Eddard "Ned" Stark is a fictional character in the 1996 fantasy novel A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin, and Game of Thrones, HBO's adaptation of Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. In the storyline, Ned is the lord of Winterfell, an ancient fortress in the North of the fictional continent of Westeros. Though the character is established as the main character in the novel and the first season of the TV adaptation, a plot twist involving Ned at the end of the novel and the end of the first season shocked both readers of the book and viewers of the TV series.
