A Storm of Swords Response 2- Is Death the End?

Now I'm more than halfway done with A Storm of Swords, and still thinking, how long can this war go on?  So many men have died- including quite a few of the main characters.  This is a seven book series, or will be, once the next two come out.  Death is such a big factor in this book.  It happens more often than almost everything else.  In this world, death is not necessarily the end.  The people of Westeros pray to the Seven- Mother, Father, Smith, Crone, Maiden, Warrior, and Stranger.  As a curse, they say "Seven Hells", meaning the torture in afterlife.  The opposite would be something similar to the Stark crypts, where generations of Starks are buried, and when they die, they go to the "hall of their fathers".  But there's something in between.  Westeros is guarded by the Wall, a massive structure that separates their world from the outside.  There, strange beings live, and out there, the dead walk again.  Jon, one of the characters, has an encounter with one, who was in the form of someone he knew.  When men died, they were instructed to burn their bodies, to keep them from coming back from the dead.

Jaime Lannister had nightmares of Eddard Stark's ghost.  He said death didn't frighten him, the dead couldn't threaten him.  This was a lie.  The dead coming back is unnatural.  Most of us humans are terrified of the supernatural.  Anything different is a threat.  Death itself may not be frightening to one who has killed many, but then why is it that they spend the rest of their lives running?  Constantly looking over their shoulders to make sure justice doesn't come down on them?  Unless they're rich, or famous, or universally feared.  As Jaime Lannister is all of the above, he becomes overconfident.  Until his hand was cut off.  He now knows what it's like to have fear- to be defenseless, completely at the mercy of others.  He now knows he can be beaten, and the prospect terrifies him.

I wish Ned was still alive.  He was my favorite character, the only one who wouldn't smuggle, betray, blackmail, backstab, or harm anyone without a very good reason.  He believed in honor, unlike all the others, who would swindle anyone for the right reward.  Bran and Rickon are thought to be dead, but still alive, in hiding.  What if the same is true for Ned?  Maybe in the chaos, some loyal follower was able to get him out of the way, have someone resembling him get decapitated in his place, and run with him to the wild, to recover until he was fully healed.  It's true, once the heads have been eaten by crows and dipped in tar, as Theon Greyjoy said, "it was easy to start seeing familiar faces in the mess.  You could have said they had horns and they'd see them".  Maybe....this must sound like wishful thinking.  Maybe it is.  But I think Ned will come back, in some form or another.