Is Mance Literate?

[BricksAndSparrows]

On 8/28/2016 at 4:48 PM, theblackdragonI said:

He was raised all his life at the Wall, so I'd imagine he was taught to read and write by maester Aemon.

Agreed.

[Universal Sword Donor]

1 hour ago, BricksAndSparrows said:

Agreed.

If Aemon taught people to read, he must not have taught many. Jeor Mormont doesn't seem to think much of the NW.

“Apart from the men at my table tonight, I have perhaps twenty who can read, and even fewer who can think, or plan, or lead. ”

[BricksAndSparrows]

3 minutes ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

If Aemon taught people to read, he must not have taught many. Jeor Mormont doesn't seem to think much of the NW.

“Apart from the men at my table tonight, I have perhaps twenty who can read, and even fewer who can think, or plan, or lead. ”

A fair point, but none of those men were raised at the Wall. And that's what @theblackdragonI was talking about. He wasn't saying that the Maester was teaching everyone to read.

I would like to take this opportunity to say, I don't suspect that Mance wrote the Pink letter. I just suspect he is literate. But it is only a speculation and in fairness there isn't any significant evidence to say he was.

[Viking]

Either way I think this topic is rather superfluous since the show claims the Pink Letter is from Ramsey. And just like I thought at the time I thought it showed that Roose Bolton was dead. 

[Jon Fossoway]

What does the Night's Watch gain with the maester teaching a young peasant boy how to read? The maester, of all? If Mance grew up to be a steward or a second in command of Aemon it would fit, but Mance was a ranger, a fighting dude, a tracker, etc. How do writing and reading serve any purpose when you are nearly all the time ranging north of the Wall? And further on, he lands and rejects his position to become a wildling, where literacy is even less appreciated. 

[theblackdragonI]

46 minutes ago, BricksAndSparrows said:

A fair point, but none of those men were raised at the Wall. And that's what @theblackdragonI was talking about. He wasn't saying that the Maester was teaching everyone to read.

I would like to take this opportunity to say, I don't suspect that Mance wrote the Pink letter. I just suspect he is literate. But it is only a speculation and in fairness there isn't any significant evidence to say he was.

You would imagine that the Watch, especially Aemon would take more of an interest in the education of a child rather than rapists and thieves. More than that, Mance seems like a man who would like to be able to read and is very intelligent.

[theblackdragonI]

1 minute ago, King Merrett I Frey said:

What does the Night's Watch gain with the maester teaching a young peasant boy how to read? The maester, of all? If Mance grew up to be a steward or a second in command of Aemon it would fit, but Mance was a ranger, a fighting dude, a tracker, etc. How do writing and reading serve any purpose when you are nearly all the time ranging north of the Wall? And further on, he lands and rejects his position to become a wildling, where literacy is even less appreciated. 

He wasn't a peasant he was a wildling. Aemon seems like the type of man who would go out of his way to make a young childs life easier and to teach him to be able to do more than swing a sword. But the commander surely wouldn't have just picked he was to be a ranger when he was a child? it's not that much of a leap to imagine they wanted Mance to have a wide education for the all possible jobs he might obtain with the Watch.

[Jon Fossoway]

12 minutes ago, theblackdragonI said:

He wasn't a peasant he was a wildling. Aemon seems like the type of man who would go out of his way to make a young childs life easier and to teach him to be able to do more than swing a sword. But the commander surely wouldn't have just picked he was to be a ranger when he was a child? it's not that much of a leap to imagine they wanted Mance to have a wide education for the all possible jobs he might obtain with the Watch.

Methinks you are overestimating the Watch: they just don't care. If they worried about kids (wildlings or southron) education they surely wouldn't have put so much resistance against letting them wildlings through the Wall following a perfectly reasonable plan elaborated by Jon. 'Cause that would mean they care. Or think outside the box (as you attribute Aemon's speculated doing), for that matter.

I can't recall the specifics right now, but did ever Mance talked about Aemon? If the latter gave him an education and the ways of literacy (an absolute comodity in westerosi standards mostly reserved to nobility) he should have remembered that while talking to Jon?

[theblackdragonI]

1 minute ago, King Merrett I Frey said:

Methinks you are overestimating the Watch: they just don't care. If they worried about kids (wildlings or southron) education they surely wouldn't have put so much resistance against letting them wildlings through the Wall following a perfectly reasonable plan elaborated by Jon. 

I can't recall the specifics right now, but did ever Mance talked about Aemon? If the latter gave him an education and the ways of literacy (an absolute comodity in westerosi standards mostly reserved to nobility) he should have remembered that while talking to Jon?

Ah but one single orphan child raised at the wall, is different to hundreds of young men with fathers they have fought against for years is it not?Yes but there's a lot of things that Mance doesn't mention to Jon about his life on the Wall before he left. Why would he feel the need to tell Jon that Aemon taught him to read and write? He was more pre-occupied with getting his army past the wall and ensuring Jon was loyal. There's no real proof to either of arguments, I just get the feeling that Mance was literate. He was a very intelligent and competent man, who strikes me as the type to actually want to learn to be literate, and Aemon would surely have offered to teach him if asked or ordered by the Lord Commander. Mance was obviously a man of regard in the Watch before he left. Maybe he was being groomed for command like Jon was? Whether it be First Ranger or Lord Commander or Steward, being literate would be necessary for all of those positions.

[Universal Sword Donor]

1 hour ago, BricksAndSparrows said:

A fair point, but none of those men were raised at the Wall. And that's what @theblackdragonI was talking about. He wasn't saying that the Maester was teaching everyone to read.

I would like to take this opportunity to say, I don't suspect that Mance wrote the Pink letter. I just suspect he is literate. But it is only a speculation and in fairness there isn't any significant evidence to say he was.

Mance wasn't raised at CB. He was at Shadow Tower as far as we know.

[King Ned Stark]

It seems to me that Mance is the type of guy who would seek out someone to teach him reading and writing, seeing how important these abilities can be.  Whether from Maester Aemon or someone else.

Mance is ambitious and capable; a man who could pass as a bard with harp and song, knew histories, could sneak into Winterfell, and untied dozens of wildlings tribes, among other things.  It seems like reading and writing are things he would want to learn.  

Mormont's remarks about the plight of the  Nights Watch only reinforces, to me at least, the idea that any of the black brothers wanting to learn could probably received the education.

Of course there is no textual evidence to support his literacy or lack thereof.  The Bael/Abel anagram leans towards the idea that Mance was "lettered", though I suppose it could be a coincidence.

[aryagonnakill#2]

19 hours ago, Horse of Kent said:

 

And is seen as a bit of an oddity for it, no? Not the most impartial source, but Denys Mallister thinks so.

 

But we are told back in AGOT that the people being groomed for command become the stewards of commanders.

Separately in AGOT we learn that even maester Aemons steward cannot read or write.

[aryagonnakill#2]

16 hours ago, BricksAndSparrows said:

Agreed.

Maester Aemon lived at Castle Black, Mance at Shadow Tower, and Aemon did not teach his own steward how to read or write.

[Jon Fossoway]

Reading / writing is NOT something you actively seek in Westeros and obtain. It's mainly a privilege for nobility, and even not all of it (Borros Baratheon was the head of his house and was iliterate) since you also have to factor the cultural capital of your inmediate family and your own will to learn. I stay with Mance being iliterate, because you don't actually need that when 90% of the people around you doesn't know how to do that (in Mances case, among the wildlings, that would be 99,99999% of the people). He is cunning, clever, persuasive, charismatic, he know the songs (which is also a source of knowledge in a medieval setting) etc. If in the text there is some faint hint that he is literate, then I'll believe that. I mostly assume people in westeros just isn't. 

And oh well, if he never actually grew in Castle Black... the chances him being literate diminish more.

 

[JLE]

You don't actually need to read and write to be able to make "Abel" from "Bael" if you are capable of breaking sounds down aurally into their constituent parts: all you'd need to be able to do, in your head, is reverse the sounds "b" and "a" - you wouldn't need to know how either translates to symbols on paper. He never actually writes either name down, of course.

There is however nothing that states "no wildlings are able to read": Mance may have learned at least the rudiments of reading, most likely with the Watch, but maybe from some of the (probably few) partially literate wildlings. Tormund refers to Mance as clever: this may be just having a tactical brain, or it may also refer to the ability to read and write, which Tormund does not himself possess (at least not to a practical degree).

So, there is no hard evidence either way on whether Mance is or isn't literate, nor has there YET been any necessity to prove it one way or the other - unless Mance really did write the Pink Letter (rather than, for instance, dictating it to a maester that he might have managed to capture and hold temporarily hostage.) However I believe that the evidence is far more in favour of Ramsay himself being the writer, as stated, even if he is either bluffing about the statements contained within, or has been deceived by Stannis about the latter's death: and that, with the capture and death of the spearwives, Mance was also captured by Ramsay, and that part of the letter at least is true.

And yes, it's also true that the Watch do not apparently make a priority of teaching their members to read, if the likes of Chett and Cotter Pyke are also illiterate - but I would assume that Pyke at least must have literate underlings, to be able to send messages back and forth, given that he commands one of the other towers and needs to send messages to Castle Black, and be able to understand messages sent in return. One cannot be in a position that requires communication over distance without at least SOME means of transmitting messages.

It's also possible that Pyke may be *partially* literate - a very slow reader and unable to actually write messages back, but capable of reading simple messages and capable of dictating them: writing, effectively translating familiar sounds into a foreign format, is often harder than reading, which is translating writing into familiar sounds - for the same reason that anyone learning a foreign language knows: it's easier to read something in a foreign language and be able to fill in enough gaps to translate it into the home language, than it is to try and translate one's own sentences into the foreign languages.

In any case, the "Mance or anybody else = Rhaegar" theory has to be discounted. Robert Baratheon would have known his enemy: they met face to face in battle, Robert won, killed Rhaegar personally, and took possession of his body which was later cremated. There is NO POSSIBLE doubt that Rhaegar was killed at the Trident.

[Whitering]

Here's what differentiates many people, some want to learn and seek opportunities to do so, while others can learn but not seek knowledge. Mance definitely falls into the former category. I think he would have gone to Master Aemon to learn to read all by himself. I don't think the NW worries about it over much, but just live Davos went to learn to read, even though Stannis didn't think he had to, Mance definitely craves knowledge.

[Nyrhex]

There is no logical reason for Mance to know how to read and write. Growing up in the NW is about as helpful to learning how to read as growing up in Flea Bottom. Mance was a ranger, which gives him even worse chances to have some downtime to learn how to read. 

Aemon did not help anyone to learn how to read, and Mance is far from the only one to grow up in the NW. Being a kid just means you don't do guard duty, you still have a bunch of things to do all day, and if Aemon was in to teaching people how to read he would not have a dire need of Sam. Of the two guys he had already, only one could read and he was pushing 60. The ~20 guys who can read and write? They came like that to the Wall. The handfull of knights and others from a slightly higher than rock-bottom status. GRRM is kinda strong with his "peasants have poo on thier faces and care only about the weather". 

Then again GRRM can have Mance quote Valyrian poems while writing a Braavosi play from memory if he wants. 

[King Ned Stark]

3 minutes ago, Nyrhex said:

There is no logical reason for Mance to know how to read and write. Growing up in the NW is about as helpful to learning how to read as growing up in Flea Bottom. Mance was a ranger, which gives him even worse chances to have some downtime to learn how to read. 

Aemon did not help anyone to learn how to read, and Mance is far from the only one to grow up in the NW. Being a kid just means you don't do guard duty, you still have a bunch of things to do all day, and if Aemon was in to teaching people how to read he would not have a dire need of Sam. Of the two guys he had already, only one could read and he was pushing 60. The ~20 guys who can read and write? They came like that to the Wall. The handfull of knights and others from a slightly higher than rock-bottom status. GRRM is kinda strong with his "peasants have poo on thier faces and care only about the weather". 

Then again GRRM can have Mance quote Valyrian poems while writing a Braavosi play from memory if he wants. 

Do you think Mance is the type of guy who would want to read and write?

[Lord Wraith]

2 hours ago, King Ned Stark said:

Do you think Mance is the type of guy who would want to read and write?

It makes sense for the character, just the opportunity seems to be lacking.

[Beautiful Bloody Sword]

16 minutes ago, Lord Wraith said:

It makes sense for the character, just the opportunity seems to be lacking.

I think the evidence for opportunity is exemplified in how Davos learns to read, from a literate person, albeit a child. The key is proximity to a literate person willing to teach, with Aemon, Jeor, Donal, Benjen, Alliser, Bowen, etc., to name but a few, the options aren't exactly scarce. The other side of the equation is the desire to learn and the wits to accomplish it.