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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WizarDru" data-source="post: 631682" data-attributes="member: 151">Well, let's be honest, here.  Ned Stark was likeable.  He was not always a hero.  His wife certainly was not happy that he fathered a bastard, then brought him home and paraded him around in front of her and her entire household, treating almost like a legitimate heir.  In a world where inheritance and heraldry carry so much weight, and where a women's greatest contribution is often her progeny...that's no small thing.  Stark also could be downright bloodthirsty, if it called for it.Well, he was too trusting, that's true.  But his death came from a psychotic 13 year-old who violated every political rule in the book.  Westeros was already a powder keg when Ned Stark rolled into town.The real issue, and I understand what you're saying, is that this isn't Ned Stark's story, but we honestly think, at the beginning, that it is, or at least might be.  So when Stark dies (and you're sure...SURE! that he won't) it's a powerful shock of cold water in the face.  I would posit that GRRM set it up for that very purpose, to make sure you understood the ground rules.  There are characters who are relatively nice moral actors in the series, but the Bran and the frog-catchers, for example, are not in the story constantly.  Most of the main characters are good from a certain perspective, or at least they believe themselves to be.  The Baratheons, for example, all think they know what's best, and each had his own set of flaws.  So too the Lannisters.  When characters like the Hound, Jamie Lannister and Daenrys become more heroic, some see that as a betrayl.  They want good things to happen to good people, and bad things to happen to bad people...and mostly it just looks like bad things to everyone.  I can certainly understand why that wouldn't appeal to some, especially if you're more of a David Eddings or Raymond Feist  frame of mind, for example.Of course, since we're only half-way through the series, we haven't even seen the good happen, per se.  Much of this is just set-up for the REAL battle of good and evil.</blockquote>

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