He did:

“I called you here to ask for the help you promised Catelyn. This is a perilous hour for all of us. Robert has named me Protector, true enough, but in the eyes of the world, Joffrey is still his son and heir. The queen has a dozen knights and a hundred men-at-arms who will do whatever she commands … enough to overwhelm what remains of my own household guard. And for all I know, her brother Jaime may be riding for King’s Landing even as we speak, with a Lannister host at his back.“
"And you without an army.” Littlefinger toyed with the dagger on the table, turning it slowly with a finger. “There is small love lost between Lord Renly and the Lannisters. Bronze Yohn Royce, Ser Balon Swann, Ser Loras, Lady Tanda, the Redwyne twins … each of them has a retinue of knights and sworn swords here at court.”
“Renly has thirty men in his personal guard, the rest even fewer. It is not enough, even if I could be certain that all of them will choose to give me their allegiance. I must have the gold cloaks. The City Watch is two thousand strong, sworn to defend the castle, the city, and the king’s peace.”

Ned thought they wouldn’t be enough. 

turtle-paced:

Minority opinion time!

Ned.

I don’t think Ned/Ashara detracts from Ned/Catelyn in the slightest. By contrast, I think it adds, giving another layer of commonality between the two. Ned/Ashara means that Ned and Catelyn were both disappointed in their match and both overcame it. I don’t put much weight on Ned not thinking about Ashara in AGoT; unlike ongoing issues with Lyanna and Jon Snow, wounds that reopened over the course of AGoT, Ashara’s role in Ned’s life is, tragically, resolved. By the time we get in Ned’s head, he’s in love with Catelyn, happy with his life with Catelyn, and has been for many years.

Nor do I think it detracts from any ongoing themes regarding Ned’s honour; this is specifically addressed in the text.

“When Ned met this Dornish lady, his brother Brandon was still alive, and it was him betrothed to Lady Catelyn, so there’s no stain on your father’s honour. […] Spring had come, or so they thought, and neither one of them was pledged.”

– Harwin to Arya, Arya VIII, ASoS

Whatsoever dishonour existed in an actual affair between the two (minimal) would have been fixed with a betrothal (entirely possible at the time). The important point of dramatic irony re: Ned’s honour and his sexual relationships is that he never cheated on Catelyn, not that he never loved another woman full stop.

I also think Ned/Ashara explains a few backstory elements more convincingly.

First, Ned’s atypical reaction to Catelyn’s mention of Ashara (Catelyn II, AGoT). Implied to take place fairly early in their marriage, Ned actually scared Catelyn. While not okay at any point, this would be another degree of overreaction altogether if Ned had only been crushing on Ashara. And despite the mention of Jon Snow, we know that Ned was reacting to the mention of Ashara as well, because he cracked down on gossip about her afterwards.

Second, how Ned discovered Lyanna’s location at the end of Robert’s Rebellion. Sure, maybe for the memory of the now very dead Brandon, Ashara betrayed her living brother…or maybe she told her very much alive star-crossed lover where her brother and his sister were. I like the latter explanation because it cuts out the middleman. It’s simpler and more compelling to me.

Third, the connections between Ned and House Dayne. Ned returned Dawn to them, no grudge was held over Ned killing Arthur, it seems likely they cooperated in hiding Jon’s parentage, the heir to House Dayne is Edric “Ned” Dayne, too similar to be a coincidence… Again, I guess it’s possible that they’d do all this for the brother of Ashara’s dead lover. And again, I think it’s simpler and more compelling that the Daynes cooperated with Ned because he was Ashara’s lover (free and willing to marry her at the time), and they understood that everything fell apart due to circumstances beyond his control.

Brandon/Ashara puts the actions of Ned and the Daynes throughout the Rebellion at one remove, to my mind. Possible, deliberately ambiguous in the text thus far, but I do prefer the more immediate connection as a motivation.

I don’t think we have enough information about Ashara to say what would have become of her had she lived, beyond that she would have had a lot of grieving to do. A peaceful life in Dorne away from the politics that caused all that grief sounds good, though.

^ Cosigned to all of this. 

Well, Valyria is closest in terms of what Mordor looks like, but it’s the Lands of Always Winter that people are heading towards to confront the Great Evil. 

Highgarden, definitely. 

Looks pretty, good climate, abundant food and drink, not currently devastated by unending war or omnicidal ice demons…

Well, if you recall, Cersei’s chivvying is a rather inconsistent thing – for example, she was remarkably unsuccessful at getting Ned Stark removed as Hand even after he had resigned the office.

But in that specific instance, I think A. Cersei’s unlikely to stick her neck out for Littlefinger’s man, and B. I think Robert would think that Ned has a right to pick his own men and would look unkindly at interference in this field. 

opinions-about-tiaras:

racefortheironthrone:

When talking about Eddard Stark, you meantion his understanding of power as relational not institutional. Would you care to elaborate on the differences between these two views of power?

Well, I kind of wrote a book about that topic…

Eddard Stark thought that being Hand of the KIng meant being an adviser to his friend Robert Baratheon, and trying to persuade Robert to be his better self; i.e, he thought about being the Hand as about the relationship between himself and Robert. 

What he didn’t understand is that the Handship is a political institution that comes with certain distinct powers that can be exercised independently of the King – making appointments, drafting laws, making war, etc. 

I’m not sure “independently” is the best formulation here. The Handship isn’t independent of the king; indeed, the very name of the office implies that it is in many ways simply an extension of the kings authority, which resides in his person. “Hand of the King” implies you’re acting as part of the royal body. It is in no way independent, at least in the way we construe “independence” in the modern sense. (I.E, there are offices in the United States government that the people occupying them cannot be unilaterally fired from, or overruled in, by the President despite him nominally being their boss.) The Hand doesn’t have any of that independence; if they do something the king doesn’t like the king can completely disavow and reverse it and get rid of the Hand for any reason they feel like, up to and including “I don’t like your hair.”

What Eddard didn’t understand was that Robert had delegated power to him. He saw himself as being empowered to implement policy (he acts swiftly and decisively to punish Gregor Clegane’s marauding in the Riverlands, for example, because he assumes that it is already royal policy for that sort of bullshit to not be tolerated) but he largely refused to make policy on his own account. This is… rather puzzling, because Robert straight-up tells Eddard, multiple times, that he expects Eddard to govern while he goofs around. Robert doesn’t want to make decisions! (Except, of course, when he does.) He had Jon for that, and then later Ned.

I meant independently of the king in the sense that the Hand doesn’t need to get the King’s permission or sign-off beforehand – the King is not a chokepoint in the normal political science sense. But yes, the King can reverse a Hand’s decisions and get rid of the Hand. 

And yes, you’re right that Eddard didn’t quite get that Robert wasn’t interested in governing. 

“The weight of this sad time we must obey;

Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.

The oldest have borne most: we that are young

Shall never see so much, nor live so long.”  

When talking about Eddard Stark, you meantion his understanding of power as relational not institutional. Would you care to elaborate on the differences between these two views of power?

Well, I kind of wrote a book about that topic…

Eddard Stark thought that being Hand of the KIng meant being an adviser to his friend Robert Baratheon, and trying to persuade Robert to be his better self; i.e, he thought about being the Hand as about the relationship between himself and Robert. 

What he didn’t understand is that the Handship is a political institution that comes with certain distinct powers that can be exercised independently of the King – making appointments, drafting laws, making war, etc.