Stannis is a much more Asbergery. He doesn’t understand other people’s laughter. He has no feelings of joy and is socially rather retarded, banning loud talking and laughter in his hall. No one would ever accuse Ned Stark of being the life of the party, but he does have a certain humor.
Stannis is almost insanely dutiful and legalistic to fault. Everything boils down to duty and law for him.
Ned has much stronger “human” side.
As much as Ned is ruled by his code of honor and as much as he respects laws, everything is leavened by LOVE. And for him, love trumps duty.
- He shelters Jon(probably an enemy of King Robert) out of a heartfelt horror at the idea of infanticide and out of the love for his sister. Stannis would simply be incapable of doing this: he is ruled by his sense of duty.
- He warns Cersei, mainly because he can’t stand the thought of her children being killed. Had Stannis come to power, I’m sure that he would have put a price on the children’s heads as ‘abomination’ and rival claimants.
- Having thrown in with Robert, Stannis would not have resigned the Handship at the suggestion to assassinate Daenerys and her unborn child. He would have carried out his duty.
- I don’t believe Ned would have ever entertained the thought of killing an innocent child even for the goodness of the realm. The mere thought of child-killing kind of sends him off the deep end: I believe it triggers his post-traumatic stress syndrome that he acquired during Robert’s Rebellion. He does not behave rationally.
Stannis is an interesting character; in many ways his philosophy of kingship is one that jibes with me. And, yes, Ned and he do have things in common. But Ned has more heart, whereas Stannis wouldn’t even quite know what ‘having heart’ meant.
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