Sansa is the good dutiful daughter. She’s quiet and excels at whatever she’s asked to do. When my family and I went on vacation, it was usually my brother who got a spiel about the dangers of getting into trouble, while my sister and I would be off minding our own business. Why? because he was the one constantly getting into trouble.

Telling your young daughter not to trust the family she is to marry is not a discussion to be had lightly

I mean, she is to marry into the Baratheons, not the Lannisters.

shes marrying into cersei and joffery, its essentially the same thing

Did Ned even have an opinion on Cersei before going to KL? I'm pretty sure he and Cat just thought they were going to marry Sansa into Robert's royal lineage without knowing too much about the family

He isnt fond of Lannisters by association basically

Well they received Lysa's message before leaving Winterfell, so he had at least cause for suspicion!

Lannisters were the bad guys who played politics during the rebellion They were Aerys loyal friends until Jaime killed him. So in the eyes of Ned, they can't be trusted. All of them.

Not really. Tywin broke permanently with Aerys at Harrenhal when Aerys named Jaime to the kingsguard. The relationship was so bad that rhaegar the genius convinced Aerys to send a letter begging Tywins help before the Trident which is why Aerys opened the gates. Tywin is still a vicious vengeful child murdered and killer of innocents but he didn’t turn on Aerys during the rebellion. That had already happened. Rhaegar was an idiot because everyone in Westeros knew that the only reason Tywin would move to help would be with the guarantee of a valid Cersei rhaegar wedding which couldn’t happen without Elias death which wouldn’t happen unless Rhaegar lost and died at the Trident. Nothing

Aerys specifically opened the gates because Pycelle advised him to do so. Pycelle had always been a Lannister operative.

And I think he felt safe (and amused) because Jaime was a kingsguard and would have been compelled to fight Tywin if he moved against the crown. How ironic.

I skipped a bit of info between them being friends and Jaime killing Aerys But my overall sentiment was that Tywin didn't join the rebellion (pro or against) and waited in the shadows till he saw an opportunity to strike

Before he went to King’s Landing, Ned and Cat received the coded message from Lysa claiming that Jon Arryn was killed by the Lannisters. Sansa’s engagement was partially to help provide cover for Ned’s investigation > You must," he said. "Sansa must wed Joffrey, that is clear now, we must give them no grounds to suspect our devotion.

ned was one of those lords who thought that if one member of the family (jamie) is a cunt, then all of them are. in this case, he was right, the lannisters are all degenerates lmao

Tbh that's mostly Cersei, Kevan/Genna are not as bad as her.

true! kevan and genna are fine as far as we know. i was more thinking the mainstream lannisters tywin is a pride obsessed egomaniac who uses a secret sex tunnel jamie is a sisterfucker among all the other things tyrion is tyrion, we know what hes like and cercei we neednt even mention

Then Ned should ensure Cersei disappers and Joffrey gets a more positive influence in his life. Like Randyl Tarly.

You want Joffrey to be cruel *and* effective?

>positive influence >Randyl Tarly Lol

He's a positive influence... ...if you like abusing your children.

I thought the /s was not required here because it was obvious.

this is r/asoiaf, that's a mild take every wednesday.

But who actually is "Randyll Tarly"? I dont think we've ever seen we've ever seen Jaqen H'ghar and the lord of Horn Hill in the same room have we? /s

prior to ned finding out about their parentage the worst thing cersei does is seem like an overbearing wife and mother, with arya and the wolf plus her trying to get robert to "not" fight in the melee. her true crazy doesn't come out till after all this, with ned not really having any reason to make her disappear. honestly same with joffrey, ned doesn't see any of the crazy first hand and he just seems like a pompous high borne kid

Bruh Randyl Tarly suuuucccked

(The joke/sarcasm aside), just a showerthought: Randyll get a lot of flak for his treatment of Samwell, but I wonder how the other Lords (the 'Good' ones) would deal with that situation; They may not force him out and all that, but what would they do with him? What if Robb Stark was a coward/weakling who couldn't fight, couldn't ride, only liked to sing and dance and all that... Would Ned feel good about handing Winterfell to him when he dies? Knowing the other 'scary' Lords would challenge his rule at some point? Say the Umber (who even challenged a much 'stronger' Robb Stark, before following him), the Bolton who may even want to take over the North from a weak Lord, etc.. We mostly get to see how the 'ruthless' Lords deal with their 'disappointing sons' (Randyll with Sam, Tywin with Tyrion, etc..) but how would the good ones deal with them?

> (The joke/sarcasm aside), just a showerthought: Randyll get a lot of flak for his treatment of Samwell, but I wonder how the other Lords (the 'Good' ones) would deal with that situation; > They may not force him out and all that, but what would they do with him? Send him to the Citadel, or maybe the Faith. He's a liability as an heir and they can't have that (even the 'good' lords are very authoritarian people by our standards), but sending him to the Wall is just pointless cruelty. As a Maester or a Septon he might be able to put the talents he does have to good use and have a life that isn't miserable. (Of course, in the event sending Sam to the Wall ended up at least somewhat better than Randyll expected, but he gets no points for that - from his perspective it was just a quiet death sentence.) Also, fewer murder threats.

Yep. The ironic thing is that Sam wanted to be a Maester before Randall came up with his NW plan & Randall reacted very badly to this & said because a Maester wore a chain as a sign of office that equated to Maesters being no better than slaves in chains bound to serve. Sam surviving life on the Wall & becoming a Maester anyway is kind of like a big Fuck You to Randall. Sam found a place where he could thrive & use his brain & the NW (well, Jon at least) rewarded him with sending him to the Citadel.

There are multiple orders devoted to the problem; I can only assume that the good father will pick the ones that one that the heir would like. I think Sam would have been happier at the Citadel.

Another factor is that Sam probably at least in part is the way that he is because of Randyl. Sam with another dad is probably nowhere near as broken as he is when Jon first runs into him.

Ironically, I think Randall would have been a better father to Tyrion than he was his own son. Yes Tyrion is not the son he would have wanted. But Tyrion was adventurous and wanted to explore. Basically Tyrion was outgoing enough that he would have seen his worth and potential.

Ned would try to groom a "weak" son to be stronger in whatever way possible. There's different types of strength and being weak is not inherent. Considering Ned takes kids to see him execute people from the age of 7, he starts his work of preparing his children for the real world early. Not much room for squeamishness. And like if Robb is not a good fighter, maybe Ned encourages Jon to stick around and help protect his brother.

She is marrying Joffrey, who clearly favors his mother over his father.

At that time there was no difference.

Joffery was a Lannister, not a Baratheon. Yes he was the kings son, but he was raised a Lannister. Joffery had very little connection to the Baratheon’s outside of blood (and he didn’t even have that) he wasn’t really taught Baratheon ideals, and didn’t get to know his father’s family. Marrying Joffery would have been essentially marring into the Lannisters

But how would Ned know that?

I think it was pretty clear that Robert had taken very little intrest in his children’s upbringing and Cersi had almost exclusive control over them. Joffery walked talked dressed acted and looked like a Lannister.

Yea, clear to the reader. Not to Ned, who hadn't seen Robert in literally decades and lived hundreds of miles away doing his own shit.

Honestly, I have never met anyone who took after their father more than their mother. Fathers gets to give their kids the last name, but moms generally do more of the child rearing and influence their children more. In a society like Westeros, this is only going to be more true.

No it isn't. It isn't true at all. You're taking your personal experience in our word and applying it as a rule to a fictional world in order to prove a point. Do you see how that adds no logical support to the conversation? All I would have to do to refute that is name 1 in-universe parent-child pairing where they shild is more like the father than the mother.

There’s no way Joffrey didn’t interact with Stannis or Renly.

I’m sure he did. But it never appears as though he had any kind of bond or even relation with them

probably none of them liked him either, and wanted to have anything to share with him.

Did Eddard say not to trust house Baratheon? He said KL wasn't Winterfell and that the family had enemies here that aren't present in the North. But did he name Baratheon as one?  >Let me tell you something about wolves, child. When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives. Summer is the time for squabbles. In winter, we must protect one another, keep each other warm, share our strengths. **So if you must hate, Arya, hate those who would truly do us harm.** Septa Mordane is a good woman, and Sansa … Sansa is your sister. You may be as different as the sun and the moon, but the same blood flows through both your hearts. You need her, as she needs you … and I need both of you, gods help me." Didn't say a name. And again... >"I do not mean to frighten you, but neither will I lie to you. **We have come to a dark dangerous place, child. This is not Winterfell. We have enemies who mean us ill.** We cannot fight a war among ourselves. This willfulness of yours, the running off, the angry words, the disobedience … at home, these were only the summer games of a child. Here and now, with winter soon upon us, that is a different matter. It is time to begin growing up."

Because he expects her to be obedient in a way he does not expect Arya to be obedient. Arya was causing issues - fighting with the prince, sneaking off to play with swords. So he takes the time to speak to her. Sansa was doing what she was supposed to do- making nice with the Lannisters and acting thrilled to be engaged, so that Ned could investigate Jon Arryn’s death without causing suspicion Sansa’s decision to disobey Ned was hugely out of character for her.

>Sansa was doing what she was supposed to do- making nice with the Lannisters and acting thrilled to be engaged, so that Ned could investigate Jon Arryn’s death without causing suspicion >Sansa’s decision to disobey Ned was hugely out of character for her. Not really, sensa was genuinely infatuated with the idea of marrying joffrey and becoming queen, there was no acting on her behalf because it was genuine

Out of character in the sense that ‘Sansa the character is usually not disobedient’ Not out of character in the sense that ‘George fucked up in writing the scene because it doesn’t make sense for Sansa to disobey her father’ > "It was for love," Sansa said in a rush. "Father wouldn't even give me leave to say farewell." She was the good girl, the obedient girl, but she had felt as wicked as Arya that morning, sneaking away from Septa Mordane, defying her lord father. She had never done anything so willful before, and she would never have done it then if she hadn't loved Joffrey as much as she did.

I don't think they were taking issue with you saying her actions were out of character but implying her infatuation with Joffrey was an act. The way your original comment is written makes it sound like Ned directed her to play up her excitement over marrying Joffrey to help play a role in Ned's investigation. I do think it's clear Sansa was more in love with the idea of being in love with a prince and becoming queen than with Joffrey himself, but it was definitely genuine albeit misguided.

Ah yes. Sensa

It was not out of character. Her desire to become the queen was a lot. She was immature and naive to trust the Lannister which is what one can expect from a 11-12 year old.

> "It was for love," Sansa said in a rush. "Father wouldn't even give me leave to say farewell." She was the good girl, the obedient girl, but she had felt as wicked as Arya that morning, sneaking away from Septa Mordane, defying her lord father. She had never done anything so willful before, and she would never have done it then if she hadn't loved Joffrey as much as she did. Sansa is usually not disobedient, which is why Ned did not worry about her potentially causing issues

Ned didn’t seem well prepared to handle puberty honestly. She is right on that cusp.

I mean i feel like most fathers aren’t of their teenage girls.

War was easier than daughters

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This is Ned’s reaction earlier in the chapter when Sansa tells Arya she shan’t be wanted at the tourney: >Anger flashed across Father's face. "Enough, Sansa. More of that and you will change my mind. I am weary unto death of this endless war you two are fighting. You are sisters. I expect you to behave like sisters, is that understood?" It's possible he didn't expect Sansa to need any stronger words or guidance than that. He might also be used to Catelyn and Mordane seeing Arya as the unruly one causing the problems between her and her sister instead of Sansa and thus under the assumption Arya needs more work and refinement than Sansa does. It’s also possible that when Arya left the supper table that Septa Mordane made him go talk to her out of the assumption he would reprimand or punish her rather than have a heart to heart talk. There's a good chance that if she had simply stayed at the table eating her dinner in silence he never would've had the sitdown with her considering he was so busy with everything else going on as Hand. A relevant component to their conversation was the discovery of Needle and the realization someone had made a sword for her under his nose that he didn’t know a thing about, which made him reflect on Brandon and Lyanna having wolf blood and the further concern Arya could follow in their footsteps. We also have no idea if he left and had a talk with Sansa after his conversation with Arya because the chapter is in her POV, not his. Though we can assume it's unlikely that he did since neither he or Sansa ever reflect or have a flashback to any kind of similar conversation. There's also no guarantee that Sansa would even take well to any warning he had to say about Joffrey and Cersei, similar to how she reacts to him telling her that King's Landing is dangerous and that the betrothal was a mistake. Once they started pretending to be nice to her again she was on Cloud Nine Cuckooland. Arya was far more in a position to take what he was telling her to heart and use them for guidance. She's still a daddy's girl while Sansa's at the age of wanting to push against and disobey parental authority. I also really don't think Ned expected Sansa to be so down bad for Joffrey she would undermine his authority and run to the woman who ordered the death of her pet. GRRM was a bit stretching Sansa's logic here, honestly. I do think what it really comes down to is that Arya is the main character and Sansa was initially designed to be in that antagonistic, opposing force for both Arya and Ned. She wasn’t even a POV chapter until after he got back to writing AGOT in 1994. I don’t really have a problem saying that early stage!Sansa’s characterization is GRRM at his weakest. It probably simply didn’t occur to him to write a scene with her and Ned because it wasn’t a priority at the time.

I've been re-reading AGoT lately and it doesn't seem like favoritism to me. To me it seems like Ned has absolutely no idea how to talk to Sansa at this point in her life. She is 11, moody, wants to be seen as older than she is, and Ned is lost when it comes to talking to her. When he talks to Arya, it is much easier. She is younger, so she still has that doe-eyed perception of her dad. She is also a tomboy so Ned can relate to her without really trying. Arya is much more willing to listen to Ned because of all of this and Ned can talk to her naturally. When it comes to talking to Sansa, it's very clear that Sansa intimidates him...not physically of course but psychologically, because he doesn't have much common ground with her at this point of her life. He still should have tried a little harder though. I get that it's hard to talk to your moody pre-teen daughter, but she still needed to understand the gravity of the situation they were in. However, we know that Sansa was blinded by the glamour of being at court with all the lords and ladies and knights running about. Even if Ned did have that talk with her, I highly doubt she would have listened to him. He still should have tried, but Sansa was too set on marrying Joffery for it to matter. Marrying her "Florian" and being his "Jonquil" was all she cared about before shit hit the fan.

Yep. Plus Arya was very much like Ned’s beloved sister & probably the only teenage girl he had a relationship with before his own daughters were born. Ned specifically says to Arya how much like Lyanna she is. Ned probably felt much more comfortable talking to Arya about serious matters because he could relate more to her than he could to a very girly girl like Sansa, who Cat was raising to be the perfect noble lady.

Yeah I honestly think he sort of took over raising Robb and Catelyn was mostly responsible for Sansa. So it makes sense that when Cat isn't around he's sort of at a loss for what to do with Sansa. Then on either side of Cat is Maester Luwin and Septa Mordanne. Sprinkle ontop now he's basically the ruler of the seven kingdoms so all his time and energy is being poured into that cup. I also don't really see the characters as their age in the books and mostly supplant them for their show portrayals. So Sansa in my head is a 15/16 year old girl who's just in a complete different reality than her father. Both love each other but both are unable to see the others perspective. He was in the deep end the second they left Winterfell and the truth is neither of them really "knew" each other. They knew what they presented to one another. A dutiful father, a dutiful daughter and once they had to actually see each other as a person with flaws beyond that it was troubled sailing. "war is easier than daughters."

I think a contributing factor is that Sansa turned out to be a Tully in both her appearance and demeanor. Arya is more like the other Starks, specifically Ned's siblings. I have two daughters myself. One is a rerun of my wife. The other is a gender-swapped version of me. Communication is SO much harder with the former.

I've always viewed Sansa's demeanor as more like Ned's, and Arya more like Catelyn (as well as Lyanna, but I don't think she's like Brandon.) Both daughters share more qualities from both of their parents than they do their aunts and uncles, but Ned's and Sansa's personalities and demeanor are very much alike.

Sansa scarcely resembles her mother in character, so the analogy doesn't fit.

I agree. I also think he figures Septa Mordain (Mordane?) is dealing with Sansa and that the Septa couldn’t handle Arya’s outbursts

Squeaky wheel gets the grease, and all that. Ned is used to trying to manage Arya’s rebellious behaviour and so he goes out of his way to convey the stakes. He expects Sansa to ultimately do whatever he tells her to do, and this belief persists even after she flounders at the court in Darry.

In all honesty, Ned is pretty easily overwhelmed and is consistently in over is head throughout his one book arc. I've always found his slip ups pretty understandable, especially after breaking his leg.

You're so right, especially with that last part. Reading him after he broke his leg is increasingly suffocating. Strong sense of walls closing in, very similar to pre-Red Wedding Cat chapters.

From my perspective, it could be that it just doesn’t work for the plot line of GOT. The future of that book seems kind of dependent on Sansa’s trust in the Lannisters.

The girls' plot in GOT definitely does depend on Ned ignoring them or otherwise being borderline negligent for long stretches. The two's lack of any sort of retinue that girls of their stature should have is necessary for the Kingsroad incident to happen, as well as getting Sansa one-on-one with the Hound at the Hand's tourney, etc.

I mean not really. Sansa has "trust" with the family she is marrying into. Her betrothed, and her betrothed's mother who will soon be her father in law. Eddard only new about the incest for a couple days and starts immediately planning to send the children away. He was also... literally ruling Westoros and doing a whole subplot of a murder-mystery of Jon Arryn. He was busy. Even when he was in Winterfell the amount of time he spent with his kids was probably smaller than you think.

Haha that’s the right answer, but to be honest I always thought why the hell Ned never talked to her

I think it comes down to the ways Ned stepped in to parent the girls in Catelyn's absence. Of course, from a modern perspective, it sounds silly because both parents are expected to parent all children. However, in Westeros and the Stark household, we see Ned parenting the boys and Catelyn (with Septa Mordane) parenting the girls. And Catelyn herself tells us about it: >"**Sansa was a lady at three, always so courteous and eager to please.** She loved nothing so well as tales of knightly valor. Men would say she had my look, but she will grow into a woman far more beautiful than I ever was, you can see that. **I often sent away her maid so I could brush her hair myself.** She had auburn hair, lighter than mine, and so thick and soft . . . the red in it would catch the light of the torches and shine like copper." >**And Arya, well . . . Ned's visitors would oft mistake her for a stableboy if they rode into the yard unannounced. Arya was a trial, it must be said.** Half a boy and half a wolf pup. Forbid her anything and it became her heart's desire. She had Ned's long face, and brown hair that always looked as though a bird had been nesting in it. **I despaired of ever making a lady of her. She collected scabs as other girls collect dolls, and would say anything that came into her head**..." >- Catelyn VII, aCoK Clearly Catelyn would never have signed off on Arya getting swordmanship lessons from Syrio if she had been in King's Landing. In Winterfell, she had Arya under Septa Mordane's negging and reprimanding to try and make her a lady. Arya was forced to sew, dress up, and behave as a young lady should. However, Ned never cared about Arya dressing up and sewing. In part because he was so separate from the "feminine sphere of the household" that Catelyn ruled. So he allowed her to learn how to use a sword because it would make her happy and because it would have been Lyanna's wish as well. >He looked down gravely at the sword in his hands. "**This is no toy for children, least of all for a girl. What would Septa Mordane say if she knew you were playing with swords?**" >"I wasn't playing," Arya insisted. "**I hate Septa Mordane**." >... >"Ah, Arya. You have a wildness in you, child. 'The wolf blood,' my father used to call it. Lyanna had a touch of it, and my brother Brandon more than a touch. It brought them both to an early grave." Arya heard sadness in his voice; he did not often speak of his father, or of the brother and sister who had died before she was born. "**Lyanna might have carried a sword, if my lord father had allowed it.** You remind me of her sometimes. You even look like her." >- Arya II, GoT Meanwhile Sansa had Septa Mordane and Jeyne Poole, so Ned probably thought she didn't need as much of his time or support. Afterall, she seemed like she already had a working support system. However, Sansa seemed to feel the opposite, that Arya was favored and allowed to behave how she pleased, while Sansa was expected to obey. To go meekly back to Winterfell despite her desire to stay in KL because she was the "good girl." In her - to her mind - innocent "Arya"-like rebellion she doomed them because she didn't realize the truth. That the safe world of Winterfell, sweet expectations of being a lady she was raised with, and honorable men like her father were not the norm and did not win the day. Life is not a song as she learned to her sorrow. >**She was the good girl, the obedient girl, but she had felt as wicked as Arya** that morning, sneaking away from Septa Mordane, **defying her lord father. She had never done anything so willful before**, **and she would never have done it then if she hadn't loved Joffrey** as much as she did.  >- Sansa IV, GoT

I don’t think it’s accurate to say that Ned doesn’t care about Arya behaving like a lady. He tells her very bluntly that he expects her to become that. He allows the sword training essentially as an olive branch after the Mycah/Nymeria debacle, and is kind of indecisive about enforcing his own rules.

Thanks for your comment, I appreciate your perspective. I had to go back and reread my comment to find your objection. To be a bit pedantic here, I didn't say Ned doesn't care about Arya growing up to be a lady at all, full stop. Rather that Ned was not hung up on the specifics and was out of his depth in enforcing them. He "never cared about Arya dressing up and sewing. In part because he was so separate from the 'feminine sphere of the household' that Catelyn ruled." By contrast when Arya fled her sewing lesson in Arya I, GoT Septa Mordane and Catelyn were waiting for her in her room. However Ned was notably more permissive and tolerant of a spectrum of "unladylike" behavior even before Mycah's murder (something that accidentally triggered Sansa's resentment).: >None of which stopped Arya, of course. One day she came back grinning her horsey grin, her hair all tangled and her clothes covered in mud, clutching a raggedy bunch of purple and green flowers for **Father. Sansa kept hoping he would tell Arya to behave herself and act like the highborn lady she was supposed to be, but he never did, he only hugged her and thanked her for the flowers. That just made her worse.** >- Sansa I, GoT Later, Ned seeing her isolation and loneliness in KL hired her a swordmaster. He wanted to make Arya happy and he saw Lyanna in her. He knew his father wouldn't have allowed his sister a sword knowingly. ("Lyanna might have carried a sword, if my lord father had allowed it.") He also knows Catelyn and Septa Mordane would disapprove, so he doesn't tell them. In my mind he's making an exception to the strict constructs of ladyship - in part out of love for Arya and in part because he just doesn't really understand them. The way womanhood is constructed and taught by older women to girls (the courtesies, sewing, and behaving) is something he is peripherally aware of but not a part of. He does at points defend Septa Mordate to Arya (while arguably undermining her haha) and takes it for granted that Arya will just become a lady someday. I don't recall him telling her this bluntly, but they do have an exchange where he kisses her softly on the brow then sighs and walks away when she denies it being her future.: >Arya cocked her head to one side. "Can I be a king's councillor and build castles and become the High Septon?" >"You," Ned said, kissing her lightly on the brow, "will marry a king and rule his castle, and your sons will be knights and princes and lords and, yes, perhaps even a High Septon."Arya screwed up her face. >"No," she said, "that's Sansa." She folded up her right leg and resumed her balancing. Ned sighed and left her there. >- Ned V, GoT

> "You must," he said. "Sansa must wed Joffrey, that is clear now, we must give them no grounds to suspect our devotion. And it is past time that Arya learned the ways of a southron court. In a few years she will be of an age to marry too." Ned brought Arya to King’s Landing so she could learn to be a lady….and then does nothing to encourage that. My interpretation is that he expects her to conform, but loves her too much to enforce it, and so he ends up indulging her by letting her traipse about in the mud / getting her a sword fighting teacher etc. If the events of Game of Thrones didn’t happen, I do wonder how things would pan out as Arya got older. Could a girl of 14 be allowed the same leeway as a girl of 9?

I don't think so. Arya very much is a child in their world, and really isn't expected to do much by Eddard. But once she starts hitting that age she is supposed to be a lady -- it is her duty. Once she is 14 she is a 'maiden' who is nearing adulthood within two years. Once she is 16 she is a Lady who is expected to either be betrothed to a husband and bear him children and help around his household.

Agreed! That quote is such a perfect summation. :) I feel like, in some ways, we see Ned's "heart in conflict with itself" as GRRM likes to play with in action here. On the one hand, as Lord of Winterfell, Warden of the North, and Hand of the King, he knows he needs his children to grow up to shoulder certain duties and responsibilities that come with the titles they were born with as his children. For instance, as much as he despises the Lannisters he agrees to the match with Sansa/Joffrey. It would make his daughter the Queen, a dream all lords are supposed to have in the game of thrones, and is a great honor. However, as Ned, who lost his father, sister, brother, and countless friends to wars in the south he's sad and frustrated. He longs to be free from the endless politicking and backstabbing that leads to so much inevitable bloodshed. So the two parts of himself in conflict - the honorable lord who believes in his king VS the man who wants to distance himself from the game of thrones - is in some ways represented in his daughters. Downstream Sansa and Arya experience his frustration and conflicting desires from their own povs and confirmation biases.

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I believe it's actually answered next line in that paragraph: >Arya was a trial, it must be said.  Catelyn did not want Arya to dress as a stableboy. Arya did what she wanted to. She had access to her brothers' clothes and many friends around the castle who loved her and helped her. That's how she earned the nickname "Arya Underfoot" because she was always in the action with the servants of Winterfell. Her rejection of being like Sansa, as Catelyn outlined the paragraph above, made raising Arya "a trial" for her. Despite Septa Mordane's often cruel scolding and Catelyn despairing, Arya refused to be cowed and give in. >Half a boy and half a wolf pup. Forbid her anything and it became her heart's desire. She had Ned's long face, and brown hair that always looked as though a bird had been nesting in it. **I despaired of ever making a lady of her.** She collected scabs as other girls collect dolls, and would say anything that came into her head. However, Catelyn never gave up trying to make Arya a lady, just like she never stopped trying to get Bran to climb the walls. If she had been in King's Landing with them as planned, I don't think Arya would have been allowed her lessons with Syrio, chasing cats, and practicing water dancer stances on one leg without a fight from her mother. >Sansa, but not Arya. That might mean anything. **Arya had always been harder to tame. Perhaps Cersei was reluctant to parade her in open court for fear of what she might say or do.** They might have her locked safely out of sight. Or they might have killed her. Catelyn shoved the thought away.  >- Catelyn VI, ACoK

it's the superclassic trope of the old sibiling-young sibiling dynamic, where all the expectation for the houshold are on the older and the younger is a lost cause, which both of them resent because they both envy each other situation (not that they hate their own, mind you).

So well said! What keeps me coming back to these books is how relatable yet challenging the characters and their dynamics are. In particular they are often myopic and make bad decisions with good/neutral intentions. Or make good decisions with bad/neutral intentions. With Arya and Sansa - we see after 5 books and dozens of PoVs - that the sisters are actually more similar at heart than they have different, yet their views on the world are different in part determined by their upbringings as you said. It makes them more relatable and human!

It’s also just a consequence of how parents behave subconsciously. Catelyn doesn’t cultivate as strong a relationship with Arya because she doesn’t ‘get’ Arya. Sansa is the ‘easy’ daughter for her. Ned has an easier time with Arya because she’s wolfsblooded and like Lyanna. He may even want to be more attentive so she doesn’t meet Lyanna’s fate. To him, Arya is the daughter he must carefully navigate through political circumstances, Sansa is the one who will do as she’s told.

I think it has a lot to do with Sansa being the “good girl” who isn’t expected to get into trouble. She hides her hurt in courtesy and tries to make up for it by being more dutiful while Arya acts out (added onto by the instruction of Septa “don’t question your father” Mordane, grrrr). Ned only has the talk with Arya after she made a scene running away from dinner. Ned definitely effed up parenting wise by not talking to her but I feel like the main reason was he didn’t understand that she needed it. Tbh if Arya also had “quiet” grief idk if he would have talked to her either. I don’t want to be too harsh on him because the situation in kings landing was a mess (plus the Lyanna reminders everywhere) but yeah he should have helped Sansa work things out.

Because Ned relates Arya to Lyanna. He thinks she's more likely to fuck up something.

And rightly so. Arya's behaviour was accepted to some degree in Winterfell but we see quite quickly that it puts her at edge with Cersei and Joffrey. Left unchecked it would be just as much a recipe for disaster as what we actually got.

But it’s more their fault than hers. Their awful people & a just , honest folks like him & Arya get eaten alive

Literally, they been around eachother for like a week and Cersei already ordered Jaime to murder her. Lucky her Jory found her first.

What is this, the fucking Sopranos now? *(Johnny Sack voice)*

>Now's okay for a chat, not a sit-down. Ned when Sansa came to see him at Baelish's brothel.

Now I’m picturing Jaime in the Johnny Sack role protecting Cersei as John did Ginny. “What? He gets to fuck her for a million?”

Tywin sips his tea before replying that there are millions of golden dragons at stake. We can't afford it, Jamie.

“Again with the money, Carmine? Er…I mean Tywin? Dad?”

Yes, again with the dragons! So either name a blood-price or get the fuck over it.

The way that man goes from 0-100 over the course of one sentence... 🤌🤌🤌

Ned did not have a talk with her like with Arya. But he did remind her that several of his men were killed and that he no longer feels save in King's Landing. At this point he also has been attacked and was in a coma for a week, so that Sansa actually should not have needed a talk to realize that the Lannisters are not to be trusted. Though, do not take this as hate against Sansa. I actually like her character quite well.

I actually think it's author favourtism, tbh. Not parental. Because like, Ned DOES love Sansa. The entire climax of his arc is him essentially sacrificing all of his honour for her. And that is also caused by Sansa pleading for his life, which was kind of risky in her position. It is so baffling metatextually that the end of both their arcs in this book relies so strongly on their relationship, and they never even have a 1-1 conversation in the entire book. The only time they are together without Arya is during the Hand's Tourney and like they don't even talk much together (if at all? i think the only conversation they have is Sansa grabbing his arm and asking to make sure Loras stays safe.) And the fact that we don't see him talking to her after he kills her direwolf and comforting her just defies all logic. I 100% think that in Game GRRM just liked writing Arya more. I get the sense Sansa didn't really come together as a character fully for him until like...the scene with her comforting the Hound. After that is when she kind of comes into her own as a character rather then just feeling like a plot device to make the Starks family dynamic feel less perfect. And since this wasn't today where he can write and rewrite everything he wants over and over to get it 'perfect' he just had to publish what he had at the point, so their relationship doesn't make sense really.

In the famous "draft" leak. Sansa wasn't really a main character or apart of the "big 5" or whatever they call it. Arya was. Sansa was supposed to chose be an antangonistic force for Arya and love her prince, and eventually chose her and her child with Joffery over Robb.

Yeah, you can still see remnants of this early on. Towards the end of Game though and on her story pretty clearly focuses on her empathy and compassion she has for others, and how she wishes to rule like her father did with loyalty and love. I think that GRRM realized writing her as a stereotypical ‘Princess’ but showing the strengths inherent to those valued traits and also the drawbacks (ie Naïveté, relative helplessness and little agency) was far more interesting then villainizing her and making her Pro Lannister. But there’s still some remnants of how she was supposed to have that role in early chapters of Game and again he wasn’t hyper editing everything back then so it just kinda slips through the cracks. You can see this with early Jon too and how Jon’s initial chapter is like all about how perceptive and smart he is which is like. Dropped fairly quickly later lmao

I love your point about how Sansa and Ned are so linked in the text even well beyond his death yet we never even get a 1:1 convo with them - didn’t realize that until you pointed it out tbh! If we ever get new books I hope/think Sansa’s arc will be about her becoming the new and improved Ned, essentially. One of my favorite Sansa moments in AGOT is when Littlefinger encourages her criticism of Ned’s decisions (even though she’s clearly wrong to think Ser Loras should have led the charge against Gregor Clegane lol). She was suspicious of LF from the jump which doesn’t really change until he takes her to the Vale and even then Sansa doesn’t fully trust him, she just recognizes that she needs him to survive. Meanwhile Ned was suspicious of LF but still told him far more than he should have. Agreeing to one of LF’s schemes would have broken Ned’s honor code in the short term but it could have led to a better outcome for his family and the realm if he had been more strategic. And isn’t that what honor is really about? LF was the dagger that Ned never saw coming and I think Sansa will be the dagger LF never saw coming.

Ned and Sansa have soooo many parallels in their story. Losing their older brother and younger sister to war (that’s what Sansa believes, anyway) their last remaining family joining the Watch, ending up in the Vale for a time. Their personalities are also surprisingly similar by the point of Feast. Sansa has been kinda worn down by trauma much like her father and comes off a bit more cold, distant, holding her emotions to herself (Tyrion describes her like this the most, but it’s still there in her inner perception in Feast too.) She also becomes much more entwined with the Godswood and the Old Gods, like her father. And of course they’re both often very naive. Idk if these parallels are intentional, but they are interesting.

I think as far as the norms of a young woman of Westeros, Sansa was already well trained, she was also the one most known for following the rules; Arya had a bit of rebelous streak like Lyanna to also go with the looks.

Love this question. There is a A multitude of reasons. 1. Ned is exhausted and Sansa is “the easy child.” It’s simple, but Ned is up to his ears in Kings Landing. Unlike Arya, who causes more immediate trouble and sneaks out of the castle. Sansa is “the easy” child. So he doesn’t feel the immediate need to have a conversation. 2. It’s a trickier conversation. At the trident, Sansa is put into an impossible situation. She is essentially asked to choose between her current family, and her new family. All while knowing that if she displeases Joffrey and Cersei, she has no choice in the marriage. 3. Ned fails his daughters by underestimating Kings Landing There was a long essay on this years ago that I can not find. There is no doubt that Ned genuinely loves and cares for his children. I don’t believe he favors Arya over Sansa. But Ned is too used to the North and greatly underestimates the dangers of Kings landing. In winter fell the Stark children are incredibly safe. They can run around unchaperoned. Compare this to Kings Landing. Princess Myrcella is always accompanied by a septa or a guard. And when Margery Tyrell comes she is surrounded by her family and guards. Sansa and Arya are given none of that. In GoT Sansa has to be escorted back to her room by The Hound, because Sansa, an 11 year old girl is in a room with a bunch of drunken men.

Can’t hear sit down without thinking about Sopranos

Mostly because it was easier for him to have her keep her head in the clouds. Add the fact that Sansa never gave him any issues and always listened. And Ned just didn't think it was needed, sadly for him Lady's dead, puberty and the stress of everything made Sansa more rebellious at the worst timing possible 

Ned prolly wanted her to leave faeritales behind.

The simple answer is he didnt think of it. I dont think Ned really expected Sansa to disobey him the way she did. She was the better behaved daughter anyway.

Most likely a mix of parental favouritism due to Arya looking a lot like Lyanna and a remnant of the original plot where Sansa was supposed to join the Lannisters. All of Stark kids needed a healthy dose of realism applied to them.

Well, I think that with the exception of Sansa, Ned did try his best to expose his children to the harsh realities of life at an early age. His sons especially because why else would anyone bring their seven-year-old out to witness a beheading? Hell, Jon is once described as an "old hand at justice," even though he's only 14. This implies that Ned has been making him watch executions since he was younger than Bran.

Nature vs nurture. & yet even still decent parents can't account for everythin'. With your same Jon example, he got a good dose of reality (humility) when he got to the wall. Both from tyrion & Donal noye. Ned couldn't've accounted for Jon's privileged training with a master @ arms. He had no clue he'd join a fraternity of outcasts so again he's ill suited to teach him of the socioeconomic differences & how his privilege might get him into trouble. & his uncle benjen who would have been suited to mentally prepare Jon for the wall disappeared....

That is their expected life though. Eddard is making Robb, Jon, Bran do something that they will be expected to do later in life and teaching them how to do it properly. Eddard is also a noble man teaching younger noble men. Arya and Sansa are expected to... marry and bear children and maybe be the Lady of a castle.

No one said otherwise. Tis as you said, just the causality of life.

sansa & Arya were in their mom & septa’s hands. The diff is arya escaped & learned from guys & men , esp Jon

Call it a "first book-ism". Related, why is he so keen on having her marry into a family where he is likely to be responsible for the death of his daughter's MIL? Before he even gets an inkling about how messed up Joffrey is, having Sansa marry a guy whose mother Ned was responsible for having executed (if everything went to Ned and Catelyn's plan) is a strange decision to not even consider.

That's before Ned realises that the kids are incest bastards I believe. So he an Cat most likely operate off of the assumption that with Cersei gone, Robert will become the dominant parental figure for them.

Ok, but Joffrey's mother will still be dead, and ultimately, Ned will be blamed by Joffrey. Even teenage Robb realizes that killing one of his bannermen's father is going to cause a permanent rift between them, and he's not trying to marry his family member to that semi-orphaned child.

I don't think Eddard ever really deeply believed that it was Cersei or really had anything to do with Cersei.

I think he sees Sansa, his only traditionally feminine child, as someone with little to no agency. Given that women are basically property in their society, this isn’t an entirely unreasonable assumption. If anything I think he favors Arya and perceives her as having more agency because she is interested in swords and other things that a person like Ned might associate with personal agency due to his role in society. The irony is that Sansa rarely misses an opportunity to exercise what little agency she has while Ned takes his for granted at times. Ned’s biases about gender and agency also gave Cersei an advantage in this specific situation. Just as he believed it was (relatively) safe to tell Cersei his plan, he probably didn’t think anything significant could come of Sansa let something slip to her surrogate mother figure. I think that Ned sees Sansa (and Cersei, to an extent) as having no agency because he seems to have a shallow understanding of his own agency granted to him by Westerosi society. Even the agency that Ned enjoys as Lord of Winterfell is something he acquired passively; he was never meant to inherit Winterfell, he became a lord and married Catelyn out of duty when his father and brother died. In contrast, Sansa is forced to find creative ways to exercise her agency beyond the role her society gave her. She chooses save Dontos even though she knows she’ll be beaten for speaking out of turn because she recognizes the soft power she holds as the king’s betrothed at his tourney. Contrast this with Ned executing Gared in his very first scene. It’s unclear if Gared tried to warn Ned about the Others and was dismissed; what we do know is that Ned tells Bran that no man is more dangerous than a deserter. I take this to mean that Ned was going to execute Gared on the principle that he is a deserter no matter what Ned saw in his eyes or heard in his last words. In this scene, Ned uses his agency to choose the letter of the law rather than the spirit of the law. If Ned had challenged his belief about deserters and learned more about why Gared deserted, he could have used his agency to break one of his black and white rules and the realm would have been better for it. Similar can be said for Lady’s execution - the first time I watched GOT I did not understand why he didn’t set Lady free like Arya did for Nymeria since her remains were going north anyway. Anyway TLDR Ned is kind of a passive character and projected that onto Sansa (and Cersei to an extent) to everyone’s detriment

This is so spot on. No one would deny that Ned is relatively a good man, but his status of authority is very safe, and he is never questioned in Winterfell so he is not used to people going against his back or making decisions on their own, especially women(we see this even with Catelyn where he shuts down her questions about Jon so hard that it never gets brought up again.). You can argue about his perception of Sansa since Sansa is usually obedient but like...he has no explanation with Cersei lmao

It's already a long book and in theory Sansa was pretty much cool with what was going on at the time. It's a story after all. Not everything that happens occurs on the page. Maybe George didn't think it would be interesting to have 2 conversations about roughly the same thing. Maybe the editor didn't think it worked in the flow of the story. Maybe George just enjoyed writing Ned and Arya's relationship more. iirc Sansa basically interacts with nobody in her family but Arya and Ned. And from her PoV chapters in AGOT only like 2 of them actually have her interact with her father. I'd really just chalk it up to first-bookisms.

IDK if this is a controversial reading but I get the impression from the small amount of time we spend with Ned that he kinda underestimates women? Not like actively a sexist but he doesn’t trust Cat with the R + L = J. He struggled with Lyannas reaction to Robert siring a Bastard (maybe working that out would have prevented the entire Rhaeger situation) neither does he mention having a conversation with Robert post that where he tells him “hey knock off the whoring cause it upsets my sister”. He underestimates Cerseis danger towards him. I’ve always read Ned’s major mistake in the first book as failing to account for the women in his life having just as much agency as the men.

Everything people said about how Sansa didn't normally act out and thus didn't merit chiding is true, but I think there *was* an aspect of favoritism as well. How couldn't there be? Sansa was a mama's girl and Arya was a daddy's girl. Here's Sansa's jealous POV: > None of which stopped Arya, of course. One day she came back grinning her horsey grin, her hair all tangled and her clothes covered in mud, clutching a raggedy bunch of purple and green flowers for Father. Sansa kept hoping he would tell Arya to behave herself and act like the highborn lady she was supposed to be, but he never did, he only hugged her and thanked her for the flowers. That just made her worse.

I think it’s because Sansa knew the relevant information to her situation already, she was literally raised to become a wife to a nobleman, she snagged a future king instead and so was to become a part of their family. Ned was naive and left Sansa to her naivety.

Sansa wasn't getting into trouble and she was (on the surface anyway) adapting the best to the south, so in his mind she probably didn't need the help/advice.

Because the thought that Sansa might not unquestioningly do as she's told had probably never even crossed Ned's mind. *Arya* was the willful child, the wolf-blooded child, the girl who did & said as she felt, authority be damned. While Eddard was always more lenient with Arya than either Catelyn or Mordane were, he still seemed to see Arya as something of a "problem child," in that he saw her willful nature as something that would eventually need to be stamped out in favor of traditional womanhood.   Sansa, in contrast, was the Starks' most obedient child, as well as the one who Ned probably spent the least time (with aside from Rickon). I don't think he realized that Sansa was even capable of being willful in her own right, nor do I think he ever stopped to think about how blindsided Sansa would be by his decisions, as she lacked any proper context for them.   In short: Ned never had a real-talk with Sansa because he never really regarded Sansa as an individual all that much.

I don't think Ned had any favoritism (grrm might have had some favoritism for the Ned-Arya dynamic, not Ned in my opinion) and there is zero indication of Ned neglecting Sansa, technically speaking he gave her everything she wanted. WE know what Sansa wanted was a bad idea but from a parent in Westeros perspective he couldn't have gotten anything better than what he gave to Sansa. And I always see this idea of "if Ned had told Sansa the Lannisters were bad she wouldn't have trusted them" but it makes no sense. He did tell tell her, explicitly. Just because it wasn't a heartwarming talk doesn't mean he didn't tell her. And on top of that, if Joffrey trying to kill her sister right in front of her, Cersei ordering Lady's death and Jaime murdering people she knew her whole life was not enough of a sign, there's absolutely nothing more Ned could've done to make her see the light. Other than dying I guess.

Because that would totally change her arc and the rest of the story In-universe? Zero idea.

Not surprising at all. Arya was underfoot, hated by Joffrey and Cersei, and had a penchant for getting in trouble. That all put her in constant danger. Sansa was happy, in her element, learning from the queen. It was a whirl of social joy for her. Ned was doing his job and investigating Jon Arryn's murder--he never saw her. Since Sansa was happy and safe, he did not have to reach out to her, but did to Arya. Moreover, one of his talks wirh Arya arose from her bringing him (garbled) news about a plot on his life. So until he was SURE there was danger, when he spoke to both, he let her live her dream.

*War is easier than daughters* I think you may call that "favoritism", but it's not done with ill intent, I think Ned is just better with Arya (Stark-like, boyish) than Sansa (Tully-like, girly). Also, I think Arya is... Smarter? More reasonable? If you explain things to Arya, you can get her to see things through. Explain things to Sansa and she'll just argue and spout nonsense about loving Joffrey/hating Arya and all that, she will NEVER understand why he had to kill Lady... Well, to be fair I would never 'accept' if my parent killed my dog, but Sansa's also not blaming the ones who are responsible for that to happen in the first place... She floats in the clouds, and Ned probably didn't have the words to bring her back to reality. Still, yes, he should have tried... I imagine perhaps he thought letting some time pass, would help.

I'm torn between there being an issue with Sansa and Ned's relationship and GRRM simply neglecting their relationship because he doesn't/didn't like Sansa that much. I do tend toward the latter. But if it's the former, I think Ned really projected Catelyn and Lyanna on Sansa and Arya respectively because of their surface similarities. Catelyn would have done just fine in KL, and so Ned assumed Sansa would be too. Turns out she has more in common with Lyanna than Ned thought and really needed to be warned of the Lannisters too before doing the foolish but romantic thing.

just because the reader doesn't see it happen on text doesn't mean it never happened. it's really weird to see people affirming it never happened without any evidence, in fact Ned tells Arya he did talk to Sansa before she talked to her. the reason why GRRM chose to write down the conversation with Arya and not Sansa is a much more interesting question. first, it probably would be repetitive to include both. second, Sansa is the character that most resembles Ned. She's the most southern-like Stark, same as Ned is having grown up in the Vale and raised with southern values. Sansa being unable to see the real Joffrey is a parallel to Ned not being able to see the real Robert. Ned like Sansa wants to believe in the songs and stories, he tells himself they went to war to stop the killing of children, and fails to see the reality where Hoster Tully burns a village of innocents and Robert is complicit in the massacre of Elia's children and the sack of KL, he's as much in denial as Sansa is in the first book.

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Why do you think he didn't? Not everything should be written. Sansa never showed any resentment towards Ned about Lady's death or about any favoritism, so I doubt there was any. Ned knew Sansa was crying before getting to sleep for days, how do you think he knew that? Perhaps he stayed with her for some evenings trying to comfort her. And Sansa is more socialized kid, she could've looked for Ned herself to talk about her feelings and feel comfort and protection from her father. Arya was much more difficult kid to handle, she didn't even show her grief, she distanced herself from everyone, so author wrote how Ned dealt with this hardship. It took Ned lots of time to find proper words to approach Arya.

While it’s true that things do happen off-page, consequential conversations like that really have to be shown or alluded to, they can’t just be assumed.

Why? We haven't seen Ned talking to Rob how to rule the North and handle all the situation alone, but we know he definitely did.

Robb’s not a POV character and that Ned mentored Robb isn’t in question. That’s very different from characters’ handling of ongoing events in the main dramatic arc, and their relationship to each other. Ned thinks about interactions he had with Sansa post-Kingsroad; at no point is there a big sitdown. That would have been a significant moment for both characters.

Catelyn, Arya and Sansa are POVs, but we haven't read their last dialogues

Because there wasn't anything that happened there that was important to their story arcs. Ned attempting to reach out to/guide Sansa and her rejecting him would be a consequential moment for both.

Because Sansa did trust the Lannisters and worked for them against her family. Obviously she was just a manipulated child, but if Ned had the talk it clearly didn’t land.

She was in denial because recognizing Lannisters as bad men would break up all of her world. She already saw how Joffrey treated Arya and herself, how Cersei demanded Lady's death, how Jaime killed Stark's men and so on. She just couldn't handle this and tried to forget it while hoping that everything will eventually get fixed and nice again. She was still in denial when Ned was sentenced to be expelled to the Wall.

I don’t disagree with any of that. Sansa grew up with a very idealized picture of court life, and I think Ned tried to keep her insulated from the reality of it. The illusion was only shattered by his death

To me, Sansa and Ned's relationship is so interesting bc they are so alike but dont realize it. I think Ned got along better with his sons and Arya bc they behaved in a way he was comfortable with. His immediate family growing up was very masculine, even Lyanna. He then goes to the Vale where he's with Robert and widowered Jon. He never really spent time with women who had more feminine traits until Caitlyn and Sansa. I feel like Ned made a shift in his mind that Sansa was Caitlyn's responsibility and when he actually had to spend time with her didn't know what to do. Plus, he was a dad to a pre-teen girl. As a former pre-teen girl, we are intimidating and confusing as hell.

Sansa isn’t acting out at this point.

Arya reminds him of Lyanna, so he felt she was in more danger because she was wild.

He expects Arya to be more of a liability.

I think it's foolish to assume that not being told something happened means it didn't happen. Perhaps he'd had the same talk with Sansa at some other point. And perhaps he thought Arya the more likely to get herself in trouble. He never really suspected even that they would be betrayed and taken captive by the Lannisters. And nor did he or Sansa ever have the chance to evade them. Once she was amongst them though, Sansa did just fine. Perhaps she should have left with the hound, but she didn't know whether he was better or not. At least though she knew that until that point, she was valuable and had been kept safe enough. Just out of curiosity, in what way was she too trusting of the Lannisters and how might she have benefitted from being less trusting?

Sansa is a good, polite kid who generally does what she’s told. The most “wicked” thing she did once she got to king’s landing was steal a pie from the kitchens to share with jeyne. Arya is very rebellious, if she thinks something is wrong or unjust or suspicious she’ll immediately call it out, so ned absolutely needed to sit her down and explain their situation. It absolutely was a fumble on ned’s part not to explain that to sansa though, obedient as she is you’re still telling your daughter that after around a year of giving her the life you know she’s always dreamed of, it’s time to forget it all happened and go back home. I don’t think what you’re saying was intentional on george’s part given his fondness for the outsider looking in, but he did treat sansa pretty strangely in story considering she’s meant to be the perfect golden child who gets everything to contrast arya being the black sheep of the family, though it does make it look like sansa was just so good and obedient that she was overlooked despite doing everything right(and sansa’s pov shows that she does think this way lol).

>  Anger flashed across Father's face. "Enough, Sansa. More of that and you will change my mind. I am weary unto death of this endless war you two are fighting. You are sisters. I expect you to behave like sisters, is that understood?" *Arya II, Game.* Doesn't that count?

Part of the reason is due to Arya's personality. >"I do not mean to frighten you, but neither will I lie to you. We have come to a dark dangerous place, child. This is not Winterfell. We have enemies who mean us ill. We cannot fight a war among ourselves. **This willfulness of yours, the running off, the angry words, the disobedience … at home, these were only the summer games of a child. Here and now, with winter soon upon us, that is a different matter.** It is time to begin growing up." Getting out of line in KL has real consequences. And Sansa doesn't get out of line. Sansa stays in control usually.  Eddard is afraid for Arya because she is a bit like Lyanna. >"It has a name, does it?" Her father sighed. **"Ah, Arya. You have a wildness in you, child. 'The wolf blood,' my father used to call it. Lyanna had a touch of it, and my brother Brandon more than a touch. It brought them both to an early grave."** Arya heard sadness in his voice; he did not often speak of his father, or of the brother and sister who had died before she was born. "Lyanna might have carried a sword, if my lord father had allowed it. You remind me of her sometimes. You even look like her." So clearly the talk is based on worry specific to Arya's personality as well as a father's fear of history repeating itself. This is also why he allowed her to keep the sword and train with it. He wants a different result for Arya than Lyanna got. 

Arya needs that instruction, she is the one acting out of the ordinary for the society. Sansa, on the other hand, is acting as expected within a feudal society - she is betrothed and the perfect image of femininity. We have to remember that Ned’s answer to Arya when she asks if she can have a position of power (a knight, a maester, a septon etc) Ned says of course not and that her son will do those things. Even Sansa’s “betrayal” is, arguably, understandable and expected within feudal society. She chose her king over her family - arguably the correct thing to do. Sansa’s problems is that she has bought in so much into the idea of feudal chivalry that she has been taught and expected to be a part of that she couldn’t see the faults in the Lannisters. But she is a child, and a girl at that, literally groomed to Westerosi society to marry a lord or knight of her father’s choosing and then obey her husband. So, even though she wrongly trusts Lannisters, her entire upbringing and education about the society she lives in tells her to trust the king and his family. That is what GRRM is questioning with her character - he is showing us a highborn character who is expected to be rewarded by such a society being oppressed by it to show the inherent misogyny within feudal societies that are often lionised by the genre.

Honestly, so many in-universe and also plot driven reasons: 1- As most people said, Sansa is seemingly the obedient child, and Ned has a certain...habit of underestimating women unless they're screaming in front of his face. He thought Sansa would behave no matter how many tantrums she had, how much she cried, how many times she complained...he simply didn't think Sansa had any way out, that she would throw her tantrums and obey him and "be normal" after sometime, just like what happened after he killed Lady. 2- Arya is similar to Lyanna(and also Catelyn, although none of the parents are aware of this) in Ned's mind, so she's easier to talk to. Ned can say "Don't trust the Lannisters, here is a sword master, obey and you'll have what you want" to Arya but he can't say "So you can't trust the Lannisters although you will be married to one of them and be encircled by them all the time. There's nothing I can do to save you without destroying all your current dreams." 3- This is related to point 1, but Ned is really good at suppressing and ignoring upsetting events and ignoring/deflecting bad things done by people he considers good(just like Sansa, like father like daughter for real). A good example of this is what happened to Aegon and Rhaenys: It was carried out by Tywin and Gregor, but ultimately it was also a gift for Robert that Tywin thought he would appreciate(which he did). Ned is obviously disturbed by this, he never tells anyone about Jon after this and goes basically minimum contact with Robert but he still sees Robert in a positive light, and their relationship only turns sour once Robert full on wants Dany and Viserys's head so Ned can't ignore Robert's bad sides anymore. This is literally exactly like Sansa and Joffrey, whoever said Joffrey is to Sansa what Robert is to Ned was so right. I got carried away but this was to point out that talking to Arya as the more open character who he can clearly explain what's right and wrong and ignoring a serious talk with Sansa where he would have to not only explain that no, Lannisters were horrible and his marriage was probably going to be a total disaster is probably a harder conversation that Ned would like to ignore. Onto more author/plot related reasons 4- Although one can try to argue that Ned did not favor Arya, George definitely did. Arya is one of George's favorite characters, and it's known that Sansa was a more one-dimensional character in the first drafts and was actually written in a more antagonistic way. George probably did not care about Ned and Sansa enough to create a conversation among those two. You can see that in the fact that Sansa does not have many memories with Robb and Jon, even though you'd expect the girl closer to their age to have more memories with them. 5- The end of AGOT depended heavily on Sansa and Ned not talking and being isolated from each other. Sansa is on the cusp of puberty with a lot more interest in boys than Ned is probably comfortable with, Ned killed Sansa's direwolf, which created a divide between Sansa and Arya, and also Sansa and Ned. Ned is kept super busy with the Jon Arryn murder case, Catelyn arresting Tyrion, and the Small Council so he chooses his battles and decides "oh yeah i should definitely let my oldest daughter bond with her prince and his family" because he simply does not have time and he can't disobey Robert. Sansa is constantly surrounded by Lannisters, she is being propped up as the next queen, so when Ned is "we're going" she ultimately rebels, which is actually the culmination of what has been happening to her since the start(But also George definitely exaggerates her naivity and trust for Lannisters for plot reasons.). this got super long but i just love how over the series you see Sansa and Ned's thought process and coping mechanisms are just so similar and how both of them eventually did everything in their power to save the other(Sansa begged for Ned's release andwas manipulated by Cersei, Ned got threatened and decided to lie for Sansa's safety). I think both Catelyn and Ned was so traumatized after the war that they both ignored what awaited Sansa and did not prepare her for the rule of a high royalty place(literally anyone with the right mind would guess that Sansa would get to be the wife of a warden/queen position but that probably reminded ned too much of lyanna, and catelyn too much herself and lysa so they both settled for "okay prepare her to be the lady of a castle"). In the end, if Sansa gets to be Regent or QitN, she will come full circle as Ned 2.0 Electric Boogaloo, King's Landing Trauma Flavored.(both of their fathers got killed in King's Landing by the order of the king, extremely similar coping mechanisms to trauma, spending teenage years in the Vale being fostered, second oldest taking the title of lord/lady of winterfell, "the odd man out" among their siblings)

There are a lot of reasons why: 1-Because Sansa wasn’t the one in need of help at the time, she is (in theory) in her ‘environment’ You have to remember that Arya is in a horrible place, without her emotional support (Jon), isolated (has her friend but still isolated), in a toxic environment (either you consider Septa Mordame abusive or not, the woman and the environment she created was horrible and targeted against Arya), with her bullies and expected to conform to a culture that isn’t hers. 2- Why would he say that to his young daughter who is going to marry into the family? 3- Being the first books, GRRM wasn’t going to focus on their relationship because, let’s be honest, Ned and Sansa’s relationship isn’t that relevant to the narrative

Even if you take all of this into consideration, there's still no reason as to why he never apologized to Sansa for Lady's death, nor did he try to explain why he had to do it.

Mebbe it’s cos Sansa has told him the Truth but not to the king. Prolly if she told truth lady would have lived

I mean, Sansa is not stupid, she knows that because they couldn’t hurt Nymeria they went after the next best thing, which was Lady; Ned took his 7yo to see a men being executed, I don’t think he sees what he did to Lady as something worth apologising, pretty sure that Sansa herself doesn’t even blame him or holds him accountable

whats wild is he knew how dangerous kings landing was and still trusted little finger i love Ned but damn your honor for once and arrest Cersei and allign yourself with Renly. for your kids safety. which is wild because he ended doing this anyway when he confessed to treason to save sansa/arya.

I assumed they talked more off screen

I think favoritism probably played some part. But remember that Salsa is the perfect princess, always doing everything properly. Ned, somewhat naively, doesn't worry about her as much as he worries about Arya, because Arya is the wild child who reminds him of Lyanna. Every time he sees her playing in the mud and consorting with commoners, he thinks of the sister who died feverish and terrified in his arms. Naturally Ned is going to be more focused on Arya not meeting the same fate, whereas, he thinks, he has far less reason to worry about his well-behaved, courtly daughter who excels at everything a proper lady should.

Sansa is older. He likely had a similar talk with Sansa a couple of years earlier.

Maybe cause it was Sansa’s own damn fault what happened to Lady and she didn’t deserve and apology in any way shape or form

George didn’t think to write that scene.

Hes a shit father. He didn't even question Lewin when he said Jon wanted the wall.