Game Of Thrones: 20 Stupid Character Decisions With Terrible Consequences
11. Robb Marries Talisa
Tragic though it turned out to be, I think the Robb Stark in all of us would have made this mistake at some point in our lives; a decision guided by the heart, and not the head. Fortunately for most of us, we're not medieval kings fighting a losing war with treachery and temptation lurking around every corner. You've heard the story a thousand times before: Boy meets girl; Boy breaks vow to marry girl; Boy tries to atone for his slight; Boy, girl, unborn baby, and mother are all violently murdered at Uncle's wedding feast. Well... maybe that part is a first. Stupid decision number two: never name your unborn child after a Sean Bean character.
10. Ned Investigates, Poorly
Speaking of Sean Bean, we come at last to the fabled decisions making skills of one Lord Eddard Stark: humble; honest to a fault; loyal, and above all; devoutly honourable. The next nine (yes, nine!) horrendously catastrophic decisions belong to the man himself. They compound on top of each other, one after the other, causing his head to swiftly desert his shoulders. How this guy managed to help lead a successful rebellion against a three-hundred-year-old dynasty is quite simply beyond me. First up, we're following Ned on the trail of Jon Arryn's mysterious and sudden death. Ned discovers that his predecessor took interest in a book on the genealogy of the noble households, prior to taking ill. He learns this from Grand Maester Pycelle, and wastes no time in declaring his outright suspicion that Jon Arryn was murdered, even poisoned, and that he has no illusions as to whom the culprit must be. He might as well have written, "Cersei did it," on his office door. He has no evidence of this, of course, apart from a book Lord Arryn read before he died. All of this he divulges to Pycelle, who as it turns out, was a Lannister snake all along. Of course Ned doesn't know this, but remember this is a man he has only just met, maybe not even a week ago. What he does know, is that kings and houses rise and fall, and yet somehow Pycelle has remained on the Small Council for over forty years. Scheming politician much? Ned then follows a path set out for him by none other than Littlefinger, who has just warned him that every beggar child, server and even septa, is potentially a spy watching his every move. Essentially: "Don't trust anyone, not even me, but still follow the leads I feed you." When Ned calls upon the armourer's shop that Jon Arryn visited several times recently, his guard captain warns him yet again about spies, to which Ned replies: "Let them look."
