“I decided not to waste my years planning dances and masquerades with the other noble ladies.”

Stop. No. Bad. Wrong.

That is a line from 2.08 (“The Prince of Winterfell), from Talisa Maegyr to Robb Stark in one of their relationship development scenes. The line is meant to demonstrate that Talisa is not shallow, that she wishes to do something of substance with her life. While being a battlefield nurse is undoubtedly admirable, the denigration of dances and masquerades here is part misogyny, part misconception. The misogyny comes in where for Talisa to be a “worthy” love interest, she must express distaste for feminine-coded pleasures, and she must almost word for word be “not like other women”. This is emphasised by the beginning of her monologue, where she says “I was raised to be the perfect little lady. To play the harp, and dance the latest steps, and recite Valyrian poetry,” in such a way that shows she has turned her back on these things.

Liking balls and parties is not inherently shallow as the line implies. Everyone’s got something they enjoy. If you’re one of those people who like parties, A+, I hope you have a great time when next you go out. (If you’re not, also A+, I hope you enjoy your quiet evening wherever.)

Second, and the topic of the majority of this post, is the misconception. The sheer history fail and textual comprehension fail of this line is so great it’s hard to adequately express it. Throughout history, parties amongst the aristocracy have been anything but a waste of time. If courtesy is to be your armour, then a party will be your battlefield.

Balls, parties, dances, masquerades, feasts and tourneys are all a public exercise of power. Choosing who to invite, what to wear, what food to serve, and what entertainment was presented were all political statements. And like all political statements, they could be radical and dangerous. Just hosting a party could be a powerful statement. After Catherine of Aragon died in January 1536, Henry VIII used parties to scorn his dead wife. Eustace Chapuys (the fabulously snarky Spanish ambassador to England) was outraged at this; under ordinary circumstances, the death of a Queen meant that there should be no feasting, and definitely no dancing. Instead, Henry was summoning nobles to court and dancing with Anne Boleyn and her ladies, while they were all dressed from head to toe in yellow, the colour of joy.

Famously, Elizabeth I used to ‘forgive’ relatives of traitors by attending a feast, hunting party or other festivity at their estate. She would bring her entire court, publicly reconcile with the host, and then leave them with a ruinously expensive bill to make sure they couldn’t raise enough money to cause trouble. And because it was an honour to host the Queen, they couldn’t object. They couldn’t even sit down without the Queen’s permission.

Elizabeth also made her Ascension Day a national holiday, and used it to further the cult of personality that had grown around her. Never before had the ascension of a ruler to the throne been celebrated to this degree. Her courtiers would use this holiday as an attempt to impress her, or earn her forgiveness. For example, the Earl of Essex attended the Ascension Day joust in 1590 carried on a bier by attendants as the head of a funeral procession dressed in black armour, meant to show how ashamed he felt about failing to subdue the Irish. Elizabeth was apparently not impressed by this display of contrition.



The fashions of the court were also important, with imitation being the highest form of flattery. Anne Boleyn insisted her ladies-in-waiting wore French gowns to all public appearances. This showed not only her personal power by further isolating Catherine of Aragon from the day to day life of the Tudor court, but also her support for an alliance with France rather than Spain.



Henry VII held Arthurian-themed parties to remind people that the Tudors claimed to be descended from King Arthur (a handy lie when their claim to the throne was as dubious as Henry’s). The notably stingy Henry also revived the Round Table Tournaments in England during his reign. He later named his first son Arthur, just to really rub it in. Henry VIII (possibly to make up for the fact that he wasn’t called Arthur) took his father’s round table and painted his face on it.



Elizabeth I was also fond of Arthurian-themed parties, with a play at her coronation celebrations stressing the rightness of Tudor rule as the descendants of King Arthur, and a masque in 1570 celebrated the superiority of Arthur’s descendants, the Tudors. These public affirmations of power and supposed ancestry were critical for a dynasty with such a shaky claim to the throne. Mary, Queen of Scots co-opted the Arthurian imagery her English relatives were so fond of at a feast to celebrate the baptism of her son in 1566. The prominent use of such imagery at a feast with international ambassadors and half the Scottish nobility present (with her Scottish son depicted as the Once and Future King) was a direct attack on Elizabeth.

Note that all of these examples are from England alone, drawn from a less than 150-year period. There are, naturally, a lot more examples through history. A lot more.

But this is a fantasy show! Who cares about stuffy old history, right? Those people have been dead for ages.

Then I see your historical parties and raise you a whole bunch of in-book-universe examples of people being concerned with balls, parties, and public entertainment in general. We have Ned Stark, who told his sons that the way to cement the hill clans’ loyalty was through feasting with them. (ADWD, Jon IV) We have Catelyn Stark, who instantly sees that the poor food at the Red Wedding was meant to be an insult to Robb. Admittedly it was the least of her problems with the party planning. (ASOS, Catelyn VII) We have Robb Stark, who hosts his father’s bannermen at Winterfell, each in their turn, to win their respect and their armies for his campaign south. (AGOT, Bran VI) We have Sansa Stark, who wears “silvery satin trimmed with vair” - in other words, a grey gown trimmed with white fur - to the Purple Wedding, an occasion meant to be the Lannister-Tyrell Power Hour. (ASOS, Tyrion VIII) We have Bran Stark, who must host the harvest feast at Winterfell in his older brother’s stead, and sends certain foods to certain people as a means to demonstrate what he thinks of them. (ACOK, Bran III) Jon Snow takes note of which Night’s Watchmen absent themselves from the wedding of Alys Karstark to the Magnar of Thenn, in order to gauge the mood in his own camp. (ADWD, Jon X)

Tyrion and Cersei Lannister understand full well the problems of seating arrangements at a party: Oberyn Martell, as a prince of Dorne, must be seated in a place of high honour at Joffrey’s wedding, nor should he be offered the insult of refusing to seat his bastard-born paramour with him, but said paramour cannot be seated at the high table. Nor can any of the Dornish party be sat near the Tyrells. (ASOS, Tyrion VIII) Early in AFFC, Cersei instructs her son Tommen that he is to look “a proper king” for his grandfather’s wake, (AFFC, Cersei II) and she knows that she must attend Tommen’s wedding feast with all good grace if she wishes to keep Tyrell support. (AFFC, Cersei III)

Renly Baratheon had a knack for image management as well, and he used tourneys to full effect, finding a balance between partying and the martial prowess the Westerosi value in their male leaders. As Stannis asks, “What has Renly ever done to earn a throne? […] At tourneys he dons his splendid suit of armour and allows himself to be knocked off his horse by a better man. That is the sum of my brother Renly, who thinks he ought to be a king.” (ACOK, Prologue. Incidentally, Stannis’ own inability to appreciate, let alone replicate, the public performance of generosity and graciousness is a major weakness of his. I mean, no wonder nobody likes him when the prologue also tells us that Stannis “did not permit” laughter at his feasts.) Indeed, Renly’s very good at using chivalry to gather men to him, as Catelyn later observes. (ACOK, Catelyn II) The problem with Renly is that in the end Stannis is right - the image is the sum of him. There is no cattle, only hat. It does not negate the fact that the parties are something he does right.

Much of Dany’s ADWD arc involves her learning to perform Meereenese traditions correctly, from wearing the right clothing in the right way, to attending the right events (the fights in Daznak’s Pit, against her own moral code). She considers such things as part of the job of being queen. “The queen of the rabbits could not be seen without her floppy ears,” Dany thinks. (ADWD, Daenerys IX) She can’t just do the “right” thing, she has to be seen to do it, and in the right way.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of ASOIAF characters using the “dances and masquerades” the show scorns for their own ends. I mean, I haven’t even touched Tyrell image management, or Robert Baratheon’s greatest strength as a king. In universe, these balls and parties and tourneys and public events are a fact of political life. The people who attend them and the people who host them are not wasting their time. They are, in fact, on the job.

So then. If Talisa Maegyr really does disdain dances and masquerades that much, the history of our world and the general political environment of Westeros would both suggest that no matter how real her caring for the injured on the battlefield, she’d make a pretty rubbish Queen. Nor does the writers’ rush to insult parties and partygoers reflect particularly well on them.

*Major props to meddlingwithdragons for her historical expertise and assistance with this post. She gave me an off-the-cuff 45-minute lecture on this topic when I mentioned this line to her. Then she started sputtering with outrage when I reminded her this line was said by the future Queen in the North rather than about Sansa Stark, as she originally assumed. Thus a 15-word line became a 1500+ word essay.