ML Cavanaugh
“Heroes do things and they die,” Daenerys explained to Tyrion, because they compete to see “who can do the stupidest, bravest thing.”1
To many fans, Ned Stark, Lord of Winterfell, was just such a fool—more heroic in his convictions than strategic at his core. At least one critic has pointed out that Ned was apt to “confuse nobility with stupidity,” while another has assembled a list of Ned Stark’s “political missteps” during the first season of Game of Thrones.2 The way this telling goes, in step with Cersei’s assessment, Ned was “just a soldier, following orders,” and marched to the beat of his own mindlessly moralistic drum—right up to the gallows and his own beheading.3
But while some see Ned as naive, others find in him the “show’s moral compass,” the “one character who’s truly unforgettable” and an “undeniable hero.”4 The actor Sean Bean, who played Ned Stark, has said in an interview that Ned was an “anchor” to many fans due to his “principles and morals and values” in contrast to so many of the other “poisonous” characters that populated the show.5
So which is it? Was Ned a moralizing moron or a hardened hero? Or is it a little bit of both? Just what can the case of Ned Stark—Lord of Winterfell, the Hand of the King to Robert Baratheon, husband to Catelyn, and father to Robb, Sansa, Arya, Brandon, and Rikkon—teach us about heroes, good guys, and victory at war?
It turns out the answer is “a lot,” because even in a digital age full of advanced drones and artificial droids, thinking about heroes still matters. As one political scientist has pointed out, we “can’t understand any number of wars and conflicts without paying attention to duty and honor and other romantic notions.”6
That’s because when humans go to war, heroes rise. Heroes inspire others through myths and unify disparate allies. And these two characteristics—willpower and allies—often mean the difference between victory and defeat at war.
The word the ancient Greeks used for “hero” translates, in English, to “protector.”7 The mythologist Joseph Campbell has described the hero as “someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself” and sometimes even “performs a courageous act in battle or saves a life.”8
So a hero is someone who serves and sacrifices for the protection and betterment of others. This is, biologically speaking, a little strange. Charles Darwin’s theories about natural selection ran counter to such an instinct, and he wrote, “He who was ready to sacrifice his life, as many a savage has been, rather than betray his comrades would often leave no offspring to inherit his noble nature.”9 Or more bluntly, as the writer Chris McDougall put it, “Selfish Bastard’s kids would thrive and multiply, while Hero Dad’s kids would eventually follow their father’s example and sacrifice themselves into extinction,” and so “if natural selection eliminates natural heroism, why does it still exist?”10
Think of the Lannisters’ self-interested behavior. Tywin Lannister fretted constantly about the good of the family. Darwin’s theory might predict that his offspring would do very well in a harsh world. But it’s not quite so simple—in many ways, Ned Stark’s children had more wind in their sails.
That’s because it appears that humanity’s social instinct has won out over our individual, selfish needs. We are, after all, the “most helpful species that’s ever existed,” and at war “we unite in fantastic numbers.”11 And while natural selection remains generally predominant, humanity’s social development does favor traits that “introduce highly cooperative behavior into the physiology and behavior of group members,” according to Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson’s theory of eusocial evolution.12 That’s why two species have essentially conquered our planet—the ants and us.
Society’s designated warriors developed codes, or ethos, to push back against the instinctual desire for self-preservation.13 And looking back over the long sweep of history, Amy Chua has pointed out that each and every world power that has “achieved global hegemony” and dominance was relatively tolerant and able to achieve some degree of loyalty and unity out of very diverse coalitions.14
There’s a deep tension, then, between the self-inclined, selfish individual and the self-abnegating, self-sacrificial person willing to give all for their society. So there are two ways of looking at the hero. Viewed narrowly through a focused, individualistic lens, Ned’s choices may appear foolish, naive, even stupid. But by looking more broadly, at the value of his behavior to a society and group (i.e., the Starks, Winterfell, the North, and the Seven Kingdoms), we might see Ned’s choices in a different light.
And this is what heroes do. The Greeks saw that the empathetic drive and urgency to protect others gave heroes their greatest strength.15 The same idea runs through G. K. Chesterton’s well-worn aphorism that the “true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.”16
Ned Stark was a hero because he served causes greater than himself—his family, his house, and the Seven Kingdoms—and he was willing to sacrifice for them.
Right from the beginning, Ned’s actions were consistent with his values, as when he taught his children that the one “who passes the sentence should swing the sword” or the moment he told Arya, “The long winter is coming,” and, “We must look after each other, protect each other.”17
Perhaps Ned’s service to others was most evident when his friend and king, Robert Baratheon, asked Ned to be the Hand of the King, the individual responsible for security and defense of the Seven Kingdoms. Ned did not want the job but could not turn it down, because he had sworn an oath to serve the sovereign. He told his wife, Catelyn, that he didn’t “have a choice.” Catelyn argued, resisted, and said that she could not run Winterfell without him, and yet Ned left anyways to take the job—even though it clearly came at a painful cost to both him and his family.18
Ned’s service as Hand of the King was sorely tested when King Robert wanted to take an action that violated Ned’s ethical code. King Robert learned that Daenerys Targaryen was pregnant with a child that might grow to threaten his throne, and so King Robert wanted Ned, as Hand of the King, to endorse and oversee the killing of the rival house’s mother and child.
Ned pointed out that this assassination would have been dishonorable and made the case that it would also be unwise because the two young Targaryens were not a strategic threat, as the Dothraki horde they were allied with would never be able or willing to cross the Narrow Sea and attack into Westeros.
Still, though they acknowledged Ned’s point, the Small Council unanimously decided to authorize the killing. Ned resigned as Hand of the King, removed his symbolic fist pin, and then gave King Robert some final, direct, unvarnished criticism: “I thought you were a better man.”19
Ned was willing to serve, but within moral boundaries. Moral frameworks are important as guideposts that signal to others stable behavior that builds trust and confidence. The deed—to kill a young mother and unborn child—was wrong in itself but also a poor strategic choice. While it may have had some near-term upside (removal of threat), that would have been overwhelmed by a significant long-term downside in the likely blowback as well as in the fear of coalition partners, who would look to hedge their loyalty out of concern for who might be next.
Perhaps most importantly, Ned showed that he was willing to give up his powerful position, and prestige, for principle.
Later, after King Robert’s death, when Ned was wrongly chain-bound because he knew the throne claimed by Joffrey (and Cersei) was Stannis Baratheon’s by right, Lord Varys went to the dungeon to visit and convince Ned to falsely confess to treason, plea for his life, and “bend the knee” to Joffrey.20
Ned refused and responded, “You think my life is some precious thing to me? That I would trade my honor for a few more years of what—the Wall? You grew up with actors, you learned their craft, you learnt it well. But I grew up with soldiers. I learned how to die a long time ago.”
At this point, Ned appeared resigned to his fate. Unbowed “in the face of death,” Ned showed a type of courage that, Steven Pressfield has written, “must be considered the foremost warrior virtue.”21 Ned was willing to stand on principle all the way to his death. But Varys made one last argument as he left the dungeon: “What of your daughter’s life? Is that a precious thing to you?”
This was the comment that convinced Ned to change his mind, to abandon his own hard-edged rejection of the lying, deceitful conduct of Cersei and Joffrey and the Lannisters. Ned was willing to confess to a crime he did not commit and to lie in order to protect his daughters.22 Ned was an ethical pragmatist, willing to die for his beliefs but willing to be persuaded by the exigencies of life to abandon those beliefs, when necessary, not for personal gain but to protect others.
Heroes inspire others to carry on and unify around certain ideals. Sean Bean once pointed out that Ned was the heart of the show long after his death and that Ned “posthumously guid[ed] the Stark children throughout their own journeys.”23
The psychological damage caused by Ned’s death was truly traumatic—Bran and Rikkon Stark saw, in their dreams, a supernatural Ned moving about the family crypt. Catelyn and Robb could not contain their grief, and both experienced extreme, spontaneous outbursts.24
But it was less in the initial moments of grief, which are to be expected, than in the longer shadow of his example that Ned impacted his children. Robb said that Ned was the “best man” he ever knew and that he taught Robb about leadership and fear and how to conduct himself as the King in the North.25
Arya and Sansa reminisced about their father’s manner and how Ned would secretly watch Arya practice her skills with the bow.26 Ned’s memory, his ideals, impacted them deeply.
Through Jon Snow, of course, we find the greatest remembrance and connection to Ned Stark. From Ned, Jon learned a sense of duty, a sense of law, a sense of justice. Jon repeatedly references Ned in his journey to leadership, from offhand comments in which he cites Ned’s aphorism that “true friends” are found “on the battlefield” to Jon’s visit to Ned’s crypt at Winterfell to Jon’s stirring speech in defense of blunt honesty with allies: “I’m not going to swear an oath I can’t uphold. Talk about my father if you want; tell me that’s the attitude that got him killed. But when enough people make false promises, words stop meaning anything. Then there are no more answers, only better and better lies. And lies won’t help us in this fight.”27
To Jon especially, who called Ned “the most honorable man I ever met” and who acknowledged that he felt Ned was a part of him, Ned’s impact drove Jon’s life in many important ways.28
Jon’s leadership is a direct continuation of Ned’s tutelage and ideals. That’s because Ned inspired Jon and he taught Jon the right way to live, focused on a purpose (and a “Why?”) as opposed to narrow considerations centered on short-term gains and tactical considerations (i.e., “What’s in it for me?”). Simon Sinek, a writer on modern leadership, refers to this distinction as the playing of finite versus infinite life-games.29
Ned Stark and his direct extension, Jon Snow, practice leadership that lives on because they put principles first. And people are loyal to them for that reason.
The Lannisters—Tywin, Jamie, and Cersei in particular—provide a useful contrast. They seek cheap victories through indirect methods, which, in some ways, Sun Tzu would likely appreciate. When Tywin struck a deal with Walder Frey to put down the Stark threat in the infamous Red Wedding; when Jamie used leverage and trickery to break the Blackfish’s grip on the castle at Riverrun; when Cersei wielded wildfire to blow up a significant part of King’s Landing to wipe out her rivals—these were short-term gains with long-term consequences. And that long-term consequence is clear—nearly nobody wants to ally with the devil.
As Cersei put it, “When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. . . . There is no middle ground.”30 This is the Lannister fallacy—that leadership is zero sum, all or nothing, and focused on limited gains.
The reality, which Ned Stark shows us, is that heroes unify others through their good will and principled leadership. King Robert once tried to teach this principle to Cersei, who apparently did not learn it, when he asked her whether five or one was the “greater number.” That’s when he held up a hand, with the five fingers splayed, and then balled them together into a fist—a perfect representation of the military principle of unity of command.31
That’s what heroes do. They unify.
And they inspire myths. We live by myths, much more than we know, and myths go on to inspire new heroes.
Yuval Noah Harari’s influential book Sapiens noted that humanity’s rise is “rooted in common myths.”32 According to Joseph Campbell, myths are “stories about the wisdom of life” that have a sociological function in that they often validate a “certain social order.”33 They also can serve a pedagogical purpose—to teach us to live better lives. Historian William McNeill once argued that such myths are at the “basis of human society.”34
Ned Stark was a hero who served and sacrificed. He did not win, in the classic sense, in his lifetime.
But because he unified others through his conduct and principles and inspired others through his life and the mythmaking that extended his life’s example, he gave rise to others who took up and carried on with the cause after he fell.
That’s the lesson we can take from Ned Stark, hero of the Seven Kingdoms—especially if Jon Snow and the Starks’ partners are successful in gaining the Iron Throne. The good guys usually do win in the end; it just takes a little longer.
1. David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, “Beyond the Wall,” season 7, episode 6, dir. Alan Taylor, Game of Thrones, aired August 20, 2017, on HBO.
2. Paul, “My New Favorite Thing, Stupid Ned Stark,” Unreality Magazine, 2011, http://unrealitymag.com/television/my-new-favorite-thing-stupid-ned-stark/; Dan Selcke, “And the Dead Game of Thrones Characters Fans Miss the Most Is . . . ,” Winter Is Coming, February 3, 2016, https://winteriscoming.net/2016/02/03/and-the-dead-game-of-thrones-characters-fans-miss-the-most-is/.
3. Bryan Cogman, “Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things,” season 1, episode 4, dir. Brian Kirk, Game of Thrones, aired May 8, 2011, on HBO.
4. Cicero Estrella, “‘Game of Thrones’: Is Ned Stark Being Resurrected for the Final Season?” San Jose (CA) Mercury News, March 14, 2018, https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/03/14/game-of-thrones-is-ned-stark-being-resurrected-for-the-final-season/; Leigh Blickley and Bill Bradley, “Sean Bean’s Role in ‘Game of Thrones’ Was Much Bigger Than You Thought,” Huffington Post, March 17, 2018, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/sean-bean-game-of-thrones_us_5aa6b621e4b087e5aaeca1fc; Rod Lurie, “Rod Lurie (Straw Dogs) Talks David Benioff and D. B. Weiss’ Game of Thrones,” Talkhouse, May 23, 2014, https://www.talkhouse.com/rod-lurie-straw-dogs-talks-david-benioffs-game-of-thrones/.
5. Blickley and Bradley, “Sean Bean’s Role.”
6. Brian Rathbun, “Ned Is Dead, Baby. Ned Is Dead,” Duck of Minerva, June 14, 2011, http://duckofminerva.com/2011/06/ned-is-dead-baby-ned-is-dead.html.
7. Christopher McDougall, Natural Born Heroes: How a Daring Band of Misfits Mastered the Lost Secrets of Strength and Endurance (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2015), 26.
8. Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth, with Bill Moyers (New York: Anchor Books, 1991), 151–52.
9. Charles Darwin, quoted in McDougall, Natural Born Heroes, 26.
10. McDougall, Natural Born Heroes, 26.
11. McDougall, Natural Born Heroes, 205.
12. See E. O. Wilson, The Social Conquest of Earth (New York: Liveright, 2012).
13. Steven Pressfield, The Warrior Ethos (New York: Black Irish Entertainment, 2011), 12–13.
14. Amy Chua, Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance—And Why They Fall (New York: Doubleday, 2007), xxi, xxiv, 330, 336.
15. McDougall, Natural Born Heroes, 204.
16. G. K. Chesterton, Illustrated London News, January 14, 1911, available at “Quotations of G. K. Chesterton,” American Chesterton Society, https://www.chesterton.org/quotations-of-g-k-chesterton/#War%20and%20politics.
17. David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, “Winter Is Coming,” season 1, episode 1, dir. Tim Van Patten, Game of Thrones, aired April 17, 2011, on HBO; David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, “Lord Snow,” season 1, episode 3, dir. Brian Kirk, Game of Thrones, aired May 1, 2011, on HBO.
18. Benioff and Weiss, “Winter Is Coming”; David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, “The Kingsroad,” season 1, episode 2, dir. Tim Van Patten, Game of Thrones, aired April 24, 2011, on HBO.
19. David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, “The Wolf and the Lion,” season 1, episode 5, dir. Brian Kirk, Game of Thrones, aired May 15, 2011, on HBO.
20. David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, “Baelor,” season 1, episode 9, dir. Alan Taylor, Game of Thrones, aired June 12, 2011, on HBO.
21. See Pressfield, Warrior Ethos, 13.
22. To forestall his execution, Ned Stark confessed to a crime he did not commit to save his family during season 1, episode 9. He said, “I am Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Hand of the King. I come before you to confess my treason, in the sight of gods and men. I betrayed the faith of my king and the trust of my friend Robert. I swore to defend and protect his children, but before his blood was cold, I plotted to murder his son and seize the throne for myself. Let the High Septon and Baelor the Blessed bear witness to what I say. Joffrey Baratheon is the one true heir to the Iron Throne, by the grace of all the gods, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm.”
23. Blickley and Bradley, “Sean Bean’s Role.”
24. Robb Stark repeatedly hits a tree with his sword and says: “I’ll kill them all. Every one of them”; David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, “Fire and Blood,” season 1, episode 10, dir. Alan Taylor, Game of Thrones, aired June 19, 2011, on HBO.
25. David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, “Prince of Winterfell,” season 2, episode 8, dir. Alan Taylor, Game of Thrones, aired May 20, 2012, on HBO.
26. Benioff and Weiss, “Beyond the Wall.”
27. David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, “The Winds of Winter,” season 6, episode 10, dir. Miquel Sapochnik, Game of Thrones, aired June 26, 2016, on HBO; David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, “Dragonstone,” season 7, episode 1, dir. Jeremy Podeswa, Game of Thrones, aired July 16, 2017, on HBO; David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, “The Dragon and the Wolf,” season 7, episode 7, dir. Jeremy Podeswa, Game of Thrones, aired August 27, 2017, on HBO.
28. Benioff and Weiss, “Beyond the Wall”; Benioff and Weiss, “Dragon and the Wolf.”
29. By focusing on “why,” you acknowledge principles and ideals that essentially have no end. But by overemphasizing short-term, narrow objectives, like money or power, you focus on finite issues that are ultimately unsatisfactory. Simon Sinek, “Simon Sinek with Arthur Brooks: 92Y Talks Episode 131,” 92Y Talks, podcast, MP3 audio, 1:20:32, February 22, 2018, http://92yondemand.org/simon-sinek-arthur-brooks-92y-talks-episode-131.
30. David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, “You Win or You Die,” season 1, episode 7, dir. Daniel Minahan, Game of Thrones, aired May 29, 2011, on HBO.
31. Benioff and Weiss, “Wolf and the Lion.”
32. See Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (New York: Harper Collins, 2015), 30.
33. Campbell, Power of Myth, 39.
34. William H. McNeill, “The Care and Repair of Public Myth,” Foreign Affairs 61, no. 1 (Fall 1982), https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/1982-09-01/care-and-repair-public-myth.