Oh, you’re kicking my butt into gear here, Lauren. I’ve been planning a post about this very subject but I’ve only gotten to the point of throwing random sentences into my drafts and shaking my fist at the sky. Which surprisingly was not productive at all. Shocker!

But gosh, that scene!! I just love that scene so very much. Bar the prologue, this is the very first chapter of the whole series, the one that gave us the first glimpse of the Starks and started building their characters and the story at large. And the beauty of George’s writing is that that one scene between Ned and Bran perfectly encapsulates the ethos of Ned Stark, the character whose ideology drives the entire narrative whether through his teachings living through his kids, or through the legacy he left behind, or through one of his most defining acts: saving the infant that would grow up to be crucial to the survival of mankind. That scene crystallizes Ned’s characterization in one single conversation, which is one of the reason I find fandom’s tendency to decontextualize the phrase “the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword” and only focus on this one phrase out of the entire scene so minimizing to Ned’s character, in addition to being a misinterpretation of the message he meant to convey.

On its face, and if taken out of context, that phrase can send a contradictory message to its core meaning. Simply saying that the Stark way necessitates that you swing the sword yourself restricts the message to a simplified uber-macho exclamation of “we Starks do our own killing” *slaps chest because masculinity*, which completely loses the entire conversation between Bran and Ned its meaning. Mind you, there is a gendered overlay to the scene because this is Ned having a conversation with his seven-year-old child after said child watched an execution, which carries the idea that this is a rite of passage for Bran, an immersion in a violent culture that glorifies violence and attaches so much weight to men doing violent activities that it becomes the mark for bravery, masculinity and leadership. But I actually think that the true message of this scene defies Westerosi martial mores that glories in violence, because while Ned is essentially instructing Bran to kill by his own hand which is a violent activity, he is actively rejecting such sentiments as “a dead enemy is a thing of beauty” and “a bloody sword is a beautiful thing”. Ned’s intent fights against glorifying violence and against attaching a beautifying veneer to it, and instead calls for facing the actual truth of what taking a life is and demands it be treated as the monumental thing it is. In that scene with Bran, Ned is calling for recognition for the value of life.

“King Robert has a headsman,” [Bran] said, uncertainly.  

“He does,“ his father admitted. “As did the Targaryen kings before him.
Yet our way is the older way. The blood of the First Men still flows
in the veins of the Starks, and we hold to the belief that the man who
passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man’s life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die. 

“One
day, Bran, you will be Robb’s bannerman, holding a keep of your own for
your brother and your king, and justice will fall to you. When that day
comes, you
must take no pleasure in the task, but neither must you look away. A
ruler who hides behind paid executioners soon forgets what death is.”

The lesson here lies in why Ned teaches that “the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword”, not just the physical act itself. If Ned’s lesson was about how killing someone yourself is the definitive mark of a good leader, or a “proper” Stark, he would not have elaborated with the explanation of why the Starks follow the old way or sought to confirm that Bran understood the rationale behind it. Ned’s lesson is far more about taking personal responsibility for your decisions no matter how hard that is and not hiding behind others to do your dirty work than it is about the actual act of swinging the sword. It is about recognizing the value of life and how the decision to take one should never be easy or simple. It is about treating the enormity of taking a life with the respect and consideration it deserves. This is an active refusal to become desensitized to death and to the act of taking a life. And that refusal does not come without a cost. We see the toll taking a life has on Ned as he seeks the quiet and peace of the godswood – seeking an intimately spiritual place where he cleanses his soul as he cleanses his sword from the blood that stains it – in the aftermath of taking a life. But he still chooses to shoulder that responsibility despite the cost to his psyche. It would be so easy for him to pass off that burden to someone else, to spare himself the unease of taking a life. But, well, “don’t look away”. It might be easier but it can and does come with the risk of making one complacent, and of making it easier to run away from or deny the responsibility of their actions. Ned stands against that complacency and against distancing oneself from the reality of what condemning a man to die is. He stands against the detachment that makes ordering death become such an easy thing, abstract to the point of not even registering anymore. That complacency and that detachment can lead a person to cease to see the worth of people’s lives, to see people and instead start seeing them as things: collateral damage to wars, fodder in the quest of personal glory, livestock with no importance or abstract number of casualties on a piece of paper.

Which is why I think “the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword” should be taken more symbolically than literally. Ned did mean for his sons to swing the sword themselves, but the actual physical act, in and of itself, is not the main point. It is only significant as far as being a method for Ned to hold himself accountable for his decisions and that is the honorable lesson he imparts to his sons. But dealing the killing blow is not inherently honorable, neither does it automatically make a person appreciate life or not forget what death is. Indeed we see evidence of that in Ilyn Payne, someone who swings the sword and thus seemingly fit what Ned says but that’s only if we go by surface reading of Ned’s words. But Payne falls short of the actual meaning of Ned’s lesson as he
“cares for naught but killing”

, which is why Ned refers to him as a butcher. Now, people might not be dying by Payne’s word but they are dying by his hand which makes him just as responsible for those lives as the person giving the sentence. Ser Ilyn’s attitude regarding his job actually carries shades of dehumanization to the people dying on his sword as they get reduced to being heads for the headsman to cut off. Payne does not care about whether his orders are just or not, right or not; he does not care in the slightest about the lives he is ending. He certainly did not care about Ned and how unjust his execution was when he flung him down to die by his own sword. That’s the complete opposite of what Ned advocating for, despite the physical act seemingly meeting his standards. Similarly, Jaime Lannister boasts to Catelyn about doing his own killing so he is another who swings the sword and doesn’t get another to do his dirty work for him. But does Jaime take responsibility for the lives he ended? Does he care about them outside of how they might affect his self-image? Daryn Hornwood, the Karstark brothers and the Winterfell guards who were murdered on his orders would beg to differ. Both these men (and Ned’s distaste for them) makes it perfectly clear that the interpretation that swinging the sword is the part that matters in Ned’s teachings, that Ned attaches honor to this simple physical act with no additional qualifiers, is way too simplistic and shallow – swinging the sword means nothing if it is not supported by the lesson about accountability and what is owed to the person getting executed.

Ned’s words are also more than just a call for accountability; they
are also a call for compassion, for treating people as people, for
treating every single life like it matters regardless of any other
consideration. Ned is showing respect, even in executing criminals who legally deserve it, because their existence as human beings demands it. It’s their right as human beings. And Ned, at his core, is a compassionate and merciful man who cares which is why he recognizes the cost of life and agonizes over taking one, which is honestly
rare in a society such as Westeros that glorifies violence, and for a
guy who has been a part of two bloody wars, saw a lot of death and
killed people by his own hand. In a way, this a defiant rejection of
Westerosi tendency to attribute glory to wars and violent skills. Not a
complete one, no, because Ned is still a part of said society and is
employing and enforcing the rules it dictates, and that society ties
accountability and the rule of the law to capital punishment. So Ned
does kill people when he has to since he believes in
accountability, the rule of the law and worthy causes, but he does
not find it glorifying, he does not take pleasure in it, he does not
allow it to take away his humanity or theirs. He faces the bitter
reality of what taking a life is and accepts the weight and the mark it
leaves on his soul, because he recognizes that ending a life is an
enormous act and he will treat it with the due respect and consideration
it deserves.

And that is the ethos of Ned Stark, that recognition of common
humanity and how that’s deserving of respect no matter what. He lives by
that sentiment, not just in how he rules the North or metes out justice, but also in how he  treats the people in his household. It’s not for nothing that
Ned’s habit of seating one of his servants at the high table and
showing genuine care and interest in their work and lives is contrasted
by Tywin Lannister’s greatest think-piece “you feed your dog bones under
the table, you do not seat him beside you on the high bench.”. Ned
refuses that dehumanization in every aspect in his life. He defies the
tendency we see from other lords, from Robert Baratheon to Tywin
Lannister to Randyll Tarly, to dehumanize people and treat them as
insignificant making it so easy to disregard their rights, their suffering and even their very lives. If the lords can’t even recognize the personhood of someone, how can they care about their lives?

Personally,
I find Ned’s call for personal accountability and recognition
for the value of life and the way he leads by example, holding himself
and his sons to it first before expecting it from others, so poignant
in a series filled with people trying to evade being held responsible for their own actions and choices. Robert makes it an art form: walking away after ordering Lady killed and letting Mycah get run down fully knowing that Joffrey was lying; putting his abuse of Cersei on Cersei herself, or on the wine, or on random celestial happenings in the sky; seeing Joffrey’s cruelty and entitlement and violence as Cersei’s fault, and Cersei fault alone; using a transparent veneer of being concerned about the realm to mask the cowardice and dishonor of sending an assassin after a pregnant teenager and her unborn child; dehumanizing three innocents and letting their murder go unpunished but liking that he could hold to the illusion of righteousness, etc. Tywin Lannisters uses plausible deniability to claim clean hands when he is getting toddlers and women and unarmed men butchered on his orders. Theon blames the victims who died as a result of his choices for their own murder in ACoK, keeps thinking of how he has no choice, and continues to try and distance himself from the responsibility in ADWD. Jaime puts the blame of flinging Bran out of a window on Bran’s snooping and on Cersei, and of him potentially storming Riverrun to force a surrender–with what this entails of breaking his vow to Catelyn–on the Blackfish. Barristan Selmy and Arys Oakheart try and excuse their inaction in the face of blatant tyranny by hiding behind
vows of obedience and claims of duty and honorable service. There is so much of that in the series, so for Ned’s proclamation of the importance of personal accountability to come in the series’ very first chapter really sets the tone of
the narrative, and is the first piece of commentary on an ongoing
rejection of the eraser of one’s responsibility for their own actions
under any pretense, not oaths of obedience, not corrupt systems, not
corrupt institutions or overlords. Ned is at the heart
of asoiaf precisely because his is a voice that argues against apathy and
passivity in a society rife with them.

That compassion and that regard for life that Ned shows is the make of his legacy not just in terms of his image in the eyes of the Northmen and how it makes them fight in his name, but also in how he passes on these teachings to his children.
It’s in Robb’s insistence not to let the murder of Willem Lannister and
Tion Frey go unpunished and his refusal of Theon’s torture at Ramsay’s
hand.

It’s in Sansa’s rejection of the Lannister dehumanizing ideology and instinctive defense of Ser Dontos. It’s in Arya’s fierce protection of Weasel and her refusal to turn a blind eye as people she knows to have committed horrific crimes die a slow agonizing death.
It’s in Bran’s attempts to reach out and help a tortured Theon. It’s in Jon’s adamant advocacy for the common humanity of the free folk (”what are these wildlings if not men?” THIS IS EVERYTHING NED HAS BEEN ADVOCATING FOR) and his refusal to abandon them to be trapped prey to the Others. Those kids care which is why they will make a difference in the fate and future of Westeros, all because Dad taught them not to look away.