Daena the Defiant

Coming This Fall - Read a thrilling YA series of novels centering on the young, beautiful Lady Cersei Lannister as she and her close group of friends explore young womanhood and romance (*) amid the fraught politics of the Reign of Mad King Aerys. The Lioness in Spring, available wherever paperbacks are sold. *(okay okay, in Cersei's case, it's her brother.)

Exactly - if she was given out as an acknowledged natural daughter and then fostered at the Arryn Court, with its prestige and Andal hauteur, dressed well and kept in the proper style as a noble demoiselle, with a maid and fancy clothes, then maybe, maybe she would be something of a catch on the marriage market, because her posh treatment would suggest her father's favor, which then would imply *access* for the girl's future husband to her powerful father(1). Having her clean up mule shit in the stables implies just the opposite. (1) (coincidentally, just what we see going on with 'Alayne Stone')

"Ours Are The Grudges"

Too far fetched!

One more vote for Cersei, The Queen of Comediennes, Her Ladyship of Hilarity.

Bacongate!

well my friend - think of this way, as a very sage nun who taught me when I was 14 in high school. When you meet a woman, presume at any time that she's potentially menstruating. Waiting tables, teaching class, answering phones, riding the bus. etc. Even nuns. All the time, everywhere since evolution evolved binary genders. Get over it.

Good thing you weren't born female. LIfe would an endless slog of icky, huh?

I feel like Qyburn and Craster need to be mentioned prominently on this list.

I used to belong to an all female book club where we discussed all things ASOAIF, made baked goods with a ASOIAF theme (some awesome chick made a cake shaped like Riverrun, for example), and other distaff arts and crafts. We called ourselves the Martinistas.

The daughter of Lord Tully, raised at his knee to be the heiress to Riverrun, Lady of Winterfell and named Regent of the North by her husband, is insufficiently prestigious and lacking in dignity to treat with a self-appointed king? Who else has the social standing to speak with Renly as part of the same social echelon? Robb certainly couldn't go himself. Also, Renly and his Tyrell backers are all steeped in the culture of courtly mannerisms. No one in the story sniggers that Catelyn's embassy is weird or comical. Until such time as the Northmen declare Robb the King in the North, the rest of society was informed Catelyn was in charge - it's just that we see most of this story from _her_ POV and she makes great efforts to not undermine him or countermand him in front of his men, knowing that Robb is *this* close to his majority and then he will well and truly be in charge.

Being a woman does not automatically prevent Cersei from assuming Casterly Rock. Being the Queen makes it politically unwieldly, but she was perfectly eligible under the rules of primogeniture as it appears the Lannisters practice. She would just fall in line behind her male siblings, but ahead of her father's brothers.

-double post

Exactly so. It doing so would also reinforce the loyalty of both House Tallhart and the newly-settled leadership team of House Hornwood. I'd still let Lady Donella marry Ser Rodrik, but invite them to reside in Winterfell to avoid mischief. Although they are sisters-in-law, I cannot imagine Lady Donella and Lady Berena (either as the new regnant Lady of Hornwood, or in a quasi-regency capacity if she demurs for her son as the new lord - they are still children, right?) getting along all that well inside one castle.

That always seemed to be too significant of a little factoid to have no importance - GRRM seemed to have buried that deep.