole close to LF means that LF's lies are still possibly exposed and since his Betrayal of Ned was the most well-known of them all, he's basically toast anyway.