If half an onion is black with rot it is a rotten onion.

[LordStoneheart]

When Ned saw Jaime on IT with dead Aerys, he was all judgemental, and unforgiving. He didn`t ask for expanations and he demanded punishment. He never asked for reasons or what happened. Ned was dividing people on good and bad, and his inability to see shades of it, other people`s motifs and what`s behind them is what led him to his death.

Alternatively, if he did what should've been done, that is, kill Jaime for Oathbreaking (seeing only the bad), he might still be alive because he would not have had to confront Cersei about the incest-born children.

[Mladen]

Alternatively, if he did what should've been done, that is, kill Jaime for Oathbreaking (seeing only the bad), he might still be alive because he would not have had to confront Cersei about the incest-born children.

You forget that it wasn`t Ned`s to do that and that Ned did all in his power to punish Lannisters. Jaime for oathbreaking and Tywin for murdering Targaryen babes.

[Usrnmhsnomning]

Personally, just reading the OP, I took it as basically meaning Mel's take on good and evil is absurdly wrong. Moreover, this means her interpretations of visions where she thinks she can see her "enemy" as being her seeing a good soul with black parts to him as straight up evil are outright wrong as well. Sam demonstrates that just because a man commits bad acts, that doesn't mean he is incapable of good ones. This is further represented with Jaime and Sandor. Both have done some pretty bad things, but they are probably some of the few adult people who still have Sansa-like ideals on honour, even if they do admit everyone else is a monster who rejects these ideals.

Basically, Mel's metaphor is wrong because a man can still do much good even with a bit of darkness within him.

[Tyrell_like_Squirrel]

If this is going to far out there, then I apologize, but what if there is a theme of "cutting away" the bad parts of the proverbial onion? Davos loses his fingers due to his smuggling, Jaime loses his hand and starts to become a better man, Theon loses..a lot, and repents his wrong doing, etc. Is there some sort of purity through pain thing going on here?

[Blisscraft]

If this is going to far out there, then I apologize, but what if there is a theme of "cutting away" the bad parts of the proverbial onion? Davos loses his fingers due to his smuggling, Jaime loses his hand and starts to become a better man, Theon loses..a lot, and repents his wrong doing, etc. Is there some sort of purity through pain thing going on here?

This is not too far out there. There are certain actions that characters within the series make. Cutting away (or cutting off), as you noted, is one of them. Some of the "cutting away" is such that some utility remains, such as the unrotten part of Sam's onion, or the rest of Davos and Jaime and Theon. There is another aspect of cutting away that brings nothing but death, as in the case of Ned and his beheading. The distinction between revocable and irrevocable cutting away is not lost upon Martin. An example of this is found in ASoS when Arya asks Beric and Thoros whether the Red God can bring someone back if the person has been beheaded.

Consequently, the characters above that you mention and some others in the books that have suffered the loss of something, think Varys or Tyrion, have an opportunity to "use the rest" of themselves. Arguably, this can be for "good" or ill, but as Tyrion says in GoT, (after Jaime famously prefers a "good clean death" to becoming a "grotesque") "life is full of possibilites." So long as one is alive, so are possibilities.

[The Sleeper]

I took it to mean that a half-rotten onion can still ne nourishing even essential. I don't want to take it much further than that. People are wholes, you don't get to cut parts of them out, literally or figuratively.

[LordStoneheart]

You forget that it wasn`t Ned`s to do that and that Ned did all in his power to punish Lannisters. Jaime for oathbreaking and Tywin for murdering Targaryen babes.

There's that I guess... It would make him a much different character than the guy we know and love (some of us) but if was preoccupied with all good/all bad thinking perhaps he would've just took upon himself to slay Jaime in the throne room. Not sure how he would've gotten to Tywin though.

I tend to give Mel's statement more credit because I truly believe that looking at someone's bad actions is the best way to see who/what that person is. The thing that's hard though is defining good and bad.

[Michael Herman]

I think it is saying that Mel is wrong, and that if you value the "goodness" of a person, then that is enough and the bad parts are inconsequential, just as the value of the onion to Sam is not marred by the rotten half, as he still has half an onion.

[Sansa_Stark]

I think you're getting too philosophical about this.

Sam is fat, he doesn't like to throw away food.

Laughed so hard at this.