I got Giulianna Lamanna reading Njáls Saga as we were waiting for the PDF to come out. She’s about half-way through it now, and totally wants to play a lawyer like Njáll, and eventually become Lawspeaker. I think she probably wants to play a woman, too. Would that make her quest harder? What sort of opposition do you think she’d realistically face?
I got Giulianna Lamanna reading Njáls Saga as we were waiting for the PDF to come out.
I got Giulianna Lamanna reading Njáls Saga as we were waiting for the PDF to come out.
The internet tells me that women couldn’t be judges, witnesses, or speak at the þing. That could certainly be a roadblock — one she could only overcome by changing the law. Under the Alþing, the Lögrétta could change laws, so she’d just (ha! “just”!) have to convince the goðar of the Lögrétta to do it. But the Alþing only appears in 930. Assuming we start in 900 and she wants to change things before then (and doesn’t beat Úlfljótr to founding the Alþing herself!), how could she go about changing the law in her local þing?
ETA: Could it really be as simply as, the þing votes that a woman can be its lawspeaker, so she is?
I see a couple of ways to do this. One, you could simply agree as a group that women can be lawspeakers in your particular version of history and that’s it.
Another is purely by gaming the system and getting the Goði moves through various avenues. So she has the mechanical support for speaking the law but maybe not necessarily in-fiction support for it.
A third would be to do it in a “historically appropriate way” through the fiction, a female character first getting into a position of significant power or influence, perhaps buying, inheriting or otherwise acquiring the sacred plot of land, or maybe buying the goðar-hood title from someone. Moves should be both prescriptive and descriptive so if she gets there through the fiction, she should probably get the move.
And there are also some Expanded moves that let you change the structure of society, so that’s another avenue…
My first thought was that she needs to die a Christian and let her daughter become Lögsögumaður.
That would be straight by the book, yes.
That would be a really cool dynastic character arc: “My dearest wish is for my family to include a Lawspeaker, and my daughter is the only likely candidate. Therefore I will change the world to make it happen, and die in the process.”
(As well as abandon/reject my native culture.)
Oh, hey, look at the Shield-maiden! If you can get a 10+ when you speak out at a þing with your Rebellious move that could do it, couldn’t it? And a Shield-maiden who hangs out with a goði could take some law moves from his playbook with The Company You Keep, couldn’t she?
Yes! Rebellious for the permament change it could bring, plus Legal Council for actually having your judgement taken as law, whether it is technically allowed or no. Awesome.