How would you rate the Stark family in order of intelligence?

[The Fresh PtwP]

Bran>Arya>Robb/Jon>Sansa>Ned

Bran and Arya's thought processes are kinda ridiculous, honestly the moment Arya blew the death wishes i was really glad because her arc was getting unbelievable with how well she was thinking after going through all she's been through. Bran's probably the most "book-smart" in his Stark in Winterfell chapters he shows a good understanding of...well pretty much everything from politics to heraldry, and even in his travelogue chapters he knows a lot about history.

Robb never lost a battle, that's a big deal especially when you think how often that fact is mentioned. The North/Riverlands rebellion hinged on Robb's brilliance, unfortunately it had little else going for it.

Jon I think again is more "book-smart" then Robb and gets people alot more. His meetings with King Stannis and overall handling of the mess at the wall show off his sharp mind.

Sansa bad at math and too trusting. Also has LF taught her anything? Does she have any schemes or plots going on right now? Just because she hangs out with Littlefinger doesn't mean his intelligence infects her like some sort of airborne virus. She's not dumb...but of slightly above average intelligence which isn't going to cut it on this list.

Ned, Let me start by saying one of the reasons I like Ned is because as 2nd son and given his personality he's put in these situations that he is kinda unsuited for but does his best anyway. But yeah he's not that bright, I'm sorry. Does it take a genius to think "Wait, why would Tyrion bet AGAINST his brother?" AFTER Renly blurts it out?? No. Does it take a genius to idk maybe take "If one Hand can die why not the other" a little serious. Again no. I'll even give him a pass on telling Cersei because of his mercy for the children and whatnot but man...Also! Pick Loras you fool! (hindsight Beric was flipping DEDICATED to the cause.)  

[greensleeves]

These threads usually reveal more about the poster's prejudices than the characters. Liking dresses and using the word 'tummy' doesn't make you unintelligent. For those elevating Arya so they can trash Sansa:

Quote

Fat Tom was knocking on her door. “Arya girl, what’s wrong?” he called out. “You in there?”

“No!” she shouted. The knocking stopped. A moment later she heard him going away. Fat Tom was always easy to fool.

 

- Game of Thrones

 

[MinotaurWarrior]

53 minutes ago, greensleeves said:

These threads usually reveal more about the poster's prejudices than the characters. Liking dresses and using the word 'tummy' doesn't make you unintelligent. For those elevating Arya so they can trash Sansa:

- Game of Thrones

 

But then, in a few months, she learns how to hide so well she tails Varys undetected, correctly judging the distances and angles and leads required. She and Bran and Rickon are all children, and have children's follies, but how quickly she learns to hide and evade capture shows Arya's intelligence.

I also don't think there's actually that much to compare between the two, except for their skills at math, horses, needlework, and singing. She's better with people than Robb, but worse than Jon, and better than Bran at songs and stories and vexillology. Most of what impresses people about Arya is her ability to deal with concrete, physical problems, while what makes people call Sansa a fool is her inability to work abstract social conditions to her advantage. They deal with incredibly different sorts of problems.

[Manderly's Rat Cook]

Hmm... I'd say:

1. Bran: despite being the youngest Stark with a pop, he seems to show the most intellectual perspective. He's a very curious boy, who's interested in a wide variety of things,  including history,  and sword fighting. He seems to be the one who's most interested in finding out,  and understanding all that is going on around him. 

His love for stories,  shows his interest in history, and understanding magic.

He even shows political interest from the start,  which Arya and Sansa don't.  For instance when the marriage options for lady Hornwood are being discussed. He even offers 2 solutions,  one of which is Set Rodrik,  one of the many times that he shows that he is at least as observant as Jon,  having noticed that Ser Rodrik is attracted to the lady. Political interest is quite extraordinary at such a young age. 

On top of that,  which is the main reason I consider him the brightest Stark, he is the only Stark that shows interest in trying to understand the world on a deeper level. 

 

2. Jon: Jon doesn't seem as interested as bran in gaining deeper knowledge of the world - which becomes clear when he doesn't want to hear the history Sam finds in the books and scrolls,  and because he never asks Ygritte why he knows nothing. He also never asks the wildlings to tell him more about their legends,  and history. 

However he is still an excellent commander. Robb might have won more battles,  but Robb had an actual army,  where Jon has a handful of badly trained men,  wildlings,  giants,  and some ridiculously stupid and arrogant Knights,  all of which are not on good terms with one another. Given the situation he's in,  and the odds he's up against,  I think there's truly little that he could've done better. 

3. Arya: I'm putting Arya above Robb, because Robb doesn't have a POV, so I find it hard to judge whether he's more or less intelligent than Arya.

Arya has proven to be very intelligent in surviving on her own,  even managing to come up with well thought out escape plans. However,  she often fails to see the bigger picture,  and doesn't always seem interested in finding it out either. She is however capable of realising her misjudgement in having Jaqen kill only unimportant people. 

4. Robb: Robb is a brilliant commander,  but unfortunately that 's basically all we know about him. It wasn't a smart move to marry Jeyne, but he was aware of the consequences,  so I won't blame it on his intellect. 

5. Sansa: Sansa is intelligent enough to survive in Kl, and even influence Joffrey to an extent. However we never see her try to truly understand what's happening around her,  not until she's in the Vale at least. When LF is teaching her. This teaching is his initiative though. She may definitely excel later on though,  but up until now,  she's shown the least promise. 

6. Ned: don't get me wrong,  I love the Ned, but he doesn't seem to be very intelligent. He's not stupid,  and I'm sure he was a good commander,  but we're not shown how he commands an army in the books,  so it's impossible to tell whether he was as good as Robb,  or Jon. 

The game in KL goes right over his head. He isn't capable of seeing through schemes,  unlike Jon, who figures out Ser Alister,  and Slynth's plans rightaway.

Most of his decisions aren't that bad. The one truly stupid mistake he made,  was not making absolutely sure his daughters were safe,  before confronting Cersei. Confronting Cersei clearly was a very dumb move as well, but because he acted out of humanity,  I'll blame him less harshly for that. 

[MostlyMoody]

Since the OP figured out how well the Starks would be at solving puzzles, I'll go a different route and set up a list of how 'clever' Starks are - the intelligence that would help them survive in Westeros.

1 - Sansa

2 - Bran

3 - Arya

4 - Jon

5 - Robb

6 - Ned 

[MinotaurWarrior]

52 minutes ago, MostlyMoody said:

Since the OP figured out how well the Starks would be at solving puzzles, I'll go a different route and set up a list of how 'clever' Starks are - the intelligence that would help them survive in Westeros.

1 - Sansa

2 - Bran

3 - Arya

4 - Jon

5 - Robb

6 - Ned 

Bran should be at the bottom of the survival skills list. He was always taunting death with his climbing, and then he was begging Meera to take them down the kingsroad.

[tugela]

Starting with Ned, who has an intelligence of 1 on a scale of 1 to 10, the rest go down from there. It is difficult to imagine that these people were capable of ruling anything, let alone the north for 10000 years. In the real world they would have been booted from power millennia ago.

The only sensible leader in the entire story is Tyrion, and to a lesser extent, Stannis. Pretty much all of the rest are seriously flawed.

[tugela]

20 hours ago, The Fresh PtwP said:

 

Robb never lost a battle, that's a big deal especially when you think how often that fact is mentioned. The North/Riverlands rebellion hinged on Robb's brilliance, unfortunately it had little else going for it.

 

The main reason Robb never lost a battle is that he was so clueless about what he was doing that he surprised his opponents who were expecting more conventional and sensible tactics.

The numbers game however meant that he could not win the war, and only needed to lose one battle to lose everything else as well.

The whole rebellion thing was not well conceived.

[Hol Horse]

Ahuehue, these responses tickle mein sides.

[Alaynsa Starne]

You can't really do this as a quantitative thing. There are different forms of intelligence that manifest in themselves in different ways among the characters. It would probably be more accurate to divide the Starks into different groups of intelligence and then describe the ways they need to grow within those intelligence groups and the forms of intelligence that they need to work on developing more. 

So if we're using Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, we can try to roughly categorize the characters. For instance, Sansa would probably score pretty high verbal-linguistic, intrapersonal, and musical-rhythmic intelligences and maybe on interpersonal as well. Jon and Arya seem to lean more towards bodily-kinesthetic and logical-mathematical. Because Robb isn't a POV, he's harder to place, but he likely is also towards the bodily-kinesthetic and logical-mathematical as well, given his unusual tactical skills. Given Bran's climbing abilities and his early interest in being a knight, he probably is also in the bodily-kinesthetic realm, but he also seems to have an affinity for stories and the natural world. This might put him in the verbal-linguistic and naturalistic forms of intelligence. Cat has pretty good interpersonal skills, I think, though I'd probably have to reread her chapters to clarify that, and maybe logical-mathematical as well. Ned is probably somewhere in the logical-mathematical area, and his style of leadership -- meeting with a different member of his household at dinner and learning about what was going on in Winterfell and his apparently incredibly solid relationships with much of the North -- leads me to believe that he also has some pretty good interpersonal skills. The only problem is that I would think he would have been a little more astute in KL had his interpersonal skills been higher. Though, I guess types of intelligence and level of intelligence have very little to do with how cynical an individual is. 

To simplify, Sansa, Ned, and Cat seem to have high emotional intelligence. This isn't to say that they're perfect or that they'll never make a mistake or that they can read everyone's motivations. Rather, it means they understand the world through moral standards and principles. On the other hand, Sansa in particular does seem to be getting more astute. I doubt very much that she will ever be a Littlefinger-esque schemer or that her instincts will always be right, but what comes to mind is in her Winds of Winter preview chapter 

Spoiler

she gets the feeling that Lyn Corbray is playing Littlefinger as a triple agent. That may or may not be true, but the fact that it even occurs to her as a possibility -- even if she dismisses it immediately afterwards because it's too confusing for her to pull apart without all the information -- does tell me that she is getting a little better at reading people. 

Because I'm not actually a tactician, I did place many of the Starks in the logical-mathematical realm. I don't know what exactly goes into being a competent commander or strategist (maybe it's actually visual-spatial intelligence...? A combination of the two?) However, it does seem like many of the Starks do lean towards more towards logical and physical forms of intelligence. 

As far as further development goes... Well, Ned, Robb, and Cat are dead. So I'll just put them aside. Jon needs to work on his interpersonal skills. Badly. It is, in my opinion, one of his greatest failings as Lord Commander: he simply is ineffective at communicating with others and understanding why his men need that flow of communication of his thought processes and where exactly he plans to take the NW in the future. His deliberate isolation may be a result of his grief, and possibly depression, but he also had a penchant for misunderstanding others and miscommunicating himself even in AGOT. Also working on verbal-linguistic intelligence might help him to verbally express himself instead of just pummeling his buddies in the yard. 

Arya needs to work on her emotional intelligence. Perhaps it's because she's a child, but if I recall correctly, she has a very difficult time understanding why people need different things than she does. For instance, she feels betrayed when Gendry decides to join the BWB. She essentially makes his life decision about herself because she struggles to understand why Gendry has a fundamental need to not be on the bottom of the social ladder for the rest of his life. She doesn't understand his need for a greater purpose than being a servant to people who will under-appreciate him, and it damages her relationship with him. 

Depending on where Martin takes Sansa's story, she could need to develop in different ways. In my opinion, Sansa is in an awkward place between not exactly being naive, but also not being quite cynical enough for Westeros. If Martin is going to have her lead the Vale forces or take on a role in the war against the Others, she probably needs to develop more in a logical-mathematical direction (unless she gets some super top-notch advisers.) If she's not going to be doing something like that, she needs to keep developing her interpersonal intelligence and verbal-linguistic intelligence. 

I have no idea how magic fits into the intelligence scale, so Bran is just sort of... hard to place as far as where he needs to go for further development. 

And, well, Rickon's a baby. He just needs to learn how to not fly off the handle and sic Shaggydog on everyone. 

[The Wull]

Arya - Smart enough to live multiple lives, able to read people and pick up new skills incredibly quickly. Survived the war-torn Riverlands. And she's only what, 11?

Sansa - Makes incredible progress after the coup in King's Landing.  Her passive resistance while held prisoner to the Lannisters showed she can be extremely perceptive.  The way she took over as Lady of the Vale later on and the way she's beginning to understand politics show a lot of promise.

Bran - Hard to tell with him, since sometimes he thinks like an eight-year-old-boy, and sometimes seems to know things that make it seem like plot convenience.  I've personally never been super impressed with Bran, but he's clearly not stupid.

Jon - Stubborn and honorable to a fault, but learns well enough once he's had his face shoved in the hard realities of the situation.  Definitely needs to be walked through some things.

Robb - Almost impossible to tell with no POV, but his handling of the Freys and not telling Edmure what his plans were are definite strikes against him.

Catelyn - I actually think she's pretty intelligent, but she's so caught up in her role of being Lady Stark that she never really gets to use her smarts to their full potential.

Ned - Too dumb to live.  In his defense, the author needed him to make mistakes so that the plot could continue, but he certainly made more mistakes than you would think someone of his station should make.  

[Sabhayata]

11 hours ago, tugela said:

The main reason Robb never lost a battle is that he was so clueless about what he was doing that he surprised his opponents who were expecting more conventional and sensible tactics.

The numbers game however meant that he could not win the war, and only needed to lose one battle to lose everything else as well.

The whole rebellion thing was not well conceived.

That seems unfair. Once Blackfish tells him how the whole siege of Riverrunn is happening he comes up with a great idea  to win his first battle as can be seem from his conversation with Catelyn. He doesn't seem like some one who didn't know what he was doing. He definitely had good plaNS in place. And after the Lannisters killed his father he had no choice but to rebel,

[John Doe]

On 23.6.2016 at 3:55 AM, Tijgy said:

Sansa is more smart in an empathic and diplomatic kind of way. How she was able to survive in KL by manipulating Joffrey shows she is certainly intelligent.

She only manipulated Joffry once and that wasn't to her gain or to ensure her survival. 

[Schwarze Sonne]

1. Arya

2. Catelyn (Pre-Bran and Rickon's supposed death. She was a selfish person who captured Tyrion at the cost of Riverland being invaded and still had the nerve to call Edmure incompetent when her father was badly ill.)

3. Robb

4. Jon

5. Bran

6. Sansa (There's a difference between Arya whom survived being alone without help from many terrible people wo could have easily killed her during her adventure in the Riverland and Sansa whom didn't get killed because she was a useful hostage, and later political pawn. Sansa learned later to be more clever. Although I doubt she was very good since Cersei sucked, LF was overestimated and most people playing the game were selfish and corrupted to the temptation of the idiocy the game offered)

7. Eddard

8. Catelyn (Post-Bran and Rickon's supposed death. Catelyn is the type that is normally very competent and intelligent but throws it all away when she is depressing.)

9. Rickon

[King Ned Stark]

Judging children on intelligence based on decisions made in Westerosi politics seems a bit unfair.  However, all are still alive and seemingly advancing in their scenarios.  Except for Robb, of course, who was too good of a commander to be considered dumb.  Even Tywin gave him praise.

The thing is, very few of their "choices" are really based in intellect.  They were moral choices.

The same can be said for Ned and Cat, they weren't taking IQ tests.  Ned was in a no win situation, with everyone else in KL against him and they had the luxury of a fifteen year head start.  Had he fled people would bash him for leaving Robert amidst the "nest of vipers" as Stannis put it.

How many people figured out the incest, Arryn, Stannis, LF, Varys, and Ned?  He was there less than a year, whilst it stated everyone else in the face for over a decade, even the venerable Tywin.

Being duplicitous, manipulative, and untrustworthy is not the same as being smart.  But it does help in Westerosi politics.  LF is not bound by any moral code, therefore he can lie, cheat, steal, kill, etc. to reach his goals.  While he may be smart, if he were constrained by a ethical code that most are, he would not be so successful.  It still remains to be seen if his schemes will catch up to him.  Then what legacy will he leave?

If you sabotage a coworker to get their job, are you intelligent?

"If intellect is welcome in the other world, it is hell, not heaven" - Mark Twain

[Sigella]

Jon

Arya

Bran

Rickon

Sansa

[BeeStark]

1. Bran

2. Arya

3. Jon

4. Robb 

5. Catlyn

6. Ned - For sure Ned is not dumb, but he is too self righteous for his own good. 

7. Sansa - She is just a normal girl with an average head on her shoulders.

[The Sleeper]

My beef with many of these assessments is that they seem to be based on the notion that mistakes denote a lack of intelligence. Sure, they can, but highly intelligent people make errors in judgement all the time and it's usually assumptions that get them.

Ned's problem was not stupidity or lack of perception. It was a combination of a narrow frame of mind, his state of mind, his goals and his preoccupation with the Lannisters. Given his goals and principles his choices were sensible and occasionally the only choices he could make. He had however already backed himself into a corner and he wouldn't allow himself even th thought of compromising on certain things. He wouldn't have been Ned if he did.

Robb was highly capable in almost all aspects. He was however inexperienced and naive about how other people operate. Had he survived I think he would have been a much wiser person.

Most people seem to think Jon as the warrior/commander type. He may turn out to be; I personally haven't seen anything so far that show him as more than adequate or sensible in that regard. I see him more as a politician. He begun by operating under the same framework as Ned and Robb, but he had that beaten out of him during his adventures north of the Wall. Since then and occasionally even before he has shown great skill in managing people, seeing the greater picture, towing fine lines with fairly inflexible people, negotiations and even a fair bit of scheming as well as pulling creative solutions out of his ass for thorny problems. That's not to say that he is without failings in that regard, but I think he scores high not simply among his family members but overall in the novels. His assassinathim, to the extent that it can be attributted to him, comes down to underestimating Marsh & co as a problem that needed dealing with. I don't see it as lack of communication. He has a council with them, practically in every chapter where he explains his reasoning fairly articulately. He needed to manage them the way he managed Thorne or have them watched.

Many people seem to think that Sansa is stupid based on Game. That is far from the case, as this was due to her expectations and hopes leading her to lie to herself. Since then she has shown herself to be highly polished in social situations with an eye for nuance and detail and an understanding of how power works and a penchant for adaptability. We were told that she was also doing very well with her lessons. I see her problems being a strong tendency towards rationalization and zero experience outside a court.

Arya was no abstract thinker or particularly precosious. She also is practically oblivious to any sort of bigger picture. She is however of the charts smart in dealing with practical issues. Her continued survival is a testament to that. Not only is she capable of assessing her environment with great alacrity she is capable of exploiting it, devising plans and anticipating problems. Her lack of awareness of the bigger picture may be due to her young age and the fact she was in permanent survival mode. She certainly has a very keen mind that can deal with anything she turns her it to.

Bran is hard to gauge being eight to ten years old in the series. We're basically told he's smart rather than shown it. 

[Sabhayata]

1 hour ago, King Ned Stark said:

Judging children on intelligence based on decisions made in Westerosi politics seems a bit unfair.  However, all are still alive and seemingly advancing in their scenarios.  Except for Robb, of course, who was too good of a commander to be considered dumb.  Even Tywin gave him praise.

The thing is, very few of their "choices" are really based in intellect.  They were moral choices.

The same can be said for Ned and Cat, they weren't taking IQ tests.  Ned was in a no win situation, with everyone else in KL against him and they had the luxury of a fifteen year head start.  Had he fled people would bash him for leaving Robert amidst the "nest of vipers" as Stannis put it.

How many people figured out the incest, Arryn, Stannis, LF, Varys, and Ned?  He was there less than a year, whilst it stated everyone else in the face for over a decade, even the venerable Tywin.

Being duplicitous, manipulative, and untrustworthy is not the same as being smart.  But it does help in Westerosi politics.  LF is not bound by any moral code, therefore he can lie, cheat, steal, kill, etc. to reach his goals.  While he may be smart, if he were constrained by a ethical code that most are, he would not be so successful.  It still remains to be seen if his schemes will catch up to him.  Then what legacy will he leave?

If you sabotage a coworker to get their job, are you intelligent?

"If intellect is welcome in the other world, it is hell, not heaven" - Mark Twain

Completely agree.

Surviving in the world created by George  doesn't necessarily mean that the character is intelligent. Just because one is betrayed doesn't make that person foolish.

[zorkman]

Arya

Ned

Bran

Catalyn

Rob

Jon

Sansa - The thicko of house Stark