ASOIAF: What are the flaws of the Stark family?

AS far as the current crop of Starks, i.e., the ones alive in the story that we are reading, I am going to have to put my pro-Stark prejudice aside in order to point out what their flaws are.

Eddard Stark:

I believe that Eddard Stark’s primary flaw is that he has a nasty case of post-traumatic stress disorder. And who could blame him? His father, brother, sister were killed in a horrific war against his King (a total mind-fuck in and of itself to the eighteen year old law-and-honor focused Ned.) Who knows what war-time atrocities he may have witnessed in the long war, but I am sure that there were some. But most of all he was traumatized by the brutal murder of Rhaegar’s children; traumatized not only by the murders…but at his best friend Robert’s tacit approval. Put a secret Targaryen in his arms, born in a bed of blood from his dying sister and there you have it. Every time the mere mention of killing a child(Daenerys and her unborn son, or the Jaime/Cersei bastards), Ned’s PTSD gets triggered and he starts hyperventilating; flashing back to the War, his dead sister in her bed of blood and blue rose petals.

Those people who think that Ned is too honorable or too trusting are just wrong. His problem is that he is traumatized; his reliving of war-time atrocities kicks in and he loses all the rationality and coldness that his family is famous for.

Robb:

Robb Stark is a wunderkind. With the help of his de facto Hand, the Blackfish, he is one of the great generals of the age. One flaw he has, though is his youth. NO matter how intelligent and competent he is; no matter how aware he is of political realities; his age simply doesn’t add up to enough ooomph in the eyes of his Northern bannermen. As a result, they end up being the tail wagging the dog. And Robb knows it.
But of course his Achilles’ heel is his sense of honor. This is what drives him to marry Jeyne Westerling. It an interesting thing because I strongly believe that the problem is that Robb’s main reason for making the choice lies not in the abstract but in the very real existence of his best friend and half brother Jon Snow. Seeing Jon Snow grow up in Winterfell; being close to a bastard has convinced him never to make the same mistake he thinks Ned made. Never to besmirch his honor that way: because the repercussions can very well mean an infant alone in the world.

Sansa:

Sansa of course suffers by buying what society tells her hook, line and sinker. But in that she is no different than 99 percent of the world. Of course as a child she had the insufferable good little girl thing going on. But, you know, lots of good little girls grow up to be good women. I don’t think it is a real flaw.

I think Sansa’s has two main flaws. The first is that she is cut off from her instinctive self. This is symbolized by the death of Lady in Game of Thrones, as each of the Stark direwolves represent the animalistic id of the Stark children. Without the instinct that allows Arya to “look with her eyes” and see people for who they really are based on their actions, Sansa is lost. Oh, she is developing a flair for politics, which is sort of the domain of the ego and superego; the world of the anti-instinct….a place where brainpower is more effective than gut instinct. But it is a flaw that leads her to fraternize with some people that we as readers know are just not good.

Sansa’s second main flaw is that she disassociates from reality all-too-easily. It’s not just her love of tales: (who among us readers doesn’t share the same love?) It’s in the way she rationalizes Joffrey’s horridness at first; at the way she “remembers” events that did not actually happen(like the Hound’s rough kiss). This has yet to come around and make a difference to the story. But I am convinced it will.

Arya:

The younger the characters get, the harder it feels to criticize them. Their frontal lobes have not fully developed! Arya of course is hot-headed and too impulsive, at least at first. We readers feel for this fierce would-be warrior trapped in the body of a scrawny young girl in a society that, frankly, values strength and all things masculine; and where gender roles are strongly enforced. Yet, these things turn out to be her strengths.

Perhaps her flaw is her inability to control her urges, her lust for revenge in particular. Maybe she is sort of the yin to Sansa’s yang: if Sansa is all intellect and no instinct, maybe Arya is all instinct and no ego…and that is why she sheds identities and names so readily. Deep down, the direwolf rages. What goes on above….doesn’t matter. Let’s face it, this stuff kind of makes her a superhero. We love Arya. Most of us, anyway.

But if she survives, what kind of woman is she going to grow into? She is going to have some problems at the interpersonal level I think. Big time.

Bran:

I really feel Bran is almost too young to criticize. People complain about his self-pity after his accident; but I think that a period of self-pity that can last months or years is probably pretty normal. Heck, I broke my ankle and couldn’t walk for 9 months and I was twice as whiny as Bran.

For the most part his decisions are wise and based both on a heroic urge to save the world and a deep need to free himself from the bonds of his disability. Even the Hodor incident as shown in Season 6 of the show doesn’t really indicate a flaw so much as a shitty moral choice that GRRM laid before the young Bran. But maybe that is it.

Maybe Bran’s flaw is that he considers the actions he takes to be justified no matter what. He knows that Hodor doesn’t like being possessed; he knows it is a violation, almost a psychic rape. But he does it constantly. He simply doesnt have any moral qualms about it. But again, he is only 8 years old. So this flaw is simply: he has too much power for a child.

Rickon:

Rickon, abandoned by his parents and by his siblings, raised by a direwolf and a Wildling, purportedly living among cannibals….well, how much can a five year old be called flawed? Seriously. Yes, he has no control of himself or his wolf. Yes, he is terrifyingly filled with irrational rage. He is a traumatized child barely out of toddler-hood…what do you want? Pass.

Jon Snow:

Jon Snow’s flaw is perhaps the easiest for me to see.

He simply has a hero complex.

This comes from being Ned’s Stark’s son; from choosing to join the Night’s Watch, a choice which makes no sense whatsoever if you don’t consider yourself a hero; from growing up a resentful outsider in an insider’s court. How many times did Jon Snow fantasize of great feats that elevated his status from lowly bastard to conquering hero when he was a child? And you see it. He is unable NOT to make a heroic decision. Whether it is helping Stannis; marrying off Alys Karstark to put her out of the clutches of her uncle; attempting to rescue fake-Arya from the clutches of Ramsay Bolton; sending an army to Hardhome against all counsel or reason whatsoever; showing mercy to Ygritte, or leading an army of Wildlings against the Warden of the North, he simply can’t say no.

Written October 27