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Mance is illiterate


Mithras

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Hmmm I may have answered my own question.

The Thenns are of the firstmen

-the Firstmen didn't read or write(to the best of my knowledge , they used Runes as a for of cuneiform.)

-The Thenns being rich in ancient traditions would probably not be able to read or write either(unless they picking up reading and writing when then learned the common tongue.)

Since the Thenns mostly do not use the common tongue, with even their leaders only speaking it clumsily, I doubt they have any reading and writing skills.

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You know, the question of Mance being illiterate has always bugged me since 2011. I've been wondering, couldn't someone just ask GRRM? I mean, it's not a big plot point of something, and it's, by itself, way less spoiler-ish than some other SSM. Is there a way to just ask him? It would clear lots of doubts,


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Mance is not only very likely to be illiterate, he has a very limited set of knowledge as well. He didn't get a noble's education and some of his decisions can only be explained by lacking knowledge of the bigger picture.



For example, when Mance treated with Jon in Storm, he stated that the Wildlings will cross the Wall, but will keep their own laws and carve out a place for themselves. For anybody knowing the population of Westeros, this is ridiculous. The entire Wildling people, male or female, very old or babe in arms, healthy or crippled, numbers less than the soldiers of the North and the Riverlands together. Only the soldiers.


The only explanation for that statement is ignorance. The same ignorance Hot Pie showed, when he left Harrenhal together with Arya and expected himself to be at the Trident after a couple of hours.


People without a noble's education just can't understand the size of Westeros or the number of people living there. Mance could judge from his personal experience at the Wall (~1000 men), but he couldn't correctly estimate the power of the North or entire Westeros, because he lacks the education for it.


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The wildlings do not have the Andal writing system. At best they only have the runes of the First Men carved on rock or inscribed on bone or skin, and I don't see much evidence that they even had that. Tormund can't read, and he was a wildling leader, which suggests that Mance had no need for the skill. The only possibility is that he learned at the Wall, but given that even Cotter Pyke remains illiterate as an adult, its probable that the Watch doesn't waste time formally teaching people to read if they don't need to know. That said, I don't see anything stopping Mance from just asking Aemon or another literate individual to teach him in his spare time if he wanted.


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Um no.

They use bronze.

They are not advanced.

In our world the Greeks of the Iliad used bronze. They built cities and palaces and were sea traders. They had art, music, and poetry. The fact that the use of iron among them was uncommon doesn't equate to them being primitive.

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Mance is not only very likely to be illiterate, he has a very limited set of knowledge as well. He didn't get a noble's education and some of his decisions can only be explained by lacking knowledge of the bigger picture.

For example, when Mance treated with Jon in Storm, he stated that the Wildlings will cross the Wall, but will keep their own laws and carve out a place for themselves. For anybody knowing the population of Westeros, this is ridiculous. The entire Wildling people, male or female, very old or babe in arms, healthy or crippled, numbers less than the soldiers of the North and the Riverlands together. Only the soldiers.

The only explanation for that statement is ignorance. The same ignorance Hot Pie showed, when he left Harrenhal together with Arya and expected himself to be at the Trident after a couple of hours.

People without a noble's education just can't understand the size of Westeros or the number of people living there. Mance could judge from his personal experience at the Wall (~1000 men), but he couldn't correctly estimate the power of the North or entire Westeros, because he lacks the education for it.

He's traveled south of the Wall and has some idea of how things are in the North. Plus the Wildlings have been raiding for centuries and there has been other contact with the people south of the Wall. Davos recalls a trading episode while he was an apprentice smuggler. I'd say that Mance is in part bragging and in part counting on the Gift being largely deserted and not under direct control of Winterfell, and that the authorities will have their hands full with the real threat, the Others and wights. He's not all that ignorant.

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I have always felt that this was the case with Mance.



Playing devils advocate here:



Mance has a fondness for music, bardic tales, and is a musician. It is not impossible to image that he learned to read and write to pursue this interest while as a member of the Night's Watch. It is also not out of the realm of possibilities that a maester took him under wing to teach these as a way to integrate him into their way of thinking. A cultural immersion so to speak.


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He's traveled south of the Wall and has some idea of how things are in the North. Plus the Wildlings have been raiding for centuries and there has been other contact with the people south of the Wall. Davos recalls a trading episode while he was an apprentice smuggler. I'd say that Mance is in part bragging and in part counting on the Gift being largely deserted and not under direct control of Winterfell, and that the authorities will have their hands full with the real threat, the Others and wights. He's not all that ignorant.

But he is mistaken.

Mance has traveled south of the Wall, but he has never seen the real deal, assembled armies of even a minor House. He didn't experience Robert's Rebellion nor the Greyjoy Rebellion. The size and might of the southern (including the North) military is something he cannot comprehend, because it's way, way outside of his experience.

Raymund Redbeard was beaten by what the Umbers and Winterfell could gather in a hurry, probably only their very garrisons, given that the NW didn't arrive in time and had less of a way to march than Winterfell. A fraction of a fraction of the Northerm might.

He may be right in the short time, the Wildlings are not an immediate problem. But in the long time, the North can't tolerate the Wildlings stealing women and raiding their homes. That works only as long as there is enough of a deterrent to keep the North of their backs. Like an army that is at least a credible threat. But the Wildlings aren't. The North will deal with them, this year or next year. Mance would be either an idiot to deny that - or uninformed.

Uninformed fits his character better.

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Because there is no evidence of him reading something. Some people thinks that Mance was taught how to read and write at the Wall. He was captured as a child and the Wall lacks the men with these qualities.

Jon understood the necessity of literate men only after starting to regarrison the old castles. Before that, there was no need to push men into reading lessons. And Jon has a very different view of wildlings from the previous LC's. So, I can think of no reason why Qorgyle (or the one before him) wanted Mance to learn to read and write.

“Your son has no king’s blood. Melisandre gains nothing by giving him to the fire. Stannis wants the free folk to fight for him, he will not burn an innocent without good cause. Your boy will be safe. I will find a wet nurse for him and he’ll be raised here at Castle Black under my protection. He’ll learn to hunt and ride, to fight with sword and axe and bow. I’ll even see that he is taught to read and write.” Sam would like that. “And when he is old enough, he will learn the truth of who he is. He’ll be free to seek you out if that is what he wants.”

Gilly's child is still a baby. That is why it should be easier to give him the training by a maester. This training requires patience and obedience, which Mance lacks both.

“Our false king has a prickly manner,” Melisandre told Jon Snow, “but he will not betray you. We hold his son, remember. And he owes you his very life.”

“Why did he desert?”

“For a wench, some say. For a crown, others would have it.” Qhorin tested the edge of his sword with the ball of his thumb. “He liked women, Mance did, and he was not a man whose knees bent easily, that’s true. But it was more than that. He loved the wild better than the Wall. It was in his blood. He was wildling born, taken as a child when some raiders were put to the sword. When he left the Shadow Tower he was only going home again.”

“Was he a good ranger?”

“He was the best of us,” said the Halfhand, “and the worst as well. Only fools like Thoren Smallwood despise the wildlings. They are as brave as we are, Jon. As strong, as quick, as clever. But they have no discipline. They name themselves the free folk, and each one thinks himself as good as a king and wiser than a maester. Mance was the same. He never learned how to obey.”

Mance was with wildling raiders. He was not an easily moldable child. There is another one we can compare him to.

Squirrel answered for herself. “Out a window, and straight down to the godswood. I was twelve the first time my brother took me raiding south o’ your Wall. That’s where I got my name. My brother said I looked like a squirrel running up a tree. I’ve done that Wall six times since, over and back again. I think I can climb down some stone tower.”

Squirrel started climbing the Wall and raiding at 12. I think Mance was no different than her. There is even a younger version of Squirrel.

Two of the boys were girls in disguise. When Jon saw them, he dispatched Rory and Big Liddle to bring them to him. One came meekly enough, the other kicking and biting. This could end badly. “Do these two have famous fathers?”

“Har! Them skinny things? Not likely. Picked by lot.”

“They’re girls.”

“Are they?” Tormund squinted at the pair of them from his saddle. “Me and Lord Crow made a wager on which o’ you has the biggest member. Pull them breeches down, give us a look.”

One of the girls turned red. The other glared defiantly. “You leave us alone, Tormund Giantstink. You let us go.”

Har! You win, crow. Not a cock between ’em. The little one’s got her a set o’ balls, though. A spearwife in the making, her.”

Therefore, Mance was half a raider himself when he was captured. He never learned to obey. It is better to assume that he was never given a maester's lessons. Rather he must have been trained as a ranger all along.

The Wall does not lack men w/ the skills to teach underlings, that's actually how the Wall is managed, Aemon has specifically had to do exactly that because of his advanced age and blindness (and he's been blind since Robert's Rebellion). Clearly Joer Mormont saw the value of molding talent to particular ends as evident by Jon's selection to the stewards and not the rangers despite his clear aptitude.

I can think of a number of reasons the LC would want to teach Mance to read and write:

1. Reading and Writing is a valuable skill that is in short supply, thus any opportunity to increase the number of literate Watchmen will likely be seized.

2. Mance's skills would be an unknown quantity when he was a child, and there would be no way of predicting w/ any certainty as to what kind of outcome/use he would have for the Watch. He could become a Steward, a Builder, or Ranger. Given this uncertainty it would make sense to teach him how to read and write because it would be useful regardless of where he gets assigned.

3. Maesters cost money and the watch clearly trains non-maesters in raven tending, so it would make sense to offset these costs by training Mance under a maester.

4. Some people believe in cultural indoctrination, perhaps the LC thought the boy could be won over the ways of the 7 kingdoms if he was introduced to the great texts and cultural achievements of Westeros.

Without getting bogged down in a discussion about language acquisition and how reading and writing are learned there's really no basis to argue Mance couldn't learn to read and write because of a presumed lack of patience and obedience. For starters Mance has displayed considerable patience both in winning the Free Folk to his cause (multiple means, multiple attempts) and with his attack on the Wall (feigned attacks, drawing out defenses, negotiation, etc.). And the comment about his obedience doesn't speak to his intelligence and his ability to learn. Jon isn't really in any position to speak on such matters considering he wasn't yet born, and is really just speaking w/ 20/20 hindsight about a known deserter. And the reason Mance deserted was because of the stupid dress code of the Watch, not because he couldn't obey anyone full-stop, he clearly grew up within Watch and learned some stuff before deserting. And Mance is clearly an intelligent individual who rose high in the Watch despite his backround as a wilding. The mostly likely explanation is that he was trained by knowledgable folks within the Nights Watch who saw the value in molding him into a capable adult.

@BBE

Mance isn't ignorant of the population disparity. He knows the gift and the new gift are essentially unpopulated and that there are a lot of cultural similarities between the Free Folk and the North (GRRM has said there isn't the same degree of enmity from the Free Folk toward the North as there is toward the Crows). He probably wanted to negotiate a truce in which the free folk could populate the gifts w/ some degree of autonomy in exchange for fighting against the Others. Obviously he'd rather face the North/7 Kingdoms w/ his own strength and the power to negotiate some sort of terms of co-existence than the Others.

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Therefore, Mance was half a raider himself when he was captured. He never learned to obey. It is better to assume that he was never given a maester's lessons. Rather he must have been trained as a ranger all along.

If we're arguing Mance can't read because he wasn't ever taught anything but how to be a Ranger, we run into major problems when we acnowledge Mance knows how to play a lute, and knows a hell of a lot of Southron songs. That alone should tell you that Mance appears to have picked up skills besides those typically attributed to the Rangers whilst with the Night's Watch.

There's no great suspension of disbelief needed to think that someone at the Wall may have taught Mance how to read, sanctioned or unsanctioned.

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The OP has failed to acknowledge that Maester Aemon was at the Wall when Mance was a child.I'd be very surprised if someone like him lay around and failed to teach a young boy in the care of the NW his letters.

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The OP has failed to acknowledge that Maester Aemon was at the Wall when Mance was a child.I'd be very surprised if someone like him lay around and failed to teach a young boy in the care of the NW his letters.

I wouldn't be surprised at all.

You don't understand the medieval culture that exists in Westeros. It is considered a waste of time to teach peasants to read. Nowadays reading is considered common knowledge and something everyone should know how to do. Back then it was more of an art that only certain people should be able to learn. In some cases they wouldn't even teach high born women to read. Maester Aemon likely wouldn't have wasted his time teaching a Wildling boy to read.

That being said I still think Mance Rayder was the author of the Pink Letter. He could just as easily gotten someone who knew how to read and wright to make the letter.

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Watchmen are not peasants though, and by Mormont's admission, they need more people who can read and write. Not teaching the one boy you can actually teach a skill that you desperately need would be myopic beyond belief.

So why can't Cotter Pyke read? If they need more people who can read and write, why is Mormont complaining about it rather than making reading part of the Watch's curriculum?

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Because Cotter Pyke came to the Wall as an adult, and it's certainly harder to teach adults to read and write than children?

But most people come to the Wall as adults anyway, which is probably why there is so much illiteracy there in the first place. Not teaching someone to read simply because he's an adult is impractical for the Watch if they really do need literate people.

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The problem is, in a medieval society, why should anyone ever want to learn how to read and write? There has to be a necessity in order to bother it. Davos learned it because as a Hand, it was a must for him. As a smuggler, he never needed to learn reading. Common folk never wastes time with reading or writing.



So, you should prove the motives of Mance in learning how to read and write. Reread Qhorin's description of him. Mance likes the wild and music and women and fighting. He is definitely not a bookworm type.



Aemon had only Clydas and Chett for a long time. Why didnot he train other people as well? And he could have taught healing as well. The necessity for literate men arose only after reopening empty castles. Before that, the NW was doing quite well.



Songs are not written anywhere. The wildling lore is an oral tradition. Even most of the realm still keeps the ancient lore by the songs.


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