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[ADwD Spoilers] The Grand Faceless Men Conspiracy Theory


Toe

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Varys == Qyburn from one point onward : this was a great idea, Varys would fully know how to manipulate Cersei from standing near her so many years.

NOTE: this would however be very difficult to get it true in the tv show, since Qyburn and Varys have very different appearance.

The main support for your own theory is the fact that right now whatever Varys declared up until now can not be trusted at all and show clear "inconsistencies" that you highlighted too well.

Varys supporting one side or the other does not just add up.. he was born far apart from westeros, he already has *everything* near his hand grasp (except he sleeps in an empty room like FM people)..

..I do not believe at all that his penis was taken away for sorcery, imho he was just some slave [there are many eunuchs slaves] that flew away still young into the FM grasps.. who believes a child alone

teaches himself to read and steal messages? Who doesn't believe Varys was behind the mad king murders?

Association of FM to the Great Other is reasonable. Yet from Brynden speech to Bran I came to the belief that Great Other may be associated to Weirwoods as well, and be him that provides the "magic" skills to Starks, not the R'hlor god. Indeed Ice are Starks, Fire are Targaryen and Dragons.

What I do not buy of your theory is:

- all those people that Arya see and you mentioned could be from westeros. No, those who caused the doom of Valyria where eastern people.. it is also very unlikely guys from westeros would call the doom upon them all, even if that would mean "free people from suffering". That is something one can think only if he is an "outsider" to the group that is being killed. Also, what the hell is that? There are wars all over the place, do they really have to personally go and report to their FM leader so often? Very unlikely.

- Varys (or someone else) being 1000 years old (or some centuries) is very unlikely and unnecessary. FM is an organization, as such - once his leader gave it a goal - does not need the survival of his leaders to purse his goals

- Some complicated and too intricate smart choices indicated as part of "smart FM plans". Let's not give too high reputation to FM people, they are still playing the game as pawns, with all the difficulties into knowing what are the right choices of events as others.. yes, they have birds.. but Ned start managed to hide Jon for 17 years (And other secrets).

- I don't like too much that servants of Great Other need a fucking Dragon to tear down the Wall.. yeah, Dragons have magic and - most of all - fire. But dragons can also kill thousands of white walkers with a breath of fire. Nope. The Great Wall was a Great Idea, but the truth is that it wasn't *NEVER* tested against the others.. will it be really strong enough? WW have their own magic, who says they can not break it? Also IMHO Starks old gods are connected to the Great Other rather than to R'hlor, hence the sorcery on the wall belongs to the Great Other and is compliant with that of WW.. ..it would have been a burning wall made out of fire-stone (or how the hell that stone is named) if it was built in R'hlor or dragons name to really keep outside W.W. The only detail that puzzles me is that if Ilyrio gave the eggs to Daenerys it can't be any different than out of a with that she gave them birth at it happened.

For the rest, I buy it.

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  • 2 months later...

I just stumbled across these articles today.



This is the most troubling.



I agree that the Citadel is and has been undermining magic. Yet Marwyn is particularly disliked because he trafficks with wizards and suchlike? Or because he does s openly?. But as individuals they practice some -- the sliver link of healing also carries with it the knowledge of how to kill. (Did Pycell let Robert die?) Cressan uses the Strangler, known to the FM and maesters, against Mel, and fails. If I undertand this theory correctly, the Citadel wants mankind to fail, and fall victim to the cold?



There is a plot to unsettle the realm, to keep in constant chaos -- gradually killing the men who would otherwise stabilize it.



If the Others and the cold are to triumph, wouldn't the Greenseer know it? The children are mourning the end of the mammoths and direwolves. They or the Greenseer weave(s) a charm to keep the wights at bay. Leaf talks in terms of the age of man. If this an end of magic --- or the age of man in which the Other kills them alll, why wouldn't Leaf say so to Bran? Why bother to have him brought North? The Children, who seem to revere the trees and use them to see...especially the weirwoods. The old gods are the cold, the Others and the weirwoods are part of it?



Certainly there is magic in Martin's world. But it seems to have been dormant until the dragons hatched. The obsidian candles flame. Mel's powers increase at the Wall. (i have always thought Mel was an unwitting servant of the Other - she talks about light and deals in shadows).



And is this the bittersweet ending - A Promise of Spring. All hoar-frosted Starks and undead direwolves gathering around a blue rose struggling to bloom near a steaming pool?



It's a well-reasoned theory, but is pretty bleak. How can a few dragons and AA stand against such a world-wide organization? And I thought this was a series about the restoration of a dynasty. A dynasty of Cold?




Later----



I have thinking about this theory off and on. If it well-written, I would blow it off. Martin can't possibly pull this off in the remaining books. He has enough balls in the air that need to land.



And I really don't think HBO would sign on for such a bummer of an ending. I just read that Martin told HBO the ending, but not some plot twists. That will be bad enough; people who are watching television will know the end before the books come out.


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  • 2 weeks later...

If the Others and FM are in league then I would say the lordling face is probably Waymar Royce, simply because the faces don't need to be worn already and Waymar is repeatedly called a lordling in the prologue and can be considered the epitome of what being a lordling entails.



About the Plague victim the only two notable victims I remember from the Great Spring sickness are the Hightower lord and Tygett Lannister who is the father by the way of Tyrek(currently AWOL), don't know what to make of it though.


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The Faceless Men are a bit of an enigma.

The real question to me is are they who they say they are to Arya or are the who the people in Westeros think they are?

They say they give the gift of death to those who are suffering or to those who have caused a person suffering.

From AFFC 22 Arya:

"Is that why you have come to us?" the kindly man went on. "To learn our arts, so you may kill these men you hate?"
Arya did not know how to answer that. "Maybe."
"Then you have come to the wrong place. It is not for you to say who shall live and who shall die. That gift belongs to Him of Many Faces. We are but his servants, sworn to do his will."
"Oh." Arya glanced at the statues that stood along the walls, candles glimmering round their feet. "Which god is he?"
"Why, all of them," said the priest in black and white.

In Westeros they are thought of as very expensive assasins

AGOT 33 Eddard
Littlefinger shrugged. "Titles are cheap. The Faceless Men are expensive. If truth be told, I did the Targaryen girl more good than you with all your talk of honor. Let some sellsword drunk on visions of lordship try to kill her. Likely he'll make a botch of it, and afterward the Dothraki will be on their guard. If we'd sent a Faceless Man after her, she'd be as good as buried."

ACOK 44 Tyrion

"There are such. I used to dream that one day I'd be rich enough to send a Faceless Man after my sweet sister."

AFFC 24 Cersei

I could have hired a Faceless Man to kill Bronn for half of what I've spent on hippocras, she reflected when they were gone at last.

If it is the former, how does the Many Faced God tell them who deserves the gift and how much it should cost the one asking? In this case, then I don't think Balon's death was the result of a FM. I would find it hard to believe that the MFG would take Euron's request unless Balon did a lot more to him than sending him into exile.

If it is the latter, how have they not imploded as a group - a bunch of people who can kill virtually anyone at will. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Sooner or later they would be killing each other without some other power to keep things in check.

I expect we will be finding out one way or the other through Arya and I hope it will be in TWOW.

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The Faceless Men are a bit of an enigma.

The real question to me is are they who they say they are to Arya or are the who the people in Westeros think they are?

They say they give the gift of death to those who are suffering or to those who have caused a person suffering.

From AFFC 22 Arya:

"Is that why you have come to us?" the kindly man went on. "To learn our arts, so you may kill these men you hate?"

Arya did not know how to answer that. "Maybe."

"Then you have come to the wrong place. It is not for you to say who shall live and who shall die. That gift belongs to Him of Many Faces. We are but his servants, sworn to do his will."

"Oh." Arya glanced at the statues that stood along the walls, candles glimmering round their feet. "Which god is he?"

"Why, all of them," said the priest in black and white.

In Westeros they are thought of as very expensive assasins

AGOT 33 Eddard

Littlefinger shrugged. "Titles are cheap. The Faceless Men are expensive. If truth be told, I did the Targaryen girl more good than you with all your talk of honor. Let some sellsword drunk on visions of lordship try to kill her. Likely he'll make a botch of it, and afterward the Dothraki will be on their guard. If we'd sent a Faceless Man after her, she'd be as good as buried."

ACOK 44 Tyrion

"There are such. I used to dream that one day I'd be rich enough to send a Faceless Man after my sweet sister."

AFFC 24 Cersei

I could have hired a Faceless Man to kill Bronn for half of what I've spent on hippocras, she reflected when they were gone at last.

If it is the former, how does the Many Faced God tell them who deserves the gift and how much it should cost the one asking? In this case, then I don't think Balon's death was the result of a FM. I would find it hard to believe that the MFG would take Euron's request unless Balon did a lot more to him than sending him into exile.

If it is the latter, how have they not imploded as a group - a bunch of people who can kill virtually anyone at will. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Sooner or later they would be killing each other without some other power to keep things in check.

I expect we will be finding out one way or the other through Arya and I hope it will be in TWOW.

I don't think they necessarily care if there is a reason to kill someone, it's about the sacrifice of the person wanting someone else dead. It's more about them than the victim. LF doesn't know jack shit about the organization and assumes it is based on the value of the target because that makes the most sense to him as a rather greedy individual, but we have seen that the FM will kill for service instead of money, and they likely killed Balon for a dragon egg.

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I don't think they necessarily care if there is a reason to kill someone, it's about the sacrifice of the person wanting someone else dead. It's more about them than the victim. LF doesn't know jack shit about the organization and assumes it is based on the value of the target because that makes the most sense to him as a rather greedy individual, but we have seen that the FM will kill for service instead of money, and they likely killed Balon for a dragon egg.

I'm not sure if you missed the point of my post or are just ignoring it.

What I gather is that you believe that the FM are just expensive assassins.

I agree that LF has no actual knowledge of how the FM work. I don't think any of the Westeros characters who mention them really knows anything about them or how to hire one, which was one of the arguements of my post - thinking that the FM are just expensive assassins is likely wrong.

The notion that Euron gave a dragon's egg to the FM as payment for the death of Balon I assume is because Balon mentioned that he had one at one time

The Crow's Eye sipped from his silver cup. "I once held a dragon's egg in this hand, brother. This Myrish wizard swore he could hatch it if I gave him a year and all the gold that he required. When I grew bored with his excuses, I slew him. As he watched his entrails sliding through his fingers he said, 'But it has not been a year.'" He laughed. "Cragorn's died, you know."

"Who?"

"The man who blew my dragon horn. When the maester cut him open, his lungs were charred as black as soot."

Victarion shuddered. "Show me this dragon's egg."

"I threw it in the sea during one of my dark moods." Euron gave a shrug.

and his reason for why he no longer has it is fairly lame. Or it could just be that it is included to show how Euron doesn't value things much, even a dragon's egg if he cannot find a use for it.

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I'm not sure if you missed the point of my post or are just ignoring it.

What I gather is that you believe that the FM are just expensive assassins.

I agree that LF has no actual knowledge of how the FM work. I don't think any of the Westeros characters who mention them really knows anything about them or how to hire one, which was one of the arguements of my post - thinking that the FM are just expensive assassins is likely wrong.

The notion that Euron gave a dragon's egg to the FM as payment for the death of Balon I assume is because Balon mentioned that he had one at one time

The Crow's Eye sipped from his silver cup. "I once held a dragon's egg in this hand, brother. This Myrish wizard swore he could hatch it if I gave him a year and all the gold that he required. When I grew bored with his excuses, I slew him. As he watched his entrails sliding through his fingers he said, 'But it has not been a year.'" He laughed. "Cragorn's died, you know."

"Who?"

"The man who blew my dragon horn. When the maester cut him open, his lungs were charred as black as soot."

Victarion shuddered. "Show me this dragon's egg."

"I threw it in the sea during one of my dark moods." Euron gave a shrug.

and his reason for why he no longer has it is fairly lame. Or it could just be that it is included to show how Euron doesn't value things much, even a dragon's egg if he cannot find a use for it.

My whole post was just about LF's belief and how it is obviously wrong. I wasn't too worried about anything you were saying. I wasn't commenting on your beliefs or theories, but LF's. I thought I was succinct in saying that the FM are not expensive except to those whose wealth is their greatest asset. Euron comments that he had a dragon egg he threw in the ocean, but it's pretty clear that an FM killed Balon. It's likely true that he treasured his dragon egg, and maybe more and that's what they got in payment.

However, as I also said, they will take service instead of wealth, or whatever else. The value of the target is not something we have seen any evidence of, indeed Jaqen says Arya can name any man or woman. LF assumes they will charge a lot to kill a Queen because he would do the same, but I think he is completely wrong.

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My whole post was just about LF's belief and how it is obviously wrong. I wasn't too worried about anything you were saying. I wasn't commenting on your beliefs or theories, but LF's. I thought I was succinct in saying that the FM are not expensive except to those whose wealth is their greatest asset. Euron comments that he had a dragon egg he threw in the ocean, but it's pretty clear that an FM killed Balon. It's likely true that he treasured his dragon egg, and maybe more and that's what they got in payment.

However, as I also said, they will take service instead of wealth, or whatever else. The value of the target is not something we have seen any evidence of, indeed Jaqen says Arya can name any man or woman. LF assumes they will charge a lot to kill a Queen because he would do the same, but I think he is completely wrong.

Why bother to qoute my entire post if you didn't read it? I was saying that all the views we got from Westeros of the FM were likely wrong because none of the three people who mention them had ever tried to actually "hire" a FM. To the Westerosi they seem to be seen as very expensive assassins.

You were succinct, I just think you are wrong in your assumption. I believe the evidence points to the cost to the requester of the gift being given to someone else be very high. It obviously doesn't have to be only money - the waif's father gave her up thus giving the second wife what she wanted, her daughter as his heir.

If they wanted what was most valuable to Euron, his ship would be the first thing on the list. He still has his ship so either you (and a lot of other people) are correct that he was able to pay for the death of Balon with something like a dragon's egg (he still had a lot of stuff to give away at the kingsmoot) or he did not (not to say someone else might have, just not him).

Your statement that "it's pretty clear that an FM killed Balon" comes from the following from ASoS 22 Arya

she heard the woman say. "I dreamt I saw a shadow with a burning heart butchering a golden stag, aye. I dreamt of a man without a face, waiting on a bridge that swayed and swung. On his shoulder perched a drowned crow with seaweed hanging from his wings. I dreamt of a roaring river and a woman that was a fish. Dead she drifted, with red tears on her cheeks, but when her eyes did open, oh, I woke from terror. All this I dreamt, and more."

I think the point is for us to think that it is a FM that the old woman is dreaming of (I did the first time I read it). GRRM has been known to try and lead us astray before. There is also the drowned crow imagery that doesn't fit the FM. I do not think it is cut and dried that a FM killed Balon. An alternative is a Coldhands type of wight who has been in the water too long (face is gone) and had come for vengeance against Balon.

As for what the FM will take, I believe they take what Him of Many Faces tells them to take. I don't know how it works, but neither do I know how R'hllor passes information, or how Bran and BR can see all that trees have been witness to, etc... What I do know is that if the FM work any other way then it goes against what they say about themselves. If they aren't true to themselves, I don't see how they could have survived as a group for thousands of years.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I believe the entire series is boiling down to a trial by battle: R'hllor vs. the Great Other. Light vs. Dark. A summer that never ends vs the eternal night.


The Great Other goes by many names, he is the Many-Faced God, the Nameless God of the unsullied, and more than likely the drowned god as well.



Each side has their champions, R'hllor has Azor Ahai (whoever he/she may be), Danaerys, aegon vi, Mel etc all practicing the magics of fire and blood( blood =life). The great other has his armies of both faceless men and unsullied with Bloodraven and Bran as champion using the magics of ice and death.



What i'm not so sure is about the maesters, they killed all the dragons and wish to deny the existence of all magic, so maybe they are trying to prevent this war from happening, but that seems the most innocent and righteous of intentions, i wouldnt be suprised if the maesters were bad guys


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  • 1 month later...

Your theory makes so much sense, that it creeps me out.. the name of the series is ''A Song of Ice and Fire'' and GRRM made us believe that it was all about south vs north dynamic (Targ vs Stark). If your theory happens to be true that would make GRRM so much better writer, because almost noone saw this coming.


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  • 2 months later...

I always thought that the FM would be far more likely to attack the Others than to help them. I do think someone (CotF? Bloodraven?) will be helping the Others, but not the FM. They are all about the peace of death, and the Others grant a death without peace. I think (bit of a cracked pot here) that Arya will convince them to help Jon to stop the Others. But that is one small part of the bigger puzzle, not the solution to the whole war. If the Others are stopped, it will be still in keeping with the Game of Thrones, like in LotR, where a bunch of groups get together to stop a common enemy. I think the FM will eventually be one of those groups, not the group supporting the Others.


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WOW such a great theory! I am at the moment experiencing a sever case of goose-bumpia...! In comparison to the detective mind of yours I appear like a kid trying to find easter eggs... respecccccttttt :bowdown: :bowdown: :bowdown: :bowdown:



If GRRM dies before finishing his work do me a favor and write your own version and send it to me :cheers:



This is by far the best thing I have heard in explaining Varys. Also I always had a bad feeling about Varys just killing Kevan for apparently no great good in sight and take off all he's been working at for years. Also I was very much bewildered by how easily the birds started whispering to a new master.



I also think that Rhollor is against the Other in the end; that is all the other Gods are servants of the one or the other. I really like the idea of old gods to be of the other against what we have been "brought up" to believe from the beginning; that Starks are the good guys and good guys must be worshiping the good god, hence the old gods are the good god.



I too found it very strange that there is a weirwood door in the FM temple but it is noteworthy that the door is black and white like everything else in that temple. I think this is hinting at a sort of a yin-yang balance philosophy behind their assassinations and "gift giving". I really doubt that their whole purpose is to eliminate life because it's suffering but to maintain the balance of life and death. This is in accord with JH's wanting to pay back the lives Arya rescued. Also this may explain why they would contribute to the doom of Valyria. The fire and blood represents life and Valyrians with their magic and dragons and everything were disturbing the balance of life/death circle so the faceless men decided it was time for Valyria to be stopped.



In this framework it is also plausible that WW should rise after eons and dragons too, because there is the balance between life(fire) and death(ice) and when one gets strong the other one has to compensate.



I think the twist this whole thing puts on the characters is interesting too. Arya for example will be in a very interesting position and will at some point have to choose to fight against Jon Snow (if he's alive) and Bran will be teamed up with her if FM decide to put their weight into the ice plate.



There is so much to say and speculate about this theory. Thanks @Toe for sharing!


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  • 4 months later...

Nice :bowdown:


But not in everything though. It seems you want to fit everyting and everyone. Well I do believe that the faceless men destroyed Vallyria and are behind a plan to destroy the wall and maybe those Undying are in the plan as well. Also keep in mind that Braavos has the largest bank so they may have men there too.



It all makes sense to a point but for example how did Varys intrigued the War of the 5 kings? Petyr did this and Varys had nothing to do with him being coin keeper. Lysa did that and Petyr had his own motivations. You say Varys is not keeping peace and is not a Targaryen loyalist. I don't believe it. First of he is who he claims to be. In the serries he even catches the wizzard who carstrated him...why would a faceless man do that? Now I get that book and serries are not the same but important things stay the same and if Varys is a 1000 years old maniac who wants to exterminate humanity, then they wouldn't do put in the show such a thing



Secondly Varys may be a Targaryen loyalist and for that reason he wouldn't want the Mad king on the throne. We know that there is another theory of ''Southern ambitions'' so maybe he worked for Jon Arryn and the plotters to put Rhaeggar to the throne. After then all he did was trying to keep Robert alive and the kingdom united and provoke war just before the Targaryen invasion. The purposedly failed assasination plans was just him protecting Danny and trying to enrage Khal Drogo for an earlier invasion (only gain nothing to loose-note that even if Danny died, he didn't know Viserys was dead already and had Aegon true or not in his pocket). Meaning to push things.



You say he tried to provoke war by poisoning Eddard's mind. No, he could tell him about Cersei and Jaime from the begining. At prison he tells Eddard his story (same story with the one he tells at Tyrion) and his last action is to trully try and keep peace. Guilty for the war was Joffrey and only Joffrey. Varys convinced Ned to apologise...why doing such a thing when the war was already starting? So something is going wrong with Varys and Illyrio and maybe Varys has other plans than Illyrio's but those are not the same with the Faceless Men's. Maybe Rhaegar told him about the prophecy and he does his best to restore Targaryens and maybe dragons as well (like you said). Maybe dragons can be used for good and evil as well. Destroying The Wall or winning the White Walkers. And Varys is not Quyburn. He is just Varys. When he kills Kevan why does he have to apologise with Varys's form? Infont of his minions? A Faceless man just kills and...just that.



Just those. Also the Undying if they wanted to betray Danny why telling her the prophecies first? :dunno: That last is not a correction, it is just a problem I always had...


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And why saving Robert's bastards? He saved only Gendry. Maybe Robert ordered him to look after the kid. Maybe he spared his life out of pitty-Varrys loving kids and everything :drunk: and also Gendry is Robert's son and has Targaryen blood. maybe he sees a potential king there?



Anyway in 4-5 years I hope that you prove us all wrong so then you print screen this, post it to your fb and sharing it telling : I TOLD YOU DO!!! :cool4:


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This theory is a nice change of pace compared to the normal quality of theories I read here; it is very plausible and deals specifically with the information we have been given in the books and you based your theory on what has been given. Fantastic write-up and I definitely need to think more on this. Thanks for your time and effort into making the post and congrats to your keen mind for connecting some obscure, but now obvious, dots.


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  • 7 months later...

I quoted here the sections that convinced me the most (in red the part that i think really stands a chance).

I think that there's too much stuff here linked together and really much of it is child to the desire to unify everything (which idon't see), but some things are worth discussing.

I also think FM may be somewhere on the side of the Others, but i don't think they're nearly as well organised as this theory prescribes.

I also think that there are going to be stone beasts (one should be killed by Sansa, maybe at winterfell, according to the prophecy of the hill witch in the Riverlands), others may be the dragon of stone hiding in Dragonstone (easy name uhu), and maybe the tian of Braavos.

I like the fact that the dragonbone horns can be used as tools to bring down the wall as they can convey dragonfire through dragon control.

Varys, meh, doesn't work with me, but one cannot exclude it. But it would be very hard to explain that varys both wanted the fall of the Targaryen and now their restoration.

The Grand Faceless Men Conspiracy Theory

"We bring the gift of death."
The kindly man

The Faceless Men
We are told that the Faceless Men (FM) originated among the slaves of Valyria. The kindly man implies that they killed their masters which would seem to implicate them in the Doom of Valyria.

The FM is a death cult. The gods in their temple seem to be the various local death gods like the Stranger. Arianne has heard that in Qohor followers of the red priests, opponents of the Great Other, had rioted and tried to burn down the Black Goat which the kindly man says is one of the local names of Many-Faced God like the Stranger is in Westeros. The FM see death as a gift and an end to suffering. The kindly man describes the world as a "vale of tears and pain". But if we take this to its logical conclusion, something probably only a very small, select group even among the followers of the Many-Faced God know, then the "gift" should be given to everyone. Again this fits with them using/following the death/ice force. So how can this be achieved? How to kill humanity? The answer is to help their natural allies, the Others, who is also using the cold/death magic, take over the world and exterminate humanity.

This gives a new meaning to the phrase "All men must die".

There is an interesting interpretation regarding Mance's horn and Euron's horn. The Horn of Winter is supposed to have the ability to bring down the Wall. The horn that Mance found is very similar in appearance to Euron's horn. Both are black, not straight, of similar size ("taller than a man" vs. "eight feet long"), and have bands at least partially made of gold. This may indicate that both are made from dragon bone (or horn) which is known to be black. We know of no other animal in Westeros having horns or bones such size and color. However, one horn is described as "twisted" and the other as having a "curve". But, even assuming that the words are not used synonymously and are mutually exclusive, we know that dragons vary in appearance. Furthermore, the bands and inscriptions on the bands are different (runes vs. glyphs). Regardless, before industrialization hand crafted objects very rarely had identical ornamentation even if the objects had the same function. Compare with different colors and shapes for Valyrian steel swords. Especially if the ornamentation for a functionally similar object were made by two different cultures (like the First Men vs. Valyria). Which brings to mind the possibility that the two horns do have the same function.

So yes, the Horn of Winter can bring down the Wall as Mance said. But it is indirectly, by controlling dragons.

In ADWD it is revealed that the FM can make an advanced disguise by using another person's cut off face. This is better than the "glamors" that "dissolve before sharp eyes" and are "as true and solid as that face you were born with". This apparently also transfer some memories of the victim. But it still likely involves sorcery; Arya cannot feel the changes that others see on her new face. Exactly to what degree this disguise hide the FM from other forms of magic and magical creatures is unclear.

Another limitation is the ability of the Red Priests to see the future. Especially regarding direct threats to themselves.

So they allowed some dragons to be saved and brought to Dragonstone. When the memory of the dangers of dragons has faded they allowed the War of Conquest to take place. That the memory had to fade and be erased can explain why the Targaryens did not attempt a conquest immediately after the Doom.

Varys

Varys did use small children to spy. To quote the kindly man, "Why use a spell, where mummer's tricks will serve?" This also likely applies to his disguises. But I think some cases of his disguise as the prison guard Rugen who over a long period was in contact with other guards is hard to explain by natural means and medieval technology. At least when Eddard could feel the Rugen's stubble with his fingers and did not think it a disguise. Yes, Varys said he was a mummer, but mummers at least in traditional plays did not use elaborate disguises but at most stereotypical masks.


Riddles and wordplays by Varys

There is an interesting double meaning from this statement where peace can be interpreted in several ways. "Your own ends. What ends are those, Lord Varys?" "Peace," Varys replied without hesitation."

Varys's intrigues

The Undying Ones in Qarth are probably also using death/ice magic. They are described as "blue and cold" and with "cold hands". Aemon noted that ice preserves so death/ice sorcerers may be able to extend their lives. They seem very vulnerable to fire. Both they and the FM use illusions. So not unlikely an ally or puppet. Interestingly, the doors to the room with false illusions of the Undying is made of ebony and weirwood. A style also appearing in the front doors and meeting room chairs in the FM temple.

ADWD intrigues
Victarion almost dies due to the hand injury which may have been aggravated by maester Kerwin/the Dusky Woman on the orders of Euron/the FM. The appearance of the red priest Moqorro will likely be an important obstacle for the FM plans regarding Dany.


Prophecies
Bran in his prophetic dream, after images regarding the Starks, dreams that "Over them both loomed a giant in armor made of stone, but when he opened his visor, there was nothing inside but darkness and thick black blood." There have been various interpretations of this larger threat but the best is likely that this threat is the FM. The giant in stone armor indicates Braavos (the Titan) and the lack of face the FM there.

Aemon states while very sick that "the sphinx was the riddle, not the riddler". This is among references to prophecies and may refer to some as usual cryptic prophetic statement. A sphinx is composed of body parts from different animals and humans. FM can assume many different shapes. They also seem to be fond of making riddles or otherwise obscure statements. So this may be a subtle hint that the identity and the goals of the FM are of central importance.

One of the prophecies in the House of the Undying is "Glowing like sunset, a red sword was raised in the hand of a blue-eyed king who cast no shadow. A cloth dragon swayed on poles amidst a cheering crowd. From a smoking tower, a great stone beast took wing, breathing shadow fire. . . . mother of dragons, slayer of lies"

This indicates that there are three important lies for Daenerys to slay. Obviously very interesting for any theory regarding the FM. The first lie is obviously that Stannis is the Prince the was Promised and has Lightbringer. Regarding the second Daenerys later states that a mummer’s dragon is a cloth dragon on poles that is used by mummers in their follies in order to give the heroes something to fight. This seems to be about young Griff and Varys. Alternatively, fits with Varys or the FM (the consummate mummers) taking concealed control over one dragon. In either case, maybe the FM using this threat as a distraction for the heroes. The third lie is unclear but one possible interpretation is that the smoking tower symbolizes the Doom with only smoking volcanoes being left behind, taking flight indicates something being born or gaining power as the FM did in connection with the Doom, the stony beast again indicates Braavos, and shadow fire (seemingly a contradiction) indicates the FM enveloping the world in their illusions.


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