Tom Wlashiha (Jaqen) returning

[Woofless]

A man's a man, for a' that.

Oops a bit o' Robbie Burns crept in there at the end!

[voodooqueen126]

I highly recommend Christopher and His Kind. (it's on youtube)

Tom Wlashiha plaid a minor character

[ground_control]

In the books, Arya asks the Kindly Man about Jaqen, and he tells her he doesn't know who that is. It makes sense (why would he know every false identity an FM uses in the field), and based on the timeline, the KM couldn't be the 'real" Jaqen (who is in / en route to Oldtown).

Also, while it's pretty clear that a Faceless Man killed Balon, it's unlikely that it was Jaqen (since he looks like he did when he changed in front of Arya, he clearly has a mission unrelated to Balon, and Euron's arrival a day after Balon died makes it seem like it was timed pretty closely, which would be inconsistent with Jaqen having delayed his mission to pay his debt to Arya). Finally, if he used his "Pate" look when killing Balon, it would make sense that he would change again before going to Oldtown (part of being a FM would seem to be *not* keeping the same face for a long period of time, or re-using one for multiple jobs).

That said, "unlikely" isn't "impossible", and there's no guarantee we'll get Balon's death (or much of anything Ironborn) or Oldtown, so they can pretty much use the *changed* Jaqen any way they want; it's using the original Jaqen as the Kindly Man that seems to be the problem.

But (in the books), Arya also asks about face changing, and gets told that it's sorcery. And the KM makes an illusion of a skull with worms (hope that stays). So really, all they need to do is show Arya meeting a guy in a hood, have her pull it down and see the skull with worms, have her grab at a worm, and have the skull melt into Jaqen's face.

Arya could get excited about meeting Jaqen, get told that he's not Jaqen, and explain it by saying something like "some spells make us look like we want to look (quick change back to skull) to everybody, other spells (returns to Jaqen-face) make everybody who sees us see what they want to see."

As long as the writers give the KM a clearly different speech pattern, we'd have the actor we liked playing a different role.

I'd much prefer something like this to the show actually making it be Jaqen himself. This way, we get Jaqen's actor playing the KM in Braavos, and somebody else playing changed-Jaqen still at large for use in Westeros.

[Trillian]

A girl is not always happy about deviations from the books, but a girl bloody loves Jaqen H'ghar.

Seriously, for once I don't care if this thing - assuming Jaqen will replace the Kindly Man - it's not in the books, it has the potential to work really well. I extremely enjoyed TW's portrayal of Jaquen, so I am happy to see him again.

[Annara Snow]

In the books, Arya asks the Kindly Man about Jaqen, and he tells her he doesn't know who that is. It makes sense (why would he know every false identity an FM uses in the field), and based on the timeline, the KM couldn't be the 'real" Jaqen (who is in / en route to Oldtown).

Also, while it's pretty clear that a Faceless Man killed Balon, it's unlikely that it was Jaqen (since he looks like he did when he changed in front of Arya, he clearly has a mission unrelated to Balon, and Euron's arrival a day after Balon died makes it seem like it was timed pretty closely, which would be inconsistent with Jaqen having delayed his mission to pay his debt to Arya). Finally, if he used his "Pate" look when killing Balon, it would make sense that he would change again before going to Oldtown (part of being a FM would seem to be *not* keeping the same face for a long period of time, or re-using one for multiple jobs).

I don't think that Jaqen killed Balon in the books, but if they show Balon's death on the show, they could decide to make the FM be Jaqen, since Jaqen is the only FM the audience knows. If they do that, he would immediately change his face to something else. But that's just a possibility. They could have someone else kill Balon and change his face afterwards, and it would also convey that it's a FM.

In the book, Jaqen has the same look when he approaches Pate in Oldtown as he did when he changed his face in front of Arya, that's how the readers knew it was him - so I assume infiltrating Oldtown was his task, and he just used the changed face to travel to Oldtown, kill Pate and take his identity. The show could also retain that story just as it is; if they showed a "previously on" clip showing Jaqen changing his face from TW to Patrick O'Kane and then have Patrick O'Kane guest star, that would pretty easily convey it's Jaqen. (More easily than in the books, where you actually have to go back and compare the descriptions. If only we had 'previously on' in the books. :D)

[Deadwood]

A girl is not always happy about deviations from the books, but a girl bloody loves Jaqen H'ghar.

Seriously, for once I don't care if this thing - assuming Jaqen will replace the Kindly Man - it's not in the books, it has the potential to work really well. I extremely enjoyed TW's portrayal of Jaquen, so I am happy to see him again.

For all we know the person referred to as the Kindly man might be the person that Arya met earlier on her travels.

[ground_control]

I don't think that Jaqen killed Balon in the books, but if they show Balon's death on the show, they could decide to make the FM be Jaqen, since Jaqen is the only FM the audience knows. If they do that, he would immediately change his face to something else. But that's just a possibility. They could have someone else kill Balon and change his face afterwards, and it would also convey that it's a FM.

In the book, Jaqen has the same look when he approaches Pate in Oldtown as he did when he changed his face in front of Arya, that's how the readers knew it was him - so I assume infiltrating Oldtown was his task, and he just used the changed face to travel to Oldtown, kill Pate and take his identity. The show could also retain that story just as it is; if they showed a "previously on" clip showing Jaqen changing his face from TW to Patrick O'Kane and then have Patrick O'Kane guest star, that would pretty easily convey it's Jaqen. (More easily than in the books, where you actually have to go back and compare the descriptions. If only we had 'previously on' in the books. :D)

Pretty much what I thought, sorry if I wasn't clear. Basically, I was just trying to say that I'm on the side of "the show *could* use TW as the Kindly man without screwing up anything, so let's just wait and see what they actually do." :) [An attitude it seems you share.]

[Wolf Girl Arya]

A girl is not always happy about deviations from the books, but a girl bloody loves Jaqen H'ghar.

Seriously, for once I don't care if this thing - assuming Jaqen will replace the Kindly Man - it's not in the books, it has the potential to work really well. I extremely enjoyed TW's portrayal of Jaquen, so I am happy to see him again.

:agree:

I think it'll work best for Jaqen to just replace the Kindly Man. It streamlines so much and has the nice touch of all the remaining Stark kids being mentored by those who got them to where they are now (Arya/Jaqen, Sansa/Littlefinger, Bran/Bloodraven, Rickon/Osha in a way). Plus, there's the benefit of the audience not having to get familiar with yet another new character when we're going to have a sea of them this season.

I think the simplest solution for the Westeros part, is to show a guy killing Balon (some bit day player), change his face shortly after, and have him show up in Oldtown when we get to that point and then have the whole Pate thing.

At this point, it doesn't seem like it has to be Jaqen for the Oldtown story. Assuming there's a fair amount of episodes in between the two events above, it will portray the subtlety of the Faceless Men infiltrating the Citadel almost as subtly as the book did. Well, as subtly as a visual medium can, lol.

[Illyrio Mo'Parties]

Maybe they're just bringing him back for his voice, and they'll have the other feller do the body. Might be a bit weird, but seeing as they ADR all the lines anyway, might not be such a big deal.

It's a shame, TV Jaqen was unbelievably super-awesome; and while all good things must come to an end, I'd put up with a minor inconsistency to see him back in the role. A man must return to the cast.