A Game of Thrones ÔÇö Eddard XII
The seed is strong: Ned reads the truth in a book of lineages, meets Cersei in the godswood, and gives her mercy ÔÇö time to run.
The chapter retold
Piecing together Jon Arryn's book of lineages at last, Ned reads the pattern that's been sitting in front of him since the forge: every trueborn Baratheon child has always been born dark-haired, and every one of Cersei's children is fair and golden like the Lannisters, not like Robert. The Targaryens' old vice of incest is not, Ned realizes with dawning horror, exclusive to the Targaryens. He confronts Cersei with what he's learned in the privacy of the godswood ÔÇö and then, in the North's own particular idiom of justice, offers her not exposure but mercy: time to gather her children and flee the city before he tells the king what he knows.
The scene is Ned at his most consequential and most fatally naive at once: the deduction itself is sharp, patient detective work rewarded, but the mercy he extends afterward ÔÇö giving a cornered, powerful enemy advance warning rather than striking while he holds the advantage ÔÇö is a decision built entirely on Ned's own code of honor, assuming Cersei will either flee quietly or accept her fate with some measure of the same honesty. She will do neither, and the gift of time Ned hands her in this godswood is the single kindness the book will make him pay for most dearly.
This movement: The Wine and the Boar
- Ned tells Cersei what he knows and gives her time to run ÔÇö mercy with a body count.
- A boar opens the king; Robert dictates a will naming Ned Protector; Ned edits one word: heir.
- A wineseller's poison misses Daenerys; Drogo promises his son the iron chair across the poison water.
- Renly flees south; Littlefinger promises the gold cloaks; the trap in the throne room closes.