Do you agree that Eddard Stark/Ned is Near Pure Good?

[SaffronLady]

I think you know who I got the idea of starting this thread from, but that's quite beyond the point.

The point is I find the reasons given for Ned only being "near pure" good rather interesting:

Quote

He occasionally has a wrathful side, such as threatening to kill Tyrion because Jaime's threat on him or trying strangle Petyr Baelish because his joke on whores. While the latter deserved it, this is still too corrupting for him to qualify as Pure Good.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Petyr's joke about whores also about Ned's own wife? Wanting to kill for a joke like that is "too corrupting"?

So I'm basically here to listen to discussions about whether pure good people should have the intent to kill under any circumstances.

[SeanF]

I think that killing is justified in self-defence or in defence of others.  

That means no one is pure good, in this tale, because even the most sympathetic characters do have other reasons for killing, on occasion.  Dany, Robb, Stannis, Ned, Jon, are all prepared to kill for reasons of revenge, or for reasons of politics.  And all of them uphold a social system which is, to modern eyes, unjust.

That is of course, entirely what one would expect, in this world,  and it does not make any of them bad people, nor indeed, worse than most people who lead modern democracies.  It just shows that no one in politics can be pure good.

[kissdbyfire]

4 hours ago, SaffronLady said:

I think you know who I got the idea of starting this thread from, but that's quite beyond the point.

The point is I find the reasons given for Ned only being "near pure" good rather interesting:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Petyr's joke about whores also about Ned's own wife? Wanting to kill for a joke like that is "too corrupting"?

So I'm basically here to listen to discussions about whether pure good people should have the intent to kill under any circumstances.

Is that quote from a wiki? I feel I must ask to reassure myself it is trustworthy.

 

 

[sifth]

Pretty sure the killing of Tyrion was just a bluff. Even Jamie calls him out on it.

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

10 minutes ago, sifth said:

Pretty sure the killing of Tyrion was just a bluff. Even Jamie calls him out on it.

Yeah, he definitely did it to protect Catelyn.

[Lee-Sensei]

I wouldn't call him pure good. I do think that he's definitely a good man by Westerosi standards though.

[Sandy Clegg]

Another alignment chart thread? I don't believe George wants to put any character at the ultimate end of the good/evil spectrum, although some (Euron) may come agonisingly close. We even feel sympathy for Joffrey in his dying moments. 

In a modern context killing is unjustified and immoral. In the medieval world, which we have no experience of, it was a sad reality just as was child labour and mass starvation. Ned executing Gared would be the sign of a psychopath in modern society, but we use the measuring stick of the characters in-world to provide us with context. Ned is seen as honourable, a good leader, a good man. The North stands with him and remembers him fondly.  Nobody whispers about 'that time he cut that dude's head off'  ... because the world of ASOIAF is not our world. It's fantasy. The morality of killing in Game of Thrones should be as exotic to us as the biology of dragons. 

George has also said he likes his characters to have shades of grey, and grey are the colours of House Stark. We just haven't seen much 'grey' yet, which is possibly a sign of things to come. As for Ned, he is a good father and a man of honour, whose internal monologue betrays no 'evil' thoughts. Yet in his honour he seemingly dooms his family when choosing to give Cersei mercy. The consequences of good men's actions, or inaction, are thus seen to allow 'evil' to breed in retrospect. That doesn't make Ned evil, just out of his depth as a political player of the game. Robert was a brute of man whose vices were numerous, yet his kingdom stood at peace for many years. He was thus not an 'evil king'. I think the point GRRM is making is that evil abhors a vacuum. Given an opportunity, it will find its way into any system, government or otherwise. It's just always there, waiting for a breach in the defences. Ned was that breach.

 

[John Suburbs]

8 hours ago, SaffronLady said:

I think you know who I got the idea of starting this thread from, but that's quite beyond the point.

The point is I find the reasons given for Ned only being "near pure" good rather interesting:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Petyr's joke about whores also about Ned's own wife? Wanting to kill for a joke like that is "too corrupting"?

So I'm basically here to listen to discussions about whether pure good people should have the intent to kill under any circumstances.

Nobody is pure good, just like nobody is pure evil. Ned beheaded a man who was frightened beyond his wits just because it was his duty. That's what leaders of the third reich claimed they were doing at Nuremburg.

[SaffronLady]

2 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

Ned beheaded a man who was frightened beyond his wits just because it was his duty.

IIRC modern martial law still does occasionally dole out death penalties for desertions...

2 hours ago, Sandy Clegg said:

Ned executing Gared would be the sign of a psychopath in modern society,

...so it would be more "could Gared's case be pleaded for a reduced sentence" than "Ned is a psychopath", even by modern standards.

And I think I got the context of LF's joke right, because nobody is correcting me on it. Did I?

[Lee-Sensei]

5 minutes ago, SaffronLady said:

IIRC modern martial law still does occasionally dole out death penalties for desertions...

...so it would be more "could Gared's case be pleaded for a reduced sentence" than "Ned is a psychopath", even by modern standards.

And I think I got the context of LF's joke right, because nobody is correcting me on it. Did I?

I don't remember the context, but I do know that Ned said that Brandon was too kind to Littlefinger (the implication being that he should have killed Petyr). Ned clearly already dislikes Littlefinger. Killing LF would have been acceptable by Westerosi standards, but I get the feeling that Ned's felt this way for a long time. Brandon used to talk about him a lot.

[Craving Peaches]

2 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

Ned beheaded a man who was frightened beyond his wits just because it was his duty. That's what leaders of the third reich claimed they were doing at Nuremburg.

Bad comparison. Westeros has no concept of PTSD or modern psychology. Also, the 'leaders' were doing it to further their ideology, not because of 'duty', it is those who carried out the orders who fall into that category.

[SeanF]

2 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

Nobody is pure good, just like nobody is pure evil. Ned beheaded a man who was frightened beyond his wits just because it was his duty. That's what leaders of the third reich claimed they were doing at Nuremburg.

The summary execution of a deserter under military law is harsh, but in no way comparable to the Holocaust.

Modern international law would only condemn Ned for failing to try Gared before a court martial.

Edited September 25, 2023 by SeanF

[sifth]

2 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

Nobody is pure good, just like nobody is pure evil. Ned beheaded a man who was frightened beyond his wits just because it was his duty. That's what leaders of the third reich claimed they were doing at Nuremburg.

Ned murdered a man, for breaking the law. Listen, it sucks, but the Brothers of the Night's Watch serve for life. To be honest, that scene never made sense to me; how did Gared get over The Wall, without going to Castle Black first? He's an old man and not a climber and even if he were, he didn't have the equipment to climb The Wall.

[Sandy Clegg]

25 minutes ago, SaffronLady said:

..so it would be more "could Gared's case be pleaded for a reduced sentence" than "Ned is a psychopath", even by modern standards.

Yes, if we look at this in the framework of modern justice. Ned is judge, jury and executioner here, so we should read Ned as a substitute for a whole swathe of social justice systems rolled into one - in which case its hardly fair to judge him morally because he is a figurehead carrying out what any other figurehead should do in his place. So he's not a psychopath and nobody would really read him as such.

We could rather just call the world he inhabits brutal and medieval, which is what it is. Unless you live on the isle of Naath it's hard to avoid the constant threat of justice in the form of death - it's just the norm. The fact that Ned makes a virtue out of 'being the one to swing the sword' rather than hiring a headsman - this might be an interesting thought to explore. It's kind of noble, but at the same time it's objectively weird. Ned is not keeping his hands clean, which is honourable - and with Ice Gared is guaranteed a clean death. But Ned's also exposing his 8-year old kid to beheading very early on in his life. Even Catelyn disapproves of this. So the 'old ways' of the North do have their distasteful elements to those in the south, which shows that some kind of relative morality does exist even in George's world.

It's just really hard to unpick what this means for modern day readers, who are being told that 'the guy who beheads traitors' and passes this knowledge on to his children is the guy we're meant to be rooting for. George is really good at getting us to cheer on some pretty dodgy practises in his world, because they are the norm. And I'm sure he'll explore these ideas in further books. But then the reality of the world falls apart if we have Ned Stark pardoning Gared. Where would he send him - to the 'Other Wall?' The Wall is meant to be the last chance saloon, so deserting the Nigjht's Watch needs to have some weight to it, otherwise we lose faith in the world-building.

I don't think we can call Ned 'unpure' just because he does his duty. But we might look at his descendants, such as Bran and Jon, and hope that they seek to question the values of their age.

 

[Nevets]

Execution has been a standard, widely accepted punishment for nearly all of human history, including the time period the series is modeled after.  And desertion in particular has been punishable by death, even into the 20th century.  So I am not going to condemn Ned for doing something he has no reason to conceive of as being wrong.  Though I do question the wisdom of bringing a 7-year-old along.

Ned's problem is that he is too good for his own good.  He has no sense of pragmatism, much less ruthlessness, and it did him in.  He was too inflexible in his honor.

[Lee-Sensei]

12 minutes ago, Nevets said:

Execution has been a standard, widely accepted punishment for nearly all of human history, including the time period the series is modeled after.  And desertion in particular has been punishable by death, even into the 20th century.  So I am not going to condemn Ned for doing something he has no reason to conceive of as being wrong.  Though I do question the wisdom of bringing a 7-year-old along.

Ned's problem is that he is too good for his own good.  He has no sense of pragmatism, much less ruthlessness, and it did him in.  He was too inflexible in his honor.

He has some pragmatism. He tried to bribe the Gold Cloaks for that very reason. He also took Theon hostage and planned to use him to coerce Balon into giving up his fleet. I agree that Ned's honor does him in though.

[Craving Peaches]

I think it is stupid to call Ned evil because he doesn't realise that Gared has PTSD or doesn't let Gared have a defence lawyer or whatever. These things exist completely outside of the Westerosi collective conscious. Should Danaerys be faulted for not obeying the Geneva convention?

Edited September 25, 2023 by Craving Peaches

[Frey family reunion]

Lest anyone forget, Ned was on board with the killing of the direwolf pups. 

Edited September 25, 2023 by Frey family reunion

[sifth]

2 minutes ago, Frey family reunion said:

Lest anyone forget, Ned was on board with the killing of the direwolf pups. 

I recall him also changing his mind about it.

[Frey family reunion]

2 minutes ago, sifth said:

I recall him also changing his mind about it.

It just means that he’s easily manipulated.