Raised alongside Robert in the Eyrie under Jon Arryn, Eddard Stark became the closest thing the Stag King ever had to a conscience. Where Robert was appetite and thunder, Ned was silence and duty, and the friendship worked precisely because neither man could be the other. They went to war together over Ned's sister, won a throne neither of them had set out to take, and then spent fourteen years a thousand leagues apart.
What finally broke them was not distance but character. Robert wanted a Targaryen girl across the Narrow Sea quietly poisoned; Ned refused, resigned, and walked out of the small council. That the king took him back says something about Robert. That the king had asked at all says more. When Robert lay dying of a boar and too much wine, it was Ned he sent for, and Ned he trusted with a realm that neither of them had ever really governed.
At a Glance
| House | Stark of Winterfell |
|---|---|
| Title | Lord of Winterfell, Warden of the North |
| Bond to Robert | Foster brother; later Hand of the King |
| Broke with Robert over | The plot to murder Daenerys Targaryen |