A Game of Thrones, Chapter 45, Eddard
Summary
Word of Ned’s sentence on Gregor reaches Casterly Rock, Lord Tywin is wrought. Ned contemplates the facts he has just discovered and decides that he can’t allow for a another child slaughter. He wants to give Cersei the opportunity to flee with her children. He meets with her in godswood and tells her what he has discovered, however Cersei decides to fight instead of running away.
Quotes
“Lord Beric rides beneath the king’s own banner. If Lord Tywin attempts to interfere with the king’s justice, he will have Robert to answer to. The only thing His Grace enjoys more than hunting is making war on lords who defy him.”
The seed is strong, Jon Arryn had cried on his deathbed, and so it was. All those bastards, all with hair as black as night. Grand Maester Malleon recorded the last mating between stag and lion, some ninety years ago, when Tya Lannister wed Gowen Baratheon, third son of the reigning lord. Their only issue, an unnamed boy described in Malleon’s tome as a large and lusty lad born with a full head of black hair, died in infancy. Thirty years before that a male Lannister had taken a Baratheon maid to wife. She had given him three daughters and a son, each black-haired. No matter how far back Ned searched in the brittle yellowed pages, always he found the gold yielding before the coal.
Her eyes burned, green fire in the dusk, like the lioness that was her sigil. “The night of our wedding feast, the first time we shared a bed, he called me by your sister’s name. He was on top of me, in me, stinking of wine, and he whispered Lyanna. ”
Ned Stark thought of pale blue roses, and for a moment he wanted to weep. “I do not know which of you I pity most.”
“When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground.”
Commentary
The mystery of Jon Arryn’s death is out in the open. The gold always yielded before coal. Joffrey, Myrcella and Tommen are not Robert’s children. Jaime Lannister, Queen’s brother is their father. Ned knows what this means. If Robert finds out he will order the children, as well as their parents killed. Ned’s conscience does not allow him to let that happen, yet his duty to Robert forces him to reveal the truth. He’s trapped and the only route he’s willing to take is the road leading to his doom. He reveals Queen that he knows her secret. Offers her the chance to escape.
At first I thought that Ned made a grave mistake underestimating Cersei’s will to fight, but when I thought of it I changed my mind. Ned knew what he was getting into. He felt pity for both Robert and Cersei. He didn’t want to have innocent children butchered for the crimes of their parents. In his eyes there was no other way.
The true drama behind this is that this is not the way the “game of thrones” is played. You don’t win it by being noble, like Littlefinger pointed out to Ned already. The ice under his feet is cracking and soon Ned will make a “noble splash”.
Tags: Eddard
