Chapter Text
Would Ned have killed Theon if Balon had rebelled before Ned’s death? It’s a tricky question. You can’t prove a counterfactual and the narrative offers clues that could go either way. Ultimately though, the answer is yes.
In order to understand why, it’s important to have some context. Theon is alternately described as Ned’s ward and hostage. Ned himself uses both terms simultaneously (GoT, Eddard I). He was taken following the Greyjoy Rebellion to ensure that his father doesn’t rebel against the Robert and the Crown again. Ned has custody, but Theon is ultimately Robert’s hostage to ensure Robert’s peace.
The taking and killing of hostages, even child hostages, is commonplace within Westeros. People may protest when it happens to their kin, but, over all, everyone is pretty accepting of it. Over the course of the books, hostages are taken to ensure peace treaties, to force their families to perform (or not) certain actions, and as a sort of mutually assured destruction to keep the other side from killing their hostages. In a world where personal reputation and honor are everything, to take a hostage and not follow through when the terms are not met is to utterly destroy ones credibility. If Balon rebelled again and Robert did not call for Theon’s head, he would lose the ability to make hostage-based peace treaties going forward and his enemies would be emboldened to rebel with impunity. In order to maintain the power of the Crown, Robert would have to call for Theon’s execution and Ned would be duty-bound to carry it out.
The last time a lord refused to carry out an execution ordered by a king, it was Jon Arryn refusing to kill Ned and it was an act of rebellion which kicked off a civil war. At the time, Jon had little to lose. He had neither wife nor children and his heir had just been killed by a king Jon was already plotting to remove. By contrast, Ned has a wife, kids, and a close, personal friendship with the king. He’s also hiding a potential claimant to Robert’s throne and can’t afford to cross Robert without destroying his own house. Considering the generational hatred for the Ironborn throughout the North, if Ned started a war to protect Theon Greyjoy, it’s unlikely any of his west coast lords would support him.
The people of Westeros are largely ambivalent about the killing of children. Knights take vows to protect children, but a knight who kills one in service to his lord is more likely to be praised than punished. In war, child combatants like squires are killed as a matter of course and civilian children are acceptable collateral damage. Lords who wipe out entire houses, including children, are regarded as politically expedient badasses, not sociopathic war criminals. During peacetime, the death of a child matters only in so far as someone with money and/or power gives a shit enough to do something about it.
Ned himself has issues with child-killing, but he also has a certain priorities which become clear over the course of the novel. These priorities are from least to most important: his own sense of right and justice including the protection of innocent children < his duty to Robert and the Crown < the lives of his family.
In Eddard II, Ned protests the assassination of Daenerys on the grounds that she’s a child and says, “The murder of children would be vile…unspeakable.” But the next Ned chapter immediately complicates this. A child, Mycah, is murdered at the behest of the queen and Ned’s sole protest is the undignified manner in which he was killed, rather than that he was killed at all. He protests the execution of the innocent Lady, but ultimately carries it out in a manner he sees fit. He later threatens to resign over the king’s plot to kill Daenerys, but immediately knuckles under and becomes Hand again when Robert asks him to despite the fact the order has been sent. Over the course of the novel, he repeatedly compromises his own sense of justice in order to personally please Robert.
Ned also compromises him morals in service to the Crown as a concept. Once Ned realizes that the queen’s children are bastards born of incest, he urges her to flee to save them, but still plans to inform Robert even if she doesn’t. He secretly amends Robert’s will to make it easier for Stannis to swoop in and claim Joffrey’s throne, even if it results in the boy’s death. “The deceit makes him feel soiled,” (Eddard XIII) but he does it anyway. The only thing that makes him back down on his principled stance on who should properly inherit the throne is the threat to his children. He sells out his morals, honor, and sense of duty to ensure his daughters’ safety.
In conclusion, if ordered to do so by Robert, Ned would absolutely kill Theon, regardless of his age. The more interesting question is what effect would that have on Ned. Up until this point, he’s been able to stand back and tut disapprovingly when other people kill children in Robert’s name or for his benefit. How would he see himself after having dirtied his own hands with a child’s blood? Would it destroy his sense of self as a good and righteous man, or would he convince himself he was in the right for having done his duty?
Incidentally, if Theon had still been in Robb’s custody, Robb would have executed him too. He would have done it, in part, based on the (correct) belief that Ned would have and, in part, based on pressure from his vengeful lords. Unlike with Ned, executing Theon wouldn’t force him to do any soul searching, but would instead make him hate Balon and resent his lords and duty for forcing his hand.
What do you think? Let’s get this debate going.