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

[Alester Florent]

Is it possible that Gared got to the gate at Castle Black, was put under medical care for injuries/raving, and then escaped and ran during the night? Are we told that he never went back to Castle Black at all?

[Nevets]

29 minutes ago, Alester Florent said:

Is it possible that Gared got to the gate at Castle Black, was put under medical care for injuries/raving, and then escaped and ran during the night? Are we told that he never went back to Castle Black at all?

Lord Mormont told Tyrion, "it would seem he foreswore himself and fled.  I should never have believed it, not of him, but Lord Eddard sent me his head from Winterfell".  So it would appear he did not show up at Castle Black.

[sifth]

3 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

He might have had a cold guide, who is not a living brother. Coldhands and a talking magical gate could be a reason why Gared sounded raving mad to those who questioned him. And why George did not include Gared's "raving mad" claims.

hmmm, you make a logic point. I never thought of it that way.

[John Suburbs]

23 hours ago, SeanF said:

Distinguishing the two situations:

1. Gared is a soldier who deserted, Holocaust victims were mostly non-combatants.  Both the law and codes of ethics distinguish between killing soldiers, and killing civilians.

2. Military discipline has to be maintained, otherwise an army goes to pieces. The mass killing of civilians for belonging to the wrong race, is a straightforward atrocity.

3.  A deserter from the Nights Watch is an outlaw, and therefore a danger to ordinary citizens, as he can only survive by theft and murder.  Holocaust victims were not outlaws.

4.  Ned is acting according to the law.  Perpetrators of the Holocaust were violating both the German criminal code, and customary international law, by acting as they did.  They knew that they were in breach of the law, because they went to very great lengths to cover up their actions.

5.  Ned is performing his duty.  The perpetrators of the Holocaust were all volunteers, who could easily have chosen to serve in other branches of the armed forces, without facing any repurcussions. 

Obedience to orders is, in fact, a qualified defence to a charge of murder against a soldier.  The prevailing view is that the defence will prevail, unless the order given was "manifestly illegal." The gassing or mass shooting of civilians, based upon their race, was "manifestly illegal."

@Craving Peaches

@sifth

The ordinary citizens killed in the Holocaust were killed because they were deemed to be traitors and subversives. Ned passes the same kind of judgement on Gared. Yes, desertion is a crime, but this was a special circumstance, which Ned would have understood if he bothered to listen.

Military discipline remained perfectly intact after Gared left. If Ned had allowed him to tell his story, it might have alerted the entire realm to the real threat up north.

Again, Holocaust victims were outlaws. They were an enemy force conspiring with the enemy to topple the reich. See how easy it is to rationalize your actions when you are the one who decides what is truth and what is lies?

The law in Germany at that time was that Jews and other subversives (gypsies, homosexuals, etc.) were outlaws. When you have ultimate, unchecked power over people, the law is whatever you say it is. Ned certainly had it in his power to grant Gared a reprieve, at least temporarily, so his story could be told. He chose not to, and then killed him.

All the top brass at Nuremburg were doing their duty as well. It still doesn't make it right, even if you couch it in modern legal concepts and not the medieval ones Ned is going by.

[John Suburbs]

12 hours ago, SaffronLady said:

Watching other people discuss Ned's various actions is why I started this thread, not giving my own opinion about it.

And you know, try not to fixate too much on the execution of a single deserter. Ned's done quite a lot of things.

Sure, but killing a person is a serious matter. So when we talk about Ned being "pure good" or "nearly pure good" we must take everything into consideration. 

Ned may be a nicer guy than most, but there is nothing pure about him. Whether it's in combat or his duties as lord and warden, he has a lot of blood on his hands -- not to mention lies, selfishness, arrogance and all other things that some religions refer to as sins. To be even "nearly pure" you would have to at least never have killed anyone, directly and on purpose at least. Ned doesn't meet that standard. Virtually no one does. 

[sweetsunray]

9 hours ago, Nevets said:

I doubt Coldhands and the Black Gate could make Gared mad unless he was about there anyway.  We've had several other characters in contact, including an extremely sheltered teenage girl and a little boy, and it affected them not in the least.

My guess is that Martin never bothered to figure out how Gared got across the Wall, and given the POV structure there's no way to convey it to the reader in any event.  

I think that we will never find out how he got across and it's unimportant for the story in any case.

I didn't say that Gared was raving mad, but "sounded raving mad" to Ned (and other northerners)

He wasn't a madman nor acting it in the Prologue. And none of the other deserters that follow later with Osha aren't actually mad either, despite having seen Others and giants and wights. Though they did climb the Wall. But it does make you end up making claims that could make others decide you've gone mad: talking gates, walking through huge mouths, dead brothers on an elk with ravens, white shadows, etc.

Then add sleep deprivation, hunger and thirst and it comes off as incoherent. We just have to read Sam's POV after the attack on the Fist: it becomes a jumble, memories of writing messages, letting the ravens fly, snow bears lopping someone's head off, etc. The incoherency of the shock combined with physical deprivation and fantastical elements would have made Gared sound like a madman, and eventually he would just stop trying to communicate, because it becomes rather pointless especially because he did desert. It's like Sam's moment when he just wants to be left alone and sleep in the snow.

And there are hints in the Prologue that the Others aren't the sole magical actors. Treebranches grabbing for sword and sable cloak, trying to take what the Others for sure aimed to destroy (the sword and the sable cloak). Trees becoming sticky to glue Will into the tree (as an attempt to prevent him from going down). And yes a wolf howling nearby.

We don't need to be told explicitly or witness Gared's explicit flight. We can infer it from other POV chapters who go through something similar. We can infer it from the slow reveals about magical actors other than the Others north of the Wall through Sam's and Bran's POVs.

Edited September 27, 2023 by sweetsunray

[Craving Peaches]

38 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

@Craving Peaches

@sifth

The ordinary citizens killed in the Holocaust were killed because they were deemed to be traitors and subversives. Ned passes the same kind of judgement on Gared. Yes, desertion is a crime, but this was a special circumstance, which Ned would have understood if he bothered to listen.

Military discipline remained perfectly intact after Gared left. If Ned had allowed him to tell his story, it might have alerted the entire realm to the real threat up north.

Again, Holocaust victims were outlaws. They were an enemy force conspiring with the enemy to topple the reich. See how easy it is to rationalize your actions when you are the one who decides what is truth and what is lies?

The law in Germany at that time was that Jews and other subversives (gypsies, homosexuals, etc.) were outlaws. When you have ultimate, unchecked power over people, the law is whatever you say it is. Ned certainly had it in his power to grant Gared a reprieve, at least temporarily, so his story could be told. He chose not to, and then killed him.

All the top brass at Nuremburg were doing their duty as well. It still doesn't make it right, even if you couch it in modern legal concepts and not the medieval ones Ned is going by.

Yes, but those laws were made due to racial ideology, by the leaders. The law punishing desertion with death was made due to need to enforce discipline, also Ned didn't make it, also it is a Westeros-wide law that has existed for milennia. So it is not really the same. Also, Ned listened to Gared, he just thought he was not making sense - Gared actually has the opportunity to speak but does not. There are no 'special circumstances', expecting Ned to have a modern view of the situation is silly.

[SaffronLady]

1 hour ago, John Suburbs said:

To be even "nearly pure" you would have to at least never have killed anyone, directly and on purpose at least. Ned doesn't meet that standard. Virtually no one does. 

Interesting. You take a much harsher stance on the (rather arbitrary) definition of "near pure good" than the wiki that bears its name. I put the only reasons they put Ned in "near pure good" instead of "pure good" in the opening post, if you're wondering why I'm using terms such as much harsher.

But glad to see something coming on track with my intent.

1 hour ago, John Suburbs said:

The ordinary citizens killed in the Holocaust were killed because they were deemed to be traitors and subversives.

My, did we just discover a reason to give Nazis standing ovations? Canadians sure could use them.

[sifth]

1 hour ago, John Suburbs said:

@Craving Peaches

@sifth

The ordinary citizens killed in the Holocaust were killed because they were deemed to be traitors and subversives. Ned passes the same kind of judgement on Gared. Yes, desertion is a crime, but this was a special circumstance, which Ned would have understood if he bothered to listen.

Military discipline remained perfectly intact after Gared left. If Ned had allowed him to tell his story, it might have alerted the entire realm to the real threat up north.

Again, Holocaust victims were outlaws. They were an enemy force conspiring with the enemy to topple the reich. See how easy it is to rationalize your actions when you are the one who decides what is truth and what is lies?

The law in Germany at that time was that Jews and other subversives (gypsies, homosexuals, etc.) were outlaws. When you have ultimate, unchecked power over people, the law is whatever you say it is. Ned certainly had it in his power to grant Gared a reprieve, at least temporarily, so his story could be told. He chose not to, and then killed him.

All the top brass at Nuremburg were doing their duty as well. It still doesn't make it right, even if you couch it in modern legal concepts and not the medieval ones Ned is going by.

You’re literally comparing Ned Stark to a Nazi………the most honorable character in the series. You have a rather interesting take on ethics.

 

Edited September 27, 2023 by sifth

[kissdbyfire]

1 hour ago, John Suburbs said:

The ordinary citizens killed in the Holocaust were killed because they were deemed to be traitors and subversives.

I’m not sure if this statement is deliberately disturbing or just clumsily and unfortunately so. Either way, it is very disturbing. The millions of victims in the Holocaust were murdered because of who they were, not what they were. 

[Craving Peaches]

Comparing Ned to the Nazis on those terms is essentially saying that everyone who does what the law requires in terms of punishment is comparable to the Nazis. 

[SeanF]

2 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

@Craving Peaches

@sifth

The ordinary citizens killed in the Holocaust were killed because they were deemed to be traitors and subversives. Ned passes the same kind of judgement on Gared. Yes, desertion is a crime, but this was a special circumstance, which Ned would have understood if he bothered to listen.

Military discipline remained perfectly intact after Gared left. If Ned had allowed him to tell his story, it might have alerted the entire realm to the real threat up north.

Again, Holocaust victims were outlaws. They were an enemy force conspiring with the enemy to topple the reich. See how easy it is to rationalize your actions when you are the one who decides what is truth and what is lies?

The law in Germany at that time was that Jews and other subversives (gypsies, homosexuals, etc.) were outlaws. When you have ultimate, unchecked power over people, the law is whatever you say it is. Ned certainly had it in his power to grant Gared a reprieve, at least temporarily, so his story could be told. He chose not to, and then killed him.

All the top brass at Nuremburg were doing their duty as well. It still doesn't make it right, even if you couch it in modern legal concepts and not the medieval ones Ned is going by.

Not in the least.  Holocaust victims were not outlaws.  They were citizens or subjects of Germany, Poland, Hungary, the Soviet Union etc. who were murdered in breach of those countries’ laws, and in breach of customary international law.

There is simply no comparison between the two.

Edited September 27, 2023 by SeanF

[Nevets]

1 hour ago, sweetsunray said:

I didn't say that Gared was raving mad, but "sounded raving mad" to Ned (and other northerners)

He wasn't a madman nor acting it in the Prologue. And none of the other deserters that follow later with Osha aren't actually mad either, despite having seen Others and giants and wights. Though they did climb the Wall. But it does make you end up making claims that could make others decide you've gone mad: talking gates, walking through huge mouths, dead brothers on an elk with ravens, white shadows, etc.

Then add sleep deprivation, hunger and thirst and it comes off as incoherent. We just have to read Sam's POV after the attack on the Fist: it becomes a jumble, memories of writing messages, letting the ravens fly, snow bears lopping someone's head off, etc. The incoherency of the shock combined with physical deprivation and fantastical elements would have made Gared sound like a madman, and eventually he would just stop trying to communicate, because it becomes rather pointless especially because he did desert. It's like Sam's moment when he just wants to be left alone and sleep in the snow.

And there are hints in the Prologue that the Others aren't the sole magical actors. Treebranches grabbing for sword and sable cloak, trying to take what the Others for sure aimed to destroy (the sword and the sable cloak). Trees becoming sticky to glue Will into the tree (as an attempt to prevent him from going down). And yes a wolf howling nearby.

We don't need to be told explicitly or witness Gared's explicit flight. We can infer it from other POV chapters who go through something similar. We can infer it from the slow reveals about magical actors other than the Others north of the Wall through Sam's and Bran's POVs.

There were four POVs at Gared's execution.  If Martin wanted him to say anything remotely intelligible, it should have come out long before now.  Any reveal at this point will probably be regarded as either a cheat or a retcon.  Gared served his purpose.  His story is over.

[sweetsunray]

37 minutes ago, Nevets said:

There were four POVs at Gared's execution.  If Martin wanted him to say anything remotely intelligible, it should have come out long before now.  Any reveal at this point will probably be regarded as either a cheat or a retcon.  Gared served his purpose.  His story is over.

I didn't claim otherwise.

I repeat: we do not need any explicit reveal about his journey or experience or response to it. Aka "I agree! I do NOT expect any reveal whatsoever". My point is that we don't need ANY reveal whatsoever, because we have been given all the parallel puzzle pieces from other people's experiences north of the Wall in their own POV in their own timelines. We just need to retroactively reapply it for ourselves onto Gared.

That's how George writes. Through the experiences and stories of protagonists we have the puzzle pieces to reconstruct the correct narrative of minor characters at the start and who are already dead. George almost never confirm such things explicitly in any of his stories. He expects us to be smart and piece it out for ourselves with the crumb trail of world building.

That's the second time that you respond to a post of mine as if I was saying or meaning something that I did not:

• prior you misread my post as if I was saying Gared had gone mad for real. I did no such thing. I wrote "sounded raving mad to Ned Stark".
• now you misread my post in which I agreed with you that we won't get a reveal, and I wasn't arguing we would. I was arguing we don't need any, because the clues are there, and we understand or at least know a bit more.

I hope we can avoid another misinterpretation

Edited September 27, 2023 by sweetsunray

[BalerionTheCat]

Ned does nothing for the fun of doing harm. So he is not evil.

But he cares for nothing but his fucking honor. He has no empathy. He killed Gared because it was the Law. Someone with empathy would have helped him. Same for Lady. He didn't care for life. IMO, he should have sent the girls and their direwolves back home. Because it obviously would not have worked in KL.

I would not feel safe beside Ned, how irreproachable or distressed I could be. Ned is not evil. But he has not an ounce of good either. Sam, Davos are the stuff...

Edited September 27, 2023 by BalerionTheCat

[Odej]

I've never imagined that Ned executing Gared would become another "Jon was bad, poor Janos Slynt."

I admit that Gared causes a lot of empathy in the reader because we know what happened to him in the prologue. We know he's not lying, but Bran's chapter doesn't come right after unpretentiously. The prologue shows the main threat of the books, the first chapter reveals that for the rest of the realm it was nothing more than a legend to scare children. Here is the conflict.

Let's be objective, what was Ned's deal here:

A man had been caught after deserting the night's watch, a crime punishable by death, and he justified his action by saying he had been attacked by ice creatures. Something that no one had seen in the last 8 thousand years and that most people probably doubted that ever existed.

Anyone would think the guy had lost his mind. We know he hasn't, but Ned doesn't and there's no reason for a Lord to disobey a law that he probably followed several times because the new indicted not only looks crazy but also gave a crazy justification for what he did.

The guy had been wandering for days, poorly dressed, without water or food, it is to be expected that he would say nonsense things. But he was afraid! Of course he was suposed to. Gared was a desertor, the penalty was well know!

Edited September 28, 2023 by Odej

[Nevets]

36 minutes ago, Odej said:

I've never imagined that Ned executing Gared would become another "Jon was bad, poor Janos Slynt."

I admit that Gared causes a lot of empathy in the reader because we know what happened to him in the prologue. We know he's not lying, but Bran's chapter doesn't come right after unpretentiously. The prologue shows the main threat of the books, the first chapter reveals that for the rest of the realm it was nothing more than a legend to scare children. Here is the conflict.

Let's be objective, what was Ned's deal here:

A man had been caught after deserting the night's watch, a crime punishable by death, and he justified his action by saying he had been attacked by ice creatures. Something that no one had seen in the last 8 thousand years and that most people probably doubted that ever existed.

Anyone would think the guy had lost his mind. We know he hasn't, but Ned doesn't and there's no reason for a Lord to disobey a law that he probably followed several times because the new indicted not only looks crazy but also gave a crazy justification for what he did.

The guy had been wandering for days, poorly dressed, without water or food, it is to be expected that he would say nonsense things. But he was afraid! Of course he was suposed to. Gared was a desertor, the penalty was well know!

To the best of our knowledge, Gared said nothing at all.  Nobody present has mentioned or thought about him saying anything - crazy or not.  Given that this is a work of pure fiction, events not mentioned or readily inferred never happened.  Ergo, Gared said nothing.  Being silent and crazed by fear will not get you out of punishment in this world.

[Lord Varys]

1 hour ago, Nevets said:

To the best of our knowledge, Gared said nothing at all.  Nobody present has mentioned or thought about him saying anything - crazy or not.  Given that this is a work of pure fiction, events not mentioned or readily inferred never happened.  Ergo, Gared said nothing.  Being silent and crazed by fear will not get you out of punishment in this world.

Gared said stuff Bran didn't understand or care about in the chapter.

And of course it shows how decadent and aloof Ned Stark is, compared to, perhaps, some other Starks in the past, that he doesn't even recognizes this is not your standard 'evil' deserter but actually a guy who had good reasons to run away.

Even more so as Gared is a veteran of the Wall, an old man who possibly volunteered to take the black. If such a man is broken mentally to a point you want to know why. And the Lord Commander wants to know that, too. This whole execution thing there is just careless and irresponsible as hell. Even more so as his party included a son of Broze Yohn Royce - something Ned either didn't know or didn't care about when he took his head. But he should have checked if the guy knew something Mormont wanted to know.

In context, there is also little reason to assume that Gared saw a lot of very bad things. He may have caught a glimpse of some Others and his wightified former friends from a distance ... but he cannot have seen much or else he would have been dead, too.

I daresay there is also some bad writing there, as we have also no clue why the hell Gared should be sane and rational and capable enough to cross the Wall without apparent help but not feel the need to actually tell his brothers that the Others are real. I think even a lot of people with severe mental trauma would have done that rather than just run in this silly way to their death.

Even more so it actually makes also little sense that Gared would be caught and quickly executed in this manner. His mission took him north of the Wall and no one ever came back ... so the idea wouldn't be that those men were all deserters - especially since their commander, Ser Waymar Royce, took the black of his own free will.

Mormont wouldn't have told the North that a ranger named Gared turned his cloak because he couldn't have known. Nobody saw him the way Jon was seen with the wildlings. So if Gared is found by Northmen south of the Wall they would first have to check with the Watch if the guy was really a deserter. And then Ned would have known what ranging party Gared would have belonged to.

In context, it also makes little sense that Mormont sends Benjen to look for Waymar - they know what happened to Gared but never used him to find out about Waymar ... so what can they hope to learn about him beyond the Wall?

If Gared is a deserter then the best guess is either that all three deserted ... or that Gared killed the other two to hide the fact that he turned his cloak. In either of those cases there is no need to search for them beyond the Wall.

[Nevets]

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Gared said stuff Bran didn't understand or care about in the chapter.

And of course it shows how decadent and aloof Ned Stark is, compared to, perhaps, some other Starks in the past, that he doesn't even recognizes this is not your standard 'evil' deserter but actually a guy who had good reasons to run away.

Even more so as Gared is a veteran of the Wall, an old man who possibly volunteered to take the black. If such a man is broken mentally to a point you want to know why. And the Lord Commander wants to know that, too. This whole execution thing there is just careless and irresponsible as hell. Even more so as his party included a son of Broze Yohn Royce - something Ned either didn't know or didn't care about when he took his head. But he should have checked if the guy knew something Mormont wanted to know.

In context, there is also little reason to assume that Gared saw a lot of very bad things. He may have caught a glimpse of some Others and his wightified former friends from a distance ... but he cannot have seen much or else he would have been dead, too.

I daresay there is also some bad writing there, as we have also no clue why the hell Gared should be sane and rational and capable enough to cross the Wall without apparent help but not feel the need to actually tell his brothers that the Others are real. I think even a lot of people with severe mental trauma would have done that rather than just run in this silly way to their death.

Even more so it actually makes also little sense that Gared would be caught and quickly executed in this manner. His mission took him north of the Wall and no one ever came back ... so the idea wouldn't be that those men were all deserters - especially since their commander, Ser Waymar Royce, took the black of his own free will.

Mormont wouldn't have told the North that a ranger named Gared turned his cloak because he couldn't have known. Nobody saw him the way Jon was seen with the wildlings. So if Gared is found by Northmen south of the Wall they would first have to check with the Watch if the guy was really a deserter. And then Ned would have known what ranging party Gared would have belonged to.

In context, it also makes little sense that Mormont sends Benjen to look for Waymar - they know what happened to Gared but never used him to find out about Waymar ... so what can they hope to learn about him beyond the Wall?

If Gared is a deserter then the best guess is either that all three deserted ... or that Gared killed the other two to hide the fact that he turned his cloak. In either of those cases there is no need to search for them beyond the Wall.

Bran has a considerable interest in the Others, the supernatural, magic, etc., in large part thanks to Old Man's stories.  I'm sure that if Gared had mentioned anything about monsters or the like, Bran's ears would have perked up in a big way.  So I doubt anything of interest, even ravings, was said.

As for the bad writing, I'm inclined to think it's a factor here.  It's the first book, and I doubt Martin was expecting it to be nearly the sensation it became.  There is a lot of sloppy writing in the early parts of the series; plenty of things that either don't stand up to close scrutiny or leave things unexplained that theorists then try to fill in. 

I think Gared's story is along those lines.  It's there to tell us that the Others are real and scary, introduce us to some main characters, and provide an excuse for the discovery of the wolf pups.  It does the job nicely, but if you try to analyze it like a real event, you can't.  You run into too many inconsistencies, as we've seen in this thread.  The author can't think of everything, and Martin wasn't making as much effort back then as he has more recently.  Which may be one of the reasons it's taking so long; inconsistencies and the like take time to find and eliminate, especially in something as complex as this.

 

Edited September 28, 2023 by Nevets

[Lord of Raventree Hall]

On 9/25/2023 at 3:12 PM, 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.

Well to me, a pure good character would have to work against societal issues. Although Eddard does this to an extent (fighting against clear wrongs of corruption), he makes no effort to really change society (at least that we see). As much as the Starks treat their small folks and servants well, he makes no laws codifying that good treatment for example. I think the closest to a pure good character in the books is actially Jon Snow, because he takes on the hefty task of challenging societal norms he deems as unfair-unjust. Or Brienne of Tarth. Brienne doesn’t have real power but she does also experience, and question societal norms constantly. She is the literal embodiment of what a “knight” is suppossed to be, but she takes it a step farther as she clearly wants to correct the wrongs in the world. Stubborn, and bull-headed as she may be, this would the closest to a pure good I can imagine.