Does Ygritte still have a part to play? Also why she was kissed by fire and a spearwife.

Potential Spoilers Below

The Wheel of Time: Aviendah is a Maiden of the Spear

Aviendah

A Far Dareis Mai or Maidens of the Spear is an Aiel warrior society that only accepts women.

Aiel warrior society

The Game of Thrones: Ygritte is a spearwife

Ygritte

A spearwife is a wildling woman who is also a warrior.

Wildlings

The Wheel of Time: You know nothing

He found Aviendha near Lian's house, vigorously beating a bluestriped carpet hung on a line, more piled beside her in a heap of colors. Brushing sweatdamp strands of hair from her forehead, she stared at him expressionlessly when he handed her the bracelet and told her it was a gift in return for her teaching.

Lian

“I have given bracelets and necklaces to friends who did not carry the spear, Rand al'Thor, but I have never worn one.” Her voice was perfectly flat. “Such things rattle and make noise to give you away when you must be silent. They catch when you must move quickly.”

    

“But you can wear it now that you are going to be a Wise One.”

Wise Ones

“Yes.” She turned the ivory circle over as if unsure what to do with it, then abruptly thrust her hand through it and held her wrist up to stare at it. She could have been looking at an manacle.

“If you do not like it... Aviendha, Adelin said it would not touch your honor. She even seemed to approve.” He mentioned the teasipping ceremony, and she squeezed her eyes shut and shuddered. “What is wrong?”

“They think you are trying to attract my interest.” He would not have believed her voice could be so flat. Her eyes held no emotion at all. “They have approved of you, as if I still carried the spear.”

“Light! Simple enough to set them straight. I don't —” He cut off as her eyes blazed up.

“No! You accepted their approval, and now you would reject it? That would dishonor me! Do you think you are the first man to try to catch my eye? They must think as they think, now. It means nothing.” Grimacing, she gripped the woven carpet beater with both hands. “Go away.” With a glance at the bracelet, she added, “You truly know nothing, do you? You know nothing. It is not your fault.” She seemed to be repeating something she had been told, or trying to convince herself. “I am sorry if I ruined your meal, Rand al'Thor. Please go. Amys says I must clean all of these rugs and carpets no matter how long it takes. It will take all night, if you stand here talking.” Turning her back to him, she thwacked the striped carpet violently, the ivory bracelet jumping on her wrist.

Amys

The Game of Thrones:  You know nothing, Jon Snow

Jon Snow

“Do you know ‘The Last of the Giants’?” Without waiting for an answer Ygritte said, “You need a deeper voice than mine to do it proper.” Then she sang, “Ooooooh, I am the last of the giants, my people are gone from the earth.”

Tormund Giantsbane heard the words and grinned. “The last of the great mountain giants, who ruled all the world at my birth,” he bellowed back through the snow.

Tormund Giantsbane

Longspear Ryk joined in, singing, “Oh, the smallfolk have stolen my forests, they’ve stolen my rivers and hills.”

Longspear Ryk

“And they’ve built a great wall through my valleys, and fished all the fish from my rills,” Ygritte and Tormund sang back at him in turn, in suitably gigantic voices.

Tormund’s sons Toregg and Dormund added their deep voices as well, then his daughter Munda and all the rest. Others began to bang their spears on leathern shields to keep rough time, until the whole war band was singing as they rode.

In stone halls they burn their great fires,

in stone halls they forge their sharp spears.

Whilst I walk alone in the mountains,

with no true companion but tears.

They hunt me with dogs in the daylight,

they hunt me with torches by night.

For these men who are small can never stand tall,

whilst giants still walk in the light.

Oooooooh, I am the LAST of the giants,

so learn well the words of my song.

For when I am gone the singing will fade,

and the silence shall last long and long.

There were tears on Ygritte’s cheeks when the song ended.

“Why are you weeping?” Jon asked. “It was only a song. There are hundreds of giants, I’ve just seen them.”

Giant

“Oh, hundreds,” she said furiously. “You know nothing, Jon Snow. You—JON!”

The Wheel of Time: If we do it then we have to wed.

Suddenly a shimmering vertical line appeared in the air near her. It widened, as if rotating, into a gateway. Icy wind rushed through it into the room, carrying thick curtains of snow.

Gateway

“I must get away!” she wailed, and darted through into the blizzard.

Immediately the gateway began to narrow again, turning, but without thought Rand channeled, blocking it at half its former width. He did not know what he had done or how, but he was sure this was a gateway for Traveling, such as Asmodean had told him of and been unable to teach him. There was no time for thinking. Wherever Aviendha had gone, she had gone naked into the heart of a winter storm.

“Aviendha! Stop!” He was afraid that the howling wind would sweep his shout away, but she heard. And if anything, ran faster.  

     

Suddenly the vague shape he had been following vanished as if she had fallen into a hole.

Keeping his eyes fixed on the spot where he had last seen her, he ran as hard as he could. Abruptly he was splashing in icy flowing water to his ankles, halfway to his knees.  She must have run out onto the ice and fallen through, but he would not save her by trying to wade into this. Filled with saidin, he was barely aware of the cold, but his teeth chattered uncontrollably.

He felt rather than heard the ice cracking beneath his weight. His probing hands fell into water. This was the place, but with snow whirling about, he could barely see. He flailed, searching, numb hands splashing. One hit something at the edge of the ice, and he commanded his fingers to close, felt frozen hair crackling.

Got to pull her out.  

They needed shelter, and they needed it here.

He channeled flows of Air, and snow began to move across the ground against the wind, building into thick square walls three paces on a side with one gap for a door, building higher, compacting the snow till it glistened like ice, roofing it over high enough to stand.  

Stripping off his clothes, he climbed into the coverings with her, arranging his own damp garments on the outside; they could help hold in the body heat. His sense of touch, enhanced by the Void and saidin, soaked in the feel of her. Her skin made silk feel rough. Compared to her skin, satin was... Don't think.  Her eyes were closed; her chest stirred against him slowly. Her head lay on his arm, snuggled against his chest. If she had not felt like winter itself, she could have been sleeping. So peaceful; not angry at all. So beautiful. Stop thinking. It was a sharp command outside the emptiness surrounding him. Talk.

  

Yet he knew that she had fled from him. Fled from him. How she must hate him, if she had to flee as far as she could rather than just tell him to leave her to her bath in privacy.

“I should have knocked.” At his own bedroom door? “I know you do not want to be around me. You don't have to be. Whatever the Wise Ones want, whatever they say, you are going back to their tents.  

The hand that he could not stop from stroking her hair froze as she stirred. She was warm, he realized. Very warm. He should be wrapping one of the blankets about himself decently and moving away. Her eyes opened, clear and deep green, staring at him seriously from not a foot away. She did not seem surprised to see him, and she did not pull back.

He took his arms from around her, started to slither away, and she seized a handful of his hair in a painful grip. If he moved, he would have a bald patch. She gave him no chance to explain anything. “I promised my nearsister to watch you.” She seemed to be speaking to herself as much as to him, in a low, almost expressionless voice. “I ran from you as hard as I could, to shield my honor. And you followed me even here. The rings do not lie, and I can run no more.” Her tone firmed decisively. “I will run no more.”

Rand tried to ask her what she meant while attempting to untangle her fingers from his hair, but she clutched another handful on the other side and pulled his mouth to hers. That was the end of rational thought; the Void shattered, and saidin fled. He did not think he could have stopped himself had he wanted to, only he could not think of wanting to, and she certainly did not seem to want him to. In fact, the last thought he had of any coherency for a very long time was that he did not think he could have stopped her.

Rand and Aviendha

Some considerable time later — two hours, maybe three; he could hardly be sure — he lay atop the rugs with the blankets over him and his hands behind his head, watching Aviendha examine the slick white walls. They had held a surprising amount of the warmth; there was no need to latch on to saidin again, either to shut out cold or to try warming the air. She had done no more than rake her fingers through her hair on rising, and she moved completely unashamed at her nakedness. Of course, it was a bit late to be ashamed of something as small as having no clothes on. He had been worried about hurting her when dragging her out of the water, but she showed fewer scrapes than he did, and somehow they did not seem to mar her beauty at all.

“What is this?” she asked.

“Snow.” He explained what snow was as best he could, but she only shook her head, partly in wonderment, partly disbelief. For someone who had grown up in the Waste, frozen water falling from the sky must seem as impossible as flying. According to the records, the only time it had ever even rained in the Waste was the time he had made it.

Aiel Waste

He could not stop a sigh of regret when she began pulling her shift over her head. “The Wise Ones can marry us as soon as we get back.” He could still feel his weave holding her gateway open.

Aviendha's dark reddish head popped through the neck of the shift, and she stared at him flatly. Not unfriendly, but. not friendly, either. Determined, though. “What makes you think a man has the right to ask me that? Besides, you belong to Elayne.”

Elayne

After a moment he managed to close his mouth. “Aviendha, we just... The two of us... Light, we have to marry now. Not that I'm doing it because I have to,” he added hastily. “I want to.” He was not sure of that at all, really. He thought he might love her, but he thought he might love Elayne, too. And for some reason, Min kept creeping in. You're as big a lecher as Mat. But for once he could do what was right because it was right.

She looked at him suspiciously for a moment, but Aiel customs were so intricate that she believed him. In the Two Rivers, you walked out for a year, and if you suited, then you became betrothed and finally married; that was as far as custom went. She went on as she dressed. “I meant about a girl asking her mother's permission during the year, and the Wisdom's. I cannot say I understand that.” The white blouse going over her head muffled her words for a moment. “If she wants him, and she is old enough to marry, why should she need permission?  

Nynaeve the Two River's Wisdom

“You started it?” Her sniff was pointed and meaning. Aiel, Andoran or anything else, women used those noises like sticks, to prod or thump. “It does not matter anyway, since we are going by Aiel customs. This will not happen again, Rand al'Thor.” He was surprised — and pleased — to hear regret in her voice, “You belong to the nearsister of my nearsister. I have toh to Elayne, now, but that is none of your concern.  

He told her how he had blocked her gateway and could still feel it holding. She looked relieved, and even smiled at him. But it became increasingly clear as she folded her legs and arranged her skirts that she did not mean to turn her back while he dressed.

“Fair's fair,” he muttered after a long moment, and scrambled out of the blankets.

He tried to be as nonchalant as she had been, but it was not easy. He could feel her eyes like a touch even when he turned away from her. She had no call to tell him he had a pretty behind; he had not said anything about how pretty hers was. She only said it to make him blush, anyway. Women did not look at men that way. And they don't ask their mother's permission to...? He had an idea that life with Aviendha had not become one bit easier.

The Game of Thrones: If we do it then we have to wed.

Even then, Ygritte persisted. The day before last, Jon had made the mistake of wishing he had hot water for a bath. “Cold is better,” she had said at once, “if you’ve got someone to warm you up after. The river’s only part ice yet, go on.”

Jon laughed. “You’d freeze me to death.”

Are all crows afraid of gooseprickles? A little ice won’t kill you. I’ll jump in with you t’prove it so.”

“And ride the rest of the day with wet clothes frozen to our skins?” he objected.

“Jon Snow, you know nothing. You don’t go in with clothes.”

“I don’t go in at all,” he said firmly, just before he heard Tormund Thunderfist bellowing for him (he hadn’t, but never mind).

“Do you mislike the girl?” Tormund asked him as they passed another twenty mammoths, these bearing wildlings in tall wooden towers instead of giants.

Mammoth

“No, but I . . .” What can I say that he will believe? “I am still too young to wed.”

“Wed?” Tormund laughed. “Who spoke of wedding? In the south, must a man wed every girl he beds?”

Jon could feel himself turning red again. “She spoke for me when Rattleshirt would have killed me. I would not dishonor her.”

Rattleshirt

“You are a free man now, and Ygritte is a free woman. What dishonor if you lay together?”

Two hearts that beat as one. Mance Rayder’s mocking words rang bitter in his head. Jon had seldom felt so confused. I have no choice, he’d told himself the first time, when she slipped beneath his sleeping skins. If I refuse her, she will know me for a turncloak. I am playing the part the Halfhand told me to play.

    

Mance Rayder

Qhorin Halfhand

His body had played the part eagerly enough. His lips on hers, his hand sliding under her doeskin shirt to find a breast, his manhood stiffening when she rubbed her mound against it through their clothes. My vows, he’d thought, remembering the weirwood grove where he had said them, the nine great white trees in a circle, the carved red faces watching, listening. But her fingers were undoing his laces and her tongue was in his mouth and her hand slipped inside his smallclothes and brought him out, and he could not see the weirwoods anymore, only her. She bit his neck and he nuzzled hers, burying his nose in her thick red hair. Lucky, he thought, she is lucky, fire-kissed. “Isn’t that good?” she whispered as she guided him inside her. She was sopping wet down there, and no maiden, that was plain, but Jon did not care. His vows, her maidenhood, none of it mattered, only the heat of her, the mouth on his, the finger that pinched at his nipple. “Isn’t that sweet?” she said again. “Not so fast, oh, slow, yes, like that. There now, there now, yes, sweet, sweet. You know nothing, Jon Snow, but I can show you. Harder now. Yessss.”

Taking their vows in front of a weirwood tree

How it all started

Maybe they should have stayed in the cave

A part, he tried to remind himself afterward. I am playing a part. I had to do it once, to prove I’d abandoned my vows. I had to make her trust me. It need never happen again. He was still a man of the Night’s Watch, and a son of Eddard Stark. He had done what needed to be done, proved what needed to be proven.

Men of Night's Watch

Eddard Stark

The proving had been so sweet, though, and Ygritte had gone to sleep beside him with her head against his chest, and that was sweet as well, dangerously sweet. He thought of the weirwoods again, and the words he’d said before them. It was only once, and it had to be. Even my father stumbled once, when he forgot his marriage vows and sired a bastard. Jon vowed to himself that it would be the same with him. It will never happen again.

It happened twice more that night, and again in the morning, when she woke to find him hard. The wildlings were stirring by then, and several could not help but notice what was going on beneath the pile of furs. Jarl told them to be quick about it, before he had to throw a pail of water over them. Like a pair of rutting dogs, Jon thought afterward. Was that what he’d become? I am a man of the Night’s Watch, a small voice inside insisted, but every night it seemed a little fainter, and when Ygritte kissed his ears or bit his neck, he could not hear it at all. Was this how it was for my father? he wondered. Was he as weak as I am, when he dishonored himself in my mother’s bed?

  

The Wheel of Time: How good is her aim?

“I am not a fool, and will not be a fool. I am an archer.”

“An archer,” he muttered, eyeing the intricate glossy black braid pulled over her left shoulder. “And I suppose you call yourself Birgitte. What are you? One of those idiots hunting the Horn of Valere? Even if the thing exists, what chance any one of you will find it more than another? I was in Illian when the Hunters' oaths were given, and there were thousands in the Great Square of Tammaz. But for glory that you can attain, nothing can outshine the applause of —”

Birgitte

Horn of Valere

Great Square of Tammaz

“I am an archer, pretty man,” Birgitte broke in firmly. “Fetch a bow, and I will outshoot you or anyone you name, a hundred crowns gold to your one.” Elayne expected Nynaeve to yelp — it was they who would have to cover the wager if Birgitte lost, and whatever she claimed, Elayne did not think Birgitte could be fully recovered already — yet all Nynaeve did was close her eyes briefly and draw a deep, long breath.

“Women!” Luca growled. Thom and Juilin did not have to look as if they agreed. “You are a fine match for the Lady Morelin and Nana, or whatever their names are.” He swept his silk cloak in a wide gesture at the surrounding hustle of men and horses. “It may have escaped your keen eye, Brigitte, but I have a show to get under way, and my rivals are already draining Samara of coin like the cutpurses they are.”

Thom

Juilin

Birgitte smiled, a slight curving of her lips. “Are you afraid, pretty man? We can make your side a silver penny.”

Birgitte

Elayne thought Luca might have apoplexy from the color that crept into his face. His neck suddenly looked too big for his collar. “I will fetch my bow,” he almost hissed. “You can work off the hundred marks with your face painted, or cleaning cages for all I care!”

“Are you sure that you are well enough?” Elayne asked Birgitte as he stalked off muttering to himself. The only word she caught was a repeat of “women!” Nynaeve was looking at the woman with the braid as if she wanted the ground to open and swallow her; herself, not Birgitte. A number of the horse handlers had gathered around Thom and Juilin for some reason.

“He has nice legs,” Birgitte said, “but I have never liked tall men. Add a pretty face, and they are always insufferable.”

Petra had joined the group of men, twice as wide as any other. He said something, then shook hands with Thom. The Chavanas were there as well. And Latelle, talking earnestly with Thom while darting dark looks at Nynaeve and the two women with her. By the time Luca returned with an unstrung bow and a quiver of arrows, no one was making preparations any longer. The wagons and horses and cages — even the tethered boarhorses — stood abandoned, the people all clustered around Thom and the thiefcatcher. They followed as Luca led the way a short distance out of the camp.

“I am accounted a fair shot,” he said, carving a white cross chesthigh to himself on the trunk of a tail oak. He had some of his jauntiness back, and he swaggered as he strode off fifty paces. “I will take the first shot, so you can see what you face.”

Birgitte plucked the bow from his hand and walked off another fifty as he stared after her. She shook her head over the bow, but braced it on her slippered foot and strung it in one smooth motion before Luca joined her and Elayne and Nynaeve. Birgitte pulled an arrow from the quiver he held, examined it a moment, then tossed it aside like rubbish. Luca frowned and opened his mouth, but she was already discarding a second shaft. The next three went to the leafcovered ground as well before she stuck one pointdown in the soil beside her. Of twentyone, she kept only four.

“She can do it,” Elayne whispered, trying to sound certain. Nynaeve nodded bleakly; if they had to pay out a hundred gold crowns, they would soon be selling the jewelry Amathera had given them. The letters of rights were all but useless, as she had explained to Nynaeve; their use would eventually point a finger to where they had been for Elaida, if not where they were. If I had just spoken up in time, I could have stopped this. As my Warder, she has to do as I say. Doesn't she? From the evidence so far, obedience was no part of the bond. Had those Aes Sedai she had spied on made the men give oaths as well? Now that she thought of it, she believed one of them had.

Amathera

Elaida

Birgitte nocked an arrow, raised the bow, and loosed seemingly without pausing to aim. Elayne winced, but the steel point struck dead center in the middle of the carved white cross. Before it stopped quivering, the second brushed in beside it. Birgitte did wait a moment then, but only for the two arrows to still. A gasp rose from the onlookers as the third shaft split the first, but that was nothing to the absolute silence as the last split the other just as neatly. Once could have been chance. Twice...

Birgitte

Luca looked as if his eyes were coming out of his head. Mouth hanging open, he stared at the tree, then at Birgitte, at the tree then Birgitte. She proffered the bow, and he shook his head weakly.

Suddenly he flung the quiver away, spreading his arms wide with a glad cry. “Not knives! Arrows! From a hundred paces!”

Nynaeve sagged against Elayne as the man explained what he wanted, but she made not one sound of protest. Thom and Juilin were collecting money; most handed over coins with a sigh or a laugh, but Juilin had to snag Latelle's arm as she tried to slip away, and speak some angry words before she dug coins from her pouch. So that was what they had been up to. She would have to speak to them firmly. But later. “Nana, you don't have to go through with this.” The woman only stared at Birgitte, eyes haggard.

“Our wager?” Birgitte said when Luca ran out of wind. He grimaced, then fished slowly into his pouch and tossed her a coin. Elayne caught the glint of gold in the sun as Birgitte examined it, then tossed it right back. “The bet was a silver penny on your part.”

Luca's eyes widened in startlement, but the next moment he was laughing and pressing the gold crown into her hand. “You are worth every copper of it. What do you say? Why, the Queen of Ghealdan herself might come to see a performance such as yours. Birgitte and her arrows. We will paint them silver, and the bow!”

Desperately Elayne wanted Birgitte to look at her. They might as well put up a sign for Moghedien as do what the man suggested.

Moghedien

But Birgitte only bounced the coin on her hand, grinning. “Paint will ruin an already shabby bow,” she said finally. “And call me Maerion; I was called that, once.” Leaning on the bow, she let her smile widen. “Can I have a red dress, too?”

Elayne heaved a sigh of fervent relief. Nynaeve looked as if she were going to sick up.

The Game of Thrones: How good is her aim?

Ygritte in the books is mentioned as using a bow and shoots Jon in the leg with an arrow as he starts to run making his way back to the wall.  In the show however they make her out to be a marksman and can hit whatever it is she is aiming at.  I think this is due to the fact that she is going to be given the characteristics of Birgitte from TWOT and since HBO knows how the series is going to end they are laying the groundwork for it now.  I believe just like Birgitte she will be seen again and will be one of the heroes of the Horn of Winter.  See my Post:

Horn of Winter

 Why "There must always be a Stark in Winterfell" and why "Winter is Coming

What I didn’t put in that post that I forgot was the fact that the Horn of Valere also summoned wolves as well.  This being said the Stark direwolves living and dead could also be summoned to help with the battle.

Summation: 

Both Aviendah and Ygritte have red hair and both are women warriors.  Both see what they want and take it when the opportunity presents itself.  It seems that both have encounters involving the taking of baths that lead down the road to a sexual nature with the men they desire.  And neither really look at marriage as an end result of that desire.  Both have been sought after by other men.  Both women have life experiences or cultures that are not easily identified with the men who they desire and tell them constantly in a round about way that “They know nothing” when they try and share those experiences. The biggest difference to me in these characters is the fact that where they come from is flipped 180 degrees.  Ygritte is from an environment where it is almost constant winter and snow is a part of life.  Aviendah on the other hand comes from a desert environment where it never rains and the first time she encounters snow it has to be explained to her.

Ygritte also takes on the characteristics of Birgitte when it comes to her bow.  Even though Ygritte wasn’t made out to be a great archer in the books HBO made her so in the show.  That doesn’t mean that the point won’t be made in the books that follow.  Again I think this is the case since HBO knows where the characters are going to end up they gave her Birgitte’s characteristics.  With that said I believe that Ygritte will be seen again as a sleeper that will be awakened by the Horn of Winter and she will return to fight beside the Night’s Watch and be led by the Stark in Winterfell just as Birgitte returned in a similar fashion in TWOT.  The names may not be pronounced in a similar fashion but the spelling is similar.  I believe this to just be in homage to the characters in TWOT.

Comments encouraged.  Love to hear the idea’s of others.  Most believe that since I present my idea’s as “fact like” I’m not open to change my viewpoints which is far from the truth.  I simply look at the information presented and go from there.  If you can shine a light on another way of thinking that opens the door to debate.