Female Greybeards

[spinspider]

So... a female mesh of the Greybeard robe was included in the vanilla game, even though it's not an item of clothing that can be obtained normally, and wasn't meant to be worn by the player.. Obviously there are presently no female Greybeards, but have there ever been in the past? Is it possible for women to become Greybeards? (despite obviously lacking actual beards...)

Edited July 23, 2013 by Lehcar

[JimCass98]

That's an interesting thought. I have yet to hear of female Greybeards though. However, Greybeards is just a name.

Jurgen Windcaller(the founder) had a barely visible beard, and it wasn't grey at all(note:This is when seeing him in Sovngarde). Paarthurnax, the current leader, is a dragon so he obviously has no beards.

Your question definetly has me curious now. Maybe I'll do some searching later on and if I do I'll notify you.

Edited July 23, 2013 by JimCass98

[KnorKater]

@JimCass98: Could you please mark your post as spoiler? I'm not far in the story yet and didn't want to read anything whats going to happen. There's an extra spoiler-section and a function for spoilers, too. Please edit your post for others who might not wish to read a spoiler.

[JimCass98]

@Funs I apologize if I spoiled anything. I am still fairly new to posting so forgive me. Now I know how to mark things as spoilers, and I didn't realize that I spoiled anything. So once again I'm sorry and I will now remember to add a spoiler notice.

[Nodtveidt]

Because womens have no beards!

[KnorKater]

thanks for the appreciation, Jim. :)

[CasperTheLich]

the dark brotherhood has female members... so, I can't see why the greybeards wouldn't. before skyrim female members were still referred to as "dark brothers".

[nikikicat99]

Maybe they're just called Greybeards because they're old. I think it COULD be possible for a female Greybeard, since no one seems to care if your character is female or not. There are a lot of women in power in Tamriel, so a woman could achieve such a high status without marriage or blood, regardless of race or gender. Though, I could be wrong, since beard could mean that it's male-only. A female Greybeard might just be called Greybeard despite lack of beard. Or Grayhair, or something. Probably would be an old crone though...

[Bovel]

Women are able to practice the thu'um and stay at High Hrothgar, just look at Ulfric. But in all seriousness I believe they can both train the art but also become the part, a greybeard of the order. The reason we have yet to see or hear of it though might because of gender inequality. I'm not sure if there is any basis to it, but I believe that nords are quite patriarchal as a people. Take the jarls for example, we have a few women but none of them are big, strong and have shown glory in combat (as far as we know). One is old and knowledgeable of magic, another has her position because of marriage and comes off as a bit too young and frail for the task, and the last one is not really in power herself since another woman in town has contacts.

 

It would be interesting to see/hear/read about the path of the female greybeard, their struggles and their benefits for being the gender attributed to Kyne.

[RatcatcherOfKvatch]

So long as the statistical distribution of Lydias to Farkases remains unbalanced so too will the political power in a warrior-culture that in its limited defense I would call "incidentally patriarchal". A muscled-up woman with flawless sword technique can get ahead just as easily as a muscled-up man, but if that's the only way to get ahead it's still not exactly fair. For every Lydia there are a dozen Farkases. (Okay this is Skyrim make that more like a quarter-dozen. It's still not fair.)

 

Throw in prejudice against magic which is -- presumably -- evenly distributed by sex and there's only one way to get ahead.

 

I'll go ahead and crack the obligatory politically incorrect joke: there are no female Greybeards because by the time women are old enough they've already gone hoarse nagging their drunken husbands.

 

Okay, now that that's out of my system ... the Greybeard Sausagefest was actually the one most compelling reason (ultimately not enough, but still pretty good) to play a female character. She breezes into a temple full of old fuddy-duddies and they're all "Dragonborn!" and she's all, "Alessia, Fus Yeah!"*

 

Gormlaith was a Greybeard, or at least a proto-Greybeard, so it's not unprecedented or anything. If the Fourth-Era Greybeards' last female member died like 12 years ago and one of their daily rituals is visiting her grave giving solemn Shouts of remembrance that would let them off the hook (the Greybeards were a dying order before you showed up; the last woman just happened to die before the last man), and it would be really sad to boot. You could really tear out people's hearts if the voice actors got the Shout just right, kind of a sorrowful wail that trails off like it's dissolving from Mundus on its way to Sovengarde.

That's how I would've written an all-male Greybeard cast, anyhow. They're not the Fraternal Order of Water Buffalo living it up in the Ultimate Man Cave. They're absolutely miserable, dying inside but too proud to show it. But I didn't write the Greybeards.

 

* No link 'cuz NSFW; sing this to the "Team America" theme song