I’ve been thinking about this ask I reblogged from @madaboutasoiaf​ and what her anon said about Westeros benefiting from Rhaegar being Jon’s father as opposed to Ned which I wanted to address, but I did not want to take away from the points about Robert in the original post so I thought making a new post about it would be more appropriate. Here’s the bit I want to talk about:

Doesn’t that make Rhaegar the winner and Ned the loser, especially since
Jon and Westeros are going to benefit more from Rhaegar as his father
than Ned in the end?  

Besides my absolute rejection of the idea that the narrative, at any point, means to frame Ned as the loser in the story or that we’re meant to see him that way, here’s the irony in this line
of thinking: Ned Stark did more for the War for the Dawn than Rhaegar
Targaryen. Oh, Rhaegar sired Jon alright, but he did little beyond
donating his sperm to create him. But the one who saved Jon’s life, that ensured that this one small infant
would survive and grow up to be the man who will save the world? That
was Ned Stark and the love he had for Lyanna. That was Lyanna and the absolute faith and trust she had in her brother.

Rhaegar failed
the realm he wanted to save, and could have failed the little boy he
fathered specifically to be a weapon against the Others so easily, did fail his two other
children whom he believed were to be instrumental to the war. Rhaegar
Targaryen could have been the king who saved Westeros; he had a prime
opportunity and the necessary knowledge to do so. He was one of few who knew that the realm was
already under siege and that a war for humanity’s very survival was
coming, and the only one with enough authority and clout to really make a difference. Rhaegar could have significantly evened the stakes in the War for the Dawn by
putting his focus to overthrowing Aerys since he recognized that the
realm needed a better royal leadership if it had any chance to survive.
With Rhaegar’s knowledge of the upcoming war, he could have had the
monarchy spearhead a long-term plan to strengthen
the Night’s Watch and the other Westerosi institutions so they could be
prepared for the coming war. He could have used royal authority to
dedicate resources to the Night’s Watch and set maesters to research the
threat and how best to counter it. He could have established a line of
communication with the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch and the
Starks of Winterfell so he’d know the second the invasion began.
Westeros could have had nearly a decade and a half to prepare for the
Others: dragonglass could have been mined, food and weapons shipped to
the Wall, the closed castles restored and manned, warriors directed to join as the Watch ceased to be a penal
colony and the honor of service in it was restored, etc. Westeros could have
had a much easier time mobilizing for the threat had it had a king that believed in what others thought legends and old wives’ tales. Instead, Rhaegar undermined the realm’s chances of actually being prepared for the
Others. He instigated a war that weakened the same institutions that could have faced their threat by bleeding the realm in a conflict that could
have been avoided. He squandered his
knowledge and acted as if acquiring a few children was the be-all,
end-all of his responsibility to the realm…. and the kicker is that even
those children were not properly protected.

Compare that to Ned who, unlike Rhaegar, did not know that Jon would play an important part in
saving humanity, or that a war with a mystical enemy was coming, when he saved the life of one small infant and raised
him with all the qualities that made him the hero Westeros needs. Look
at Jon’s actions at the Wall and how driven he is by Ned’s teachings.
Jon picked service in the Night’s Watch as a purpose because Ned had
impressed upon him the honor of serving the realm on the Wall, a belief
left over by a residual ancestral memory of the true purpose of the Wall
and why the Night’s Watch is important. He was adamant on saving as
many of the free folk as he could because Dad stressed the value of every
single individual life, and that condemning someone to die should never
be easy and the cost should never be ignored. I fully believe that Jon’s heroics should be attributed to
him, that his courage and empathy and forward thinking is something to
commend Jon on, but Ned was the one who raised this man and who
shaped who Jon came to be – a hero who stands up for the weak and innocent and who is
going to save the world, not because Rhaegar Targaryen sired him for
that purpose, but because Ned Stark taught him to do the right thing, and because Ned Stark did do the right thing when he saved this small helpless innocent
for love and for honor – because the life of that one bastard boy was everything, worth the lies and the shame and the pain it cost Ned. And that one life spared will mean life to the realm at large.

Westeros might have been better served with Rhaegar as king, but it is far better served with Ned as Jon’s father. It was Ned’s love that saved Jon, his honor that he passed onto his son, and his values and teachings that enabled Jon to be the hero Westeros needs.