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People who hate Sirius Black don’t understand what it’s like to be sixteen and furious and full of grief you can’t name.

ned’s time in king’s landing is actually so funny because you have everyone like littlefinger, varys, cersei, etc. telling him how bad he is at scheming and keeping secrets and playing the game. meanwhile this man has had a secret targ baby hidden up north for 14 years and noneee of them have a clue. he doesn’t even have to try that hard either because no one gaf about bastards, so ned just shoves jon in the back of the hall when the royal family visits and lets him hang out right under their noses. then jon quietly gets tucked away on the wall with absolutely no suspicion from anybody because for once ned didn’t put his trust in anyone but himself. what’s even funnier is that ned gets to king’s landing and immediately starts drawing attention to every single scandal that relates to his own secret…investigating robert’s secret bastards, publicly condemning him for his plan to assassinate a targaryen child, accusing cersei of lying to everyone about her bastards…like why are you bringing up shady bastards when you have a shady bastard of your own to protect. except he actually gets away with it! because he’s taking advantage of westeros’s rigid class hierarchy and their complete disregard for/dismissal of bastards and outsmarts them all and then he just dies. the worst part is that ned can’t even appreciate how funny he is because he’s so repressed that he can only think about jon in any meaningful way via violent ptsd flashbacks. tragic but still an unintentionally better player than any of his killers.

you know people make fun of ned for claiming that 3 year old rickon is too old to be scared of direwolves, but I bet he was even worse with baby jon. I mean at least the other kids had catelyn to balance his parenting out, but jon only ever had ned for emotional support. like imagine newborn jon crying because he’s hungry or tired or something, and ned just picks him up, looks him straight in the eye, and imparts one of his classic Starkisms™ to him like 😐 “you’re too old for this now, jon. no more tears. we’re not in dorne anymore. you are a child of the north, and in the winter your tears will freeze on your cheeks and explode in your eyeballs and kill you violently. end this mummer’s farce while you still can.” and then eight-week-old jon immediately shuts the fuck up and never cries again (ned gives him a little forehead kiss as a reward). anyway this is why jon is Like That.