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Ned Stark

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Eddard Stark
A Song of Ice and Fire character
File:Ned Stark as Portrayed by Sean Bean in the television series 2011.jpg
Sean Bean as Ned Stark
First appearanceNovel:
A Game of Thrones (1996)
Television:
"Winter Is Coming" (2011)
Last appearanceNovel:
A Game of Thrones (1996)
Television:
"Baelor" (2011)
Created byGeorge R. R. Martin
Portrayed bySean Bean
Game of Thrones
In-universe information
AliasNed Stark
GenderMale
TitleLord of Winterfell
FamilyHouse Stark
SpouseCatelyn Tully
Children
RelativesRickard Stark (father)
Lyarra Stark (mother)
Brandon Stark (brother)
Benjen Stark (brother)
Lyanna Stark (sister)
NationalityWesterosi

Eddard "Ned" Stark is a fictional character in the first book of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series of high fantasy novels and the first season of its television adaptation. Introduced in 1996's A Game of Thrones, Ned is the honorable lord of Winterfell, an ancient fortress in the North of the fictional kingdom of Westeros. Though the character is established as a primary protagonist in the novel, his plot twist at the end shocked both readers of the book and viewers of the TV series.[1][2]

Ned is portrayed by Sean Bean in the first season of HBO's adaptation of the series, Game of Thrones.[3][4] Bean was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Actor on Television and a Scream Award for Best Fantasy Actor for the role.[5][6] He and the rest of the cast were nominated for Screen Actors Guild Awards for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series in 2011.[7]

Character description

In A Game of Thrones (1996), Ned Stark is the virtuous and honorable patriarch of House Stark and the father of six children. The moral compass of the story, he is initially unwavering in his view of right and wrong, duty, loyalty and justice.[8] His family name, Stark, serves as an indication of his resistance to moral compromise; his boundaries are increasingly tested over the course of the novel.[8] He and his wife "are happy to live on the world's edge, teaching their five children the importance of honor and justice,"[9] but his own virtues draw him into the goings-on at court. Finding himself a key player in the escalating political intrigue of King's Landing, Ned struggles with his moral code as he begins to see the importance of moral and practical compromises to achieve a just end.[8] Ultimately, Ned is forced to weigh his love for his family against what he knows is right.[10]

Sean Bean said of the character, "he’s a good man trying to do his best in the middle of this corruption, he’s a fish out of water, he’s used to being up north in Winterfell where people are pretty straight and pragmatic, and he comes down to a place where people are playing games and backstabbing ... he’s a principled man who tries to hold things together. This is a journey that he makes where ultimately his loyalty causes his downfall."[11]

Development and overview

Publishers Weekly noted in 1996 that, despite the honest Ned Stark's intervention in court politics, "no amount of heroism or good intentions can keep the realm under control."[12] From his very first introduction, Ned is portrayed as a noble hero and set up to be the heart of the story. With fifteen chapters devoted to his point of view, more than any single character in the novel, he is presented as a primary character in the series, and the main storyline of A Game of Thrones, the drama in King's Landing, is told entirely from his perspective. In the London Review of Books, John Lanchester writes that everything about Ned is designed to gain audience sympathy, from his strong sense of honor and moral compass to his compassion towards his wife and children.[13] Readers are led to believe that Ned will be the main character of the series, but ultimately he is, from a literary perspective, a classic decoy protagonist. After struggling to keep himself and the kingdom on a moral path for the entire novel, the only option that remains to save his family is to put aside his honor; he does it, but is betrayed anyway.[10][14] Calling Ned's execution "shocking", The New York Times noted in 2011 that the novel was "famous for dispatching a thoroughly admirable major character with whom readers have been identifying for most of the book."[1] In an interview for Entertainment Weekly, author George R. R. Martin commented on this misdirection:

I knew it almost from the beginning. Not the first day, but very soon. I’ve said in many interviews that I like my fiction to be unpredictable. I like there to be considerable suspense. I killed Ned in the first book and it shocked a lot of people. I killed Ned because everybody thinks he’s the hero and that, sure, he’s going to get into trouble, but then he’ll somehow get out of it.[15]

David Benioff, executive producer and writer of the HBO adaptation, told Entertainment Weekly that when he read the novel:

I was in shock. From your training in seeing so many movies and reading books, you know your hero is going to be saved ... Someone has something planned, because they’re not really going to chop off his head — right up until the moment when they chopped off his head. I was shocked, and then admiring of George’s ruthlessness. It’s a tough thing to build up a character and make somebody as memorable and impressive as Ned and then get rid of him. But at the same time it leads to a story that is so much more suspenseful because you truly have no idea what is going to happen and who is going to survive.[16]

In a review of the Game of Thrones TV episode "Baelor", James Poniewozik wrote in Time that "the execution of Eddard Stark is crucial to the story and its themes and everything that follows, but it’s also a meta-message to the reader: don’t take anything for granted here."[14] James Hibberd of Entertainment Weekly stated that tricking the audience into thinking Ned is the hero and then killing him makes the series' story better.[10] Writing that "the big twist here isn't that Ned Stark dies, but who the true protagonists of Game of Thrones are," Hibberd pointed out that the series' focus proves to be the "new generation" of leaders, in particular the Stark children but also Daenerys and even Tyrion.[17] He noted:

Ned Stark doesn't die in vain ... It takes the Stark kids — who are all too young to face these responsibilities — and thrusts them into a struggle where they're forced to quickly grow as characters. Martin busts many cliches in his writing, but this move is traditional Heroes Journey stuff if you consider the kids to be the true protagonists of this story — only by sacrificing the fatherly mentor figure can our heroes come into their own.[17]

Storylines

Background

As established in A Game of Thrones, Eddard "Ned" Stark is the second son of Rickon Stark, the Lord of Winterfell. Years before the events of the novel, the quiet and shy young Ned is fostered in the Vale by Jon Arryn, Lord of the Eyrie and Warden of the East. During this time Ned becomes close friends with Robert Baratheon, heir to the Stormlands and another ward of Arryn's. Robert is eventually betrothed to Ned's sister Lyanna; Ned cautions Robert that he barely knows Lyanna, but Robert is smitten. Before Robert can marry Lyanna, however, Crown Prince Rhaegar Targaryen absconds with her. Ned's father and older brother Brandon go to Rhaegar's father King Aerys II Targaryen and demand that Lyanna be freed; the so-called "Mad King" executes both Rickon and Brandon, convinced that the Starks seek to usurp him. Robert, Ned and Jon Arryn then rise in revolt, with Ned securing the support of the Riverlords by marrying Catelyn Tully, the daughter of Lord Hoster Tully. Ned consummates their marriage and conceives his eldest son and heir Robb on their wedding night, leaving for war the next morning.

With his father and older brother both murdered, Ned is now Lord of Winterfell. He calls his own banners and marches south to join forces with the other rebels, who win the decisive Battle of the Trident. In this battle Robert slays Rhaegar in single combat; Robert is injured in the battle, so Ned takes command of the rebel army and marches on the capital. At King's Landing, Ned finds that Tywin Lannister, former Hand of the King, has — through treachery — already sacked the city and murdered Aerys and what remains of his family. Disgusted, Ned harbors mistrust of the Lannisters for the rest of his life. Ned takes a portion of the rebel army to lift the siege of the Baratheon stronghold Storm's End, and attempts to rescue Lyanna from the Tower of Joy. He finds her in a pool of blood, and her last words before dying are "Promise me Ned." With the rebellion over and Robert sitting on the Iron Throne, Ned returns to Winterfell with his bastard son Jon Snow in tow.

Some time later Balon Greyjoy, the Lord of the Iron Islands, declares independence from the Iron Throne. Ned aids King Robert in putting down "Greyjoy's Rebellion." Balon Greyjoy surrenders, and his sole surviving heir, Theon, is taken back to Winterfell as Stark's ward and hostage. Ned rules the North for nine more years before the events of the novel.

A Game of Thrones

As A Game of Thrones begins, Catelyn informs Ned that his mentor Jon Arryn has died, and that King Robert intends to offer Ned Jon's old position as Hand of the King. Content to be far from court intrigue, Ned is reluctant to accept the offer until he receives a letter from Arryn's widow, who believes that her husband had been poisoned by the Lannisters. Ned subsequently agrees to the appointment, traveling south to King's Landing with his daughters Sansa and Arya. Catelyn later comes to the capital in secret, under the protection of her childhood friend Petyr Baelish, to tell Ned of the assassination attempt on their young son Bran. Ned's longstanding mistrust of the Lannisters is further fueled by Baelish's confirmation that the dagger used by the would-be assassin once belonged to Tyrion Lannister. Increasingly disgusted by the political intrigues at court, Ned finally resigns his position when Robert insists on having Aerys' only surviving child, the young Daenerys Targaryen, assassinated in exile. Meanwhile, Catelyn has taken Tyrion hostage at the Eyrie, and in retaliation Jaime Lannister attacks Ned in the street before he and his daughters can depart King's Landing. Visiting the wounded Ned, Robert concedes to let the Targaryen princess live and reappoints Ned, the only person he feels he can trust.

Ned eventually concludes that all of Robert's heirs with his Queen, Cersei Lannister, are illegitimate, the product of Cersei's incest with her twin brother Jaime. Further, Ned suspects that Arryn had been poisoned to conceal the truth. Before Ned can tell the king, Robert is fatally wounded while hunting and names Ned Protector of the Realm, functioning as regent until his "son" Joffrey Baratheon comes of age. Ned alters Robert's will, replacing Joffrey's name with "my rightful heir" to make the succession ambiguous. When Robert dies, Ned confronts Cersei with his revelation and moves to expose her; out of honor, he rebuffs Robert's brother Renly's suggestion that they seize the crown themselves through Joffrey, and gives Cersei the chance to flee with her children in the night. The queen, however, outmaneuvers Ned, enlisting the duplicitous Baelish to have the City Watch arrest Ned instead of her. With all of his entourage slaughtered, Sansa a hostage and Arya escaped but alone, Ned is charged with treason. A deal is struck in which Ned will be spared and sent into exile if he declares Joffrey the rightful heir; fearing for his daughters, Ned makes a public confession of his "treason". The sadistic Joffrey, however, has Ned executed anyway.

Later novels

Ned's arrest pits the northern and southern forces against each other, but his execution results in civil war. Robb is declared "King in the North" by his followers, Balon Greyjoy asserts himself as "King of the Iron Islands" and both Renly and Stannis Baratheon declare themselves heir to the Iron Throne, denouncing Joffrey and his siblings as bastards. The compassionate Tyrion Lannister eventually orders Ned's skull and bones be sent to Catelyn, but she and Robb are killed and the Iron Islanders isolate the North by taking Moat Cailin, leaving it unknown if Ned's remains will be returned and to whom.

TV adaptation

In January 2007 HBO secured the rights to adapt Martin's series for television.[18][19] When the pilot went into production in 2009, one of the first casting announcements was Sean Bean as the "lead" Eddard Stark.[20][21] As the show premiered in 2011, the Los Angeles Times called Bean's Ned "the strong and brooding headliner of the series."[9]

Though praising the character's demise for its role in propelling the story, James Hibberd of Entertainment Weekly later noted that:

This is probably the first time a U.S. drama series has ever killed off its main character in the first season as part of its master creative plan ... it's just .. not done. You don't cast a star, put him on bus stops and magazine ads marketing the show, get viewers all invested in his story, and then dump him nine episodes later just because it arguably makes the story a bit more interesting.[17]

Hibberd echoed the show's producers' statement that "the move lays down a dramatic precedent for the show: Nobody is safe."[17] He called it a "risky" move that would probably lose the show viewers who had tuned in for Bean, but would hopefully attract others impressed by the boldness of it.[22] Executive producer and writer D. B. Weiss told Entertainment Weekly in 2011 that when he and Benioff pitched the series to HBO, the fact that "main character" Ned was slated to die "was a selling point for them."[16] Noting that the network has killed off characters in other successful series, he said that this sense of jeopardy "completely ups the ante for any moment when a character is in a dire situation if you know another character didn't survive a similar situation."[16] HBO programming president Sue Naegle concurred, saying that Ned's death made the show creatively more attractive, adding that "The book series was filled with unexpected twists and turns. I loved this idea we'd bring together the group of characters, then once you started to believe all the tropes of heroes, you pull the rug out from under them. It's the opposite of feeling manipulated."[2] Noting that the story and world of the series is bigger than any one character, Naegle said, "Sean brings a giant following, but Thrones is not just about the promise you're going to see one of your favorite actors week in and week out. The star is the story."[2] Bean noted that Ned's death "was as much a surprise to me as anyone" and called it "a very courageous move for a television company."[11]

Bean was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Actor on Television and a Scream Award for Best Fantasy Actor for the role.[5][6] He and the rest of the cast were nominated for Screen Actors Guild Awards for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series in 2011.[7]

Family tree of House Stark


References

  1. ^ a b Orr, David (August 12, 2011). "Dragons Ascendant: George R. R. Martin and the Rise of Fantasy". The New York Times. Retrieved July 12, 2014.
  2. ^ a b c Hibberd, James (June 13, 2011). "HBO defends Game of Thrones shocker". EW.com. Retrieved August 18, 2014.
  3. ^ "Game of Thrones: Lord Eddard "Ned" Stark". HBO. Retrieved August 19, 2014.
  4. ^ Martin, George R. R. (July 16, 2010). "Not A Blog: From HBO". GRRM.livejournal.com. Retrieved August 19, 2014.
  5. ^ a b "Nominations for the 38th Annual Saturn Awards". Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films. February 29, 2012. Retrieved February 29, 2012.
  6. ^ a b Murray, Rebecca. "2011 SCREAM Awards Nominees and Winners". About.com. IAC. Retrieved January 16, 2013.
  7. ^ a b "The 18th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards". Screen Actors Guild. January 29, 2012. Retrieved June 7, 2012.
  8. ^ a b c "A Game of Thrones: Analysis of Eddard "Ned" Stark". SparkNotes. Retrieved August 4, 2014.
  9. ^ a b McNamara, Mary (April 15, 2011). "Swords, sex and struggles". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 11, 2014.
  10. ^ a b c Hibberd, James (June 12, 2011). "Game of Thrones recap: The Killing". EW.com. p. 1. Retrieved August 17, 2014.
  11. ^ a b Hibberd, James (June 12, 2011). "Sean Bean talks Game of Thrones Episode 9". EW.com. Retrieved August 17, 2014.
  12. ^ "Fiction review: A Game of Thrones". Publishers Weekly. July 29, 1996. Retrieved August 5, 2014.
  13. ^ Lanchester, John (April 11, 2013). "When did you get hooked?". London Review of Books. pp. 20–21. Retrieved August 13, 2014.
  14. ^ a b Poniewozik, James (June 13, 2011). "Game of Thrones Watch: The Unkindest Cut". Time. Retrieved August 13, 2014.
  15. ^ Hibberd, James (June 2, 2013). "Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin: Why he wrote The Red Wedding -- EXCLUSIVE". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved August 13, 2014.
  16. ^ a b c Hibberd, James (June 12, 2011). "Game of Thrones shocker! Producers explain tonight's horrific twist". EW.com. Retrieved August 18, 2014.
  17. ^ a b c d Hibberd, James (June 12, 2011). "Game of Thrones recap: The Killing". EW.com. p. 7. Retrieved August 17, 2014.
  18. ^ Radish, Christina (2013). "Producers David Benioff, Dan Weiss & George R.R. Martin Talk Game of Thrones Season 3 and 4, Martin's Cameo, the End of the Series, and More". Collider.com. Retrieved August 3, 2014.
  19. ^ Fleming, Michael (January 16, 2007). "HBO turns Fire into fantasy series". Variety. Archived from the original on May 16, 2012. Retrieved July 11, 2014.
  20. ^ Kit, Borysm; Andreeva, Nellie (July 19, 2009). "Sean Bean to ascend to Thrones". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved August 14, 2014.
  21. ^ Martin, George R.R. (July 19, 2009). "Not A Blog: A Casting We Will Go". GRRM.livejournal.com. Retrieved July 20, 2009.
  22. ^ Hibberd, James (June 12, 2011). "Game of Thrones recap: The Killing". EW.com. p. 8. Retrieved August 17, 2014.
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