The previous chapter considered literary examples of women's social influence in the least likely of contexts: the final days of the doomed city of Troy. Cassandra's prophetic discourse, based entirely in historical and textual rather than supernatural knowledge, is incapable of altering the course of the city's fate or even the death of her brother. However, the female reader of this text is still offered in the character of Cassandra – and even of Criseyde – a pattern of influential behavior that succeeds in ameliorating a hopeless situation to an extent. Troilus still dies, but he dies well thanks to the productive anger his sister's dream interpretation fosters; Criseyde still becomes an archetype of female betrayal, but the sting of this reputation is alleviated to a degree by Cassandra's candid and uncritical reading of Criseyde's actions and the manuscript context of Chaucer's romance in the Corpus Christi codex. Yet however much Chaucer distances his character's talents from divine capriciousness in favor of historical study, Cassandra's prophetic interpretations are not given with practical application in mind (although they do ultimately encourage beneficial action in Troilus). Indeed, Apollo's curse on Cassandra makes a truly functional deployment of her knowledge impossible: she will simply never be believed. However, thorough specialized knowledge – in Cassandra's case, the capacity for accurate historical analysis – is often the primary means by which romance heroines engage in sponsorship.