Religions of Westeros--parallel to real world religions

[Torrence Jayne]

Religion is obviously an incredibly important factor in the series. And it's nearly impossible to read the books without drawing some parallels between the very distinct and vibrant religions in Westeros and beyond to religions in our own world.

What connection have you seen? What religions today correlate to the Old Gods, The Seven, the Drowned God, R'hllor, and all the rest?

[Bridgeburners]

I don't think GRRM does straight up one-to-one correspondences, but rather, borrows from several religious ideas for each of his own religions.

However, if there is any correspondence, it would be The Seven and Christianity. The Seven is based on one god having seven manifestations (Christianity is based on one god with three). They both have well established structural hierarchies with a world leader in each (high septon vs pope). They both take "confessions" as a means of spiritual cleansing (note septon Meribald walking the streets and taking people's confessions). And they both have similar notions of "purity" (they both condemn casual sex, etc.) I suppose GRRM chose to make that the prevailing Western religion in order to make the world somewhat identifiable to ours. Of course there are clear differences too (many elements Christianity has that The Seven doesn't, and vice versa).

But then, the Red God religion has some similarities to Christianity that The Seven doesn't, such as it being expressly forbidden to acknowledge any other god but R'hollor as something other than an impostor. That's really a similarity between the Red religion and all three of the major Abrahamic religions in our world. Of course this goes to my original statement that there's no one-to correspondence of religions between Westeros and Earth. It's actually interesting to see, from the Red God religion, the emergence of this idea on Westeros that "my religion is mutually exclusive from yours". That's not the way people generally think on Westeros and it's a new concept for them, but on Earth we're all so used to that, as it's how most religions operate.

The Old Gods has some similarities to the old Celtic religions which held to sacred trees.

[Petyr's Little Finger]

Old Gods= pagan religions in Europe before Europe became Christian

Faith of the Seven= Catholicism. Septas Septons are the equivalents of monks and nuns, the High Septon and his roles and influence is similar to the Pope's role and influence in Medieval Europe.

R'hillor- The fire worshipping aspect is similar to Zoroastrianism

Drowned God- based upon Viking religion and Norse myths before they converted to Christianity

[Seaworth'sShipmate]

Old Gods= pagan religions in Europe before Europe became Christian.

Faith of the Seven= Catholicism. Septas Septons are the equivalents of monks and nuns, the High Septon and his roles and influence is similar to the Pope's role and influence in Medieval Europe.

R'hillor- The fire worshipping aspect is similar to Zoroastrianism.

Drowned God= based upon Viking religion and Norse myths before they converted to Christianity

Pretty much spot on!

[Lord Reaver]

Drowned God- based upon Viking religion and Norse myths before they converted to Christianity

There is literally nothing in common between the Drowned God and Norse Paganism.

[Hand to King Davos]

The Seven are pretty analogous to medieval Christianity, as a lot of people have already stated, in terms of the theology and their teachings. The Red God, to me, symbolizes a lot of the more dangerous aspects of all religions, especially how Mel practices it, with the intolerance for other religions, human sacrifice, massive holy wars, etc. The Old Gods are really like many of the older pagan religions, with nature worship and blood sacrifice.

Not really sure what the Drowned God is close to IRL. Never heard of a drowning religion before. Just seems to fit the Ironborn in general.

[Torrence Jayne]

I agree, the Seven is clearly a Christianity counterpart. Not a perfect match but the major tenants of Medieval Christianity are present. The Old Gods remind me of some Native American religions. There's a huge emphasis on respect for nature tempered with a healthy fear of how powerful and merciless nature can be.

Any thoughts on the Faceless Men? Are they some sinister Satanist cult obsessed with death? Or do they have a more mature view of human mortality?

[Hodor!!!]

The religion of the "Lord of Light" has many obvious parallels to Christianity:

- It has a supreme, good god represented by light and fire, whereas in the bible, Jesus is called "the light" and John the Baptist tells his disciple that he baptizes with water, but Jesus will baptize them with fire (Matthew 3).

- They view history as a fight between good and bad, personified by a good god, who is worshipped, and an evil one, who will lose in the end.

In the new testament - especially in the book of revelations, you find a very similar view, where history finally ends when Jesus (with a magical sword, which comes out of his mouth for some reason) finishes the battle against Satan.

- Both are very apocalyptic religions, who believe themselves in or very near the end times, where the good will prevail against the bad.

- The Red Religion promises a saviour born in the world of humans who on behalf of the Good God will defeat darkness, but only the second time around (Azor Ahai Reborn).

The bible tell the story of a saviour who, only after having already appeared and disappeared on earth once fights and wins the ultimate battle against the devil, or as Milton calls him "the prince of darkness".

- They take prophecies very important.

- They burn people alive for not believing in their religion and call it a spiritual cleansing.

I don't see the connection between the Old Religion and paganism. Greek/Roman/Norse/Germanic paganism all have antropomorphical gods with very distinct functions. That reminds me much more of the Faith of the Seven than the Old Gods. The Faith of the Seven has a father-god like Zeus/Jupiter/Odin, a mother-godess like Hera/Juno/Frigg, a warrior-god like Mars/Ares/Tyr. There are parallel figures to each of the New Gods, but I'm to lazy to write them down, so I am not doing all seven of the fuckers.

IMO the Old Gods are more analogous to the pre-pagan animistic belief-systems, where people don't represent nature forces as human-like gods, but instead believe that nature itself is holy and has a spirit. They had no cathedrals or temples, because they felt a direct connection with the spirits of nature just by being in nature. They therefore also did not need priest who communicate with the gods on their behalf.

But the religions commonly meant with the term "paganism" had temples, like the Greeks or Romans, some of them very impressive. They also had priests and oracles and and a lot of symbolic rituals, unlike animists.

[DamoDega]

The religion of the "Lord of Light" has many obvious parallels to Christianity:

Yes

Imho he just split christianity in 2

Lord of Light-> christianity God

The Seven-> christianity Saints, here elevated to Greek/Roman style structure

[new djinn]

The religion of the "Lord of Light" has many obvious parallels to Christianity:

- It has a supreme, good god represented by light and fire, whereas in the bible, Jesus is called "the light" and John the Baptist tells his disciple that he baptizes with water, but Jesus will baptize them with fire (Matthew 3).

- They view history as a fight between good and bad, personified by a good god, who is worshipped, and an evil one, who will lose in the end.

In the new testament - especially in the book of revelations, you find a very similar view, where history finally ends when Jesus (with a magical sword, which comes out of his mouth for some reason) finishes the battle against Satan.

- Both are very apocalyptic religions, who believe themselves in or very near the end times, where the good will prevail against the bad.

- The Red Religion promises a saviour born in the world of humans who on behalf of the Good God will defeat darkness, but only the second time around (Azor Ahai Reborn).

The bible tell the story of a saviour who, only after having already appeared and disappeared on earth once fights and wins the ultimate battle against the devil, or as Milton calls him "the prince of darkness".

- They take prophecies very important.

- They burn people alive for not believing in their religion and call it a spiritual cleansing.

I don't see the connection between the Old Religion and paganism. Greek/Roman/Norse/Germanic paganism all have antropomorphical gods with very distinct functions. That reminds me much more of the Faith of the Seven than the Old Gods. The Faith of the Seven has a father-god like Zeus/Jupiter/Odin, a mother-godess like Hera/Juno/Frigg, a warrior-god like Mars/Ares/Tyr. There are parallel figures to each of the New Gods, but I'm to lazy to write them down, so I am not doing all seven of the fuckers.

IMO the Old Gods are more analogous to the pre-pagan animistic belief-systems, where people don't represent nature forces as human-like gods, but instead believe that nature itself is holy and has a spirit. They had no cathedrals or temples, because they felt a direct connection with the spirits of nature just by being in nature. They therefore also did not need priest who communicate with the gods on their behalf.

But the religions commonly meant with the term "paganism" had temples, like the Greeks or Romans, some of them very impressive. They also had priests and oracles and and a lot of symbolic rituals, unlike animists.

Yes. I think that the paralel between the Old Gods religion and the animistic worship are fairly obvious. The Seven is a very ''civilizing'' religious pratice,, with many paralels to the faraonic egypt/classical greek/imperial roman/viking norse, with very defined religious figures is still polytheistic. The Lord of Light religion is extremely monotheistic and share lot in common with the Abrahamic religions(Judaism, Chistianity, Muslim) and even early Zoroasterism. The Drowned God, Black Goat, Great Lamb are very localized forms of worship with very little information. The many-faced God is clearly a death cult that exists in a society influenced by other worship,like the ismaelii assassins or even certain groups within the Koga ninjitsu followers. Curious about the Braavosi Moonsingers.

[joluoto2]

The Seven: The Catholic church, with some pagan elements, and some far eastern elements, but basically the Catholic church

Old Gods: Loosly based on pagan Europe, the religions of ancient Celts, Germanic peoples, Slavs and so on

Dorwned God: I dunno. The dualism with the Storm God could be compared to Zoroastrianism, kinda. There's also an ethnic element, which could be compared to Judaism. But no really clear obvious paralel.

R'hyllor: The montheistic confessionalism of Christianity and Islam combined with the dualism and importance of fire from Zoroastrianism. I think George mentioned that there are some Cathar elements (like female allowed in the priesthood).

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

There is literally nothing in common between the Drowned God and Norse Paganism.

Nope. The Old Gods aren't very much like any pagan religion in Europe either. They worshipped gods, not trees. Some types of trees were regarded as sacred because they were connected to the gods, but they weren't deities by themselves.

[Rorey Targaryen]

Old Gods- Northern European Paganism

The Seven- Elements of Hinduism, Greek/ Roman/ Egyptian Pagan Mythology with the Organizational Structure of the Catholic Church

R'hllor- The Westboro Baptist Church

Drowned God and Storm God- I don't think that there are any direct parallels except for Sea Gods (for Drowned) like Poseidon, Neptune, etc, and Thunder Gods (for Storm) like Zeus, Thor, etc.

[^fovea^]

I found myself comparing the nights watch to Catholic priests and cardinals during the last part of ADWD.

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

Old Gods= pagan religions in Europe before Europe became Christian

Faith of the Seven= Catholicism. Septas Septons are the equivalents of monks and nuns, the High Septon and his roles and influence is similar to the Pope's role and influence in Medieval Europe.

R'hillor- The fire worshipping aspect is similar to Zoroastrianism

Drowned God- based upon Viking religion and Norse myths before they converted to Christianity

Pretty much this. There are some bits of Druidism in the old gods religion, like the fixation (not necessarily worship of) on trees and nature and whatnot. I think these are the biggies.

ETA: What's interesting about Christianity and the "lord of light" is that "bringer of light" and "morning star" are actually, etymologically, in reference to Lucifer.

[Not Dead Just Broken]

There seems to be a good amount of Christianity in the Red God as well. The strong Devli-like figure. The idea that Azor Ahai will be re-born. Even the way the religion is popular among the poor and slaves of Volantis is reminiscent of early Christianity in the Roman Empire.

[the conquering bastard 25]

The Seven are pretty analogous to medieval Christianity, as a lot of people have already stated, in terms of the theology and their teachings. The Red God, to me, symbolizes a lot of the more dangerous aspects of all religions, especially how Mel practices it, with the intolerance for other religions, human sacrifice, massive holy wars, etc. The Old Gods are really like many of the older pagan religions, with nature worship and blood sacrifice.

Not really sure what the Drowned God is close to IRL. Never heard of a drowning religion before. Just seems to fit the Ironborn in general.

ever heard of the Anabaptist.

[The Marquis de Leech]

The Drowned God religion really has nothing to do with Norse paganism. It's essentially borrowed wholesale from H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos ("that is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange eons even death may die"), complete with the entity in question being at the bottom of the ocean.

R'hllor differs from any of the Abrahamic religion in that it is fundamentally Manichean in outlook - there is a straight war between competing factions, rather than one supreme deity. You'd be looking at Zoroastrianism instead.

[Lord Varys]

Besides the old gods, all the three major religions - R'hllorism, the Faith of the Andals, and the Drowned God - borrow stuff from Christianity.

- The prayers to R'hllor resemble certain Christian prayers very much in style and tone, if not in content. Compare especially the chantings we hear in ADwD (both at the wedding and during the burning of the cannibals). The belief in R'hllor itself is pretty much spot-on Zoroastrism (i.e. we have two gods, one good the other evil, who are eternally at war with each other).

- The Faith has an established clergy very reminiscent of various Christian churches (especially Catholicism), and a seven-faced god instead of three-faced.

- The Ironborn worship a god who died and is not dead (i.e. has been resurrected somehow) - which is essentially the core feature of Christianity (much more than the Trinity stuff). Combining that with Lovecraftian terminology and symbolism (i.e. krakens) makes it much more fun. The first thought I had when confronted with this, was 'viking-like Christianity'.

[Hodor!!!]

Pretty much this. There are some bits of Druidism in the old gods religion, like the fixation (not necessarily worship of) on trees and nature and whatnot. I think these are the biggies.

ETA: What's interesting about Christianity and the "lord of light" is that "bringer of light" and "morning star" are actually, etymologically, in reference to Lucifer.

Is the Red God ever called the morning star? I must have missed this.

As for "bringer of light" supposedly unambigiously referring to the devil, you might want to consider these bible passages.

"And God said: Let there be light: and there was light [...]

And God said: Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven to devide the day from the night. And let them be for signs, for seasons, and for days, and years."

(Genesis 1:3,14)

"Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life."

(John 8:12)

The word "Lucifer" is used once in the whole bible, as far as I know, in Isaiah 14, where it does not refer to the devil.

You may be thinking of Milton.