The father of the fantasy genre is J. R. R. Tolkien and George R. R. Martin has often spoken of Tolkien’s influence on his works. The authors are similar in their ability to create worlds that are rich and deep with their own unique histories, mythologies, and languages. But there is one specific area that stands in stark contrast. Females. Martin’s use of female characters to add depth and texture to his world is far superior to that of Tolkien’s. The Hobbit is void of any major female characters. We do not meet our first female character in Tolkien’s world until the end of The Fellowship of the Ring when Tolkien introduces us to Galadriel in Lothlorien. (I am excluding Goldberry since she is a one/off.) However, right out of the gate, in the second chapter of A Game of Thrones (the opening volume of his A Song of Ice and Fire), Martin establishes Catelyn Stark as a POV character, a clear sign of his intention to use female characters to help build his world and tell his story. Throughout A Game of Thrones, he masterfully uses Catelyn and her daughters to subtly, yet effectively, emphasize the differences in southron and northern cultures while establishing these female characters as archetypes for Southron and Northern Heroines.

Southron culture is dominated by Andal influence. It is characterized by faith in the Seven, knighthood, chivalry, tourneys, pageantry, courtesy, and courtly ambitions. The climate of the south is moderate and pleasant leading to a generally easier life for its inhabitants.

In Catelyn’s opening POV chapter of A Game of Thrones, Martin immediately establishes Catelyn as quintessentially Southron. “Born a Tully, at Riverrun far to the south.” She worships the Seven brought to Westeros by the Andals. “Catelyn had been anointed with the seven oils… She was of the Faith, like her father and grandfather.” Her husband even built her a small Sept to help her feel at home since the North kept to the old gods. “For her sake, Ned had built a small sept where she might sing to the seven faces of god, but the blood of the First Men still flowed in the veins of the Starks, and his own gods were the old ones.” It is to no avail. Even after 16 years of living in the north, Catelyn still feels out of place. “Not for the first time, she reflected on what a strange people these northerners were.”

In Catelyn II, we see the courtly ambition of a southron lady. “Sansa might someday be queen. Her sons could rule from the Wall to the mountains of Dorne.”

Catelyn is distinctly southron, the archetype for the Southron Heroine.

Martin uses Catelyn’s two daughters to further his contrast of the cultural differences between south and north.

Catelyn works to indoctrinate her daughters, Sansa and Arya, into the Southron culture. She has Septa Mordane teach them about the Seven, courtesy, needlework, and other womanly arts. Sansa embraces this southron education as we see from her development. “Sansa was too well bred to smile at her sister’s disgrace.” Sansa loves stories of knights and chivalry and thinks the world is a song. “All she wanted was for things to be nice and pretty, the way they were in the songs.” From Arya’s perspective, “Sansa had everything. Sansa could sew and dance and sing. She wrote poetry. She knew how to dress. She played the high harp and the bells.” Sansa even names her direwolf, Lady. “Sansa, of course, had named her pup “Lady.””

Along with representing the South through her embrace of southron culture, Sansa also personifies southron culture through her physical appearance. “Worse, she was beautiful. Sansa had gotten their mother’s fine high cheekbones and the thick auburn hair of the Tullys.” You know, the Tullys of Riverrun far to the south.

As a final valediction, Catelyn acknowledges the completeness of Sansa’s southron indoctrination. “Sansa would shine in the south.”

Unfortunately, it is Sansa’s southron courtly ambitions that lead her into despair when she informs Cersei of her father’s plans to return her to Winterfell. “They were going to take it all away; the tournaments and the court and her prince, everything.” She is taken captive when Ned is arrested for treason and held hostage and used as a pawn after his execution. However, it is also her southron education that helps her to survive. “What was it that Septa Mordane used to tell her? A lady’s armor is courtesy, that was it.” When Catelyn dies at the Red Wedding, it is Sansa who will carry the mantle as the Southron Heroine archetype.

The North is described as “the vast, cold, stony North” and “the vast and frigid realm of the Kings of Winter” and “less fertile than the reaches of the south.” The lack of Andal influence in the North means the Old Gods prevail; there are scant few knights, little pageantry and almost no tourneys. Northern culture is rugged and reflects the physical harshness of the region. “Their life is harder, and so they are hardened by it, and the pleasures that in the south are considered noble are thought childish and less worthy than the hunting and brawling that the Northmen love best.” The North is gritty, determined, and resilient.

If Sansa represents southron culture, that means Arya represents northern culture and indeed, she is northern through and through.

Arya is wild (willful) and fierce like the North. Jon thinks of Arya while at Castle Black, “And Arya… he missed her even more than Robb, skinny little thing that she was, all scraped knees and tangled hair and torn clothes, so fierce and willful.” Ned gives us a hint too, “it is past time that Arya learned the ways of a southron court.” Catelyn agrees, “the gods knew that Arya needed refinement.” Although we later see through Sansa, that Ned is not fully behind her conversion to a Southron Heroine. “One day she came back grinning her horsey grin, her hair all tangled and her clothes covered in mud, clutching a raggedy bunch of purple and green flowers for Father. Sansa kept hoping he would tell Arya to behave herself and act like the highborn lady she was supposed to be, but he never did, he only hugged her and thanked her for the flowers. That just made her worse.”

Arya does not like her southron education. “Jon gave her a curious look. “Shouldn’t you be working on your stitches, little sister?” Arya didn’t think it was funny. “I hate needlework!” she said with passion.” She was not good at the Southron arts she was being taught, but she excelled at riding a horse. “It hurt that the one thing Arya could do better than her sister was ride a horse.”

If Sansa personifies southron culture through her Tully beauty, Arya similarly personifies the northern culture through her physical appearance. When Arya looks at Sansa, she sees a southron Tully. Sansa sees the opposite in Arya, “Sansa could never understand how two sisters, born only two years apart, could be so different. It would have been easier if Arya had been a bastard, like their half brother Jon. She even looked like Jon, with the long face and brown hair of the Starks, and nothing of their lady mother in her face or her coloring.” In Arya’s own thoughts, she reflects on her appearance. “Her hair was a lusterless brown, and her face was long and solemn.” Arya wasn’t delicate and feminine like Sansa. “Sansa’s work is as pretty as she is,” Septa Mordane told their lady mother once. “She has such fine, delicate hands.” When Lady Catelyn had asked about Arya, the septa had sniffed. “Arya has the hands of a blacksmith.”

From the beginning, we see Arya developing into the Northern Heroine archetype. Arya names her direwolf, Nymeria, after a warrior. “Arya had named her after the warrior queen of the Rhoyne, who had led her people across the narrow sea. That had been a great scandal too.”

As Arya and Jon are preparing to part ways, she to Kings Landing and he to the Wall, Jon gives her a sword, demonstrating that he recognizes and validates her embracing this path. “By then Jon had pulled off the rags he’d wrapped it in. He held it out to her. Arya’s eyes went wide. Dark eyes, like his. “A sword,””

Ned hopes Arya will learn the ways of a southron court in Kings Landing, yet ends up arranging for Arya to take “dancing” lessons from Syrio Forel. It is in the middle of this very Northern Heroine archetype activity when Meryn Trant and five Lannister guardsmen come to take Arya hostage. With the help of Syrio, Arya is able to escape and avoids capture by killing a stable boy. In true Northern fashion, she is able to survive on the streets of Kings Landing scraping by catching pigeons and trading them for soup until Yoren discovers her in the crowd at Ned’s execution.

Catelyn’s death at the Red Wedding left Sansa to inherit the role of archetype for the Southron Heroine. It was a tipping point for Arya as well. After surviving her trials in Kings Landing and the Riverlands, Arya was presented an opportunity, through Sandor Clegane, to reunite with Catelyn at the Twins. Just as Arya was arriving at the Twins, the potential of returning to her Southron education was permanently forestalled with Catelyn’s death at the Red Wedding.

Fierce, gritty, resilient, and a survivor, Arya is the full embodiment of the northern culture in personality and appearance and is the archetype for a Northern Heroine.

The world that George R. R. Martin has built is a world of dichotomies. Ice and Fire. Male and Female. North and South. He could have laid out the differences in southern and northern cultures in many ways. He chose to use female characters. To use only men as Tolkien did would have somehow feel incomplete. By displacing a southron mother in the North and having each of her daughters embody one of the regions, Martin is able to paint a vivid picture of southron and northern cultures and customs. Contrasting the cultural differences between South and North through these heroines provides a level of texture and detail that is absent in Tolkien’s work. A Game of Thrones is an absolute master class in world building. In placing his female characters front and center and having them tote so much of the narrative load, he makes a subtle dig at Tolkien and emphatically states to any author who comes after, “This is how you do it.” Just in case you miss that subtle dig, he has Arya tell you plainly, “The woman is important too!”

Spotlights on other Northern and Southern Heroines coming. To be continued…

A special thank you to Emmett Booth (@poorquentyn) for being an extra set of eyes, sounding board, and all-around good guy.