Eddard Stark
Lord of Winterfell, Warden of the North, and the most honorable man in the realm ÔÇö a soldier who wants nothing so much as to go home. Raised his bastard boy alongside his trueborn children.
A soul of House Stark, born at Winterfell.
The fuller tale
Season One
In Winter Is Coming ÔÇö The king's justice, then the king's reluctant Hand. In The Kingsroad ÔÇö Puts Lady to the sword himself, as the old way demands. In Lord Snow ÔÇö Sits his first small council and hates every minute. In Cripples, Bastards and Broken Things ÔÇö The seed is strong ÔÇö he just doesn't know it yet.
In The Wolf and the Lion ÔÇö Throws the Hand's badge at his king rather than kill a girl. In A Golden Crown ÔÇö Reads Baratheon history and finally does the sum: black of hair. In You Win or You Die ÔÇö Warns Cersei to run. Mercy is his undoing. In Baelor ÔÇö Sees Arya on Baelor's statue, says one last word: "Baelor."
Where they stand. Winterfell and King's Landing.
How it ends for them
On the screen. Beheaded at the Great Sept of Baelor (S1┬ÀE9)
He confessed a treason he never committed on the steps of the Great Sept of Baelor, to buy his daughters' lives. Joffrey wanted a head anyway, and Ice ÔÇö his own greatsword ÔÇö came down before Sansa's eyes while Arya watched from a statue's plinth.
On the page. Beheaded at Baelor's sept (AGOT, ch. 66)
He confessed treason on the steps of Baelor's sept to buy his daughters' lives, as the deal demanded. Joffrey wanted a head instead, and Ser Ilyn took it with Ice while Arya stared at the statue's plinth and Yoren pulled her away.
The deal was straightforward: confess to treason, take the black, and his daughters live. Ned ÔÇö coached by Varys, begged by Sansa ÔÇö spent the last thing he owned and lied to the crowd on the steps of the Great Sept of Baelor, proclaiming Joffrey the true king. Joffrey then discovered the one thing no one had planned for: a king does not have to keep his mother's bargains. He called for Ser Ilyn Payne, and the sword that took Ned Stark's head was Ice ÔÇö his own greatsword ÔÇö while Sansa screamed from the platform and Arya watched from the plinth of Baelor's statue until Yoren of the Night's Watch turned her away from it.
The two tellings differ only in small, sharp details ÔÇö the books give Arya's view from the statue and Yoren's growled 'boy' as he pulls her into the crowd; the show gives Ned's last searching look for his daughter and a fade to sound. The aftermath is identical and enormous: the North rises, the realm splits five ways, and a story that had seemed to be about whether the hero could survive politics announces that it was never that kind of story. His head went on a spike; his bones went north, in time, to the crypts where Starks belong.
Their chapters, book by book
A Game of Thrones 15 chapters of their own
Eddard I
Robert comes to Winterfell; in the crypts before Lyanna's statue he asks Ned to be his Hand and offers Joffrey for Sansa.
Eddard II
On the kingsroad south, Robert shows Ned a report of Daenerys' wedding and wants her dead; they argue about old wars and older ghosts.
Eddard III
In Darry's hall the king's justice is done on a wolf: Lady dies for Nymeria's bite, and the Hound rides Mycah down for a prince's lie.
Eddard IV
Ned arrives to find the small council smooth and the crown six million in debt; the Hand's tourney is announced against his wishes.
Eddard V
Jon Arryn's trail: Pycelle's evasions, a heavy book of lineages, and Littlefinger's careful hint about an armorer's shop.
Eddard VI
Ned follows the late Hand's footsteps to Tobho Mott's forge and meets Gendry ÔÇö a black-haired apprentice with King Robert's jaw.
Eddard VII
The tourney ends; by night Varys comes to the Hand's chambers with soft words about poison, the king's wine, and men who serve the realm.
Eddard VIII
The council debates murdering a pregnant girl across the sea; Ned throws down the Hand's badge rather than put his seal to it.
Eddard IX
Ned traces Robert's bastards through the city; outside a brothel Jaime Lannister's spears close in ÔÇö Jory dies, and Ned's leg is shattered.
Eddard X
Milk of the poppy dreams: the tower of joy, three white cloaks, and ÔÇ£promise me, NedÔÇØ; he wakes to Robert restoring the badge and riding to hunt.
Eddard XI
Ned sits the Iron Throne in Robert's place, hears the ruin Gregor Clegane has made of the riverlands, and sends Beric Dondarrion for his head.
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.
Eddard XIII
A boar has opened the king: Robert dictates his will and Ned, writing, changes one word ÔÇö heir. Renly offers a hundred swords; Ned refuses them.
Eddard XIV
Robert dies; in the throne room Ned plays his honest hand against Cersei's queen ÔÇö and Littlefinger's dagger settles it at his throat.
Eddard XV
In the black cells Varys comes disguised with water and arithmetic: confess, take the black, and Sansa lives. ÔÇ£The realm bleeds, Lord Eddard.ÔÇØWhere the page and the screen part
Book Ned is a point-of-view character, and it changes everything: fifteen chapters inside a mind the show can only photograph. Readers get the fever dreams of the tower of joy years before any adaptation could film it, the guilt that flares whenever Jon's mother is mentioned, and the slow horror of a man watching his own investigation close around his neck. Sean Bean's performance builds the same man from the outside ÔÇö wearier, grayer, aged up along with the rest of the adult cast ÔÇö and the show trades the dreams for exposition, which is why viewers met the tower of joy six seasons after readers did.
Smaller divergences accumulate. In the books the fight outside the brothel ends with Ned's leg crushed under his dying horse, not a Lannister spear through the knee, and his last weeks are spent in a poppy haze that makes the black-cell scenes with Varys hit differently. The books also thread rumors around him the show drops entirely ÔÇö half the realm believes Ashara Dayne was Jon's mother, and Ned lets them, because a slander that protects a promise is cheap at the price.
Their journey
Where the two tellings send them to the same place the road runs whole; where they part, the screen keeps the left and the books the right.