The top 15 best performances on Game of Thrones
Image: Game of Thrones/HBO
14. Sean Bean as Ned Stark
I almost didn’t include Sean Bean on this list. But then I remembered that the only reason I watched the show in the first place was because “the guy from Lord of the Rings” was in it and I felt he was owed a little recognition. Much of the first book in George R.R Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire saga is told from Ned’s perspective. His death changes everything, and fans of the book were curious to see whether the show would be able convey his struggles without access to his inner thoughts.
They pulled it off. His death is remembered not just as one of the most shocking moments from the show, but in television history. The A-list star who was on all the posters, and they killed him before the end of the first season! And that moment wouldn’t have landed as hard as it did without Sean Bean’s brilliant performance.
As we discover more and more about Westeros, Ned Stark seems like just about the only good person in it. Whether its supporting his daughter Arya with her sword-fighting or passing wisdom down to his sons or being devoted to his wife, he’s a stand-up guy in a series that has precious few of them.
Bean plays the honorable, loving husband and father with a deep sense of pain that tells us that this is a man who has demons of his own to battle. Unlike a lot of the other actors on this list, Bean doesn’t have a long story arc to play with; by the time the show starts, Ned has already gone through the events that shaped him as a person. If you go back and watch the show knowing everything that gets revealed in the later seasons — namely Lyanna’s relationship with Rhaegar and Jon’s true parentage — you realize just how perfect Sean Bean’s performance is. He is hiding a Targaryen son under his own roof and hurting his wife by letting her believe that he was unfaithful. He also lives with the knowledge that Catelyn was supposed to marry his older brother; if it weren’t for his death he wouldn’t be Warden of the North, he wouldn’t be married to Cat, and he wouldn’t have the children he has.
Bean’s performance is weighed down with the burden of that knowledge. He knows Lyanna loved Rhaegar but cannot tell his friend Robert, who clings to the idea that she was abducted. Everything he does is done to protect others, but it never feels like Ned is being naive or stupid; he’s just a genuinely good person who wants to help his clearly lost friend. His scenes with Robert are some of the best in the whole show. They say so much about the world we’re going to be in for eight seasons, and about the perilous balance between chaos and peace.
And there’s that death scene. The look on Ned’s face when he realizes he is going to die and he can’t protect his children still gives me chills.