Val
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Culture | Free folk |
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Val is a member of the free folk. She is the sister of Dalla, the wife of Mance Rayder.[1]
Contents
Appearance and Character
- See also: Images of Val
Val is a young beautiful woman with blonde hair[1] the color of dark honey[2] which she sometimes wears in a golden braid across one shoulder.[3] She has pale grey eyes with high sharp cheekbones; but when she returns from her mission to Tormund her eyes are recorded as blue. She is slender with a full bosom.[4] Val is resourceful, brave and capable.
Val sometimes wears all white: white woolen breeches tucked into high boots of bleached white leather, white bearskin cloak pinned at the shoulder with a carved weirwood face, white tunic with bone fastenings.[2]
Recent Events
A Storm of Swords
Val "stole" Jarl, a wildling raider. She is present in the tent when Jon Snow is presented to the King-beyond-the-Wall, Mance Rayder.[1] When the wildling host is attacked in the battle of Castle Black, Val helps deliver Dalla's child.[4] She is taken prisoner when the wildlings are defeated. King Stannis Baratheon offers her hand to Jon in a marriage if he agrees to become Lord of Winterfell,[4] but Jon refuses.[5]
A Feast for Crows
Samwell Tarly thinks that Val is the mortar by which Stannis plans to bring peace between the North and the free folk.[6]
A Dance with Dragons
Many of the men of the Night's Watch and the men from the army of Stannis are smitten with Val's beauty. The men of the Seven Kingdoms consider her a princess, but to the free folk she is merely Dalla's sister.[7] During the burning of "Mance Rayder", Val wears a simple circlet of dark bronze and an ermine cloak.[8] Jon sends Val on a mission to bring peace terms to Tormund Giantbane. Before leaving, she calls Gilly's child a little monster.[9]
When Val returns with Tormund, Jon is impressed, as many seasoned rangers had failed in finding the wildlings. He has her relocated from King's Tower to the top floor of Hardin's Tower, as the former has been claimed by Queen Selyse Florent and the latter is protected by the giant Wun Wun. Val is presented to Selyse and her daughter Shireen. Val is wary of Shireen because of her greyscale, and mentions to Jon that the child is not clean and should be killed. This horrifies Jon, who is grateful that neither Selyse nor her queen's men heard Val when she said it.[2] Selyse decides to have Val married to Ser Patrek of King's Mountain, but the knight is killed by Wun Wun.[10]
Quotes by Val
I am no southron lady but a woman of the free folk. I know the forest better than all your black-cloaked rangers. It holds no ghosts for me.[9]
– Val to Jon Snow
– Val to Jon Snow
The maesters may believe what they wish. Ask a woods witch if you would know the truth. The grey death sleeps, only to wake again. The child is not clean![2]
- Val to Jon Snow
Quotes about Val
Val did not need to smile; she would have turned men's heads in any court in the wide world.[8]
- thoughts of Jon Snow
A nubile girl, I hear, and not hard to look upon. Good hips, good breasts, well made for whelping children.[11]
- Axell Florent to Jon Snow
It had been a long while since Jon Snow had seen a sight so lovely.[2]
- thoughts of Jon Snow
– thoughts of Jon Snow
You are insolent. I suppose that is only to be expected of a wildling. We must find you a husband who can teach you courtesy.[2]
– Selyse Florent to Val
References and Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 A Storm of Swords, Chapter 7, Jon I.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 53, Jon XI.
- ↑ A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 7, Jon II.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 A Storm of Swords, Chapter 73, Jon X.
- ↑ A Storm of Swords, Chapter 76, Jon XI.
- ↑ A Feast for Crows, Chapter 5, Samwell I.
- ↑ A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 3, Jon I.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 10, Jon III.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 39, Jon VIII.
- ↑ A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 69, Jon XIII.
- ↑ A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 49, Jon X.