Ned Stark as your result: the character and the answers behind it

The quiz names Ned Stark when your answers point to him more often than to anyone else, or tie him at the top. Those answers keep choosing the plain truth, the promise kept as it was made, and the refusal to trade a principle for a prize. Below: who Ned is in the show, scene by scene, what his answers have in common, how they compare with Jon Snow's and Jaime Lannister's, and what a result like this can and can't tell you.

Who Ned Stark is, and how the show changes him

Eddard "Ned" Stark is the head of the Stark family of Winterfell when Game of Thrones begins. King Robert Baratheon makes him Hand of the King, Ned takes his daughters south to King's Landing, and he is executed there before the first season ends. Through that season he is tested far more than he is changed. The later seasons change how he looks instead. They keep coming back to him, through his children and through flashbacks, and what they show complicates the man season 1 seemed to settle.

Season 1: the man as he is

• "Winter Is Coming" (season 1, episode 1). Ned takes his sons to watch the execution of a Night's Watch deserter and beheads the man himself. The deserter's warning about the White Walkers does not move him; Ned insists they are long extinct. Later he reluctantly accepts Robert's offer to make him Hand of the King.
• "The Kingsroad" (season 1, episode 2). Ned promises Jon that he will tell him about his mother when they meet again. On the journey south, Arya's direwolf, Nymeria, bites Joffrey and flees, and at Cersei's demand Sansa's wolf, Lady, is to be killed instead. Ned takes responsibility for it and, reluctantly, kills Lady himself.
• "Lord Snow" (season 1, episode 3). In King's Landing he is still dissatisfied that Jaime Lannister broke his oath as a knight of the Kingsguard. When he learns that Arya wants to be a swordswoman and has a sword of her own, he hires Syrio Forel to teach her.
• "The Wolf and the Lion" (season 1, episode 5). When Robert orders Daenerys Targaryen and her unborn child assassinated, Ned refuses and resigns as Hand. Jaime later ambushes him, and in their duel one of Jaime's men spears Ned through the leg from behind.
• "A Golden Crown" (season 1, episode 6). Named regent while Robert is away hunting, Ned sends Lord Beric Dondarrion to arrest Gregor Clegane, the Mountain, for attacking villages in the Riverlands. Going back over Jon Arryn's research, he realizes that Joffrey is not Robert's son.
• "You Win or You Die" (season 1, episode 7). Ned tells Cersei he knows Jaime is the father of her children and tells her to take them and leave the capital before he tells Robert. This is the confrontation in which she says the line that gives the episode its title: "When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die." The mortally wounded Robert dictates a will naming Ned regent until Joffrey comes of age, and Ned writes "my rightful heir" in place of Joffrey's name. He refuses Renly's call for a coup, sends a letter to Stannis as the rightful heir, and asks Littlefinger to secure the City Watch against Cersei's men. After Robert dies, Cersei tears up the will, the Watch kills Ned's men, and Littlefinger holds him at knifepoint.
• "Baelor" (season 1, episode 9). Varys tells Ned that Sansa's life is at stake too, and Ned agrees to make a false confession and swear loyalty to Joffrey. As a crowd gathers to watch him judged, he spots Arya on the statue of Baelor the Blessed and alerts Yoren, a recruiter for the Night's Watch. He confesses to treason in front of Sansa, Cersei, Joffrey and the Small Council, and Joffrey, instead of sparing him as promised, orders his execution. Once Ned sees that Yoren has Arya, he is beheaded with his own sword.

Under that pressure he bends twice. He writes "my rightful heir" in place of Joffrey's name, knowing Joffrey is not Robert's son, and he makes a confession he knows is false, because Sansa's life depends on it. The first bend serves the truth as he understands it. The second serves his daughter.

After season 1: what the show reveals later

• "Kissed by Fire" (season 3, episode 5). Talisa, Catelyn and Edmure plead with Robb to keep Lord Karstark prisoner, but Robb executes him personally, as his father executed the deserter in the first episode, and the Karstark forces leave his army. In the same episode Jaime tells Brienne that he killed the Mad King, breaking his oath, to save the city, its people and his own father. When she asks why he didn't tell Eddard Stark the truth, he holds that he didn't have to explain himself.
• "Oathbreaker" (season 6, episode 3). In a vision, Bran watches a young Ned arrive at the Tower of Joy and demand to know where Lyanna is. Ser Arthur Dayne defeats most of Ned's men by himself and is about to kill Ned when a wounded Howland Reed stabs Dayne through the back, and Ned delivers the fatal blow. In HBO's Inside the Episode feature, as the episode's Wikipedia page records it, the series' creators talk about the gap between that fight and the legend. David Benioff says every child in Westeros hears about this legendary sword fight, and that as far as Bran knew, his father had simply beaten a legendary opponent. D. B. Weiss says it "certainly does puncture the mythology of Ned Stark that's running through this world, especially after his death."
• "The Winds of Winter" (season 6, episode 10). Bran returns to the vision. Ned finds his sister Lyanna covered in blood from childbirth, and with her dying breath she pleads with him to protect her son. The transition from the newborn's face to Jon Snow's says who the child is.
• "The Dragon and the Wolf" (season 7, episode 7). At Winterfell, Bran tells Sam that Jon's parents were Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna, and Sam adds what the High Septon's journal recorded: in secret, Rhaegar's marriage to Elia Martell was annulled and he married Lyanna. Bran revisits the vision at the Tower of Joy and learns Jon's real name, Aegon Targaryen, which makes him Rhaegar's legitimate son.

Put together, the later seasons show that a man season 1 presents as plainly honest let a large untruth stand for as long as he lived. The first episode introduces Jon Snow as Ned's bastard son; the flashbacks show that the boy is his sister's child, and that she asked Ned to protect him. The promise Ned made in "The Kingsroad," to tell Jon about his mother when they next met, is one he never gets to keep. They do not meet again.

What the Ned answers have in common

Every answer on the quiz counts for one character. The ones that count for Ned share one idea: say the true thing out loud, then hold to it. They fall into a few groups (some of the questions appear only on the full version).

• The truth, said directly. When an advisor says something unwelcome, the Ned answer thanks them and says plainly that the advice will be acted on. In a negotiation it won't make "a promise you can't keep." It shows love "By telling them the truth, always, even the hard parts," and meets a put-down by explaining, respectfully, why the other person is wrong. Even the supernatural advantage it picks is a voice that makes people believe the truth.
• A word that holds. People follow Ned because he means what he says, and the lesson he would leave a child is to guard your word "like it's irreplaceable."
• The same person in every room. Given command of people who don't trust him yet, he is exactly who he is. In a room full of performers he has no "performance mode," and he spends the last night before everything changes honoring his obligations, as on any other night.
• Refusals with no bargaining. An enemy's offer gets "Some things are not for sale." A legend that costs a moral compromise gets a pass. The legacy he wants is "The record you kept clean when everyone else compromised."
• Owning things in the open. He carries a disastrous decision "Openly and without excuse," lies awake over whether he failed someone who trusted him, protects the vulnerable "without a second thought," and meets a three-way quarrel by asking each side what they actually need.

Two things stand out. First, most of these answers state a principle and stop there. None asks what the other person will do with the honesty once they have it. The few that look at the cost are the answer about being misread, "They think the honesty is naïveté," and the answer about survival: "You were honest when dishonesty might have saved you, and somehow survived anyway." The answers with no second step are close to the Ned of "You Win or You Die," who gives Cersei time and trusts Littlefinger with the City Watch.

Second, none of the Ned answers is about keeping a secret for someone. That is the main thing the flashbacks reveal about him, and the quiz leaves it out. The Ned on the quiz is the public man of season 1, not the brother at the Tower of Joy.

Ned, Jon and Jaime: where the answers sit close

Reading the options side by side, the answers nearest to Ned's most often belong to Jon Snow. Jaime Lannister is a less obvious comparison: his answers share Ned's candor and point it somewhere else. Both are judgments from the wording, not a count of anyone's results. If your own result was close, the count shown for every character with it will tell you who came second.

Ned and Jon

On many questions Ned's and Jon's answers start in the same place. Both thank the advisor, refuse the enemy's offer, pass on the legend, protect the vulnerable person without conditions, and take full responsibility for a bad decision. They split on where the weight goes. Jon's answers keep it inside and let actions speak: he sits with hard advice "even when it's painful," carries a bad decision "Quietly and heavily," lets a put-down pass because "your life has answered the question," and leads by "letting results make the case." Ned's answers say it out loud, to the advisor, about the mistake and to the critic's face.

They also guard different things. Jon's legacy is "What you protected and who you carried," and Ned's is a clean record. Jon survives because "You refused to stop getting back up." Ned's answer says he was honest when dishonesty might have saved him and somehow survived anyway. In the show, he doesn't. If you were torn between the two, it comes down to timing: do you say the hard thing now, or let what you do say it later? The show gives them a reason to sound alike. Jon grows up believing he is Ned's bastard son, raised by the man who kept his real mother's secret.

Ned and Jaime

Jaime's answers share Ned's candor but turn it inward and leave it unsettled. Ned's answer promises to act on hard advice, while Jaime would "wrestle with it honestly." Ned owns a bad decision in the open; Jaime carries "something close to guilt you've never quite resolved." Offered the legend, Jaime would "Be honest with yourself about how tempted you are, then probably pass," and offered the enemy's deal, he would "Consider it seriously, and despise yourself for considering it." People follow Ned because he means what he says, and Jaime because "You've earned it through actions, not words." Ned's legacy is a record kept clean; Jaime's is "The distance between who you started as and who you became."

The show sets the two against each other over an oath. In "Lord Snow," Ned is still dissatisfied that Jaime broke his. In "Kissed by Fire," Jaime gives Brienne his reasons and holds that he never had to explain himself to Ned. Ned judged the broken oath. Jaime went by his reasons for breaking it, and kept them to himself. On several questions the quiz's Ned and Jaime answers split along a related line: the principle kept as stated, against an honest look at the pull to break it and the hope, in one Jaime answer's words, of being "more than your worst moment."

What it means to answer like Ned

A result on this quiz says which descriptions you picked, on one day, from the options written for each situation. It's a reading of your answers, not a measure of your character, and the same person can land somewhere else next week. Answering like Ned means that, offered several ways to handle the same moment, you kept picking the one that says the true thing plainly and keeps the promise as it was made.

The show adds two cautions the quiz can't. The quiz asks what you would do, never what happens next, and season 1 shows what happens next: the warning gave Cersei time, and the City Watch Ned counted on cut down his men. And the show's Ned is less simple than his answers. In the same feature for "Oathbreaker," talking about the fight at the tower, Weiss said "honor was so important to Ned Stark that it was worth losing his own life for," but that Ned "was completely ready to let go of that honor and excellence to do something that he really felt was more important." Weiss was talking about one fight. The false confession for Sansa and the long silence about Jon fit the same description.

If Ned doesn't sit right, look at the count shown with your result: a tie names every character at the top, and a close second is worth reading about too. The note under each question says why its answers point where they do. If the result feels uncannily accurate, there is a piece on why a personality test result can feel written about you. For how Ned's warning to Cersei played out, see the Cersei section of four Game of Thrones leadership styles and where each one breaks. The Game of Thrones character quiz is there to take again.