Eddard Stark

Ned was the second son of Lord Rickard Stark and Lady Lyarra. At only eight he was sent to the Eyrie to be fostered by Jon Arryn, and there he grew up alongside another boy sent away by his own family, Robert. The two became inseparable, and in time it was settled that Robert would marry Ned's younger sister, Lyanna.

At eighteen he travelled to Harrenhal for the great tourney, together with his siblings Brandon and Lyanna and Howland Reed, one of his father's bannermen who became a close friend. There he set eyes on Ashara Dayne, lady-in-waiting to Princess Elia Martell, and danced with her that night only after Brandon spoke to her on his behalf. During the final jousts Prince Rhaegar Targaryen crowned Lyanna Queen of Love and Beauty instead of his own wife; Ned would later remember that instant as the moment when every smile in the hall died.

Soon afterward word spread that Rhaegar had taken Lyanna. Brandon rode furiously for the capital and King Aerys II had him arrested; when Rickard demanded trial by combat for his son, father and son were both put to death on the king's order. Aerys then demanded that Ned and Robert be handed over as well, but Jon Arryn refused and called his Vale lords to arms instead.

Ned wanted to rally the northern lords, but Gulltown, the Vale's main port, had stayed loyal to the Crown and blocked the quickest road home. He crossed the Mountains of the Moon to the Fingers and paid a fisherman to sail him to White Harbor; a storm sank the boat and drowned the fisherman, and it was the man's daughter who managed to bring Ned ashore at the Three Sisters instead. At Sisterton, the maester of House Borrell urged that Ned's head be sent to the king, but Lord Borrell, knowing Jon Arryn and Robert already held Gulltown, let him sail on to White Harbor.

He called his bannermen and marched south in time to help turn the Battle of the Bells alongside Robert and Jon Arryn. Afterward he went to Riverrun to marry Catelyn Tully, the woman once promised to his brother Brandon; at the same ceremony Jon Arryn married Catelyn's sister Lysa, and the double wedding brought the Tullys into the war on the rebel side.

After the Trident, Ned reached King's Landing too late to stop the sack of the city and the killing of Rhaegar's wife and children. He found Aerys II's body on the steps of the Iron Throne, with Jaime Lannister — the man who had killed him — still sitting on it. Robert was satisfied that they were dead; Ned instead called it murder and pointed out that the young princes had been mere babies. Robert answered that he saw no babies, only dragonspawn, and not even Jon Arryn could cool the argument that followed. Ned left the Red Keep to relieve Stannis, under siege at Storm's End; Mace Tyrell surrendered to him without a fight.

The war's last battle was fought at a small tower in Dorne's Red Mountains, the Tower of Joy, where Rhaegar was keeping Lyanna. Ned arrived with six companions, Howland Reed among them, and faced the three remaining Kingsguard: Arthur Dayne, Oswell Whent, and their lord commander, Gerold Hightower. Only he and Howland Reed walked away.

Lyanna died shortly after the fight, not before drawing a promise from Ned that would haunt him for the rest of his life. That shared grief was what finally brought Ned and Robert back together. On his way home Ned stopped at Starfall and handed Ashara Dayne her brother Arthur's sword.

When Ned finally reached Winterfell he brought with him a bastard son, Jon Snow, and he never once told Catelyn who the boy's mother was; she had given birth to Robb at Riverrun while he was away at war, and his silence about Jon opened a rift between them that never fully closed. He buried his father and siblings in the crypts of Winterfell and broke with the custom of carving statues only for Stark kings and lords, having ones made for Brandon and Lyanna as well. Not long after, his younger brother Benjen chose to take the black of the Night's Watch.

He never expected to become Lord of Winterfell, and for years he carried the sense of holding a place meant for Brandon. He showed little interest in anything south of the Neck, though he did have a small sept built so Catelyn could pray to her own gods.

In 289 he travelled south to help Robert put down Balon Greyjoy's rebellion in the Iron Islands; after the siege of Pyke and Balon's surrender, he brought Balon's one surviving son, Theon, back to Winterfell as ward and hostage. He tried to treat the boy as something like a son, though Theon always found him distant.

In 293 he had to travel to Bear Island after Lord Jorah Mormont sold captured poachers into slavery; by the time Ned arrived, Jorah had already fled into exile with Lynesse Hightower.

With Catelyn he had five children — Robb, Sansa, Arya, Bran and Rickon — and to that he added raising Jon, whom he taught alongside Robb in the business of commanding in battle. He visited his bannermen often, from White Harbor to Deepwood Motte, and among the northern mountain clans he had earned enough goodwill that they simply called him "the Ned".

When word came that Jon Arryn, his old mentor and Robert's Hand for years, had died, Robert travelled to Winterfell and offered Ned the post. Ned accepted reluctantly, partly because he wanted to find out what had really killed Jon Arryn, and rode south with Robert while Catelyn stayed behind with Bran, badly hurt in a fall.

In the capital, Petyr Baelish told him the dagger used against Bran had once been his, lost in a wager to Tyrion Lannister, and promised to help. Ned followed the thread of Jon Arryn's last inquiries, which had led through a book on the lineages of the great houses, and found that Queen Cersei's children could not be Robert's: they carried Lannister black hair, not the Baratheon jet-black.

He gave Cersei a chance to flee before the truth came out, but she answered by arranging Robert's death during a hunt. Dying, the king dictated a letter naming Ned regent until Joffrey came of age. Ned turned down both Renly's and Littlefinger's schemes to seize the throne first and chose instead to hand it to Stannis, the rightful heir; Littlefinger promised him the support of the city watch.

The promise was false. When Ned confronted Cersei in the throne room, Littlefinger betrayed him and the gold cloaks cut down his men.

Held in the dungeons, he was offered a bargain: confess to an invented treason and he would live to take the black. Ned agreed, for Sansa's sake, but before the Great Sept of Baelor, Joffrey broke the deal and ordered his head struck off. He was executed with his own sword, Ice, in front of Arya and Sansa, and Joffrey had his head mounted on a spike.

Tyrion Lannister ordered the heads taken down from their spikes, Ned's among them, and his bones were sent to Riverrun. Catelyn later arranged for them to be carried north for burial in the crypts of Winterfell, beside his father, brother and sister.

The ironborn seized Moat Cailin before the party could cross, and Ned's bones have been unaccounted for ever since.

While training to become a greenseer, Bran had a vision of his father through the weirwood in Winterfell's godswood: he saw and heard him praying for Catelyn to forgive him, and for Jon and Robb to grow up as brothers.

Barbrey Ryswell, who had once hoped to marry Ned's brother, told Theon Greyjoy that she blamed Ned for her husband's death and that if she ever found his bones, she would never let them be buried in the crypts of Winterfell.