The Fall of the Westerosi Warrior Women?

[The Grey Wolf]

The Royces might not follow the Old Gods. 

[Lord Varys]

28 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf said:

The Royces might not follow the Old Gods. 

They don't follow the old gods. Their sons are all knights, unlike the sons of House Blackwood.

[The Grey Wolf]

58 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

They don't follow the old gods. Their sons are all knights, unlike the sons of House Blackwood.

Plus, the Battle of Seven Stars and its aftermath.

[Lord Varys]

2 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf said:

Plus, the Battle of Seven Stars and its aftermath.

Yeah. The very assumption that the Royces still follow the old gods is ridiculous.

I can see how George may want to make it that way now, but he really can't. Not without a major retcon making things look ridiculous.

And if the Royces were still following the old gods we should have heard about that in AGoT - where we also heard about the Blackwoods. In the end the Royces are a more significant/prominent house in the main series than the Blackwoods (who up to ADwD are basically just featured extras whereas the Royces have considerable plot relevance, especially in AFfC but also with Waymar and Rogar and Nestor in the earlier books).

[cgf]

On 12/15/2018 at 2:30 PM, sweetsunray said:

I would agree with both your reasons. Notice that the regions where women have a lot of political sway and can be soldiers, fighters or military generals tend to be in the three regions where worhsip of the Old Gods is still practiced (North, Vale, and Riverlands), despite the majority following the Faith, and Dorne. But in the Stormlands and the Reach we do not have such military examples, except for Brienne, after the conquering, and little evidence of such women prior to conquering. It is in the Reach that we have the original seat of the Faith. And the great lords in the Stormlands are Baratheons who consistently reveal a tendency of dismissing female wishes and council. With the moving of the seat to King's Landing the Faith's influence has increased. It's also in the name of Faith that Baelor the Blessed locks up his three sisters.

Rhaenyra was the sole actual queen who sat the Iron Throne, and was not queen as consort of a king. She is generally used as an example on it being bad for women to be in a seat of power, even though Alicent Hightower and her sons started out as cruel, vicious and treacherous from the get go. We also have but one female regent, Alyssa Velaryon who is also villified for throwing her lot with Rogar Baratheon, who attempted to depose Jaehaerys. And though Visenya was not a regent, she crowned Maegor the Cruel king. Despite there beign lots of weak and cruel and stupid male kings, those three women help to fuel the mysoginy against women wielding power.

I refrained from mentioning the Westerlands. Like the Riverlands and the Vale it seems to have had powerful women until recently. But then you have Ellyn Reyne who is seen as the one who exerted the most influence to get house Tarbeck and house Reyne to rebel against House Lannister. So, the sentiment against women wielding (military) power would be high there.

Finally I want to offer a third reason: Dorne. Even in F&B one of the arguments used against a woman in the seat of power is "We are not Dorne". There always was an anti-Dorne sentiment, but it becomes outright hatred after Baelor I was killed. The hatred against Dorne is mostly evident in houses of the Reach, the marcher land Houses in the Stormlands, and Aegon the Unworthy. Not even Daeron II the Good and Baelor the Blessed managed to overcome this hatred.

Finally, the response to Brienne is mostly negative from the Reach men and Stormlanders, exactly those two regions that have had the least historical female leaders. Aside from Cat, the Riverlanders do not seem to balk at seeing Brienne in armor. Surprised perhaps, but nowhere near the response Brienne got from the knights of the Reach. Cat's response seems actually atypical for her region of origin. But then again even the Northern Starks such as Rickard disapproved of his daughter picking up a lance or sword. We don't know exactly what happened in the North yet, but there is a story involving women trying to wield political and military power around the time of Dunk & Egg.

Given my love for Dorne I can't believe I didn't make the connection between anti-dornish bigotry & the Stormlanders and Reachmen's biases against female leaders & warriors.

[cgf]

On 12/16/2018 at 10:55 AM, Colonel Green said:

That's not true at all.  Firstly, the worship of the Old Gods is only practiced in the Vale among the mountain clans; the feudal society of the Vale, the culture that put Jeyne Arryn in charge, is Andal/Faith to the core.

Indeed, the only two ruling ladies of one of the Seven Kingdoms in the Targaryen era (that we know of) are Faith-dominated ones, between Lady Jeyne and the infant Lady Cerelle Lannister.  Cerelle, of course, didn't live to actually take power.

Meanwhile, the North, the only kingdom where the rule of the Old Gods predominates, rejected having a ruling lady when Cregan Stark's granddaughters were passed over in favour of their half-uncles.  Indeed, GRRM has been explicit that the North has never had a female ruler, unlike a few of the southern kingdoms.

The idea that the Faith is more sexist than the Old Gods just isn't supported by the text.

1

 

FWIW I wasn't suggesting the bolded in my original post.  I was getting more at the Faith vs the more-Valyrian perspective on the gods that the early dragonlords seem to display, rather than making a point about the Faith vs the Old Gods.

[sweetsunray]

On 12/16/2018 at 6:59 PM, The Grey Wolf said:

The Royces might not follow the Old Gods. 

True. It's not explicitly stated that they follow Old Gods, but it was a Royce who united the houses against the Andal invasion in the Vale and was proclaimed king for it. Though he lost that battle at the spot where the Gates of the Moon were built and his kin knelt to the Arryn and Andals as rulers of the Vale region, it is not stated that they or any of the other houses who knelt to the Andals had to give up their faith. They still hold the rune shield as a prized memorandum of their origin, still send sons to the Wall as honorable, managed to arrange a marriage to a Stark daughter a few generations ago, etc. The Andal invasion of the Vale was not anti-Old Gods, but purely a territorial war. The clans of the Mountains of the Moon weren't chased off their lands for following Old Gods, but because they refused to accept Andals as lords or king. As a consequence they have had the least contact with the Faith, but as the Starks themselves reveal, having a septon, sept and thus being taught about the Faith does not necessarily alter the gods they follow. Bran wanted to be a knight and Ned Stark would have allowed Bran to become one, even one who does his vigil within the Faith's requirements, even though both obiously follow the Old Gods. Ned Stark was fostered to Jon Arryn at the Vale, and thus obviously taught about the Faith, yet he follows the Old Gods. So, just because the sons of a Royce are knights and dubbed Sir, does not disprove they do not keep to the Old Gods anymore.

The indirect evidence is mixed, hence I'd regard them as a house that assimilated enough Andal culture so their children could rise high in Andal culture, but equally held on to their First Men roots and traditions, which would include Old Gods.

[Lord Varys]

There is no reason to believe the Royces do not follow the Seven. All their men are knights. The idea is about as ridiculous as assuming the Three Singers and the foundations of the Hightower and the weirwood in Oldtown imply that the Hightowers and Tyrells do not follow the Seven, either.

Not to mention that the whole thing isn't really that much of a dichotomy since all the houses keeping a godswood technically follow and swear, etc. by the old gods and the new.