The True Face of the Faceless Men

[Mithras]

I admit that I had never thought of questioning the validity of the early history of the FM as told by the KM. Now that TWOIAF is out, it is time to assess the FM with objective eyes.

This whole “forging” of Arya is a terrible brainwashing process. While designing the FM, I have no doubt that George made heavy use of those conspiracy theories about mind control, secret CIA experiments etc.

Therefore, we should have taken the story of the KM about their origins with a grain of salt, least to say.

What was the story of the KM? Let us briefly remember: Valyrians were terrible slavers, relying on the blood of countless slaves all over the Planetos. The FM realized that suffering has the same universal language/religion. All those gods they were praying were actually different faces of the same deity, namely Him of Many Faces. So, he took it on himself to be the agent of Him of Many Faces and gave the first gift to the poor slave, not to the masters. Arya immediately told him that he should have killed the masters and the KM implied that he eventually did but that story was best shared with “no one”, which means Arya was not brainwashed enough to hear that.

The first flag we should have raised was this: The FM are not avengers. Why should they take it on themselves to kill the masters and cause the Doom? After all, they do not choose who to give the gift.

A handful of maesters, influenced by fragments of the work of Septon Barth, hold that Valyria had used spells to tame the Fourteen Flames for thousands of years, that their ceaseless hunger for slaves and wealth was as much to sustain these spells as to expand their power, and that when at last those spells faltered, the cataclysm became inevitable.

Of these, some argue that it was the curse of Garin the Great at last coming to fruition. Others speak of the priests of R’hllor calling down the fire of their god in queer rituals. Some, wedding the fanciful notion of Valyrian magic to the reality of the ambitious great houses of Valyria, have argued that it was the constant whirl of conflict and deception amongst the great houses that might have led to the assassinations of too many of the reputed mages who renewed and maintained the rituals that banked the fires of the Fourteen Flames.

Since Septon Barth is always right, I think this is the true cause of the Doom. Too many mages that were supposed to maintain the rituals to keep the fires of Fourteen Flames tamed were assassinated due to internal struggles and feuds.

Who do you think assassinated these mages? Why, the FM.

How much gold do you think they were paid for these assassinations? Why, shitloads.

What did they do with all that gold? Why, the capital of the Iron Bank.

Trading with the Enemy!

[Mal Malenkirk]

I like it.

The FM assassins as we've met them are brainwashed religious fanatics who kill on orders without asking questions and who doesn't care for gold. Yet the FM as an institution is paid a fortune for each 'hit'. It's a glaring contradiction. If the motivation for doing what they did was primarily religious, then so would be their methods of selecting targets. I have to assume that if the FM lets other decide who needs to die and are paid a fortune per hit, it's because the leadership cares primarily for gold even though they train their foot soldier not to. Somewhere at the top of the FM are people who are motivated by greed and power and who are training religious robots to achieve that. Your theory mesh well with that.

[Pellinore]

I like it.

The FM assassins as we've met them are brainwashed religious fanatics who kill on orders without asking questions and who doesn't care for gold. Yet the FM as an institution is paid a fortune for each 'hit'. It's a glaring contradiction. If the motivation for doing what they did was primarily religious, then so would be their methods of selecting targets. I have to assume that if the FM lets other decide who needs to die and are paid a fortune per hit, it's because the leadership cares primarily for gold even though they train their foot soldier not to. Somewhere at the top of the FM are people who are motivated by greed and power and who are training religious robots to achieve that. Your theory mesh well with that.

I was always struck by that too. People hire the Faceless Men, but the Faceless Men don't care about money? Yeah, ok.

[Blue-eyed crow]

The Faceless Men sometimes accept demand non-monetary considerations in exchange for their services, so clearly they are not motivated solely by gold.

[Mithras]

The Faceless Men sometimes accept demand non-monetary considerations in exchange for their services, so clearly they are not motivated solely by gold.

Yes, they also take humans as payment as in the case of the waif. Can anybody explain how exactly is this different from slavery?

[sisterhood without manners]

The face is hideous and so well-known.

Nothing comes for free in any world.

I like this theory .Sold!

[LordToo-Fat-to-Sit-a-Horse]

you missed something:

The wealth of the westerlands was matched, in ancient times, with the hunger of the Freehold of Valyria for precious metals, yet there seems no evidence that the dragonlords ever made contact with the lords of the Rock, Casterly or Lannister. Septon Barth speculated on the matter, referring to a Valyrian text that has since been lost, suggesting that the Freehold’s sorcerers foretold that the gold of Casterly Rock would destroy them. Archmaester Perestan has put forward a different, more plausible speculation, suggesting that the Valyrians had in ancient days reached as far as Oldtown but suffered some great reverse or tragedy there that caused them to shun all of Westeros thereafter.

VAlyrians didn´t trade with Westerlands for fear. Yet gold from CR destroyed the Freehold sorcerers, and caused the Doom.

The gold that paid the FM came from CR.

There was one famous transaction between the Westerlands and Valyria:

The sword Brightroar came into the possession of the Lannister kings in the century before the Doom, and it is said that the weight of gold they paid for it would have been enough to raise an army.

Only dragonlords can make Valyrian steel right? to make VS you need both blood and fire. Qohor makes blood sacrifices, yet it lacks dragonfire to make VS.. they can only re forge, but not make new VS.

Some dragonlord selled Brightroar to House Lannister, and later with that gold he killed the sorcerers and caused the DOom

Were they suicidal? i mean by killing the sorcerers, they destroyed Valyria, killing every dragonlord around.

Except House Targaryen, who became the only dragonlords in the world...

[Roose on the Loose]

Anywhere we go it's not about who's a liar and who is not. Even Ned says that everybody lies. So of course the FM isn't what the KM says it is.

It's a mute point. Arya can't go back after Raff.

.

Now when Sansa sees through LF we'll know we're getting somewhere.

[Mithras]

/snip

Yes, I agree with this.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

I like it.

The FM assassins as we've met them are brainwashed religious fanatics who kill on orders without asking questions and who doesn't care for gold. Yet the FM as an institution is paid a fortune for each 'hit'. It's a glaring contradiction. If the motivation for doing what they did was primarily religious, then so would be their methods of selecting targets. I have to assume that if the FM lets other decide who needs to die and are paid a fortune per hit, it's because the leadership cares primarily for gold even though they train their foot soldier not to. Somewhere at the top of the FM are people who are motivated by greed and power and who are training religious robots to achieve that. Your theory mesh well with that.

That's how most bad organizations work. They indoctrinate their followers to a certain set of beliefs that the top brass don't even hold. Note how in terrorist groups it's never the leaders going out on suicide missions for the glory of their faith. It's the grunts who've been brainwashed.

Combining this with the OP... could the top dog of the FM be a certain lord whose sigil is the mockingbird? The FM are based in Braavos. The lord in question is of Braavosi stock. But what are the odds that a sellsword from Braavos ends up having his descendants become lords, to the extent that his grandson is one of the most powerful men in Westeros? The FM and the Iron Bank are tied (I think there's enough evidence of this) and LF has a remarkable ability to produce wealth from his investments, rather like a banker.

Of course it's possible that LF is an ambitious upstart in more cultures than one and his ultimate demise will be because someone hires the FM to take him out. Even if he is one of their own (on the IB board or something) if the price is right, they might go for it. I rather prefer the idea that he's the top dog though, because then the organization can die with him. I'd like to see Arya take them down regardless of Petyr's involvement though.

[~~~~~~~~~~~~~]

I like it.

The FM assassins as we've met them are brainwashed religious fanatics who kill on orders without asking questions and who doesn't care for gold. Yet the FM as an institution is paid a fortune for each 'hit'. It's a glaring contradiction. If the motivation for doing what they did was primarily religious, then so would be their methods of selecting targets. I have to assume that if the FM lets other decide who needs to die and are paid a fortune per hit, it's because the leadership cares primarily for gold even though they train their foot soldier not to. Somewhere at the top of the FM are people who are motivated by greed and power and who are training religious robots to achieve that. Your theory mesh well with that.

It sounds a lot like the Central Banking System or the Federal Reserve. It also sounds like military boot camp where they break you down and then build you into what they want you to be: a killing machine without conscience. Faceless Men by the way are how the Others are described in the prologue of a Game of Thrones.

[Mithras]

That's how most bad organizations work. They indoctrinate their followers to a certain set of beliefs that the top brass don't even hold. Note how in terrorist groups it's never the leaders going out on suicide missions for the glory of their faith. It's the grunts who've been brainwashed.

Combining this with the OP... could the top dog of the FM be a certain lord whose sigil is the mockingbird? The FM are based in Braavos. The lord in question is of Braavosi stock. But what are the odds that a sellsword from Braavos ends up having his descendants become lords, to the extent that his grandson is one of the most powerful men in Westeros? The FM and the Iron Bank are tied (I think there's enough evidence of this) and LF has a remarkable ability to produce wealth from his investments, rather like a banker.

Of course it's possible that LF is an ambitious upstart in more cultures than one and his ultimate demise will be because someone hires the FM to take him out. Even if he is one of their own (on the IB board or something) if the price is right, they might go for it. I rather prefer the idea that he's the top dog though, because then the organization can die with him. I'd like to see Arya take them down regardless of Petyr's involvement though.

I don't think LF is the top dog of the IB/FM (I agree that they are the two sides of the same coin). If there is a top dog, I think he is in Essos and interested in Essossi stuff. Because Essos is the center of the world, their wealth and trade is incomparable to the "savages" in Westeros. Essos is the true board of the game.

[LordToo-Fat-to-Sit-a-Horse]

Iron Bank = Faceless men:

https://cantuse.wordpress.com/2015/02/06/a-nefarious-investment/#underground

[LmL]

I can't help but think of the repeated connections George makes between dragons and nuclear bombs. "Banking the fires of the 14 flames" sounds a lot like keeping a nuclear plant from melting down. You can't just walk away from a nuclear plant - you have to keep cooling the rods with water or you get a Chernobyl / Fukushima event. It makes perfect sense that simply killing the right people in charge of "banking the flames" would lead to a meltdown and chain reaction explosion - exactly what happened.

[Good Guy Garlan]

you missed something:

VAlyrians didn´t trade with Westerlands for fear. Yet gold from CR destroyed the Freehold sorcerers, and caused the Doom.

The gold that paid the FM came from CR.

There was one famous transaction between the Westerlands and Valyria:

Only dragonlords can make Valyrian steel right? to make VS you need both blood and fire. Qohor makes blood sacrifices, yet it lacks dragonfire to make VS.. they can only re forge, but not make new VS.

Some dragonlord selled Brightroar to House Lannister, and later with that gold he killed the sorcerers and caused the DOom

Were they suicidal? i mean by killing the sorcerers, they destroyed Valyria, killing every dragonlord around.

Except House Targaryen, who became the only dragonlords in the world...

I like this a lot! Yeah, the Targs definitely profited the most from the Doom. The Velaryons got pretty loaded for a while too, at least before they their fortunes took a turn for the worse

[LmL]

Follow the money! I like how George makes his world as realistic as possible by incorporating ideas and truths like this into his world. Yeah, it's fantasy, but you still gotta follow the money!

[Lady Blizzardborn]

I like this a lot! Yeah, the Targs definitely profited the most from the Doom. The Velaryons got pretty loaded for a while too, at least before they their fortunes took a turn for the worse

And the Celtigars and House Qoherys also came from Valyria. It wasn't just the Targs, though they certainly fared best post-Doom because they still had dragons. Why the heck did the other Valyrians who came with them not have dragons? What was their connection to the Targs?

I have one problem with the Targs setting up the doom: it completely undermine Daenys the Dreamer's prophetic abilities. Dragon dreams have been set up in the series to be real and meaningful. If House Targaryen set up the Doom, why did they need a dream from Daenys to warn them about it?

Make that two problems: the Westerosi Valyrian contingent left Valyria 100 years before the Doom happened. It makes very little sense for them to leave a place where they are part of a powerful elite to go somewhere far away and then spend a century working at the downfall of their homeland.

I can see Daenys maybe not having had that particular dream, and the family using her powers as a cover, but how do you explain taking 100 years to get the work done? That would have meant multiple FM contracts, and over a long enough period of time that might well have bankrupted the Targaryens. They were on Dragonstone, which IIRC does not have the most booming of economies. Of course I may not be R-ing C. ;)

[Musashisamurai]

If anyone in Westeros is the FM's leader, its Varys. His actions, habits and skills are very similar to the other Faceless Men. He's also setting up another Dance of Dragons, which might the perfect way to kill off the remaining dragons (human or otherwise).

That said, I think the FM did use the gold to make the Iron Bank, and now enforce their decisions when needed, but I think the Kindly Man is their leader. Or at least the regional leader of the capital and headquarters. Like Astrid for the Dark Brotherhood in Skyrim (I've honestly always thought of the FM as kinda like the Dark Brotherhood, though more stealthy than the IG brotherhood. Lore-wise, very similar)

I don't think the gold went to House Targaryen-they fled,, because they predicted something they were going to do? No I think one house hired them one another, and then it snowballed-and maybe a few FM took it on themselves to take it one step further, especially if theyr were former slaves

[Kushy Green Dreams]

If fire magic needs blood sacrifice to work and the valyrians were using slaves as sacrifice then you don't need to assassinate dragon lords. You can limit their number of sacrifices by offing slaves, like with a mine collapse.

I am kind of on board with the targs instigating the doom. If you use things like major catastrophes maybe the FM will give you a wholesale price?

[LmL]

And the Celtigars and House Qoherys also came from Valyria. It wasn't just the Targs, though they certainly fared best post-Doom because they still had dragons. Why the heck did the other Valyrians who came with them not have dragons? What was their connection to the Targs?

I have one problem with the Targs setting up the doom: it completely undermine Daenys the Dreamer's prophetic abilities. Dragon dreams have been set up in the series to be real and meaningful. If House Targaryen set up the Doom, why did they need a dream from Daenys to warn them about it?

Make that two problems: the Westerosi Valyrian contingent left Valyria 100 years before the Doom happened. It makes very little sense for them to leave a place where they are part of a powerful elite to go somewhere far away and then spend a century working at the downfall of their homeland.

I can see Daenys maybe not having had that particular dream, and the family using her powers as a cover, but how do you explain taking 100 years to get the work done? That would have meant multiple FM contracts, and over a long enough period of time that might well have bankrupted the Targaryens. They were on Dragonstone, which IIRC does not have the most booming of economies. Of course I may not be R-ing C. ;)

The Valyrians came to Dragonstone (not Westeros proper) 200 years before the Doom - but the Targaryens only came 12 years before the Doom.

Just to clarify.

As for the dragon dreams: greenseers and glass candle wielders can put dreams in people’s heads. We always have to remember that any dream could reflect an agenda by one of those two actors. We saw it with Bran and BR, many times. Not saying Daenys the Dreamer's dream was planted, but it's totally possible. Dany’s dreams are very likely from Quaithe.

The story of the prophecy would make a great excuse for why they VERY VERY SUSPICIOUSLY moved all of their stuff away from the scene of the crime right before the crime went down. It’s a little fishy sounding.

It’s got to be one or the other: either she had a dream and they took it seriously, meaning they probably didn’t “do the doom”; or, the dream is a cover and they definitely did help blow that sh*t up.