Alysane Mormont
Alysane Mormont, called the She-Bear, is the daughter of Lady Maege Mormont of Bear Island and the heir to that harsh northern seat. She is a short, chunky, muscular woman who wears ringmail under her furs even in sleep, and her hands are ridged with callus from years of weapon-work. Her ferocity is such that she seems almost as wide as she is tall, and she speaks with a gruffness that matches her appearance. When Asha Greyjoy first encounters her, Alysane is commanding the guard over the captive ironborn queen, and she makes no secret of her contempt for the kraken's daughter.
Role as Captor and Keeper
During Stannis Baratheon's desperate march from Deepwood Motte to Winterfell, Alysane Mormont is assigned as Asha Greyjoy's principal keeper. She sleeps beside her charge, snores loudly enough to become a familiar sound, and watches her day and night to prevent escape. When Ser Clayton Suggs threatens to burn Asha as a sacrifice to R'hllor, Alysane intervenes, warning him that "Lady Asha is not for burning" and that if the snows continue after such a sacrifice, the queen's men will have to look elsewhere for their next victim. She does not flinch from Suggs's hostility, and her presence gives Asha a measure of protection against the more fanatical of the king's followers.
Warrior Ethos and Personal History
Alysane is a fighter by nature and by necessity. She tells Asha that she has a son of two years and a daughter of nine, but when asked about her husband, she replies that her children were fathered by a bear, adding with a crooked smile that "Mormont women are skinchangers. We turn into bears and find mates in the woods." This dark jest masks a brutal truth: the women of Bear Island have learned to defend themselves and their own because the ironborn have raided their shores for generations. Alysane makes this explicit when she says, "What we are is what you made us. On Bear Island every child learns to fear krakens rising from the sea." Her hatred of the ironborn is not personal malice but the inheritance of a people who have been prey for centuries.
The March and the Cold Count
As the army founders in the blizzard, Alysane endures the same hardships as every other soldier. She fishes through holes cut in the frozen lakes, returns with nothing on many days, and shares the dwindling horsemeat rations. When Asha asks if she has brothers, Alysane replies that she has five sisters—Lyanna, Lyra, Jory, and the murdered Dacey—and that all are girls. The loss of Dacey at the Red Wedding is a wound she carries without display, but it deepens her commitment to Stannis's cause, which offers the only hope of vengeance against the Freys and Boltons who slaughtered her kin.
Thematic Significance
Alysane Mormont represents the unyielding north that refuses to bend even when starving and freezing. She is a woman who has taken on the roles of warrior, mother, and protector in a world that offers women few choices, and she performs them all with a blunt competence that earns her the grudging respect of even her enemies. Her presence in the narrative underscores the cost of the war and the resilience of those who fight it, not for glory or gold, but because the alternative is extinction.
