Reading Women In Westoros

[Lady Lea]

Arguable. Unless you're saying that this is the perception Westerosi have of them. But Maesters are ambitious, if not individually, as an order, and there's no one more powerful than he who partakes the lord's secrets and fears and longings, and none of his responsibility, as Lady Dustin said.

Yes I'm talking about Westerosi perception. I can't really see someone like Randyll appreciating the true power a maester can have.

[ARYa_Nym]

Arya asked Ned if she could be a king's councillor and he basically said no.

"Can I be a king's councillor and build castles and become the High Septon?" "You," Ned said, kissing her lightly on the brow, "will marry a king and rule his castle, and your sons will be knights and princes and lords and, yes perhaps even a High Septon."

Good Queen Alysanne fulfilled that role for Jaehaerys I but it wasn't the norm for a Targaryen queen to have so much influence.

You might consider Alysanne as the Eleanor of Aquitaine of Westeros, and model her on Katherine Hepburn's portrayal of Eleanor in the film THE LION IS WINTER. Tall and straight, unbowed by time, she had high cheekbones, clear blue eyes. Age left crow's feet around her eyes and laugh lines about her mouth, but her face never lost its strength. She was a fine archer and hunter in her youth, and loved to fly atop her dragon to all the distant parts of the realm. Alysanne was slim of waist and small of breast, with a long neck, a fair complexion, a high forehead. In old age her hair turned white as snow. She wore it in a bun, pulled back and pinned behind her hear.

Her relationship with King Jaehaerys was always very close. She was his most trusted counselor and his right hand, and often wore a slimmer, more feminine version of his crown at court. Beloved by the common people of Westeros, she loved them in return, and was renowned for her charities.

http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/Good_Queen_Alysanne_and_Rhaenyra/

Elaena was good with money/sums.

Never regarded as a great beauty like her sisters, Elaena proved to be one of those women whose features improve with age, and men said she was more beautiful at seventy than she had been at seventeen. She was shrewd and intelligent as well, especially with money. Though her second husband sat on the king's small council as master of coin, it was widely known that it was Elaena who actually performed all the duties of the office.

http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/Three_Maidens_in_the_Tower/

Naerys liked poetry. She wanted to be a septa.

The sister of King Aegon the Unworthy and Prince Aemon the Dragonknight was beautiful as well, but hers was a very fine and delicate beauty, almost unworldy. She was a wisp of a woman, smaller even than Dany (to whom she bears a certain resemblence), very slender, with big purple eyes and fine, pale, porcelain skin, near translucent. Naerys had none of Dany's strength, however. She was sickly as a child and almost died in the cradle; thereafter she found most physical activity to be very taxing. She loved music and poetry, played the harp very well, enjoyed sewing and embroidering. She was devout as well, and often found solace in the pages of The Seven-Pointed Star. After the birth of her son, she begged Aegon to have the Faith release her from her marriage vows so she could become a septa, but he refused.

http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/Naerys_Targaryen/

Arya, Missandei, and Shiera have knowledge with foreign languages.

Unrelated but both Catelyn and Rhaenyra were groomed to be their father's heirs and had to sit in on meetings and things like that.

[Lady Lea]

Unrelated but both Catelyn and Rhaenyra were groomed to be their father's heirs and had to sit in on meetings and things like that.

True. Cat had a very "male" upbringing.

ETA: Thanks so much, Arya_Nym, for bringing the quotes to this topic! It's really helpful

[Dimadick]

Lady Lea suggested I bring my thought that scholarly learning among women hasn't been mentioned in the series (that I can recall) and it's been said in the masculinity thread (and I agree) that this isn't considered masculine either, so I'm not sure what to make of it. Where does academic learning fit in the paradigm of gender expectations, or does it fit at all?

We have an interesting insight on the subject due to Loras Tyrell and Arianne Martell

*Loras, paragon of chivalry, is barely literate. Assuming he can actually read. His impressions of the White Book consist entirely of looking at its pictures, not the text. "I have glanced at it. The shields are pretty. I prefer books with more illuminations".

*We learn from him that there is a market for illustrated pornography books in Westeros: "Lord Renly owned a few [books] with drawings that would turn a septon blind".

*And apparently what is the prevalent attitude towards learning: "Lord Renly always said that books were for maesters".

*Conversely Arianne is well-educated. But finds the reading material available to her during captivity uninspiring: "The books that they had given her were deadly dull:ponderous old histories and geographies, annotated maps, a dry-as-dust study of the laws of Dorne, The Seven-Pointed Star and Lives of the High Septons, a huge tome about dragons that somehow made them about as interesting as newts. Arianne would have given much and more for a copy of Ten Thousand Ships or The Loves of Queen Nymeria, anything to occupy her thoughts and let her escape her tower for an hour or two."

The proper literary material for girls seems to be more serious than those intended for boys.

[Dimadick]

Oh yeah, Dany has the story book that Jorah gave her, innit?

She uses it to loose herself "in other times and other places". But as a source on information, she finds it frustratingly inadequate: "The fat leather-bound volume was full of songs and stories from the Seven Kingdoms. Children's stories, if truth be told; too simple and fanciful to be true history. All the heroes were tall and handsome, and you could tell the traitors by their shifty eyes."

[Dimadick]

I wonder what kind of stuff Asha reads.

No idea. She doesn't seem to own her own library. She just had access to that of her maternal uncle. Rodrik Harlaw: "Days and nights lost amongst her uncle's wealth of books". She was forbiddeen however to bring food and drink with her into the library. Harlaw does not want to risk any harm to his books. On stage, Asha asked Harlaw to lent her the "History of the Ironborn" by Haereg, trying to glint information on kingsmoots and their procedures.

By the way, Harlaw has his own problems with how his fellow Ironborn perceive him: "His love of written words, which so many ironborn found unmanly and perverse."As for the man himself, he has a taste for the writings of Archmaester Marwyn.

[Dimadick]

Yes Asha being quite the gender bender herself can probably understand her uncle not being into raping and pillaging.

Asha herself has fond memories of trading. "Robert sat the Iron Throne, Balon brooded on the Seastone Chair, and the Seven Kingdoms were at peace. Asha sailed the Black Wind down the coast, trading. They called at Fair Isle and Lannisport and a score of smaller ports before reaching the Arbor, where the peaches were always huge and sweet.... Happy as she'd ever been. Was that six years ago, or seven? Summer was a fading memory, and it had been three years since Asha last enjoyed a peach."

[Dimadick]

Arya, Missandei, and Shiera have knowledge with foreign languages.

Daenerys speaks the Common Tongue, High Valyrian, has some familiarity with Bastard Valyrian, and uses Dothraki terminology. On occassion, she has feigned ignorance of one tongue or another to fool opponents. In Astapor the slavers conversed freely in front of the ignorant savage, unaware she fully understood their language.

[Lyanna Stark]

She uses it to loose herself "in other times and other places". But as a source on information, she finds it frustratingly inadequate: "The fat leather-bound volume was full of songs and stories from the Seven Kingdoms. Children's stories, if truth be told; too simple and fanciful to be true history. All the heroes were tall and handsome, and you could tell the traitors by their shifty eyes."

I wonder if Dany is reading the same stories as Sansa did, since she was all about the songs and stories? :) And she seemed to more or less believe that bad people had shifty eyes, too.

Daenerys speaks the Common Tongue, High Valyrian, has some familiarity with Bastard Valyrian, and uses Dothraki terminology. On occassion, she has feigned ignorance of one tongue or another to fool opponents. In Astapor the slavers conversed freely in front of the ignorant savage, unaware she fully understood their language.

Yes, that is a good point, and something that I think is reflected in both Dany's and Sansa/Arya's reading: they read well enough, but it's perhaps not a wide enough selection of materials, and without a teacher that can instruct them in critical thinking and how to put the material into a larger context.

I tend to think Dany (and Sansa and Arya) are really clever, they are just missing certain pieces of information and haven't made the deductions yet.

The proper literary material for girls seems to be more serious than those intended for boys.

Perhaps this is due to how girls were expected to grow up into proper ladies and the preferred reading material was stuff that fit with that role, like perhaps the Seven Pointed star, stuff about heraldry and etiquette, while recreational reading seems to have been songs, stories and at least in Sansa's case romance novels!

[Maia]

Daenerys speaks the Common Tongue, High Valyrian, has some familiarity with Bastard Valyrian, and uses Dothraki terminology.

Um, Dany speaks Dothraki fluently, speaks several dialects of bastard Valyrian (it has been noted that she switched to Common tongue when first meeting Jorah, IIRC) and by now also speaks Ghiscari after a fashion.

Not sure why Arya is mentioned together with Missandei, Arya has only became fluent in Braavosi dialect recently, still has strong accent and IIRC is struggling to learn High Valyrian. Unclear how literate she is with them either. While Missandei is a genius with languages, both in speech and in writing.

Sansa not only liked to read - though, curiously we never saw her doing it in KL. She also wrote poetry. Which is supposed to be a feminine art too, seemingly.

[The Roaring Bear]

We have an interesting insight on the subject due to Loras Tyrell and Arianne Martell

*Loras, paragon of chivalry, is barely literate. Assuming he can actually read. His impressions of the White Book consist entirely of looking at its pictures, not the text. "I have glanced at it. The shields are pretty. I prefer books with more illuminations".

*We learn from him that there is a market for illustrated pornography books in Westeros: "Lord Renly owned a few [books] with drawings that would turn a septon blind".

*And apparently what is the prevalent attitude towards learning: "Lord Renly always said that books were for maesters".

*Conversely Arianne is well-educated. But finds the reading material available to her during captivity uninspiring: "The books that they had given her were deadly dull:ponderous old histories and geographies, annotated maps, a dry-as-dust study of the laws of Dorne, The Seven-Pointed Star and Lives of the High Septons, a huge tome about dragons that somehow made them about as interesting as newts. Arianne would have given much and more for a copy of Ten Thousand Ships or The Loves of Queen Nymeria, anything to occupy her thoughts and let her escape her tower for an hour or two."

The proper literary material for girls seems to be more serious than those intended for boys.

I dont think this is so much showing the literary material intended for girls as it is Doran trying to get his daughter caught up to speed on events that are about to occur, where she will need to know the histories, understand the religion, understand Dragons and geographies so that when the dragons arrive and change what she knows, she will understand that things werent always that way and wont always be that way.

Its Doran, preparing his daughter for the upcoming war.

[ARYa_Nym]

Not sure why Arya is mentioned together with Missandei, Arya has only became fluent in Braavosi dialect recently, still has strong accent and IIRC is struggling to learn High Valyrian. Unclear how literate she is with them either. While Missandei is a genius with languages, both in speech and in writing.

Missandei is probably the smartest female/child character but there are other characters who can speak languages just not as well as her. Arya has lost most of her accent by ADWD. The KM just wanted her to improve her High Valyrian and learn the tongues of Lys and Pentos too.

[Ser_Patreck]

I dont think this is so much showing the literary material intended for girls as it is Doran trying to get his daughter caught up to speed on events that are about to occur, where she will need to know the histories, understand the religion, understand Dragons and geographies so that when the dragons arrive and change what she knows, she will understand that things werent always that way and wont always be that way.

Its Doran, preparing his daughter for the upcoming war.

This.

The books were Doran's (late, very late) attempts to initiate Arianne is his plans.

Notice:

The Seven-Pointed Star and Lives of the High Septons - He later sends Tyene to the Great Sept of Baelor. He plans to use the High Sparrow. The books were manual in how to do so.

Old stories and geographies, annotated maps - War, mostly. Annotated maps and geographies imply tactics, guerrilla warfare, knowing which positions to defend when push ocmes to shove, where to go. History points towards seeing which plans worked against which enemies. Or: Learn with past mistakes and successes.

A book on Dragons - When Dany and Quentyn come home as a married couple, help them with the beasts. Quentyn himself seems uniformed on dragons expect for some basic details, as is Daenerys. I believe Doran was trusting Quentyn's Maester to hold things up until the point they arrived in Westeros. Perhaps he was counting on the Dragon rapid growth, thinking they were still thigns Dany carried in his arms, I dunno.

Obviously, none of that works. Daenerys seems more interest in what sound as romanticized versions of Nymeria's triumph. Doran's fault, mostly - You don't let your child grow up shallow and mature in a month or two.

[A...]

This.

The books were Doran's (late, very late) attempts to initiate Arianne is his plans.

Notice:

The Seven-Pointed Star and Lives of the High Septons - He later sends Tyene to the Great Sept of Baelor. He plans to use the High Sparrow. The books were manual in how to do so.

Old stories and geographies, annotated maps - War, mostly. Annotated maps and geographies imply tactics, guerrilla warfare, knowing which positions to defend when push ocmes to shove, where to go. History points towards seeing which plans worked against which enemies. Or: Learn with past mistakes and successes.

A book on Dragons - When Dany and Quentyn come home as a married couple, help them with the beasts. Quentyn himself seems uniformed on dragons expect for some basic details, as is Daenerys. I believe Doran was trusting Quentyn's Maester to hold things up until the point they arrived in Westeros. Perhaps he was counting on the Dragon rapid growth, thinking they were still thigns Dany carried in his arms, I dunno.

Obviously, none of that works. Daenerys seems more interest in what sound as romanticized versions of Nymeria's triumph. Doran's fault, mostly - You don't let your child grow up shallow and mature in a month or two.

Definitely agree with all of this. On a similar note, the placing of the Cyvasse table was also strategic, as we learn later when Doran tells Arianne she should study the game before she attempts to play it. The reason both of these subtle attempts to educate his daughter don't work is a complete personality clash between father and daughter - Arianne would have wanted him to come straight out with his advice, while Doran is uncomfortable 'playing a game he cannot be sure of winning' - so he waits and he watches what Arianne will do, instead of actually instructing her in a useful way, his lessons only come after the grand fiasco of Arianne's plan, which is likely to lead Dorne into even more trouble due to Myrcella's injury.

If both of them could only get past their communication difficulties and learn to work together they might actually learn a lot from one another. (Arianne to take a hint and Doran to speak plainly instead of talking in riddles all the time)

[ARYa_Nym]

High Valyrian is a good skill because most people don't know it. I think the Stark kids had some semblance of knowledge of it but they probably were not fluent. Tyrion was able to read 2/10 glyphs and Moqorrro was able to read to Victarion.

Most people in Westeros, even among the nobility, do not know High Valyrian (III: 676

http://www.westeros....e/Section/1.1./

Gerris could speak it and Quentyn could read and write but barely speak it. Sweets was fluent in four tongues and knows High Valyrian. Sam only knew a little bit of it.

I think Arya understands it well but may need to improve on her speech. Arya is on her way to being fluent.

"...though once for several minutes three spoke heatedly in High Valyrian. The girl understood the words, mostly, but they spoke in soft voices, and she could not always hear."

When she first got to Braavos she was only familiar with the words that were similar to High Valyrian.

Arya only knew a few words of Braavosi, the ones that were the same in High Valyrian.

In Valyria one of the ways to advance oneself was through knowledge in sorcery.

Valyria at the zenith of its power was neither a kingdom nor an empire... or at least it had neither a king nor an emperor. It was more akin to the old Roman Republic, I suppose. In theory, the franchise included all "free holders," that is freeborn landowners. Of course in practice wealthy, highborn, and sorcerously powerful families came to dominate.

http://www.westeros....SSM/Entry/2999/

Lady Sereni was of Valyrian descent and had knowledge in the dark arts and supposedly passed this on to Shiera.. Perhaps women were permitted to practice sorcery in Valyria.

In the books there are many women who are associated with magic or could play the role of a "witch."

Quaithe is a shadowbinder. Melisandre is a red priestess as well as a shadowbinder. Then you have the maegi in MMD and Maggy the Frog. One of the Braavosi prostitutes Yna is also supposed to be a maegi.

Then you have woods witches like Mother mole. The Ghost of High Heart is known as one too but was claimed to be a COTF. The children sent the female Leaf to live amongst humans and learn the Common Tongue and watch and observe. She is one of the only COTF who are able to speak the Common Tongue.

Bran referred to Queen Nymeria as a witch queen but I'm not sure why.

Val and Dalla don't use magic but there are theories that they might be moonsingers. The moonsingers led former slaves to the hidden Braavos. They have the largest temple in Braavos.

"It was one of those that Arya had spied from the lagoon, a mighty mass of snow-white marble topped by a huge silvered dome whose milk glass windows showed all the phases of the moon. A pair of marble maidens flanked its gates, tall as the Sealords, supporting a crescent shaped lintel."

There were rumors that Sansa killed Joffrey with spells.

Wargs are known as beastlings and amongst the Westerosi they would probably want to hide that they are a warg.

The Targaryens have dragon dreams. Aenar Targaryen's daughter wrote the well-known book Signs and Portents.

Sign and Portents is a book of visions written by the maiden daughter of Aenar Targaryen before the Doom of Valyria.

[Natalie_S]

High Valyrian is a good skill because most people don't know it. I think the Stark kids had some semblance of knowledge of it. Tyrion was able to read 2/10 glyphs and Moqorrro was able to read to Victarion.

As a sidenote, Tyrion is quite fluent in High Valyrian since he reads scrolls in this language.

He can recognise just 2 glyphs out of 10 because those are in Low ("Bastard") Valyrian, as the Volantene language, the same problems that Arya and Sam experience with Braavosi.

[ARYa_Nym]

As a sidenote, Tyrion is quite fluent in High Valyrian since he reads scrolls in this language.

He can recognise just 2 glyphs out of 10 because those are in Low ("Bastard") Valyrian, as the Volantene language, the same problems that Arya and Sam experience with Braavosi.

Yes. He learned it from his maester.

"He had learned to read High Valyrian at his maester's knee, though in what they spoke in the Nine Free Cities...well, it was no so much a dialect as nine dialects on the way to becoming separate tongues. Tyrion had some Braavosi and a smattering of Myrish. In Tyrosh he would be able to curse the gods, call a man a cheat, and order up an ale, thanks to a sellsword he had once known at the Rock."

[Maia]

I don't think that Stark kids were taught High Valyrian. When Arya was comparing Sansa's educational achievements with her own it wasn't mentioned and there was no sign of this kind of knowledge in boys' PoVs either.

Arya was taught High Valyrian in the House of Black and White, IIRC.

Nor did we have any indication of Starks learning to play cyvasse.

Barristan Seems seems to have a very decent knowledge of Valyrian dialects, strangely enough, particularly considering that he was a heir to relatively small lord (or landed knight?) and then lived the life of a pure warrior. He seemed well on his way to pick up some Ghiscari too, despite his age. Maybe he is just talented with languages...

Cersei is an interesting case in puncto education of women who aren't heirs. She thought that she was short-changed and intended to be just a brood-mare, but was she, really? Or did she, in her inimitable Cersei fashion somewhat misunderstand things? Particularly since she is so disdainful of theoretical education, a trait she also passed on to Joff.

Yes, she was supposed to marry up and bedazzle, but did Tywin take her to court _only_ to show her off? Or was she also supposed to observe him in action and learn (as a son normally would)?

Because when we see her as Robert's wife/widow, she, not Jaime is a designated Lannister representative at court and is expected to promote the family's interests. Pycelle saw her that way and Lancel was ordered by Tywin to obey her, not Jaime.

Also, Cersei was expected to handle everything for the post-Robert regime - from taking hostages to making alliances and defending KL against Stannis, if he should sail. Also, she was expected to raise Joff to be a proper king. And it was a major shock to the elder Lannisters when she failed spectacularly.

But would they have had such lofty and gender-role defying expectations of her if they thought that she was in no way prepared?

Another interesting wrinkle in women's situation is that both their birth families and families they marry into want to count on their loyalties, which leads to conflict.

As seen with Cersei, whom Ned criticizes for being too loyal to House Lannister (and readers are led to agree with him) and Sansa, who is critisized for not being loyal enough to House Stark...

I also found it extremely interesting and illuminating when it was shown in one of the threads devoted to Sansa how Cersei's reaction to her almost (but fallen through) betrothal to Rhaegar was nearly identical to Sansa's to betrothal to Joffrey! With comparison to songs and tales and everything. That, despite Cersei growing up in a much more jaded and cynical House and IIRC already being a murderess at that point.

Jaime also seemed to retain his chivalric fairy-tale dreams until becoming KG or maybe even killing Aerys.

This puts accusations of Cat and/or septa Mordane filling Sansa's head with romancy nonsense in perspective, I think.

[Ser_Patreck]

I think Cersei's disappointment with the failed Rhaegar match was more of "I won't be Queen?! Because of a lame, ugly, sick Martell woman? But I'm prettier!!!" than "He doesn't correspond to my love! Woe is me, woe is me!".

Could be my general distaste for Cersei showing, tough, so take with a grain of salt.

[ARYa_Nym]

"Arya could not read the name painted on the hull; the words were strange, Myrish, Braavosi, perhaps even High Valyrian."..."She's the Wind Witch, out of Myr."

I definitely don't think the Starks were taught to read High Valyrian since Arya considered it strange letters in AGoT. Arya knew some words of High Valyrian before she started her language lessons since she understood the KM and the waif's prayers but could not understand Braavosi at the time. Obviously she did not have the prior knowledge to be fluent if the KM thinks that she still needs to improve in ADWD.

"Without a common language, Arya had no way of talking to the others…Some days the kindly man led the prayer. Other days it was the waif. Arya only knew a few words of Braavosi, the ones that were the same in High Valyrian."

I'm not sure why she knew the High Valyrian words. In AFFC, she said that the language lessons were even worse than sewing so it makes me think that she did not receive this type of education before.

"Even sewing was more fun than tongues, she told herself, after a night when she had forgotten half the words she thought she knew, and pronounced the other half so badly that the waif had laughed at her. My sentences are as crooked as my stitches used to be.If the girl had not been so small and starved, Arya would have smashed her stupid face. Instead she gnawed her lip. Too stupid to learn and too stupid to give up."

Perhaps the Stark kids knew a word here and there but could not speak or read the language and could not read Valyrian glyphs.