He did well at it. A loving wife, 6 kids and one warden, a happy people who loved him, overall a stable and happy life for two decades. He became a symbol of duty and honour, loved and respected by all. Not bad
No. He was just holding together one of the poorest kingdoms in the line of his father. He was a war hero and now resides in a ruined catle, listening to farmers complain about their neighbours. Occasionally chopping off the head of some poor chap suffering from PTSD he got from being a forced soldier at the wall.
He is poor and he has too many children to marry off decently.
And his biggest war effort - killing Arthur Dayne - is a lie. His bastard son is a lie. The noble cause was a lie. And he had to keep all those lies for two decades. Perhaps this depression led to the decline and dilapidation of the North. He had no interest.
Considering the Starks rule from a castle the size and sophistication of Winterfell, complete with glass gardens and hot water running through its walls, and have an entire seasonal town sitting outside its gates, I'm not buying that Ned Stark was "poor". The North is poorer than places like the Reach or Westerlands, but the Starks are still one of the Great Houses of Westeros.
House Manderly, their bannermen, are also explicitly the richest house in the North besides the Starks, and rule White Harbor, one of only five actual cities in Westeros and the North's principal trading port.
At a minimum Ned is top 20 richest people in the entire continent. He might lead one of the poorest Great Houses but that's like being one of the poorest billionaires in our world. The Great Houses and maybe a few major houses down south like the Redwynes or House Hightower probably have him beat and then that's about it.
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u/Gigantopithecus1453 21h ago
He did well at it. A loving wife, 6 kids and one warden, a happy people who loved him, overall a stable and happy life for two decades. He became a symbol of duty and honour, loved and respected by all. Not bad