Warrior Women of Ice and Fire Part IV: Outlaws, Sellswords, Etc. (Spoilers Extended)
One thing that the ASOIAF is filled with is GRRM's different takes on warrior women. Due to the sheer number, the post became massive to I decided to break it up into 4 sections that I am going to post this week. Part I was about wildings, Part II was about members of Houses (and bastards), Part III will feature dragonriders and Part IV will have all the others (outlaws, sellswords, etc.).
Link to Part II: Highborn Characters
Link to Part III: Dragonriders
Warrior Women of Ice and Fire Part IV: Outlaws, Sellswords, Etc.
As I mentioned in Part I. My initial name for this post was "Warrior Maids" but Chella (featured in Part III) made (no pun intended) me change my mind:
Tyrion licked his fingers. "With pleasure," he said. "The fair maid is Chella daughter of Cheyk of the Black Ears.""I'm no maid," Chella protested. "My sons have taken fifty ears among them." -AGOT, Tyrion VII
Outlaws
If interested: Outlaws of Ice and Fire
Wenda the White Fawn
Wenda was young/fair and a member of the Kingswood Brotherhood, along with characters like the Smiling Knight and Simon Toyne.
Wenda was known to brand her highborn captives (most notably Merret Frey):
Merrett found himself shivering, despite his cloak. He pulled open his waterskin and had another drink of wine. I could just get back on my horse, ride to Oldtown, and drink the gold away. No good ever came from dealing with outlaws. That vile little bitch Wenda had burned a fawn into the cheek of his arse while she had him captive. -ASOS, Epilogue
Her fate (along with several other members of the kingswood brotherhood) is unknown.
Lady Stoneheart
I probably could have put her in the Highborn Characters section, but unCat obviously leads a band of outlaws.
Her appearance vastly differs from Wenda:
"A woman?" He would have thought that the White Fawn would have taught Merrett to stay clear of outlaw wenches. "There was a woman in the Kingswood Brotherhood as well.""I know of her." How not, her tone suggested, when she left her mark upon my husband? "The White Fawn was young and fair, they say. This hooded woman is neither. The peasants would have us believe that her face was torn and scarred, and her eyes terrible to look upon. They claim she led the outlaws." -AFFC, Jaime IV
Since LSH is discussed a ton, I'm going to leave this section brief and just shamelessly self promote a bit:
- Lady Stoneheart and Coldhands have the same character origin
- The Red Wedding 2.0
- Lady Stoneheart: A Major Character Going Forward
Swampy Meg
Only mentioned in the AFFC, Appendix. She is listed as outside of Lady Stoneheart's section. Which could mean she is elsewhere, with Edric Dayne, etc.
Outlaws and Broken Men
{BERIC DONDARRION}, once Lord of Blackhaven, six times slain,
EDRIC DAYNE, Lord of Starfall, a boy of twelve, Lord Beric's squire,
THE MAD HUNTSMAN of Stoney Sept, his sometime ally,
GREENBEARD, a Tyroshi sellsword, his uncertain friend,
ANGUY THE ARCHER, a bowman from the Dornish Marches
MERRIT O'MOONTOWN, WATTY THE MILLER, SWAMPY MEG, JON O' NUTEN, outlaws in his band -AFFC, Appendix
Chella
Chella is a clan chief of the Black Ears (one of the Vale Mountain clans). She is described as ugly and small and shaped like a boy. She has a throaty laugh.
It is custom among the Black Ears to take ears from the the opponents they slay in battle. Chella claims to have taken forty-six:
"Braver to leave the man alive, with a chance to cleanse his shame by winning back his ear," explained Chella, a small dark woman whose grisly neckware was hung with no less than forty-six dried, wrinkled ears. Tyrion had counted them once. "Only so can you prove you do not fear your enemies." -ACOK, Tyrion I
She is known to have fought on the Green Fork and taken 4 ears:
Chella daughter of Cheyk rode up as they were yanking arrows out of Shagga, and showed them four ears she had taken. -AGOT, Tyrion VIII
She is then used by Tyrion to guard Shea, etc. before being sent to harass Stannis in the Kingswood. After the Blackwater she was forced to flee back to the Mountains of Moon.
She also claims that her sons have 50 ears among them.
Poxy Jeyne Poore
Poxy Jeyne was a savage leader of the Poor Fellows in their campaign against Maegor the Cruel during the Faith Militant Uprising. Since the Poor Fellows allowed both men/women (unlike the Warrior's Sons) I assume there were many more unnamed women warriors as well.
In 45 AC Maegor launched a new campaign and targeted Jeyne's group of Poor Fellows, in which she was betrayed and declared a witch. Her public execution was a trap to lure out her remaining followers with Maegor's forces slaughtering at the ambush at the Wendwater. Jeyne's execution continued (she was possibly loosely based on Joan of Arc).
Mole's Town Whores
Zei
After Styr and the wildling raiding party attacks Castle Black, Zei flees Mole Town to Castle Black and proves herself good with a crossbow:
Noye had put the women and children to work as well. Those too young to fight would carry water and tend the fires, the Mole's Town midwife would assist Clydas and Maester Aemon with any wounded, and Three-Finger Hobb suddenly had more spit boys, kettle stirrers, and onion choppers than he knew what to do with. Two of the whores had even offered to fight, and had shown enough skill with the crossbow to be given a place on the steps forty feet up. -ASOS, Jon VII
After Jon dispatches her to Mole's Town, she flees:
When he had read that, Jon had dispatched Zei to Mole's Town on their best horse to plead with the villagers to help man the Wall. She never returned. When he sent Mully after her, he came back to report the whole village deserted, even the brothel. Most likely Zei had followed them, straight down the kingsroad. Maybe we should all do the same, Jon reflected glumly. -ASOS, Jon IX
Sellswords
Pretty Meris
Pretty Meris is a Westerosi member of the Windblown and is the company torturer.
"It's desertion whenever we do it," argued Gerris, "and the Tattered Prince takes a dim view of deserters. He'll send hunters after us, and Seven save us if they catch us. If we're lucky, they'll just chop off a foot to make sure we never run again. If we're unlucky, they'll give us to Pretty Meris."That last gave Quentyn pause. Pretty Meris frightened him. A Westerosi woman, but taller than he was, just a thumb under six feet. After twenty years amongst the free companies, there was nothing pretty about her, inside or out. -ADWD, The Windblown
and:
"Meris will command you," said the Tattered Prince. "She knows my mind in this … and Daenerys Targaryen may be more accepting of another woman."**Quentyn glanced back to Pretty Meris. When her cold dead eyes met his, he felt a shiver. I do not like this.**Dick Straw still had doubts as well. "The girl would be a fool to trust us. Even with Meris. Especially with Meris. Hell, I don't trust Meris, and I've fucked her a few times." He grinned, but no one laughed. Least of all Pretty Meris."I think you are mistaken, Dick," the Tattered Prince said. "You are all Westerosi. Friends from home. You speak her same tongue, worship her same gods. As for motive, all of you have suffered wrongs at my hands. ... Meris was raped half round the company. Not this company, true, but we need not mention that. ... -ADWD, The Windblown
and:
When Daario brought them forward, she saw that one of them was a woman, big and blond and all in mail. "Pretty Meris," her captain named her, though pretty was the last thing Dany would have called her. She was six feet tall and earless, with a slit nose, deep scars in both cheeks, and the coldest eyes the queen had ever seen. As for the rest … -ADWD, Daenerys VII
and:
Caggo Corpsekiller was pacing by the wine vats, his black arakh hanging at his hip. Pretty Meris stood cradling a crossbow, her eyes as cold and dead as two grey stones. Denzo D'han barred the door once the Dornishmen were inside, then took up a position in front of it, arms crossed against his chest...."That will not be necessary," said Quentyn**. If the talk he had heard was true, beneath that shirt Pretty Meris had only the scars left by the men who'd cut her breasts off.** "Meris is a woman, I agree. You've still twisted the terms. -ADWD, The Spurned Suitor
Before she and the rest of the Windblown leave Quentyn and flee, Meris has a small encounter with a Viserion (who mistakes her for Dany).
If you are interested, some speculation on some members of the Windblown: Hiding Amongst the Windblown.
Also please check out u/joemagician's theory about Brienne/Pretty Meris and the 5 year gap.
Penny
I'm only half serious, but is allowed to stay with the Second Sons (not officially joining).
Penny sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. "What about me? Can I sign too?""I think not. Some free companies have been known to take women, but … well, they are not Second Daughters, after all." -ADWD, Tyrion XII
Summer Islanders
Wars on the Summer Isles seldom last longer than a day, and do no harm to any but the warriors themselves. No crops are destroyed, no homes are put to the torch, no cities are sacked, no children are harmed, no women are raped (though warrior women oft fight beside their men in the line of battle). Even the defeated princes suffer neither death nor disfigurement though they must leave their homes and palaces to spend the remainder of their days in exile. -TWOIAF, Beyond the Free Cities: The Summer Isles
Kojja Mo
She is the daughter of Quhuru Mo (captain of the Cinnamon Wind). She captains the ship's red archers and slays a dozen pirates protecting her ship/Sam/Gilly.
Kojja Mo was the captain's daughter, taller than Sam and slender as a spear, with skin as black and smooth as polished jet. She captained the ship's red archers too, and pulled a double-curved goldenheart bow that could send a shaft four hundred yards. When the pirates had attacked them in the Stepstones, Kojja's arrows had slain a dozen of them whilst Sam's own shafts were falling in the water. The only thing Kojja Mo loved better than her bow was bouncing Dalla's boy upon her knee and singing to him in the Summer Tongue. The wildling prince had become the darling of all the women in the crew, and Gilly seemed to trust them with him as she had never trusted any man. -AFFC, Samwell IV
So far the Cinnamon Wind has appeared in Qarth (Dany POV) as well as Sam's POV travels from Braavos to Oldtown. Marwyn has actually boarded it to head back to Slaver's Bay (with a stop in the Summer Islands)
If you are interested in following the Cinnamon Wind on its journey throughout the story please read: All Aboard! The Journeys of the Cinnamon Wind
Xanda Qo
A princess of Sweet Lotus Vale in the Summer Islands, she was also the mother of Chatana Qo.
Xanda ended slavery and united the Summer Islands. She in the inventor of the famous goldenheart bow (from a special wood found only in the Summer Islands and illegal to export).
The histories carved into the Talking Trees tell us that these "Years of Shame" endured for the better part of two centuries, **until a warrior woman named Xanda Qo, Princess of Sweet Lotus Vale (who had herself been enslaved for a time), united all the islands under her rule and made an end to it.**As iron was scarce and costly in the isles, armor was little known, and the long thrusting spears and short stabbing spears traditional amongst the Summer Islanders had proved of little worth against the steel swords and axes of the slavers, so **Xanda Qo armed her sailors with tall bows of goldenheart, a wood found only on Jhala and Omboru. These great bows far outranged the recurved bows of horn and sinew the slavers carried, and could throw a yard-long shaft hard enough to pierce through mail and boiled leather and even good steel plate.**To give her archers a solid platform from which to draw and loose, Xanda Qo built ships larger than any previously seen in the Summer Sea—tall graceful ships cunningly fit together without so much as a single nail, many walled with rare hardwoods of the isles made harder still with magics, so the rams of slaver ships cracked and splintered against their sides. As swift as they were strong, her ships oft sported tall, curved prows carved into the shapes of birds and beasts. These "swan necks" won them the sobriquet of "swan ships." -TWOIAF, Beyond the Free Cities: The Summer Isles
Chatana Qo aka The Arrow of Jhahar
The daughter and successor of Xanda, she fought a series of wars known as the Slavers' Wars
Though it took the best part of a generation, the Summer Islanders, led by Princess Xanda's daughter (and eventual successor) Chatana Qo, the Arrow of Jhahar, ultimately prevailed in what came to be known as the Slavers' Wars. Though the unity of the isles did not survive her own reign (for the Arrow wed unwisely and did not rule as well as she had fought) slavers even now will flee at the sight of a swan ship, for each of these proud vessels is known to carry a complement of deadly archers armed with goldenheart bows. To this day, the bowmen (and women) of the Summer Isles are esteemed the finest in the world. Nor can their bows be matched by common bows, for the princes of the isles have forbidden the export of goldenheart wood since the Slavers' Wars; only bows of dragonbone are known to surpass them, and those are exceedingly rare. --TWOIAF, Beyond the Free Cities: The Summer Isles
Pit Fighters
Barsena Blackhair
"Their names shall be graven on the Gates of Fate amongst the other valiant fallen," declared Barsena. For eight years she had slain every other woman sent against her, it was said. "All men must die, and women too … but not all will be remembered." -ADWD, Daenerys IIDaenerys would have prohibited contests between women as well, but Barsena Blackhair protested that she had as much right to risk her life as any man. -ADWD, Daenerys IX
Barsena later fights a boar (with allusions to Bobby B):
A roar went up as Barsena Blackhair strode onto the sands, naked save for breechclout and sandals. A tall, dark woman of some thirty years, she moved with the feral grace of a panther. "Barsena is much loved," Hizdahr said, as the sound swelled to fill the pit. "The bravest woman I have ever seen."Strong Belwas said, "Fighting girls is not so brave. Fighting Strong Belwas would be brave."The boar was a huge beast, with tusks as long as a man's forearm and small eyes that swam with rage. She wondered whether the boar that had killed Robert Baratheon had looked as fierce. A terrible creature and a terrible death. For a heartbeat she felt almost sorry for the Usurper."Barsena is very quick," Reznak said. "She will dance with the boar, Magnificence, and slice him when he passes near her. He will be awash in blood before he falls, you shall see."It began just as he said. The boar charged, Barsena spun aside, her blade flashed silver in the sun. "She needs a spear," Ser Barristan said, as Barsena vaulted over the beast's second charge. "That is no way to fight a boar." He sounded like someone's fussy old grandsire, just as Daario was always saying.Barsena's blade was running red, but the boar soon stopped. He is smarter than a bull, Dany realized. He will not charge again. Barsena came to the same realization. Shouting, she edged closer to the boar, tossing her knife from hand to hand. When the beast backed away, she cursed and slashed at his snout, trying to provoke him … and succeeding. This time her leap came an instant too late, and a tusk ripped her left leg open from knee to crotch.A moan went up from thirty thousand throats. Clutching at her torn leg, Barsena dropped her knife and tried to hobble off, but before she had gone two feet the boar was on her once again. Dany turned her face away. "Was that brave enough?" she asked Strong Belwas, as a scream rang out across the sand."Fighting pigs is brave, but it is not brave to scream so loud. It hurts Strong Belwas in the ears." The eunuch rubbed his swollen stomach, crisscrossed with old white scars. "It makes Strong Belwas sick in his belly too." -ADWD, Daenerys IX
She is then eaten by Drogo:
The tumult and the shouting died. Ten thousand voices stilled. Every eye turned skyward. A warm wind brushed Dany's cheeks, and above the beating of her heart she heard the sound of wings. Two spearmen dashed for shelter. The pitmaster froze where he stood. The boar went snuffling back to Barsena. Strong Belwas gave a moan, stumbled from his seat, and fell to his knees.Above them all the dragon turned, dark against the sun. His scales were black, his eyes and horns and spinal plates blood red. Ever the largest of her three, in the wild Drogon had grown larger still. His wings stretched twenty feet from tip to tip, black as jet. He flapped them once as he swept back above the sands, and the sound was like a clap of thunder. The boar raised his head, snorting … and flame engulfed him, black fire shot with red. Dany felt the wash of heat thirty feet away. The beast's dying scream sounded almost human. Drogon landed on the carcass and sank his claws into the smoking flesh. As he began to feed, he made no distinction between Barsena and the boar. -ADWD, Daenerys IX
Senerra She-Snake
Not far from them, about the ghastly monument the Great Masters called the Spire of Skulls, several hundred pit fighters had gathered. Selmy saw the Spotted Cat amongst them. Beside him stood Fearless Ithoke, and elsewhere Senerra She-Snake, Camarron of the Count, the Brindled Butcher, Togosh, Marrigo, Orlos the Catamite. Even Goghor the Giant was there, towering above the others like a man amongst boys. Freedom means something to them after all, it would seem. The pit fighters had more love for Hizdahr than they had ever shown Daenerys, but Selmy was glad to have them all the same. Some are even wearing armor, he observed. Perhaps his defeat of Khrazz had taught them something. -TWOW, Barristan I
I am 100 99.99% confident it doesn't mean anything but that just rolls off your tongue like Shiera Seastar
There are probably more, especially since we don't know the sex of dsome of the named pit fighters.
Faceless (Wo)Men
Very few Faceless Men have been women:
"My wants do not matter," said the kindly man. "It may be that the Many-Faced God has led you here to be His instrument, but when I look at you I see a child . . . and worse, a girl child. Many have served Him of Many Faces through the centuries, but only a few of His servants have been women. Women bring life into the world. We bring the gift of death. No one can do both." -AFFC, Arya II
And since Arya was included in the Highborn Character post, that only leaves:
The Waif
Appears like a young girl but is actually 36 years old.
The waif showed ten fingers. Then ten again, and yet again. Then six. Her face remained as smooth as still water. She can't be six-and-thirty, Arya thought. She's a little girl. "You're lying," she said. The waif shook her head and showed her once again: ten and ten and ten and six. **She said the words for six-and-thirty, and made Arya say them too.**The next day she told the kindly man what the waif had claimed. "She did not lie," the priest said, chuckling. "The one you call waif is a woman grown who has spent her life serving Him of Many Faces. She gave Him all she was, all she ever might have been, all the lives that were within her." -AFFC, Arya II
Poison makes her how she appears:
"No," he said, "not unless you wish it. It is the poisons that have made her as you see her."Poisons. She understood then. Every evening after prayer the waif emptied a stone flagon into the waters of the black pool. -AFFC, Arya II
Pirates
I completely forgot Pirates. Thanks u/MetroPicnicStalking.
Bellegere Otherys
The daughter of a Sealord of Braavos and a princess of the Summer Isles, she later was a lover of Aegon IV (Unworthy):
"The Black Pearl," she told them. Merry claimed the Black Pearl was the most famous courtesan of all. "She's descended from the dragons, that one," the woman had told Cat. "The first Black Pearl was a pirate queen. A Westerosi prince took her for a lover and got a daughter on her, who grew up to be a courtesan. Her own daughter followed her, and her daughter after her, until you get to this one. What did she say to you, Cat?" -AFFC, Cat of the Canals
and:
BELLEGERE OTHERYS (THE BLACK PEARL OF BRAAVOS): Smuggler, trader, sometime pirate, captain of the Widow Wind,
born of a union between a Braavosi merchant's daughter and an envoy from the Summer Isles(GRRM confirmed that she was the daughter of the sealord and a SI princess). After Naerys fell pregnant and almost died in 161, King Baelor sent Aegon to Braavos on a diplomatic mission. ... There he met Bellegere Otherys. His affair with the Black Pearl continued for ten years, though it was said that Bellegere had a husband in every port and that Aegon was but one of many. She gave birth to three children during the decade, two girls and a boy of doubtful paternity. Children by the Black Pearl: Bellenora, Narha, Balerion. -TWOIAF: The Targaryen Kings: Aegon IV
Korra the Cruel
"If we should encounter the Lady Korra on Hag's Teeth, you may soon be lacking other parts as well. Korra the Cruel, they call her. Her ship is crewed by beautiful young maids who geld every male they capture." -ADWD, Tyrion III
The Old Mother
THE OLD MOTHER: A pirate queen. -TWOIAF, The Targaryen Kings: Jaehaerys II
One of the Band of Nine who instigated the War of the Ninepenny Kings/Fifth Blackfyre Rebellion, trying to carve out kingdoms for themselves.
Beyond the Free Cities
Malazza
Also known as the Girl General, she is a Yunkai noble who commands an army of slave soldiers:
Then there was the Girl General, who rode about on a white horse with a red mane and commanded a hundred strapping slave soldiers that she had bred and trained herself, all of them young, lean, rippling with muscle, and naked but for breechclouts, yellow cloaks, and long bronze shields with erotic inlays. Their mistress could not have been more than sixteen and fancied herself Yunkai's own Daenerys Targaryen. -ADWD, The Windblown
She also bid on Tyrion at one point:
"Twenty-five hundred." A female voice this time; a girl, short, with a thick waist and heavy bosom, clad in ornate armor. Her sculpted black steel breastplate was inlaid in gold and showed a harpy rising with chains dangling from her claws. A pair of slave soldiers lifted her to shoulder height on a shield. -ADWD, Tyrion X
The Yunkai commanders switch ultimate command constantly and it causes confusion about orders.
Rhoynish
By and large a peaceful people, the Rhoynar could be formidable when roused to wroth, as many a would-be Andal conqueror learned to his sorrow. The Rhoynish warrior with his silver-scaled armor, fish-head helm, tall spear, and turtle-shell shield was esteemed and feared by all those who faced him in battle. It was said the Mother Rhoyne herself whispered to her children of every threat, that the Rhoynar princes wielded strange, uncanny powers, that Rhoynish women fought as fiercely as Rhoynish men, and that their cities were protected by "watery walls" that would rise to drown any foe. -TWOIAF: Ancient History: Ten Thousand Ships
and:
It is said that, amongst the Rhoynar who came to Dorne with Nymeria, eight of every ten were women...but a quarter of those were warriors, in the Rhoynish tradition, and even those who did not fight had been hardened during their travels and travails. As well, thousands who had been boys when fleeing the Rhoyne had grown into manhood and taken up the spear during their years of wandering. By joining with the newcomers, the Martells increased the size of their host by tenfold. -TWOIAF, Ancient History: Ten Thousand Ships
The Kingdom of Sarnor
Their riders wore steel and spider silk and rode coal-black mares, whilst the greatest of their warriors went to battle in scythed chariots pulled by teams of bloodred horses (oft driven by their wives or daughters, for it was the custom amongst the Sarnori for men and women to make war together). -TWOIAF, Beyond the Free Cities: The Grasslands
The sister cities of Kayakayanaya, Bayasabhad, and Samyriana
Remnants of the Patrimony of Hyrkoon, the sister cities are defended by women. They the three roads into the Bone Mountains:
The Dothraki remain nomads still, a savage and wild people who prefer tents to palaces. Seldom still, the khals drive their great herds of horses and goats endlessly across their "sea," fighting one another when they meet and occasionally moving beyond the borders of their own lands for slaves and plunder, or to claim the "gifts" that the magisters and triarchs of the Free Cities bestow upon them whenever they chance to wander too far west. It is said that the fortress cities of Bayasabhad, Samyriana, and Kayakayanaya are defended by women out of the belief that those who give birth are the only ones permitted to take life at will. The True Account of Addam of Duskendale's Journeys, a merchant's account of his alleged travels in eastern Essos, provides little further insight into these matters, or any others that scholars are interested in, and instead spends most of its time finding ways to remind readers that the warrior women walk about barebreasted and decorate their cheeks and nipples with ruby studs and iron rings. -TWOIAF, Beyond the Free Cities: The Grasslands
and:
Even along these well-traveled routes, crossing the Bones remains grueling and hazardous...and safe passage comes at a price, for on the far side of the mountains stand three mighty fortress cities, last remnants of the once great Patrimony of Hyrkoon. Bayasabhad, the City of Serpents, guards the eastern end of the Sand Road and exacts tribute from all those who seek to pass. The Stone Road, with its deep defiles and endless, narrow switchbacks, passes beneath the walls of Samyriana, a grey stone city carved into the very rock of the mountains it defends. In the north, fur-clad warriors ride the Steel Road over swaying bridges and through underground passageways, escorting caravans to and from Kayakayanaya, whose walls are black basalt, black iron, and yellow bone.**Many accounts inform us that the mountain warriors of Kayakayanaya, Samyriana, and Bayasabhad are all women, daughters of the Great Fathers who rule these cities, where girls learn to ride and climb before they learn to walk, and are schooled in the arts of the bow, the spear, the knife, and the sling from earliest childhood. Lomas Longstrider himself tells us that there are no fiercer fighters on all the earth. As for their brothers, the sons of the Great Fathers, ninety-nine of every hundred are gelded when they reach the age of manhood and live out their lives as eunuchs, serving their cities as scribes, priests, scholars, servants, cooks, farmers, and craftsmen. Only the most promising males, the largest and strongest and most comely, are permitted to mature and breed and become Great Fathers themselves in their turns. Maester Naylin's Rubies and Iron—named for the penchant of the warrior women to wear iron rings in their nipples and rubies in their cheeks—speculates on the circumstances that led to such strange customs.**The three fortress cities began as true forts, outposts and garrisons raised up by the Patriarchs of Hyrkoon to guard the western marches of their realm against the brigands, outlaws, and wild men of the Bones, and the savages who dwelt beyond them. Over the centuries, however, the citadels grew into cities, whilst Hyrkoon itself withered into dust, as its lakes and rivers dried away and its once-fertile fields turned to desert. Today the heartland of Hyrkoon is the Great Sand Sea, a vast wasteland of restless dunes, dry riverbeds, and ruined forts and towns baking beneath the sun. Water is said to boil away, it is so hot in the deep, southern portions of the sea. -TWOIAF, The Bones and Beyond
and:
Before the Dry Times and the coming of the Great Sand Sea, the Jogos Nhai fought many a bloody border war against the Patrimony of Hyrkoon as well, poisoning rivers and wells, burning towns and cities, and carrying off thousands into slavery on the plains, whilst the Hyrkoon for their part were sacrificing tens of thousands of the zorse-riders to their dark and hungry gods. The enmity between the nomads and the warrior women of the Bones runs deep and bitter to this very day, and over the centuries a dozen jhattars have led armies up the Steel Road. Thus far all these assaults have broken against the walls of Kayakayanaya, yet the moonsingers still sing of the glorious day to come when the Jogos Nhai shall prevail and spill over the mountains to claim the fertile lands beyond. -TWOIAF, The Bones and Beyond: The Plains of the Jogos Nhai
Zhea
Zhea was the first Jhattar of the Jogos Nhai which was formerly maid up of small bands. The banded together to fight Yi Ti (seemingly like Genghis Khan):
At last the nomads, facing the extinction of their race, did what they had never done before. **A thousand rival clans joined together and raised up a jhattar, a woman in man's mail named Zhea. Known as Zhea the Barren, Zhea Zorseface, and Zhea the Cruel, and famed even then for her cunning, she is remembered to this day in the Golden Empire of Yi Ti, where mothers whisper her name to frighten unruly children into obedience.**In courage, valor, and skill at arms, Lo Bu had no peer, but in cunning he proved to be no match for Zhea. The war between the young emperor and the wizened jhattar lasted less than two years. **Zhea isolated each of Lo Bu's thirteen armies, slew their scouts and foragers, starved them, denied them water, led them into wastelands and traps, and destroyed them each in turn. Finally her swift riders descended upon Lo Bu's own host, in a night of carnage and slaughter so terrible that every stream for twenty leagues around was choked with blood.**Amongst the slain was Lo Bu himself, the forty-third and last of the scarlet emperors. When his severed head was presented to Zhea, she commanded that the flesh be stripped from the bone, so that his skull might be dipped in gold and made into her drinking cup. From that time to this, every jhattar of the Jogos Nhai has drunk fermented zorse milk from the gilded skull of the Boy Too Bold By Half, as Lo Bu is remembered. -TWOIAF, The Bones and Beyond: The Plains of the Jogos Nhai
Thoughts/Theories
What originally started as one post ended up as four. While I know some people dislike the warrior woman trope, I appreciate the variety and depth that GRRM went to in order to create these different groups and factions.
I wanted to present my female characters in great diversity, even in a society as sexist and patriarchal as the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros**. Women would find different roles and different personalities, so women with different talents would find ways to work with it in a society according to who they are.** -GRRM
TLDR: The final part of a series on warrior women. This one lists outlaws, sellswords, pit fighters, etc.
Posted Dec 1, 2020, 3:11 PM UTC · edited