Game of Thrones: Are the Starks all a bunch of idiots?

Yes, they are idiots.  For trusting other human beings.

Ned was an idiot for not wanting to kill three innocent children and for trusting Littlefinger. Oh, he had no reason to distrust Littlefinger; and he certainly had no other choice, really. But he should have known.

Catelyn was an idiot for trusting her childhood best friend who almost died for her. She should have known.

Sansa was an idiot for….uh…like…not taking up a weapon and bursting out of her confines in the Red Keep, slaying all the guards and knights standing in her way. Just like those idiots in concentration camps or the gulag.

Arya is an idiot for…wait. Arya is not an idiot because she trusts no one.

Robb was an idiot for not expecting his bannerman to betray him; and for not predicting his murder in an unprecedented atrocity that is almost unheard of in Westerosi history. I mean, anybody could have predicted that, amiright?

And JON: talk about an idiot. Takes a hard and unpopular decision for the sole purpose of saving the entire human race. How stupid!

Of course, he should have expected his subordinates to knife him in the back(and the gut, and the throat and the heart.) He should have KILLED THEM all. A pre-emptive strike on the Men of the Night’s Watch? How else to save the…er, Men of the Night’s Watch?

Meanwhile let’s look at the "smart" actors of the series:

The Lannisters:

• Papa Lannister has been shot on the shitter by his own son.
• Cersei Lannister has had all three of her children killed. One of them self-defenestrated just to piss her off.
• Jaime Lannister is, well, an ineffectual nincompoop for the most part*; he can’t fight; he can’t protect his kids; his sister-lover is a crazy-ass bitch.
• Walder Frey: the whole Realm laughs at him and hates him. He was fed his own children — including their disgusting and mossy toenails (every one knows that Freys don’t bathe)— before having his throat cut. Yum.
• Alisser Thorne, currently cross-eyed, blue in the face and hanging from an ice-cold gallows.
• Roose Bolton had his baby and wife eaten by dogs; he himself was stabbed in the heart by his own son.
• Ramsay Bolton, eaten alive by dogs sic’ed on him by one of the idiots, one of the suckers.

I don’t know. I think I’d rather be an idiot than one of the smart ones.

*I am obviously referring to the show in this post.