Stark Myths
I'm putting this here, because I am tired of trying to make this argument on Twitter and YouTube comments sections, but I can't think of a group of genre heroes that people love to victim-blame or invent mistakes and wrongdoings for their records.
So I want to set the record straight, and make a counter-argument against what I consider unfair perceptions of them.
This one will be a two-parter, because the centerpiece of my argument for each case is the same timeline.
Sansa Stark did not betray Ned and cause his downfall Ned Stark did not cause Robert Baratheon's assassination
The thing people keep saying is that Sansa is horrible and a spoiled, snobbish mean-girl who betrayed her family out of a shallow girlish infatuation. The act in question was her going to Cersei shortly before the Lannister coup, which, the theory goes, was enabled by Sansa's timely, if innocently delivered, information on Ned's plans.
This superficially has some textual support. This is how Cersei describes the incident:
"We might have lost all. Even so, it was a close thing. If Sansa hadn't come to me and told me all her father's plans . . ."
Right from the mouth of the chief villain, the adult face of the Lannister regime that imprisoned and killed Eddard Stark. It was all Sansa, and they might have lost without her help.
But this is bull. First, let's look at the source. We don't get a close look at Cersei in aGoT or get any peaks behind the Lannister curtain, since the PoVs are all Starks and Tyrion, who only spends one PoV chapter in the company of his siblings, early, before the intrigue really picks up. So when first reading that line, in one of the first chapters of aCoK, and the first on-page appearance of Cersei in that book, we are rather more inclined to trust her assessments than we might later in the series, when her incompetence and tendency to retcon and rationalize are exposed.
Cersei is talking to Tyrion, who has come as a representative of their father, Tywin, who looms over his children as the ultimate authority, who may neither be denied nor gainsaid. Tyrion has questions that we know from the prior book Tywin was asking as well. Things have not gone well for the Lannister cause, and the branch of the family at court have made a particularly bad showing. As the aforementioned face of that effort, Cersei has to answer for a series of blunders. She mostly tries to pin the blame on her subordinates and co-conspirators, but that still leads to the question of what, exactly she, as the regent and nominal ruler, was doing while they were screwing up. Well, she received timely information from Sansa. No one can doubt that Sansa came to Cersei and told the queen "her father's plans." So by citing that detail, she has claim to have actually done something that helped. It's one of the few things she can say she DID do, since others did the actual killing and legwork of the coup, which was just about the only thing that went right. And, being Cersei, she is taking extreme liberties with the truth, by claiming this bit of intelligence was the sine qua non of their success. It's just not true.
First of all, Sansa did not know "all her father's plans." What she knew, was that Ned was sending Sansa and Arya home on a certain ship. She knew the name of the ship and their intended departure time. That's it. It does not actually tell the Lannisters anything. There is no indication that this governed the timing of any of their actions. Robert died and Cersei took the children and her retainers to the throne room to seat her son Joffrey on the Iron Throne to try to make it official. The fact that Ned was sending his daughters home did not dictate this move, it was Robert's death. Basically, as soon as the throne was figuratively vacant, she moved to fill it.
Others have argued that the girls might have got away, but Cersei, having early notice, was able to thwart that attempt before the confrontation in the throne room. Except Ned ordered Tommard, his ranking armsman, to command the escort of guards taking the girls home, and gave him a letter to deliver along the way. Tommard was at his side in the throne room and killed there. Clearly the girls were not supposed to leave for some time yet, if Ned had the man he intended to leave with them doing other things. In addition, Meryn Trant was the one Cersei sent to take Arya into custody, who fought Syrio Forel in the swordmaster's famous last stand. But Meryn was in the throne room guarding Cersei and her children when the coup began. So the effort to round up the Stark household began after Ned was taken captive and his guards killed. Which means that Sansa's report could not have affected that, either.
Still other people have argued that Sansa went to Cersei several days before and so she had plenty of time to make preparations and head off Ned's efforts to secure the transition, with the throne room confrontation simply the conclusion of this secret campaign. But as I will demonstrate in the next part, this is untrue. Sansa went to Cersei the morning of the coup, and was only in Lannister custody for a few hours at most beforehand.
But what about the act of telling Cersei, on its own? Even if Sansa didn't give her useful information, intentions count, and her intention was to thwart Ned's will. To many, this is the latest in the long line of instances of Sansa's pro-Lannister, pro-Joffrey behavior & attitudes. Some fans even think her sufferings at the hands of the Lannisters, from the killing of her direwolf to her mockery of a wedding, are justice for her betrayals and Lannister sympathies and her unworthy attachment to the contemptible Joffrey.
I'm not going to go point by point and litigate every little episode of Sansa's relation with Joffrey pre-coup or judge her behavior in each case, because she's an eleven year old child. Kids fight, they act out, they do stupid stuff, and they have not received the full training that society generally considers necessary for joining the ranks of adults whose judgment is trusted and agency accepted. Sisters especially fight. My mother and her sister are full of tales of nasty pranks and fights throughout their childhood, and now they are best friends, who call each other nearly every day, despite living five hours apart. I have two nieces who are sisters, and close in age, and one has the other listed in her phone contacts as "Stupid Head". This sort of behavior does not make Sansa a traitor for fighting with her own sister. They'll probably grow out of it.
The important thing to remember about her relationship with Joffrey is that she is not a modern girl, she is a member of a feudal aristocracy, under a monarch. Joffrey is not some teen idol actor or pop-star, nor is he the handsome kid at school with rich parents and Sansa is not overlooking his flaws, or pursuing their relationship out of a superficial infatuation. He is the crown prince of the realm, and its future king.
Wanting to marry Joffrey is not a sign of adolescent and misplaced priorities, or at least it's a sign of priorities, misplaced or not, shared by absolutely everyone in her society. While her parents are notable exceptions to their class, having a more audience-relatable approach to child raising, they nonetheless, still raised children who are a product of that society and share in its values, as Ned and Catelyn do themselves, albeit with a somewhat better-calibrated moral compass. And in a feudal aristocracy, potential husbands are valued for their power, wealth or connections. This isn't even selfish or what we would call "gold-digging" because these marriages are generally chosen by the head of the family, with the expectation that the husband's influence and assets will be employed to the benefit of his in-laws and especially, the comfort and protection of his wife, and their children, of course, will inherit a share of that material wealth and a claim to his power.
The educational system for girls in Sansa's position tells them that a husband like Joffrey is the highest goal, and furthermore, they trained to approach marriage as ambassadors and advocates for their birth families. When Sansa tries to make Joffrey love her, she is doing her actual damn job, and far from turning her back on Stark family values, she is playing her part to help her family.
Ned tries to explain a bit of this to Arya, but when Sansa is called to testify to the king about the altercation between Joffrey and her sister, she is in a bind. Yes, she saw what went down, but on the other hand, her assigned - not chosen - agenda is get Joffrey to like her, so that when he is sitting on the Iron Throne someday in the future, that affection will extend to her family, including Arya and her husband and kids. Telling a room full of nobles that he went psycho on a peasant, got his ass kicked by a nine year old girl, lost his prized sword and cried like a baby is not the way to achieve that goal (it won't exactly thrill his parents, the king & queen, either). Frankly, the best move for Sansa personally in that moment is to double down and back up Joffrey's version. That she temporizes and ducks answering is perfectly understandable. Again. 11 year old child. Being asked to extemporaneously navigate competing loyalties that her society and education says are both supposed to be all important to her.
While Sansa's silence is often cited the cause of Lady's death, the person with the ultimate power to determine the disposition of the whole was King Robert. He later admits to Ned that he knew Arya was telling the truth and further implies that Joffrey's conduct in their confrontation is not out of character. If a thirty six year old king and famous warrior needs the affirmation of an eleven year old girl to do the right thing, the outcome is not the girl's fault.
Another point to consider in her desperation for Joffrey to like her is that he is going to effectively have absolute power* over Sansa and her children for the rest of their lives together. Starting off their relationship by contributing to his public humiliation is not the best move.
*just a sidebar, but the paterfamilias authority of a king should be taken into account when trying to vindicate Robert of responsibility for Joffrey-related issues
This also the logic people try to use on Joffrey at various points in the series. It's why her appeal to him for mercy for Ned could reasonably be expected to get some results. Tyrion also says as much, asking Joffrey if abusing Sansa is the best way to win her love. Of course, the question we should be really asking here is what does it say that one party in a betrothal has to take the other's displeasure much more seriously, even fear it, than the other party feels compelled to do. But I guess it's just easier to blame an 11 year old for not being more of a defiant badass. After all, Lyanna Mormont would never have given in (Get bent, D&D).
Now, just in case you've forgotten after all that, the other part of this tirade was: Ned Stark did not cause Robert Baratheon's assassination
Like the prior myth, this one has superficial textual support. Varys confronts Ned in the dungeon after the Lannister coup and we get the following bits among their conversation:
"If there was one soul in King's Landing who was truly desperate to keep Robert Baratheon alive, it was me." He sighed. "For fifteen years I protected him from his enemies, but I could not protect him from his friends. What strange fit of madness led you to tell the queen that you had learned the truth of Joffrey's birth?"
"The madness of mercy," Ned admitted. .... ...It was not wine that killed the king. It was your mercy."
And as in the case of Cersei, we cannot take the character's assertion at face value. Varys has an agenda and he has come to persuade Ned to cooperate with his plans, despite Ned's inclinations and perception of honor and duty firmly opposed. He is trying to soften Ned by making him question his own judgment and most importantly make him think that following his values has caused harm, all in an effort to make Ned more likely to go against his better judgment and accept Varys' suggestions.
What makes Varys' version plausible is the ex hoc post propter hoc fallacy. We see Ned "tell the queen (he) had learned the truth of Joffrey's birth" and then we see Robert die, with the role Lannister-served wine played in his fatal accident highlighted by Varys. It seems like Ned's news actually drove the Lannisters to kill Robert to forestall his justice.
Now there is a lot I could say about the timing needed to get the wine to Robert once Ned alerted Cersei to the threat, but it's really just speculation. The real argument is in the timeline.
Let's see how Ned spends the last days of Robert's life. Remember, the king is off on a hunting trip and Ned is minding the store at court.
Vayon Poole had arranged for Sansa and Arya to sail on the Wind Witch out of Braavos, three days hence.
This Ned's PoV the day he confronts Cersei. For our timeline we will call this Day One. Which means the Wind Witch is scheduled to sail on Day Four.
(Cersei) came to him at sunset, as the clouds reddened above the walls and towers.
This is the confrontation where Ned tells Cersei he knows about the twincest and warns her that he's going to tell Robert when he returns from hunting, so she should take the kids and flee to save their lives. This was on the same day as the prior quote, so we're still on Day One.
When next we see Ned, he is being wakened for Robert's return to the Red Keep, with his mortal wound, which takes place late at night. In the following Eddard chapter, it is in the morning.
The morning was overcast and grim. Ned broke his fast with his daughters ... Arya wolfed down everything that was set in front of her. "...we take ship this evening," she said.
"...I want you ready to leave by midday..."
"It was an hour later when" Ned is told that Robert has died. Since the ship is leaving later this same day, Robert has died on the morning of Day Four. Ned tells the Small Council shortly after, "The king called me to his side last night and commanded me to record his final words."
Which in turn, means that Robert arrived at the castle on the night of Day Three. But when was he actually wounded? Lugging a very large-framed man who is grossly overweight through the woods isn't fast.
Back to the night of his return, Grand Maester Pycelle tells Ned he can't save Robert.
"...the wound has mortified. It took them two days to get him back. By the time I saw him, it was too late. I can lessen His Grace's suffering, but only the gods can heal him now." (emphasis mine)
If this conversation is taking place on Day Three, then Robert was wounded two days prior, on Day One. The two men responsible for Robert's return, Renly & Barristan, are present for Pycelle's statement. If he is misstating the timeline, one of them would speak up to correct him. "Like hell! It only took us one day - don't blame us for your failure, Grand Maester!" But they don't. So Pycelle is correct.
You don't hunt boar after sunset. Which means that Robert took his wound before Ned told Cersei.
Naturally, this means Cersei gave Lancel the strongwine with instructions to give it to Robert while hunting long before she knew there was a deadline by which she needed him dead to protect her and her family's lives.
Given the fact that Lancel was the King's squire it makes sense that he would be leaving for the hunt with Robert, which means that Cersei initiated her murder attempt then. Robert's murder had nothing to do with anything Ned said or did, except possibly witnessing him hit Cersei. By her own account, he had never hit her in front of anyone else before, so making her look weak in front of her enemy was probably the final straw for Cersei, regardless of the fact that the timing of this murder attempt is very inconvenient in terms of seeing Joffrey succeed to the throne. Later, of course, Ned's discovery, and news of her father's shenanigans reaching court will suddenly transform the situation so that Robert dying before he could learn either datum saves House Lannister twice. But at the time the fatal orders were given for the actions that would kill Robert, there was nothing at stake but Cersei's pride and exceptionalist misogyny.
And regarding Sansa, she was eating breakfast with Ned & Arya on the morning of Day Four. She was immediately taken into custody after going to Cersei, so if she was with her family that morning, she didn't give Cersei any advance warning at all. Ned was told of Robert's death an hour after Sansa left the breakfast table.
To paraphrase a wise man: "Grieve for your friend, but never blame yourself... That murder lies at (Lancel)'s door, him and the cruel woman he serves."
