Where are the nerdy girls?

[Walda]

 

29 minutes ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

The TL:DR baffles me. Not questioning the accuracy of the statement but I've always loved history and learning. 

Sorry, I meant the female lack of interest in history and scholarship in Westeros, not in real life. In the real medieval there were many women who loved history and learning, as there are now.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

46 minutes ago, Walda said:

 

Sorry, I meant the female lack of interest in history and scholarship in Westeros, not in real life. In the real medieval there were many women who loved history and learning, as there are now.

Still works. Too many people of either gender in the real world (and in Westeros) do not appreciate history at all. If they had, they'd be better prepared to face the Others. Aha! That's the moral of the story! If you don't like, appreciate, or at least know your history, you are all going to die! Valar morghulis indeed.

[Walda]

On 01/09/2017 at 3:54 AM, Springwatch said:

Alayaya is Chataya's daughter, isn't she? The surprising thing is that Chataya hadn't already pushed her into studying, so that she might one day inherit the business. Anyway, this throwaway line about reading probably had a big effect on Tyrion - he goes to extreme lengths to protect his fellow reader from Cersei.

(I wouldn't be at all surprised if Chataya trained her girls to spy, but she'd have to be very discreet about using the information, or lose her custom.)

That throwaway line is not thrown away on the reader - it tells us that Cersei's (really Petyr Baelish's) informer has been in communication with Marei about Tyrion and Alayaya. It makes Bronn the most likely person to be Baelish's informer, and when you look at when and how Baelish bought Bronn, it seems likely that Bronn and Chiggen were both in Baelish's pay when they took the road to the Eyrie with Catelyn rather than speeding off to Kings Landing where they might win Lannister gold for their information, and if not they still have the tourney.

It does have a big impact on Tyrion, although I don't think he went to extreme lengths to protect her from Cersei - it was Shae he was protecting before Cersei locked Alayaya up. We don't know his rash promise protected Alayaya from beatings and rapes under Cersei, and we do know they lead to her being publicly  whipped and cast out of the city naked by Tywin, just to serve as a lesson to Tyrion for saying that (well, and also because he has this creepy voyeuristic thing about public sexual humiliation of women, and of overseeing Tyrion's sex life while affecting detatchment) . And of course Tyrion was too busy protecting the city, and recovering from the wounds he took in the siege, to protect even himself, let alone anyone else.

I also don't think Chataya would train her girls to spy - for her that would be one of the points of difference between her upmarket place where patrons can be perfectly comfortable,  and a place where the girls all work for Petyr Baelish. It would also be the reason why Petyr would be sending spies into Chataya's, making sure their revelations were about what was happening on her premises, and justifying raiding her brothel by murderous Goldcloaks, while his went about their discreet business as usual.

Chataya seems to have no book-learning, either. Although that may be a language thing. There are probably not many books in the Summer Island tongue in Westeros.  And Tyrion isn't there for her conversation. In contrast to Petyr Baelish, who is there to advise everyone, and is not bookish but still knows the full details of apparently every family tree of the Vale back three generations, and spends his nights keeping up his extensive correspondence.

[Vaegon the dragonless]

Well i do believe that there is in general few "bookish" character male and almost no female but outside of maester we know that the bookish male are look down on. Sam is cast out of is family in part because he is so bookish, Rodrick is seen as weak by most other ironborn and even rhaegar the way is bookishness is brougth makes it so he truly became regarded as good when he started to figth. Even more Dareon II faced a open rebellion because a good number of nobles saw his bastard half-brother more fit too rule. And how is Daeron described ? Yeah quite bookish. We finf the same sort of resent against others bookish such has Bloodraven and Aerys the first. Even in the maester we see few maester coming from big noble families with some exeption notably if they are far from the line of inherentence. And most of bookish people are described weak in the books so I think that the reason we see so few bookish women is because they are very few bookish people to start and that bookish men tell more about them in this society that see brute force has the most important thing for the noble class. (Sorry of they are spelling mistake english is not my best language)

[The Commentator]

Mellisandre is a nerd.  Can you imagine how many scrolls she has read in her lifetime.  Still, reading is not necessarily a productive activity when the quality of the reading material is questionable.  

[Walda]

Melisandre is a good example of a girl who has read a nerdy book (we only have proof of one, but perhaps there were more), yet isn't nerdy.

She quotes from a text that Maester Aemon, and Rhaegar, and even Jon (at Maester Aemon's especial behest), and maybe Sam has read, one that is not much read - a book that in Westeros is a nerdy book. But Melisandre quotes it as part of the catechism of her faith, and insists the words in it are true because they are written, that it is proof of divine revelation - that Stannis is the Word Made Flesh and Dwelt Among Us.

Septon Celador can recite parts of the seven pointed star from memory, and when Jon puts the corpses in the ice cells, he can remember reading disturbing prohibitions in it about speaking to the dead, but he is not a nerd just because he has read the tenants of the faith he has trained to practice, the books that everyone in his business must learn somehow, no more nerd than Thoros, or Aeron (although the Drowned God might have an oral tradition). Sallador Saan is no nerd, and no great believer either, but he knows that story of Azor Ahai that the worshippers of the Red God tell.

Melisandre is portrayed as particularly missing the intellectual activity that reading has created and nurtured in Maester Aemon. She quotes from the Jade Compendium about Lightbringer, claims that Stannis is Azor Ahai reborn...and he notices that the sword is a glamour, most likely of her own creation, that her fiery sword has none of the warmth of fire. Even Jon, on having the 'born in salt and smoke' quote foisted on him by Melisandre after he has read the book once, can point out that Stannis is only Lord of Dragonstone, not born there, can point out Melisandre is blind to things that don't fit her pre-conceived ideas.

She insists that there is only good and bad, light and dark, that a half-rotten onion is a rotten onion. Like Aeron, her zeal becomes more zelot-like as her doubts grow - there is a desperation in her belief, that it must be right because if it was not, what was happening, what she was doing about it, what she had already done, would be too horrible to contemplate.

Maester Aemon and Rhaegar read the prophecies in a way that allowed them to doubt, and to toss around alternatives: 

Quote

Rhaegar, I thought … the smoke was from the fire that devoured Summerhall on the day of his birth, the salt from the tears shed for those who died. He shared my belief when he was young, but later he became persuaded that it was his own son who fulfilled the prophecy, for a comet had been seen above King’s Landing on the night Aegon was conceived, and Rhaegar was certain the bleeding star had to be a comet. What fools we were, who thought ourselves so wise! The error crept in from the translation. Dragons are neither male nor female, Barth saw the truth of that, but now one and now the other, as changeable as flame. The language misled us all for a thousand years. Daenerys is the one, born amidst salt and smoke. The dragons prove it.”

(AFfC, Ch.35 Samwell IV)

Marwyn, whose extensive reading includes this one book Melisandre quotes from, understands the value of doubt:

Quote

“Born amidst salt and smoke, beneath a bleeding star. I know the prophecy.” Marwyn turned his head and spat a gob of red phlegm onto the floor. “Not that I would trust it."

(AFfC, Ch.45 Samwell V)

But Melisandre clings to her faith and pushes her doubts away.

Fwiw, I also think AA reborn is likely to be female - to be Arya, reborn as No-one, at the Saltpans, when she paid her passage in the Titan's Daughter.

But even if there is no AA, Melisandre is more likely to be Nissa-Nissa for Needle, than a nerd.