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Who do you think is Mance’s father?


Varysblackfyre321

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His justification for being allowed to stay at Castle Black is was the son of a black brother; but surely that cannot be it given his very existence would be seen as a violation of the oaths every brother takes; so why keep him around, why wouldn’t there be more little snows running around Castle Black or at the very least hear stories of a situation like mance? 

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Just now, Varysblackfyre321 said:

His justification for being allowed to stay at Castle Black is was the son of a black brother; but surely that cannot be it given his very existence would be seen as a violation of the oaths every brother takes; so why keep him around, why wouldn’t there be more little snows running around Castle Black or at the very least hear stories of a situation like mance? 

I don't think it was an important member.  Because as you said, if he was fathered by a high ranking officer, he is a smear on the honor of the watch.  The product of a high ranking officer's sin is not going to be allowed to walk around Castle Black because he is a walking insult to their vow to not father children.   That is, if he was fathered by a man of the watch at all.  He was born a wildling and became orphaned.  The watch took him in.  

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1 hour ago, Victor Newman said:

I don't think it was an important member.  Because as you said, if he was fathered by a high ranking officer, he is a smear on the honor of the watch.  The product of a high ranking officer's sin is not going to be allowed to walk around Castle Black because he is a walking insult to their vow to not father children.   That is, if he was fathered by a man of the watch at all.  He was born a wildling and became orphaned.  The watch took him in.  

Yeah, those in power or have great influence  tend to have far more leeway to break the rules in terms of groups to which nepotism and cronyism is a major problem.  If say Mance was say the bastard son of the lord commander or the bastard son of someone whose family is powerful. there’s going to be mutters but it’s unlikely  to be anything more of that. If a peasant like Chett or Daeron or whoever sired a bastard(to which they may have), while in the they’re likely going to be punished; even with Jeor who probably has a more liberal view of the rules of the watch, would probably say no to the idea of turning Castle Black into a daycare for the bastard children that would be sired upon some of the women of mole by the men under his command.

Mance’s purported  origin places him as a bastard of a black brother. And given he wasn’t simply dumped on at Mole town or the nearest wildling cove and given food and logging at the wall shows Mance to be no mere orphan. 

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I have no idea but I suspect he could be a bastard Stark.  He's entirely too interested in the Starks, for one thing, and he was entirely too sympathetic to Jon, perhaps because they're both Stark bastards. Also, his chosen name Manse Rayder - house raider - has echoes of the Bael the Bard story, a Stark maiden stolen directly from her house, so you've got a bastardy and Stark theme there as well.

I don't see the Watch raising him from an infant at the Wall itself (they might have farmed him out in his earliest years), but if he joined them at 6 or thereabouts, the Stark name might have been enough for the Watch to shelter and raise him, something they obviously wouldn't and didn't do for a Craster.  Ironic, really, because Craster could well descend from a bastard Stark line as well, given he seems to be inbreeding in some essential iciness to his children.

But I have to ask because it's the third time I've seen something about him being a child in  posts.  Was he a child raised by the NW?  I always thought he was a Wildling born and raised to an adult, and normally the Watch wouldn't have taken him in, except he claimed to have been fathered by one of them.

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5 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

His justification for being allowed to stay at Castle Black is was the son of a black brother; but surely that cannot be it given his very existence would be seen as a violation of the oaths every brother takes; so why keep him around, why wouldn’t there be more little snows running around Castle Black or at the very least hear stories of a situation like mance? 

The nights watch needs all the men it can get, and tbh, his situation could be more common than we know, there just isn't enough info about other black brothers, we only met the ones Jon or Sam interact with.

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2 hours ago, Dorian Martell's son said:

There is literally no way to know and it doesn't matter in any way to the story. So I will say Lord Commander Qorgyle. Because why not. 

Daeny's Mallister may know and a few others. Whether it's important, we shall see i guess. Though one could wonder why give Mance that back ground. Why not just make him the bastard of some tanner who joined the watch and then broke his vows? Why the tie to Wildlings and the Watch? Same as Craster. GRRM could have chose any other situation but the one he did. 

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Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Jon XIII

Mance Rayder was born of some common woman and fathered by one of your black brothers."
 
A Storm of Swords - Jon I
 He was raised a crow, you know, and the crow's a tricksy bird."
 
A Clash of Kings - Jon VII
. He was wildling born, taken as a child when some raiders were put to the sword. 

 

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Surely him being allowed to stay at Castle Black was more to do with the fact that their numbers are dwindling, and they will pretty much take anything they can get. I don't think it matters who his father is, probably just some random man. Just because there are a fair amount of conspiracies in ASOIAF, it doesn't mean every little thing has one. 

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36 minutes ago, wia said:

Well, considering that Craster's mother was chased off when she tried to bring him to the Watch, and Mance was taken in, I think it's a point towards Mance's father being someone of importance.

The watch took Mance in out of guilt.  If I recall the story correctly, the watch killed his parents for raiding.  Which left him all alone as a child.  So they took him in.  Wildlings do not have normal surnames.  His parents were raiding the north. That makes them Raiders.   So I guess that is why they gave him the surname of Rayder.  Probably a misspelling on the part of the black brother who picked the name for him.   Mance is also a possible misspelling of manse, which in the east mean mansion.  Which is fitting because this man is truly a Raider of Houses, the Mance Rayder.

Craster's mother was chased off because the watch was not about to take in all of the bastards fathered by its brothers.  All the Mole Town whores would come calling and making claims.  Food is scarce in winter and the last thing they needed was too many mouths to feed.  Mance was a special case because the watch killed his parents.

 

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25 minutes ago, 867-5309 said:

The watch took Mance in out of guilt.  If I recall the story correctly, the watch killed his parents for raiding.  Which left him all alone as a child.  So they took him in.  Wildlings do not have normal surnames.  His parents were raiding the north. That makes them Raiders.   So I guess that is why they gave him the surname of Rayder.  Probably a misspelling on the part of the black brother who picked the name for him.   Mance is also a possible misspelling of manse, which in the east mean mansion.  Which is fitting because this man is truly a Raider of Houses, the Mance Rayder.

Craster's mother was chased off because the watch was not about to take in all of the bastards fathered by its brothers.  All the Mole Town whores would come calling and making claims.  Food is scarce in winter and the last thing they needed was too many mouths to feed.  Mance was a special case because the watch killed his parents.

 

If they took Mance out of guilt, wouldn't they take all kids of raiders they kill out of guilt then? Or all kids of their brothers that became orphans somewhere in the realm? - Doubtful. 

He was taken in because his father was in the NW. And the decision to take him would've been made by the Lord Commander (or at least by the commander of Eastwatch-by-the-Sea or the commander of Shadow Tower). Now, would a regular nobody ranger be allowed to keep his child on the wall? - I don't think so.

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17 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

His justification for being allowed to stay at Castle Black is was the son of a black brother; but surely that cannot be it given his very existence would be seen as a violation of the oaths every brother takes; so why keep him around, why wouldn’t there be more little snows running around Castle Black or at the very least hear stories of a situation like mance? 

Some pimply faced Dornishman .

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5 hours ago, 867-5309 said:

manse, which in the east mean mansion

And in Scotland (ie Britain's very own 'beyond the Wall') a manse is a churchman's home. Therefore Mance's daddy is the septon on the wall :D

More serioulsy, we don't know how usual or unusual his situation is, or whether he's getting any special treatment. We know very few of the Black Brothers, there's another 500 or so of them whose back-stories we have no insight into whatsoever. For all we know there's a Stud Brother at every castle and half of the garrison are his bastards with various wildling women :dunno:

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