120 replies to this topic

[Lord Littlefinger's Lash]

ManyFacedOne, on 20 April 2012 - 10:15 PM, said:

I hate repeating myself but it's like this: Mance has to wear the bones for the glamor to be the most effective. When he takes it off, Jon notices that he's taller, broader, and straighter than he remembered Rattleshirt being. In other words, glamors aren't perfect. If such differences in height and build can be noticed between two people of an almost similar height, then certainly there'd be some problems with the Waif glamoring into Gregor Clegane. Unless of everyone just somehow decided there's nothing abnormal about a four foot tall Gregor Clegane.

Of course glamors aren't perfect. They depend on the skill of the one employing it, the perceptiveness of the onlooker, and personal artifacts used to help improve she disguise.

However Rattle shirt and Mance look nothing alike

Mance is a big man, long legged and lean, broad in the chest and shoulders. His once long brown hair is now gone mostly grey, Laughter lines appear at the corner of his mouth http://awoiaf.wester...hp/Mance_Rayder

He is a small man, with a knobby chin, thin mustache and pinched cheeks. His eyebrows join over the bridge of his nose, he has a widow's peak and dark hair http://awoiaf.wester...php/Rattleshirt

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Probably then. Since the Faceless Men wear people's faces to become someone else, it's reasonable to assume that the reason he dragged Pate all the way into a back alley somewhere was to steal his face and assume his identity.

No. Because we know that this is one of many ways the faceless men change their face. And tts not even clear the process Arya goes though can be performed on ones self.

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You can. Let's look at some of the ways. As an example, let us say that they send one guy off on a specific mission to find something, and another guy comes back with what was supposed to come back with the first guy. Obviously, that's going to throw up some red flags,

I hate to repeat myself but, you don't know that.  You know Arya thinks "the hansom man" is the same guy every time. The does not mean his.

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I hate to repeat myself but, you don't know that.  You know Arya thinks "the hansom man" is the same guy every time. The does not mean his.

including those who come and go. I've already pointed out the physical limitations of a little girl or skinny guy wearing the face of a fat man, so we can safely rule out face swapping.

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no. we cannot.  I do not agree that these physical limitations, are the limitations of the spell.  The limitation could be/ and i think it is, since the Kindly man says it takes years to learn to use a glamor.  So I am not convinced that 30 years as a faceless man, the Waif cannot glamor her self into Gregor Clegane.  



I meant instead of doing the missions.

yes. I understand that's what you meant. But that assumes that doing this missions isn't what they want to do.

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If so, we wouldn't be seeing the same guys at the temple throughout Feast and again in Dance.

  I assume you mean the people coming and going? We don't they are the same people.
As for the Waif and the Kindly man, I'm not sure they're always the managing the House of Black and White, just that they happened to be overseeing when Arya arrived.  I image they' would rotate out and some different faceless men would take over to manage the internship program.  

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I'm sure they've lost people but all the time? No. We know this because we're seeing the same servants coming and going throughout Feast and Dance. And if they did, they wouldn't be nearly as successful.

Yeah, I don't think people leave the group all the time

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It's not of her own will. She's not trying to keep that up; it just keeps happening.

yes.... and. She still is who she is.

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She is.

No she is not..

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Those examples I gave you are from the book. Look them up if you don't believe me.

  If you have something from the books you want to point out to me then you should include it on your post. I've read the books.  You're the one who's confused. You should take the time to reread while you're looking up the quotes

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She kept Needle because she couldn't bear to part with it,

precisely my point, needle and the old gods are something Arya Stark thinks are important.

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because she believes the Old Gods want her to have it. It's not the Many Faced God's to take.

[/indent]

Thanks for that. If anything's clear here it's that the FM have to go through a little more than just switching their names.

That's true.  Just as changing your name to Hotpie does not make her a baker.

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  It's safe to say a name's just a name, but a face is a face, and a life is a life. Romeo wouldn't be the same if he was a peasant farmer instead of noble, nor would the story be the same. Going to the level of what the FM do and take that farmer's land away, take his family away, take his name, take everything that was dear to him or part of his life, and who is he then?

The same person he was to begin with.  Unless there's time travel involved and they went back and did this when he was Born.

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ManyFacedOne, on 20 April 2012 - 10:15 PM, said:

Obviously, when I say powerless, I don't mean completely powerless (i.e. unable to even lift a spoon) but powerless as in she doesn't have the power to accomplish what she wants to accomplish without magical help.

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Her and everyone else in the world.

Not so. I don't recall everyone else in the story not being able to solve their problems for lack of magical powers. Most get along fine without.

Well first of all that's not what you said. And most people in Westeros don't solve most of their problems. Tyrion dreamed of one day having enough gold send a faceless man after Cersei.  Jamie dreamed of growing a new hand. Victarion needs magic to keep from dying of a staff infection. Robb needs the assistance of a magic wolf to win the battle of OxCross and Howland Reed's magical help to try to retake the North. Stannis needs magic to kill Renly and Tyrion uses magic greek fire to repel stannis.  The Wall is magic.  Lemon cloak needs magic to track down Thorus.  Should I on?  Not mention that nearly all these people fail to accomplish their goals even with the assistance of magic.

[Lord Littlefinger's Lash]

ManyFacedOne, on 20 April 2012 - 10:15 PM, said:

She enjoyed being Cat, but that's about it.

No she enjoys all of it.

Arya stood on one leg. She was getting much better at that of late. “Syrio says that every hurt is a lesson, and every lesson makes you better.”

Ned frowned. The man Syrio Forel had come with an excellent reputation, and his flamboyant Braavosi style was well suited to Arya’s slender blade, yet still... a few days ago, she had been wandering around with a swatch of black silk tied over her eyes. Syrio was teaching her to see with her ears and her nose and her skin, she told him. Before that, he had her doing spins and back flips. “Arya, are you certain you want to persist in this?”

She nodded. “Tomorrow we’re going to catch cats.”

“Cats.” Ned sighed. “Perhaps it was a mistake to hire this Braavosi. If you like, I will ask Jory to take over your lessons. Or I might have a quiet word with Ser Barristan. He was the finest sword in the Seven Kingdoms in his youth.”

“I don’t want them,” Arya said. “I want Syrio.”

Cat always stank of brine and fish by the time they pushed off for home again. She had grown so used to it that she hardly even smelled it anymore. She did not mind the work. When her muscles ached from lifting, or her back got sore from the weight of a cask, she told herself that she was getting stronger.

She found her smallclothes in a pile, sniffed at them to make sure they were fresh enough to wear, donned them in her darkness. Her servant’s garb was where she’d hung it—a long tunic of undyed wool, roughspun and scratchy. She snapped it out and pulled it down over her head with one smooth practiced motion. Socks came last. One black, one white. The black one had stitching round the top, the white none; she could feel which was which, make sure she got each sock on the right leg. Skinny as they were, her legs were strong and springy and growing longer every day. She was glad of that. A water dancer needs good legs. Blind Beth was no water dancer, but she would not be Beth forever.

“but you may keep your secrets if you wish, Arya of House Stark.” He only called her that when she displeased him. “You know that you may leave this place. You are not one of us, not yet. You may go home anytime you wish.”

“You told me that if I left, I couldn’t come back.”

“Just so.”

Those words made her sad. Syrio used to say that too, Arya remembered. He said it all the time. Syrio Forel had taught her needlework and died for her. “I don’t want to leave.”

“Then stay... but remember, the House of Black and White is not a home for orphans. All men must serve beneath this roof. Valar dohaeris is how we say it here. Remain if you will, but know that we shall require your obedience. At all times and in all things. If you cannot obey, you must depart.”

And yet, when she breaks the rules. And do they beat her bloody like Wease? Or Yoren?  Do the wrap her in a horse blanket like the Hound? Do they kick her out of the House? No they pass her to the next level of training.  They are not slavers, they want independent free thinkers, problem solvers, intelligent people with a vast array skills and the requisite interests to acquire them. Again, these are not unsullied.

Weese would have beaten her bloody if he had caught her in a lie, but it was different in the House of Black and White. When she was helping in the kitchen, Umma would sometimes smack her with her spoon if she got in the way, but no one else ever raised a hand to her.

This time she did not hesitate. “Dareon is dead. The black singer who was sleeping at the Happy Port. He was really a deserter from the Night’s Watch. Someone slit his throat and pushed him into a canal, but they kept his boots.”

“Good boots are hard to find.”

“Just so.” She tried to keep her face still.

“Who could have done this thing, I wonder?”

“Arya of House Stark.” She watched his eyes, his mouth, the muscles of his jaw.

“That girl? I thought she had left Braavos. Who are you?”

“No one.”

“You lie.” He turned to the waif. “My throat is dry. Do me a kindness and bring a cup of wine for me and warm milk for our friend Arya, who has returned to us so unexpectedly.”

On her way across the city Arya had wondered what the kindly man would say when she told him about Dareon. Maybe he would be angry with her, or maybe he would be pleased that she had given the singer the gift of the Many-Faced God. She had played this talk out in her head half a hundred times, like a mummer in a show. But she had never thought warm milk.

When the milk came, Arya drank it down. It smelled a little burnt and had a bitter aftertaste. “Go to bed now, child,” the kindly man said. “On the morrow you must serve.”

That night she dreamed she was a wolf again, but it was different from the other dreams. In this dream she had no pack. She prowled alone, bounding over rooftops and padding silently beside the banks of a canal, stalking shadows through the fog.

When she woke the next morning, she was blind.

“When you are not pouring, you must stand as still as if you had been carved of stone,” the kindly man told her. “Can you do that?”

“Yes.” Before you can learn to move you must learn to be still, Syrio Forel had taught her long ago at King’s Landing, and she had. She had served as Roose Bolton’s cupbearer at Harrenhal, and he would flay you if you spilled his wine.

“Good,” the kindly man said. “It would be best if you were blind and deaf as well. You may hear things, but you must let them pass in one ear and out the other. Do not listen.”

Arya heard much and more that night, but almost all of it was in the tongue of Braavos, and she hardly understood one word in ten. Still as stone, she told herself.

She has a safe warm home, with plenty to eat.

Hot Pie would have liked it here, Arya thought.

Supper was her favorite time. It had been a long while since Arya had gone to sleep every night with a full belly. Some nights the kindly man would allow her to ask him questions. Once she asked him why the people who came to the temple always seemed so peaceful; back home, people were scared to die.

She is frequently offered the opportunity to DOR http://information.u...-seal-buds.html

“You believe this is the only place for you.” It was as if he’d heard her thoughts. “You are wrong in that. You would find softer service in the household of some merchant. Or would you sooner be a courtesan, and have songs sung of your beauty? Speak the word, and we will send you to the Black Pearl or the Daughter of the Dusk. You will sleep on rose petals and wear silken skirts that rustle when you walk, and great lords will beggar themselves for your maiden’s blood. Or if it is marriage and children you desire, tell me, and we shall find a husband for you. Some honest apprentice boy, a rich old man, a seafarer, whatever you desire.”

She wanted none of that. Wordless, she shook her head.

“Poor child,” said the kindly man. “Would you like to have your eyes back? Ask, and you shall see.” He asked the same question every morning. “I may want them on the morrow. Not today.” Her face was still water, hiding all, revealing nothing.

No this is our Arya Stark. The same Arya Stark we me in Winterfell in aGoT

Even sewing was more fun than tongues, she told herself, after a night when she had forgotten half the words she thought she knew, and pronounced the other half so badly that the waif had laughed at her. My sentences are as crooked as my stitches used to be. If the girl had not been so small and starved, Arya would have smashed her stupid face. Instead she gnawed her lip. Too stupid to learn and too stupid to give up.

“Salty is known to Ternesio Terys and the men of the Titan’s Daughter. You are marked by the way you speak, so you must be some girl of Westeros... but a different girl, I think.”

She bit her lip. “Could I be Cat?”

“Cat.” He considered. “Yes. Braavos is full of cats. One more will not be noticed. You are Cat, an orphan of...”

“King’s Landing.” She had visited White Harbor with her father twice, but she knew King’s Landing better.

“Just so. Your father was oarmaster on a galley. When your mother died, he took you off to sea with him. Then he died as well, and his captain had no use for you, so he put you off the ship in Braavos. And what was the name of the ship?”

“Nymeria,” she said at once.

A water dancer needs good legs. Blind Beth was no water dancer, but she would not be Beth forever. http://awoiaf.wester...php/Beth_Cassel

This is probably the happiest and freest time of Arya's life.  It no where near as onerous as Jon's (or Sam's) experience joining the Night's Watch.  Or  Jamie's joining the kings-guard.  Areo Hotah and the priests of Norvos.

“Ser Gregor,” she chanted, as she crossed a stone bridge supported by four arches. From the center of its span she could see the masts of ships in the Ragman’s Harbor. “Dunsen, Raff the Sweetling, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Cersei.” Rain began to fall. Arya turned her face up to let the raindrops wash her cheeks, so happy she could dance. “Valar morghulis,” she said, “valar morghulis, valar morghulis.”

All of the removal of her personal items. Her suppression of her individuality. Its a fucking test.  

Last of all she grasped her stick. It was five feet long, slender and supple, thick as her thumb, with leather wrapped around the shaft a foot from the top. Better than eyes, once you learn how to use it, the waif had told her. That was a lie. They often lied to her, to test her. No stick was better than a pair of eyes. It was good to have, though, so she always kept it close. Umma had taken to calling her Stick, but names did not matter. She was her.

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This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life.

My rifle, without me, is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless.  

http://en.wikipedia....ifleman's_Creed

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Arya volunteered for FM training; the Waif did not.

The Waif is not a slave.  There is no indication she cannot come and go as she pleases.  The Waif's father offered her to the temple.  That was his price, not the Waif's.  No where does it say the waif is required to Stay there.

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You're right. Apparently it's mentioned somewhere in the book that being a FM doesn't require any sacrifice at all.

They don't require any sacrifice.  But you have to make it through the training process.  And you have to get a Faceless Man to give you an Iron Penny  

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People just walk in there regularly and are ushered into a back room where they gain all their secrets, and then they walk out.

First they have to get an invitation, Iron Penny.  Then if they don't mind being deaf, blind, losing taste and smell, for indefinite periods of time.  If they can pass the tests.  If they don't mind sleeping in an alcove.  Being away from their friends and family.  


Better than eyes, once you learn how to use it, the waif had told her. That was a lie. They often lied to her, to test her. No stick was better than a pair of eyes.

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They're obviously just fucking with Arya because it's so rarely that someone that's not from Braavos walks in there that can be taken advantage of.



“What we offer cannot be bought with gold. The cost is all of you." Are we reading the same books here?

I'm reading A Song of Ice and Fire, what are you reading is the question?

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Do think they'd give her anything if she didn't do what she was told or wasn't of any use?

No. I don't. I don't think anyone would ever give anyone anything if they wouldn't do what they were told and weren't of any use.  That doesn't distinguish the faceless men from the Cub Scouts or the Gold Cloaks

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Show me some evidence that points to it being otherwise, then.

See you misunderstand my entire line of reasoning. I'm not saying they're disappearing.  I don't think they're disappearing.  What I said was, you don't know they're not disappearing.  

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And if they're stonewalled, they take it to the press, trying to gather attention to this perceived injustice.

See above

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If you have numbers now, by all means let's hear them.

See above

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If you noticed, he's not talking about her training here. He's unequivocally stating that she'll have no family life of her own.

First of all I thought you said the Kindly Man, whoever that is, was in charge?

“You lie. I can see the truth in your eyes. You have the eyes of a wolf and a taste for blood.” Ser Gregor, she could not help but think. Dunsen, Raff the Sweetling. Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Cersei. If she spoke, she would need to lie, and he would know. She kept silent. “You were a cat, they tell me. Prowling through the alleys smelling of fish, selling cockles and mussels for coin. A small life, well suited for a small creature such as you. Ask, and it can be restored to you. Push your barrow, cry your cockles, be content. Your heart is too soft to be one of us.”

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​The training takes place at the Coronado Naval Amphibious Base in San Diego, California. The training is so tough that on the first day of the Hell Week, the instructor makes it a point to tell the recruits one thing: “If you quit now you could go get a room at one of those luxury hotels down the beach and do nothing but sleep for an entire day!” In fact, Navy SEAL instructors keep repeating the fact that recruits can use the “Drop-On-Request” (DOR) at any time during the training.
http://information.u...als.com/page/15

He means to send me away. “I have no heart. I only have a hole. I’ve killed lots of people. I could kill you if I wanted.” “Would that taste sweet to you?” She did not know the right answer. “Maybe.”

“Then you do not belong here. Death holds no sweetness in this house. We are not warriors, nor soldiers, nor swaggering bravos puffed up with pride. We do not kill to serve some lord, to fatten our purses, to stroke our vanity. We never give the gift to please ourselves. Nor do we choose the ones we kill. We are but servants of the God of Many Faces.” “Valar dohaeris.” All men must serve. “You know the words, but you are too proud to serve. A servant must be humble and obedient.” “I obey. I can be humbler than anyone.” That made him chuckle. “You will be the very goddess of humility, I am sure. But can you pay the price?” “What price?” “The price is you. The price is all you have and all you ever hope to have. We took your eyes and gave them back. Next we will take your ears, and you will walk in silence. You will give us your legs and crawl. You will be no one’s daughter, no one’s wife, no one’s mother. Your name will be a lie, and the very face you wear will not be your own.”

So Plague Face is talking about training, what what does it matter any way? The Kindly Man is the CEO, according to you.

She almost bit her lip again, but this time she caught herself and stopped. My face is a dark pool, hiding everything, showing nothing. She thought of all the names that she had worn: Arry, Weasel, Squab, Cat of the Canals. She thought of that stupid girl from Winterfell called Arya Horseface. Names did not matter. “I can pay the price. Give me a face.”

“Faces must be earned.”

“Tell me how.” “Give a certain man a certain gift. Can you do that?” “What man?” “No one that you know.” “I don’t know a lot of people.” “He is one of them. A stranger. No one you love, no one you hate, no one you have ever known. Will you kill him?” “Yes.”

Edited by Lord Littlefinger's Lash, 21 April 2012 - 05:01 PM.

[Lord Littlefinger's Lash]

ManyFacedOne, on 20 April 2012 - 10:15 PM, said:

How about this: they kill those who disobey? Those that sneak away during a mission leaving it incomplete, are sought out and then killed if they're found. But I'm sure there's rarely a need for that because it takes years to become as FM, and they choose their recruits wisely.

How about this? When they demonstrate they do that, then I'll agree that they do it.

Those that sneak away during a mission leaving it incomplete, are sought out and then killed if they're found. But I'm sure there's rare ly a need for that because it takes years to become as FM, and they choose their recruits wisely.

I don't see any method that they can use, as of yet, to track down a Faceless Man who disappeared. I don't know that when a mission isn't complete that they will know whether the Faceless Man sent on it, was tossed over board in the middle of the Ocean or if he just decided not to come back.  Does Jon know what happened to Yoren? No. Jon presumes he's dead. But who's to say Yoren didn't hop a galley for Tyrosh and become a sell sword. It would take more time and energy to look for him than to replace him.

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You're eyes and arms aren't part of your personality. Obviously some of this should only be taken to mean it's part of the training, unless they're to be mistaken for training an army of quadriplegics rather than assassins. They give them take them away and give them back to prepare them for life in service of the FM.

They give them take them away and give them back to prepare them for life in service of the FM.  to train them.

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But that's not what they're saying here. They're saying that they're going to own her essentially. There's nothing in the books that state the FM all retire eventually

That's true. There isn't. there's also nothing saying people don't leave the order.

ManyFacedOne, on 20 April 2012 - 10:16 PM, said:

Show me were it says service to them is temporary? There wouldn't be any need to hammer in all that

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This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life.

My rifle, without me, is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless.  

http://en.wikipedia....ifleman's_Creed

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she'll have to give up if it wasn't a life long commitment.



How do you know?

I don't but nonexistence is the default position. I doesn't say in the book that the faceless men don't have computers either. But until we see a Faceless Man using facebook to find his next target, the presumption is they do not.

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Where did it say there there was no mechanism for enforcement?  

nonexistence is the default position.

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Anyway, the point was, they give up their lives (I don't mean kill themselves, but commit their lives to their service) when they commit themselves to the FM. It's voluntary, but it doesn't change what they have to give up to join.  

In that case. That slave voluntarily became a Faceless Man

I have told you of the founding of our order, of how the first of us answered the prayers of slaves who wished for death. The gift was given only to those who yearned for it, in the beginning … but one day, the first of us heard a slave praying not for his own death but for his master’s. So fervently did he desire this that he offered all he had, that his prayer might be answered. And it seemed to our first brother that this sacrifice would be pleasing to Him of Many Faces, so that night he granted the prayer. Then he went to the slave and said, ‘You offered all you had for this man’s death, but slaves have nothing but their lives. That is what the god desires of you. For the rest of your days on earth, you will serve him.’ And from that moment, we were two.”

Does that mean that this slave worked as an assassin for the Faceless Men for the rest of his life?  Even if he was old and gouty and could not walk? Or does it mean he converted to their religion?

And from that moment, we were two.

Is this supposed to mean there are only two Faceless Men?  Didn't Arya see more than two sitting around the table? So maybe he's not being 100% literal? Maybe when he says two he means two or more?  And maybe the slave, wasn't an assassin when he was 90, but by the time either of the original two had left the order (by death or by choice) they'd added more members so the faceless men had more than two members?

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.

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This is all part of the religion

No. its not.

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As an analogy (though not perfect) there's certain religions of ours where members have to give up marriage, or swear their lives to the church or temples to become part of the order

That's true but that has nothing to do with the faceless men.

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The Red Priests are part of the religious order that worships R'hllor. The FM are a religious group -- stated time and time again -- that worship Him or Many Faces. That the others also have to make sacrifices doesn't change that fact.

NO SHIT!  My point is the fact that they're a religious group is irrelevant.

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But that doesn't mean they're owned by anyone so it's beside the point.  

  No its not. If they were truly, the identity-less, name less, faceless ascetics that cared for naught but the many face god, then they wouldn't be interested in gathering intelligence or geo politics or infiltrating the citadel  

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The differences are obvious but here you go: "They're not religious in nature. And the SEALS are also an officially sanctioned part of the US navy, and while their members might not be publicly known, they still have families and lives of their own. Somehow I doubt they'd be getting any recruits once their members all started disappearing. The FM are a murderous cult operating independently of the Braavosi. They can kill whomever they want, and are good at making it seem natural too. And in the end, there's no one they have to answer to."

So let's break it down: one is a religious group, ones not

that's not a difference. any more than the Nights Watch wearing Black and the Kingsguard wearing White, are what differentiate those two groups. Or to put it another way, the fact that Georgetown University is a Catholic institution and Cornell University is secular, is not a meaningful distinction.  And the fact that Brigham Young University is a religious is institution does not make it more Similar to Georgetown than to Westpoint.  Because even though one is religious and one is a government run entity, both have strict codes of conduct by which the students are sworn to abide.  The fact that VMI is private and Westpoint is government run, does not mean VMI is more similar to Georgetown than it is to Westpoint  

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; one kills for money

Navy doesn't pay people any more?

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; one doesn't; one takes orders from higher ups, one only follows orders of their own making  

1)I don't know if that's true (but assuming it is) 2)How does this make the organizations different?

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one can kill whoever they want if the price is right; one can only kill when it's legal  

Well I just pointed out to you that its not legal to deprive US Citizens of life liberty or property without due process of law.  Rules which are ignored whenever its convenient.  Again, a distinction without a difference.

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and are bound by rules of war

Do the rules of war allow the violation of sovereign airspace? do they allow an armed incursion into said sovereign territory and the execution of its citizens and residents without due process?  I think not.  And yet Bin Laden and several of those with him remain dead.  Under the law of: "tough shit Pakistan"  

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; one is a group of assassins, the other are a group of  

I don't believe the SEALs like to be called soldiers. Soldiers, are in the army.

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soldiers.

And of course, there are SEALs who retire from the Navy and go on to work for the CIA.  And they wouldn't call them selves assassins, but you could certainly consider them that.

Edited by Lord Littlefinger's Lash, 21 April 2012 - 04:49 PM.

[Lord Littlefinger's Lash]

ManyFacedOne, on 20 April 2012 - 10:16 PM, said:

One can kill anyone they want, one can't.

No both groups seem to be able to kill anyone they want to.

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Except for the fact that they're a secret society of highly trained killers, and carelessly letting their secrets get out doesn't seem like something they would approve of.  

Oh. I don't know they have any secrets as such.  They have some highly specialized knowledge and skills that it takes years to master. And that build upon each other. So I don't know that there's anything that someone could come in one day and "steal".  Its not clear that the faceless men have access to any information that the Maestors or the Alchemists or the Shadowbinders the Greensers, the Warlocks of Qarth, the Sorrowful Men or the Red Priests don't have.  Or that these groups don't have overlapping knowledge bases.  Yet I don't think the Maesters will necessarily seek out and kill Qyburn. Though they might.

“B-b-but,” Sam sputtered, “the other archmaesters... the Seneschal... what should I tell them?”

“Tell them how wise and good they are. Tell them that Aemon commanded you to put yourself into their hands. Tell them that you have always dreamed that one day you might be allowed to

wear the chain and serve the greater good, that service is the highest honor, and obedience the highest virtue. But say nothing of prophecies or dragons, unless you fancy poison in your porridge.”

If they're trying to they're not doing a very good job.  

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The mechanism they use to inforce their rules are the indoctrination rituals that all the trainees have to go through in order to become one of them.

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SEAL Training: BUD/S
Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training is divided into several phases:

• Indoctrination
  
  
• Basic Conditioning
  
  
• SCUBA training
  
  
• Land-warfare training

There is also the infamous Hell Week, which takes place toward the end of Basic Conditioning.
BUD/S lasts seven months. The initial indoctrination comprises five weeks of learning the expectations and ways of Navy SEALS. More important, it is a time to prepare physically and mentally for what's ahead.
Once indoctrination is complete, the remaining time is broken down into eight weeks of basic conditioning, eight weeks of SCUBA training, and nine weeks of land-warfare training. The training takes place at theNaval Amphibious Base at Coronado, CA.

http://science.howst.../navy-seal5.htm

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They did? They said they gave the gift to the masters, not destroyed an entire continent.

Well Valyria was a city not a continent.

Arya drew back from him. “He killed the slave?” That did not sound right. “He should have killed the masters!”

“He would bring the gift to them as well... but that is a tale for another day, one best shared with no one.”

You're correct. My interpretation here was that when Arya said "Masters"she was referring to all of the Masters.  And that the Kindly Man affirmed that that they did.  However, she could have meant more than one Master.  It is not clear.  

Now based on the text that proceeds that section, the Valyrians, the dragonlords, and the masters are seem to be used interchangeably.  But, again, it is not clear.

Slaves perished by the score, but their masters did not care. Red gold and yellow gold and silver were reckoned to be more precious than the lives of slaves, for slaves were cheap in the old Freehold. During war, the Valyrians took them by the thousands. In times of peace they bred them, though only the worst were sent down to die in the red darkness.”

“Didn’t the slaves rise up and fight?”

“Some did,” he said. “Revolts were common in the mines, but few accomplished much. The dragonlords of the old Freehold were strong in sorcery, and lesser men defied them at their peril. The first Faceless Man was one who did.”

Edited by Lord Littlefinger's Lash, 21 April 2012 - 04:20 PM.

[salt]

She will probably assassinate Jeyne Pool for stealing her man.

[ManyFacedOne]

Lord Littlefinger, on 21 April 2012 - 09:57 AM, said:

Of course glamors aren't perfect. They depend on the skill of the one employing it, the perceptiveness of the onlooker, and personal artifacts used to help improve she disguise.

However Rattle shirt and Mance look nothing alike

Mance is a big man, long legged and lean, broad in the chest and shoulders. His once long brown hair is now gone mostly grey, Laughter lines appear at the corner of his mouth http://awoiaf.wester...hp/Mance_Rayder

He is a small man, with a knobby chin, thin mustache and pinched cheeks. His eyebrows join over the bridge of his nose, he has a widow's peak and dark hair http://awoiaf.wester...php/Rattleshirt

It's better to go with a description from a single character and Jon sees boths of them in Storm and notes Mance is of middling height and Rattleshirt, without bones, is small.

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No. Because we know that this is one of many ways the faceless men change their face. And tts not even clear the process Arya goes though can be performed on ones self.

Using an actual face is one of the best ways to do it. So, one might think that stealing his face would be the best option here. I see no reason the process that the KM did to Arya couldn't be done herself if she knew the way.

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I hate to repeat myself but, you don't know that.

I don't know anything for sure. I made up the scenerio as an example, but it holds.

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You know Arya thinks "the hansom man" is the same guy every time. The does not mean his.

No, but it makes sense that he probably is, because of the physical limitations of swapping actual faces would be. That and there's really no reason for them to all swap faces before they enter the temple. What would be the point of such games?

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no. we cannot. I do not agree that these physical limitations, are the limitations of the spell. The limitation could be/ and i think it is, since the Kindly man says it takes years to learn to use a glamor. So I am not convinced that 30 years as a faceless man, the Waif cannot glamor her self into Gregor Clegane.

I was talking about actual faces, not spells. But as I pointed out with the Mance example, their physical attributes can come through regardless of the glamor.

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yes. I understand that's what you meant. But that assumes that doing this missions isn't what they want to do.

I was giving an example. I wasn't stating that's what's actually happening.

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I assume you mean the people coming and going? We don't they are the same people.
As for the Waif and the Kindly man, I'm not sure they're always the managing the House of Black and White, just that they happened to be overseeing when Arya arrived.  I image they' would rotate out and some different faceless men would take over to manage the internship program.

What would be the point of trying to fool the other members of the House of Black and White?

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No she is not..  If you have something from the books you want to point out to me then you should include it on your post. I've read the books.  You're the one who's confused. You should take the time to reread while you're looking up the quotes

Apparently you didn't read them close enough. Anyway, it was all in the chapters where I said, but here you go:

" She thought that was some stupid lie till Talea said it too. I should not be dreaming wolf dreams, the girl told herself. I am a cat now, not a wolf. I am Cat of the Canals. The wolf dreams belonged to Arya of House Stark. Try as she might, though, she could not rid herself of Arya. "

What do you know, she's actively trying to rid herself of Arya.

And this is from later in Dance (The Blind Girl) as she goes further in:

"But they were all dead now, even Arya,"

She thinks of Arya as dead. She is no one:

"Some nights she might have cried herself to sleep if she had still been Arry or or Cat, or even Arya of House Stark … but no one had no tears."  "No one. I am no one. Just a blind girl, just a servant of Him of Many Faces."

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precisely my point, needle and the old gods are something Arya Stark thinks are important.

True. She wants something to remember her while she becomes no one.

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The same person he was to begin with.

From Got -- MMD's point about the value of life:

"Look to your khal and see what life is worth, when all the rest is gone."

Is a person truly alive just because their heart is beating, even if they lost all their senses? Most would say no; he's just an empty shell. Dany certainly doesn't think so with regards to Drogo. His life was riding, laughing, and swinging his Arakh. In essense, that wasn't Drogo; that's not who he was.

Going back to the example of the Farmer, take away his lands, his name, his family, everything he owns, his hobbies, his mannerisms, his hopes and goals, and essentially he's left with nothing. What he was was destroyed. Now he's a blank slate, no one, ready to be imprinted with whatever identity they decide for him. This is how FM are made. They become no one in order to become anyone.

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Unless there's time travel involved and they went back and did this when he was Born.

Are you actually arguing this would only drastically change someone's life if they were a new born? That would be enough to destroy anyone.

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Well first of all that's not what you said. And most people in Westeros don't solve most of their problems.

Never said they did. Just that they get along find without magical help. Which is true, else common folk would all cease to exist.

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Tyrion dreamed of one day having enough gold send a faceless man after Cersei.  Jamie dreamed of growing a new hand. Victarion needs magic to keep from dying of a staff infection. Robb needs the assistance of a magic wolf to win the battle of OxCross and Howland Reed's magical help to try to retake the North. Stannis needs magic to kill Renly and Tyrion uses magic greek fire to repel stannis.  The Wall is magic.  Lemon cloak needs magic to track down Thorus.  Should I on?  Not mention that nearly all these people fail to accomplish their goals even with the assistance of magic.

Don't bother. That doesn't change the fact that not everyone is seeking a magical solution to their problems, or use magic to solve their problems. LF doesn't need magic to get to the top, nor does he want magic, same for Varys. Brienne doesn't need magic to help her track down Sansa, or to kill the Mummers. Jaime doesn't need magic to recapture the riverlands. Sansa has survived so far without any magic, as has Theon, Cersei, Sandor, and countless other characters. The Maesters are trying to get rid of magic and have thrived without it. Wanting a magical solution to a problem is not the same as being powerless without it.

Arya is smart enough to realize she can't accomplish her goals of killing someone like the queen without powers like Jaqen had, which is why she's seeking them.

Lord Littlefinger, on 21 April 2012 - 02:06 PM, said:

No she enjoys all of it.

She enjoys this?

"Each night at supper the waif brought her a cup of milk and told her to drink it down. The drink had a queer, bitter taste that the blind girl soon learned to loathe. Even the faint smell that warned her what it was before it touched her tongue soon made her feel like retching, but she drained the cup all the same."

And this:

" Burned pinky tips and blistered lips became familiar to her, and once she made herself so sick she could not keep down any food for days."

This?

"Many of her other duties had remained the same, but as she went about them she stumbled over furnishings, walked into walls, dropped trays, got hopelessly helplessly lost inside the temple. Once she almost fell headlong down the steps, but Syrio Forel had taught her balance in another lifetime, when she was the girl called Arya, and somehow she recovered and caught herself in time. Some nights she might have cried herself to sleep if she had still been Arry or Weasel or Cat, or even Arya of House Stark … but no one had no tears. Without eyes, even the simplest task was perilous. She burned herself a dozen times as she worked with Umma in the kitchens. Once, chopping onions, she cut her finger down to the bone. Twice she could not even find her own room in the cellar and had to sleep on the floor at the base of the steps."

And one more:

"Most days, she spent more time with the dead than with the living. She missed the friends she’d had when she was Cat of the Canals; Old Brusco with his bad back, his daughters Talea and Brea, the mummers from the Ship, Merry and her whores at the Happy Port, all the other rogues and wharfside scum. She missed Cat herself the most of all, even more than she missed her eyes. She had liked being Cat, more than she had ever liked being Salty or Squab or Weasel or Arry."

It was being Cat she liked (which I said, and a lot of the quotes you provided were from that chapter), not fumbling around blind. She doesn't continue with it because she enjoys it; she's making a sacrifice in order to gain power. She doesn't want to kill the insurance man because she likes it; she kills him to get promoted. The FM are all about these sacrifices.

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This is probably the happiest and freest time of Arya's life. It no where near as onerous as Jon's (or Sam's) experience joining the Night's Watch. Or Jamie's joining the kings-guard. Areo Hotah and the priests of Norvos.

You're kidding, right? Something tells me she was happier when she wasn't wanting to cry herself to sleep every night, like back when she was safe at Winterfell with her family. And the FM training is a lot more rigorous than the NW or KG.

[ManyFacedOne]

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All of the removal of her personal items. Her suppression of her individuality. Its a fucking test.  

Thanks for that bit of obvious information. For a second there, I was still thinking that maybe anyone could just walk in there and automatically be given their highest rank and secrets. No selection process required!

Anyway, yes, they're doing this to see if she can make the necessary sacrifices in order to make it to the next level.


Also, let me finish this quote for you:
She was her.

"She was her. No one. I am no one. Just a blind girl, just a servant of Him of Many Faces." Looks like their indoctrination is working.

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The Waif is not a slave.  There is no indication she cannot come and go as she pleases.  The Waif's father offered her to the temple.  That was his price, not the Waif's.  No where does it say the waif is required to Stay there.

You see, not everything is outright stated in the story -- a lot of things aren't. That would be too obvious and make for dull reading. Instead, we get hints here and there, similar situations and circumstances that can be compared for common ground, passages of stories that can be used for reference, etc. But why would the Waif be any different than then any of the other FM, whose service is for life? The fact that the Waif was part of the payment tells me that she probably agreed to it as well; after all, she was scarred by the poisoning and might've seen it as the only good fit for her *.  Add to that the fact that we never hear of the Waif leaving -- she's always been there the whole time Arya's been locked inside the temple. * She was probably given the same choices that Arya had, to leave before she became one of them, but that she's a priest now means she chose the path willingly, and bore the cost associated with it.

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They don't require any sacrifice.  But you have to make it through the training process.  And you have to get a Faceless Man to give you an Iron Penny

Obviously you're still ignoring all the stuff I quoted about giving up their hopes and dreams; but okay, even so, having to go without the use of your eyes, hearing, legs, and arms, all in order to advance, is a pretty big sacrifice to make.

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First they have to get an invitation, Iron Penny.  Then if they don't mind being deaf, blind, losing taste and smell, for indefinite periods of time.  If they can pass the tests.  If they don't mind sleeping in an alcove.  Being away from their friends and family.

Giving up their family and friends, personal goals, as the life they live will be someone else's life.

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No. I don't. I don't think anyone would ever give anyone anything if they wouldn't do what they were told and weren't of any use.  That doesn't distinguish the faceless men from the Cub Scouts or the Gold Cloaks

Their doctrines do though. Seems like becoming a Cub Scout isn't nearly as painful a process.

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What I said was, you don't know they're not disappearing.

I made a good case from which we can infer why they're most likely not. We're not going to get much better than that though, so it's a moot point, really.

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First of all I thought you said the Kindly Man, whoever that is, was in charge?

What does it matter that he's not in charge? He's a priest, so he still knows what he's talking about.

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So Plague Face is talking about training, what what does it matter any way? The Kindly Man is the CEO, according to you.

In the line before that he was talking about training. That wouldn't even make any sense if you thought about it. Honestly, why the hell would he be talking about being someone's mother during her training process? And I never said the Kindly Man was the CEO. He appears to be running things there, but we don't know anything for sure.  

Lord Littlefinger, on 21 April 2012 - 03:57 PM, said:

How about this? When they demonstrate they do that, then I'll agree that they do it. I don't see any method that they can use, as of yet, to track down a Faceless Man who disappeared. I don't know that when a mission isn't complete that they will know whether the Faceless Man sent on it, was tossed over board in the middle of the Ocean or if he just decided not to come back. Does Jon know what happened to Yoren? No. Jon presumes he's dead. But who's to say Yoren didn't hop a galley for Tyrosh and become a sell sword. It would take more time and energy to look for him than to replace him.

This took me a split second to think of -- how about, you know, they send someone to look into it? They're very good at gathering information, have tons of money and influence, so I'm sure a litte detective work isn't out of the question for them. And how would you know it would take more time and energy than just to train a new one? It's not even certain that the recruits will ever even advance past novices.

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They give them take them away and give them back to prepare them for life in service of the FM. to train them.

Because surely the FM won't expect anything back from them? They're just training, you know, so they can all sit around Braavos telling everyone what a blast being blind is.

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That's true. There isn't. there's also nothing saying people don't leave the order.

Given that they're hundreds of years old, likely trained thousands (or a lot more even) followers, I'm sure that people have managed to break away. But the percentage of that is probably very small. For one, the extreme training they all go through weeds out the ones who aren't up to the commitment -- while they're going through it, they're constantly being told of the hard sacrifices they have to make, that it's for life, and constantly given chances to leave if that doesn't sound good to them -- so the ones that do make it through have already decided that this is what they want. There's the fear factor to consider as well. The FM might not ever outright say they will try and hunt down those that abandon them, but their influence, all they know, and how deadly and effecient they are, might be enough to give most members pause considering that course.

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I don't but nonexistence is the default position. I doesn't say in the book that the faceless men don't have computers either. But until we see a Faceless Man using facebook to find his next target, the presumption is they do not.

The fact that they have rules is evidence that they would have a mechanism to enforce those rules, else their rules would be meaningless.

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In that case. That slave voluntarily became a Faceless Man

Unless Arya is special, everyone voluntarily becomes a FM.

[ManyFacedOne]

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Does that mean that this slave worked as an assassin for the Faceless Men for the rest of his life? Even if he was old and gouty and could not walk? Or does it mean he converted to their religion?

He already recognized their religion; he was praying to the MFG for their death. He will serve by helping them kill, so yes; he worked as an assassin.

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[/left]

And from that moment, we were two.

Is this supposed to mean there are only two Faceless Men? Didn't Arya see more than two sitting around the table? So maybe he's not being 100% literal? Maybe when he says two he means two or more? And maybe the slave, wasn't an assassin when he was 90, but by the time either of the original two had left the order (by death or by choice) they'd added more members so the faceless men had more than two members?

Uhh, context. He's still giving her the story of their origins here. This is the story about how the original FM got it's first recruit. Of course they have more than two members now, which we've seen.

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NO SHIT! My point is the fact that they're a religious group is irrelevant.

[left]

Then you're not very good at making your points. If you want to say something, don't skirt around it, just come out and say it.  

By the way, it is relevant, because you originally said it had nothing to do with the FM, when in fact, it's the exact same with the FM, but even more extreme.

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No its not. If they were truly, the identity-less, name less, faceless ascetics that cared for naught but the many face god, then they wouldn't be interested in gathering intelligence or geo politics or infiltrating the citadel

Who said the two are separate? A lot of major religions are involved in politics pushing their doctrines, trying to gain influence, and what not. Why should the FM be any different?

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that's not a difference. any more than the Nights Watch wearing Black and the Kingsguard wearing White, are what differentiate those two groups. Or to put it another way, the fact that Georgetown University is a Catholic institution and Cornell University is secular, is not a meaningful distinction. And the fact that Brigham Young University is a religious is institution does not make it more Similar to Georgetown than to Westpoint. Because even though one is religious and one is a government run entity, both have strict codes of conduct by which the students are sworn to abide. The fact that VMI is private and Westpoint is government run, does not mean VMI is more similar to Georgetown than it is to Westpoint

So because they both kill people that makes them the same? Well apparently the US military is made up of a bunch of Nazis, because, you know, they both killed people, so they're the same.

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Navy doesn't pay people any more?

The Navy doesn't take contracts for murder, no, sorry. I don't care how much I try and bribe them with, they're not going to be killing babies for cash any time soon.

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1)I don't know if that's true (but assuming it is) 2)How does this make the organizations different?

The FM have no morals in essence. All Men Must Die, so they'll kill anyone if the price is right.

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Do the rules of war allow the violation of sovereign airspace? do they allow an armed incursion into said sovereign territory and the execution of its citizens and residents without due process? I think not. And yet Bin Laden and several of those with him remain dead. Under the law of: "tough shit Pakistan"

They do for targeted killings.

Lord Littlefinger, on 21 April 2012 - 03:58 PM, said:

No both groups seem to be able to kill anyone they want to.

Can the SEALS kill children? I don't think so. Having the power to excute killings does not mean they can kill anyone they want.

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Oh. I don't know they have any secrets as such. They have some highly specialized knowledge and skills that it takes years to master. And that build upon each other. So I don't know that there's anything that someone could come in one day and "steal". Its not clear that the faceless men have access to any information that the Maestors or the Alchemists or the Shadowbinders the Greensers, the Warlocks of Qarth, the Sorrowful Men or the Red Priests don't have.

Do any of these groups wear the faces of people? Knowing how to do that successfully is a pretty big secret.

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  SEAL Training: BUD/S
Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training is divided into several phases:
Indoctrination

That they instruct their members in their doctrines is no surprise. It's the principles themselves that matter.

Edited by ManyFacedOne, 22 April 2012 - 02:52 AM.

[Morrigan]

Wayyyyy too much quoting frenzy and tl;dr nerdrage here, so I'll just say:

Lord Littlefinger, on 20 April 2012 - 01:11 AM, said:

to me its an indication that she doesn't care.

Good for you. But it's far more likely that a 10 year old child would be oblivious to politics, rather than merely aware-but-indifferent.

[just an Other]

The statement "you will be noone's daughter, noone's wife, noone's mother" does not seem ambiguus to me in any way.

To the question at hand. Arya does not deviate from her chosen path easily and since she's already given up her name, she might think Jeyne is welcome to it. Understnding the implications that it is done so that someone may lay claim to Winterfel might shake her up. The news of Jon's situation might do that as well. I think both will serve to push her deeper in to the FM as the last severd links to her past. Ultimately, I think it will be Bran who will pull her out and not without some resistance.

[NOc]

I think Arya will take the face of Jeyne Pool and go murder his ass!  That would be great

[Lord Littlefinger's Lash]

ManyFacedOne, on 22 April 2012 - 02:38 AM, said:

It's better to go with a description from a single character and Jon sees boths of them in Storm and notes Mance is of middling height and Rattleshirt, without bones, is small.

Well actually, I was going on descriptions from Jon. But I didn't think it'd be necessary to look up the quote for just a minor issue. Especially since you rarely find the need to support any of your fansicful assertions.  

Ser Glendon was the tall man who had dragged Jon from his bed. Four other men went with him when he left the room, but they were back soon enough with a captive, a small, sallow, battered man fettered hand and foot. He had a single eyebrow, a widow’s peak, and a mustache
that looked like a smear of dirt on his upper lip, but his face was swollen and mottled with bruises, and most of his front teeth had been knocked out.
The Eastwatch men threw the captive roughly to the floor. Lord Slynt frowned down at him. “Is this the one you spoke of?”
The captive blinked yellow eyes. “Aye.” Not until that instant did Jon recognize Rattleshirt. He is a different man without his armor, he thought. “Aye,”

Rattleshirt took off his yellowed helm as he waited for the song to end. Beneath his bone-and-leather armor he was a small man, and the face under the giant’s skull was ordinary, with a knobby chin, thin mustache, and sallow, pinched cheeks. His eyes were close-set, one eyebrow creeping all the way across his forehead, dark hair thinning back from a sharp widow’s peak.

The King-beyond-the-Wall looked nothing like a king, nor even much a wildling. He was of middling height, slender, sharp-faced, with shrewd brown eyes and long brown hair that had gone mostly to grey. There was no crown on his head, no gold rings on his arms, no jewels at his throat, not even a gleam of silver. He wore wool and leather, and his only garment of note was his ragged black wool cloak, its long tears patched with faded red silk.

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Using an actual face is one of the best ways to do it. So, one might think that stealing his face would be the best option here. I see no reason the process that the KM did to Arya couldn't be done herself if she knew the way.

OK. See what you did here. This is the problem.  

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Using an actual face is one of the best ways to do it.

First you added a qualifier.  In and of itself, that's not entirely unwarranted.  But you continue.

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So, one might think that stealing his face would be the best option here.

Now, you've extrapolated your addittion into a completely concoction of your own. You have no idea whether its the best option or not. You know its one of many possible options. That is all.

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I see no reason the process that the KM did to Arya couldn't be done herself if she knew the way.

That's fine but we haven't seen the process performed by one person. We do not know that it can be done by one person.  The time we have seen "Jaquen" change his face, he did not use this process.  So there's no reason to assume that he used the same process we've seen applied to Arya.

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I don't know anything for sure. I made up the scenerio as an example, but it holds.

I don't know what the fuck "it holds" means.  And I also don't know what "Red Flags" you're referring to.  But there's no reason to expect that in an organization where people can change their faces that, people changing their faces would be a cause for concern.  So if "it holds" means, "doesn't make any fucking sense", then yes. It holds.

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No, but it makes sense that he probably is

Again, what the fuck does that mean?  You have no idea what the physical limitations of swapping actual faces is.  Nor do you know that they are using "actual faces".

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, because of the physical limitations of swapping actual faces would be. That and there's really no reason for them to all swap faces before they enter the temple.

Who said anything about swapping faces before they entered the temple? They could easily change faces in the process of going about their regular faceless man business.

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, What would be the point of such games?

I was talking about actual faces, not spells. But as I pointed out with the Mance example, their physical attributes can come through regardless of the glamor.

We know that in the case of Mance, his physical attributes came through when he removed the bone armor.  And that even then, it did not prevent him from being perceived as Rattleshirt.  

That is all we know.

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What would be the point of trying to fool the other members of the House of Black and White?

Solely the member of the House of Black and White? None.  But we know that many people come and go from the house who are not members.  

What would be the point of changing their faces to some predetermined one before they came back into the temple everytime? And if their techniques work on everyone, how would the enforce such a rule anyway?

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Apparently you didn't read them close enough. Anyway, it was all in the chapters where I said, but here you go:

" She thought that was some stupid lie till Talea said it too. I should not be dreaming wolf dreams, the girl told herself. I am a cat now, not a wolf. I am Cat of the Canals. The wolf dreams belonged to Arya of House Stark. Try as she might, though, she could not rid herself of Arya. "

What do you know, she's actively trying to rid herself of Arya.

And this is from later in Dance (The Blind Girl) as she goes further in:

"But they were all dead now, even Arya,"

She thinks of Arya as dead. She is no one:

"Some nights she might have cried herself to sleep if she had still been Arry or or Cat, or even Arya of House Stark... but no one had no tears."  "No one. I am no one. Just a blind girl, just a servant of Him of Many Faces."

I'm aware of what she thinks, and says.  I just don't think it means anything.  She's attempting to suppress her identity so that she can assume others.  Her choice of the names Beth, Cat, Nymeria, indicate she is still Arya.  The fact that she did not throw away Needle, indicates that she is still Arya.  She cannot rid herself of Arya anymore than she can rid herself of her DNA.  She is her, no matter what name she goes by.

And eventually she stops even thinking she needs to rid herself of Arya (not that she ever really was trying).  She starts using her Arya-ness to advance her progress in her training.

“It is good to know. This is two. Is there a third?”
“Yes. I know that you’re the one who has been hitting me.” Her stick flashed out, and cracked against his fingers, sending his own stick clattering to the floor. The priest winced and snatched his hand back. “And how could a blind girl know that?” I saw you. “I gave you three. I don’t need to give you four.” Maybe on the morrow she would tell him about the cat that had followed her home last night from Pynto’s, the cat that was hiding in the rafters, looking down on them. Or maybe not. If he could have secrets, so could she.

Again, there is no punishment for her withholding information.  She is again advanced to the next stage of her training, not by eliminating the traits of Arya Stark, but by utilizing them.

That evening Umma served salt-crusted crabs for supper. When her cup was presented to her, the blind girl wrinkled her nose and drank it down in three long gulps. Then she gasped and dropped the cup. Her tongue was on fire, and when she gulped a cup of wine the flames spread down her throat and up her nose. “Wine will not help, and water will just fan the flames,” the waif told her. “Eat this.” A heel of bread was pressed into her hand. The girl stuffed it in her mouth, chewed, swallowed. It helped. A second chunk helped more. And come the morning, when the night wolf left her and she opened her eyes, she saw a tallow candle burning where no candle had been the night before, its uncertain flame swaying back and forth like a whore at the Happy Port. She had never seen anything so beautiful.

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True. She wants something to remember her while she becomes no one.

Was that even english? What the fuck does that mean?

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From Got -- MMD's point about the value of life:

"Look to your khal and see what life is worth, when all the rest is gone."

Yeah. She said it. But she didn't mean it.  She still begged to be loosed from her bonds.  She still wailed on that funeral pyre.  When Dany strapped her up there.  Do dead men wail?  

Bound hand and foot, Mirri Maz Duur watched from the dust with disquiet in her black eyes. “It is not enough to kill a horse,” she told Dany. “By itself, the blood is nothing. You do not have the words to make a spell, nor the wisdom to find them. Do you think bloodmagic is a game for children? You call me maegi as if it were a curse, but all it means is wise. You are a child, with a child’s ignorance. Whatever you mean to do, it will not work. Loose me from these bonds and I will help you.”
“I am tired of the maegi’s braying,” Dany told Jhogo. He took his whip to her, and after that the godswife kept silent.

As she climbed down off the pyre, she noticed Mirri Maz Duur watching her. “You are mad,” the godswife said hoarsely.
“Is it so far from madness to wisdom?” Dany asked. “Ser Jorah, take this maegi and bind her to the pyre.”
“To the... my queen, no, hear me...”
“Do as I say.” Still he hesitated, until her anger flared. “You swore to obey me, whatever might come. Rakharo, help him.”
The godswife did not cry out as they dragged her to Khal Drogo’s pyre and staked her down amidst his treasures. Dany poured the oil over the woman’s head herself. “I thank you, Mirri Maz Duur,” she said, “for the lessons you have taught me.”
“You will not hear me scream,” Mirri responded as the oil dripped from her hair and soaked her clothing.
“I will,” Dany said, “but it is not your screams I want, only your life. I remember what you told me. Only death can pay for life.” Mirri Maz Duur opened her mouth, but made no reply. As she stepped away, Dany saw that the contempt was gone from the maegi’s flat black eyes; in its place was something that might have been fear. Then there was nothing to be done but watch the sun and look for the first star.

Tiny flames went darting up the wood like swift
red mice, skating over the oil and leaping from bark to branch to leaf. A rising heat puffed at her face, soft and sudden as a lover’s breath, but in seconds it had grown too hot to bear. Dany stepped backward. The wood crackled, louder and louder. Mirri Maz Duur began to sing in a shrill, ululating voice. The flames whirled and writhed, racing each other up the platform. The dusk shimmered as the air itself seemed to liquefy from the heat. Dany heard logs spit and crack. The fires swept over Mirri Maz Duur. Her song grew louder, shriller... then she gasped, again and again, and her song became a shuddering wail, thin and high and full of agony.

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Is a person truly alive just because their heart is beating, even if they lost all their senses? Most would say no; he's just an empty shell. Dany certainly doesn't think so with regards to Drogo. His life was riding, laughing, and swinging his Arakh. In essense, that wasn't Drogo; that's not who he was.

If Arya were unable to move or communicate and we didn't have her POV do know what she was thinking. Then I would agree.  But that is not her situation.  And its the same logic Joffrey used for Bran.

“There was a dagger. The scars on Lady Catelyn’s hands were real enough, she showed them to me. Did you... ?”
“Oh, don’t be absurd.” Cersei closed the window. “Yes, I hoped the boy would die. So did you. Even Robert thought that would have been for the best. ‘We kill our horses when they break a leg, and our dogs when they go blind, but we are too weak to give the same mercy to crippled children’ he told me. He was blind himself at the time, from drink.”
Robert? Jaime had guarded the king long enough to know that Robert Baratheon said things in his cups that he would have denied angrily the next day. “Were you alone when Robert said this?”
“You don’t think he said it to Ned Stark, I hope? Of course we were alone. Us and the children.” Cersei removed her hairnet and draped it over a bedpost, then shook out her golden curls. “Perhaps Myrcella sent this man with the dagger, do you think so?”
It was meant as mockery, but she’d cut right to the heart of it, Jaime saw at once. “Not Myrcella. Joffrey.”

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Going back to the example of the Farmer, take away his lands, his name, his family, everything he owns, his hobbies, his mannerisms, his hopes and goals, and essentially he's left with nothing. What he was was destroyed. Now he's a blank slate, no one, ready to be imprinted with whatever identity they decide for him. This is how FM are made. They become no one in order to become anyone.

Uh, wasn't the farmer? Romeo? At any rate. He's not a blank slate. The life he lived up until that point shapes and effects the decisions he will make in the future. He is himself, the collection of his experiences.

[Lord Littlefinger's Lash]

ManyFacedOne, on 22 April 2012 - 02:38 AM, said:

Are you actually arguing this would only drastically change someone's life if they were a new born? That would be enough to destroy anyone.

It would change their lives. They just woudn't be different people.  I assume by destroy, you mean make them unhappy?  Because if you really mean destroy, then Arya Stark ceased to exists in Game of Thrones.

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Never said they did. Just that they get along find without magical help. Which is true, else common folk would all cease to exist.

YOU DID

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Obviously, when I say powerless, I don't mean completely powerless (i.e. unable to even lift a spoon) but powerless as in she doesn't have the power to accomplish what she wants to accomplish without magical help.

What the fuck do you call that?

Most people in Westeros do not have the power to accomplish what they want without magical help.  Most people in Westeros don't have the power to accomplish what they want WITH magical help.

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Don't bother. That doesn't change the fact that not everyone is seeking a magical solution to their problems

I never said they were.  That is not the statement you made.

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, or use magic to solve their problems. LF doesn't need magic to get to the top, nor does he want magic

I really wish you stop making shit up.  No where does it say that Littlefinger does not want to use magic.  In all likelyhood, like Tyrion, he doesn't beleive it exists.  And to date in the series its his biggest weakness.

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, same for Varys. Brienne doesn't need magic to help her track down Sansa, or to kill the Mummers. Jaime doesn't need magic to recapture the riverlands. Sansa has survived so far without any magic, as has Theon, Cersei, Sandor, and countless other characters. The Maesters are trying to get rid of magic and have thrived without it. Wanting a magical solution to a problem is not the same as being powerless without it.

I don't give a fuck what other people do I'm talking about Arya.  And any of those people, with possible except of Varys would use whatever means available to them to advance them to their objectives

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Arya is smart enough to realize she can't accomplish her goals of killing someone like the queen without powers like Jaqen had, which is why she's seeking them.  

I don't even know what the fuck you're talking about anymore

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She enjoys this?

"Each night at supper the waif brought her a cup of milk and told her to drink it down. The drink had a queer, bitter taste that the blind girl soon learned to loathe. Even the faint smell that warned her what it was before it touched her tongue soon made her feel like retching, but she drained the cup all the same."

And this:

" Burned pinky tips and blistered lips became familiar to her, and once she made herself so sick she could not keep down any food for days."

This?

"Many of her other duties had remained the same, but as she went about them she stumbled over furnishings, walked into walls, dropped trays, got hopelessly helplessly lost inside the temple. Once she almost fell headlong down the steps, but Syrio Forel had taught her balance in another lifetime, when she was the girl called Arya, and somehow she recovered and caught herself in time. Some nights she might have cried herself to sleep if she had still been Arry or Weasel or Cat, or even Arya of House Stark … but no one had no tears. Without eyes, even the simplest task was perilous. She burned herself a dozen times as she worked with Umma in the kitchens. Once, chopping onions, she cut her finger down to the bone. Twice she could not even find her own room in the cellar and had to sleep on the floor at the base of the steps."

And one more:

"Most days, she spent more time with the dead than with the living. She missed the friends she’d had when she was Cat of the Canals; Old Brusco with his bad back, his daughters Talea and Brea, the mummers from the Ship, Merry and her whores at the Happy Port, all the other rogues and wharfside scum. She missed Cat herself the most of all, even more than she missed her eyes. She had liked being Cat, more than she had ever liked being Salty or Squab or Weasel or Arry."

It was being Cat she liked (which I said, and a lot of the quotes you provided were from that chapter), not fumbling around blind. She doesn't continue with it because she enjoys it; she's making a sacrifice in order to gain power. She doesn't want to kill the insurance man because she likes it; she kills him to get promoted. The FM are all about these sacrifices.

YES.  

Arya stood on one leg. She was getting much better at that of late. “Syrio says that every hurt is a lesson, and every lesson makes you better.”
Ned frowned. The man Syrio Forel had come with an excellent reputation, and his flamboyant Braavosi style was well suited to Arya’s slender blade, yet still... a few days ago, she had been wandering around with a swatch of black silk tied over her eyes. Syrio was teaching her to see with her ears and her nose and her skin, she told him. Before that, he had her doing spins and back flips. “Arya, are you certain you want to persist in this?”
She nodded. “Tomorrow we’re going to catch cats.”
“Cats.” Ned sighed. “Perhaps it was a mistake to hire this Braavosi. If you like, I will ask Jory to take over your lessons. Or I might have a quiet word with Ser Barristan. He was the finest sword in the Seven Kingdoms in his youth.”
“I don’t want them,” Arya said. “I want Syrio.”

What part of every hurt is a lesson do you not understand?  Have you ever played a sport?  Ever had to run until you puked? Ever joined an elite group of anyone doing anything? Its not supposed to be easy. Its supposed to hurt.  If it didn't hurt, you wouldn't know you were challenging yourself.  If it didn't hurt, you should be looking for another pursuit. PAIN IS WEAKNESS LEAVING THE BODY http://www.armynavys...ds/rc60417.html

The Knight of Flowers had no recourse but to follow at her heels like the puppy he was. Cersei waited until they were on the serpentine steps before she said, “Whose notion was that, pray?”
“My sister’s,” he admitted. “Ser Tallad, Ser Dermot, and Ser Portifer were riding at the quintain, and the queen suggested that His Grace might like to have a turn.”
He calls her that to irk me. “And your part?”
“I helped His Grace to don his armor and showed him how to couch his lance,” he answered.
“That horse was much too large for him. What if he had fallen off? What if the sandbag had smashed his head in?”
“Bruises and bloody lips are all part of being a knight.”

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You're kidding, right? Something tells me she was happier when she wasn't wanting to cry herself to sleep every night, like back when she was safe at Winterfell with her family.

I don't think she was happier at Winterfell.  But we only get to see her at Winterfell for one chapter. At anyrate. Winterfell is burned and broken and full of Boltons, I doubt she'd like it there now.  Certainly "Arya" doesn't seem to.

“He’s going to marry her,” little Beth said dreamily, hugging herself. “Then Sansa will be queen of all the realm.”
Sansa had the grace to blush. She blushed prettily. She did everything prettily, Arya thought with dull resentment. “Beth, you shouldn’t make up stories,” Sansa corrected the younger girl, gently stroking her hair to take the harshness out of her words. She looked at Arya. “What did you think of Prince Joff, sister? He’s very gallant, don’t you think?”
“Jon says he looks like a girl,” Arya said.
Sansa sighed as she stitched. “Poor Jon,” she said. “He gets jealous because he’s a bastard.”
“He’s our brother,” Arya said, much too loudly. Her voice cut through the afternoon quiet of the tower room.
Septa Mordane raised her eyes. She had a bony face, sharp eyes, and a thin lipless mouth made for frowning. It was frowning now. “What are you talking about, children?”
“Our half brother,” Sansa corrected, soft and precise. She smiled for the septa. “Arya and I were remarking on how pleased we were to have the princess with us today,” she said.
Septa Mordane nodded. “Indeed. A great honor for us all.” Princess Myrcella smiled uncertainly at the compliment. “Arya, why aren’t you at work?” the septa asked. She rose to her feet, starched skirts rustling as she started across the room. “Let me see your stitches.”
Arya wanted to scream. It was just like Sansa to go and attract the septa’s attention. “Here,” she said, surrendering up her work.
The septa examined the fabric. “Arya, Arya, Arya,” she said. “This will not do. This will not do at all.”
Everyone was looking at her. It was too much. Sansa was too well bred to smile at her sister’s disgrace, but Jeyne was smirking on her behalf. Even Princess Myrcella looked sorry for her. Arya felt tears filling her eyes. She pushed herself out of her chair and bolted for the door.
Septa Mordane called after her. “Arya, come back here! Don’t you take another step! Your lady mother will hear of this. In front of our royal princess too! You’ll shame us all!”
Arya stopped at the door and turned back, biting her lip. The tears were running down her cheeks now. She managed a stiff little bow to Myrcella. “By your leave, my lady.”
Myrcella blinked at her and looked to her ladies for guidance. But if she was uncertain, Septa Mordane was not. “Just where do you think you are going, Arya?” the septa demanded.
Arya glared at her. “I have to go shoe a horse,”



“Didn’t you ever have a brother you wanted to kill?” He laughed again. “Or maybe a sister?” He must have seen something in her face then, for he leaned closer. “Sansa. That’s it, isn’t it? The wolf bitch wants to kill the pretty bird.”
“No,” Arya spat back at him. “I’d like to kill you.”

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And the FM training is a lot more rigorous than the NW or KG.

No shit, its more rigorous, its Fucking Elite.  

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You're kidding, right? Something tells me she was happier when she wasn't wanting to cry herself to sleep every night, like back when she was safe at Winterfell with her family.

She's crying because she keeps bumping into shit.  She learns how to not bump into shit. She stops crying, she takes pride in it.

The kindly man took the iron lantern off its hook and led her past the still black pool and the rows of dark and silent gods, to the steps at the rear of the temple. The waif fell in behind them as they were making their descent. No one spoke. The soft scuff of slippered feet on the steps was the only sound. Eighteen steps brought them to the vaults, where five arched passageways spread out like the fingers of a man’s hand. Down here the steps grew narrower and steeper, but the girl had run up and down them a thousand times and they held no terrors for her. Twenty-two more steps and they were at the subcellar. The tunnels here were cramped and crooked, black wormholes twisting through the heart of the great rock. One passage was closed off by a heavy iron door. The priest hung the lantern from a hook, slipped a hand inside his robe, and produced an ornate key. Gooseprickles rose along her arms. The sanctum. They were going lower still, down to the third level, to the secret chambers where only the priests were permitted.
The key clicked three times, very softly, as the kindly man turned it in a lock. The door swung open on oiled iron hinges, making not a sound. Beyond were still more steps, hewn out of solid rock. The priest took down the lantern once again and led the way. The girl followed the light, counting the steps as she went down. Four five six seven. She found herself wishing that she had brought her stick. Ten eleven twelve. She knew how many steps there were between the temple and the cellar, between the cellar and the subcellar, she had even counted the steps on the cramped winding stair that spiraled up into the garret and the rungs on the steep wooden ladder that ascended to the rooftop door and the windy perch outside. This stair was unknown to her, however, and that made it perilous. One-and-twenty two-and-twenty three-and-twenty. With every step the air seemed to grow a little colder. When her count reached thirty she knew that they were under even the canals. Three-and-thirty four-and-thirty. How deep were they going to go? She had reached fifty-four when the steps finally ended at another iron door.

Edited by Lord Littlefinger's Lash, 23 April 2012 - 03:52 AM.

[Jayce]

Lord Littlefinger, on 19 April 2012 - 05:55 PM, said:

She did. Otherwise she wouldn't think "The Hound never flicked an eye at Arya."

I'm wary of getting involved but this statement brings a question to mind. Did she think that?
I ask because the quoted text seems more of a description from the writer then something Arya thought.

[Lord Littlefinger's Lash]

ManyFacedOne, on 22 April 2012 - 02:41 AM, said:

Thanks for that bit of obvious information. For a second there, I was still thinking that maybe anyone could just walk in there and automatically be given their highest rank and secrets. No selection process required!

No. But it might be possible for someone to get through the selection procress very quicjly. The way Sarella has done at the Citadel.  

Anyway, you seem to miss a lot of the obvious, so I can never be to careful.  

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Anyway, yes, they're doing this to see if she can make the necessary sacrifices in order to make it to the next level.

Well not really. Its not about making a safrifice. At least I don't think it is. The test is to see whether she can suppress her identity in order to assume someone else. Its necessary for the job. Its fraternity hazing.

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Also, let me finish this quote for you:
She was her.

"She was her. No one. I am no one. Just a blind girl, just a servant of Him of Many Faces." Looks like their indoctrination is working.

I don't know what you mean by finished. Its not like I ended it in the middle of a sentence.

That was a lie. They often lied to her, to test her. No stick was better than a pair of eyes. It was good to have, though, so she always kept it close. Umma had taken to calling her Stick , but names did not matter. She was her. No one. I am no one. Just a blind girl, just a servant of Him of Many Faces.

That's the whole paragraph.  

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You see, not everything is outright stated in the story -- a lot of things aren't. That would be too obvious and make for dull reading. Instead, we get hints here and there, similar situations and circumstances that can be compared for common ground, passages of stories that can be used for reference, etc. But why would the Waif be any different than then any of the other FM, whose service is for life?

See the problem is that's two assumptions. Not one.  Again, nowhere is it stated that their service is for life. This is very different from other orders, kingsguard, night's watch, maesters who are known to serve for life.

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The fact that the Waif was part of the payment tells me that she probably agreed to it as well; after all, she was scarred by the poisoning and might've seen it as the only good fit for her *.

Perhaps. Or maybe her father included her in his offering and when she became aware of this she figured he couldn't love her that much if he'd offer her up as a sacrifice.

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  Add to that the fact that we never hear of the Waif leaving -- she's always been there the whole time Arya's been locked inside the temple. *

Arya isn't locked inside the temple. This is the problem. When books are made more interesting by not spelling things out explicitly some people read things into the books that are not there.

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She was probably given the same choices that Arya had, to leave before she became one of them, but that she's a priest now means she chose the path willingly, and bore the cost associated with it.

Or she stays there because she likes being there.

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Obviously you're still ignoring all the stuff I quoted about giving up their hopes and dreams;

I don't know what quote you're referring to. As I've said. If you have a quote. include it in your post.

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but okay, even so, having to go without the use of your eyes, hearing, legs, and arms, all in order to advance, is a pretty big sacrifice to make.

Its part of the training. Moving to old town and giving up your last name is a pretty big sacrifice.  Taking the black the is a pretty big sacrifice. Joining the Kingsguard is a pretty big sacrifice.  Training all your life to knock people off a horse with a stick is a pretty big sacrifice.  Or not. Depending on who you are.

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Giving up their family and friends, personal goals, as the life they live will be someone else's life.

Well its not clear whether that is always the.  If the kindly man has a family in Braavos, or Pentos or where ever, its not clear how the faceless men as organization would know about that.  

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Their doctrines do though. Seems like becoming a Cub Scout isn't nearly as painful a process.

Its not. Cub Scouts don't learn anything nearly as useful either.

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I made a good case from which we can infer why they're most likely not. We're not going to get much better than that though, so it's a moot point, really.

Inference is not knowledge. Inference is guessing. Which was my point to begin with.

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What does it matter that he's not in charge? He's a priest, so he still knows what he's talking about.

It matters because you inferred the Kindly Man was incharge. Something that is not clear. And then you based subsequent assumptions on that premise. As you have done repeatedly about the group.  The result being that you have constructed out of whole clothe practices and procedures of the group that bare little resemblence to what is included in the book. And then you asset those practices and procedures as evidence of group's mistreament of Arya.  When in reality the mistreatment is happening entirely in your head.

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In the line before that he was talking about training. That wouldn't even make any sense if you thought about it. Honestly, why the hell would he be talking about being someone's mother during her training process?

Why the hell would he say she'll "be no one's daughter" when, she didn't spotaneously generate herself from the either? She'll always be someone's daughter.  If he'd said she'll "be blind" would that mean that she would be blid forever?

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And I never said the Kindly Man was the CEO.

I know. I was just pointing out the absurdity of your position with a little sarcacism.

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He appears to be running things there, but we don't know anything for sure.  




This took me a split second to think of -- how about, you know, they send someone to look into it? They're very good at gathering information, have tons of money and influence, so I'm sure a litte detective work isn't out of the question for them.  And how would you know it would take more time and energy than just to train a new one?

I was referring to Yoren.  But sending someone to look for anyone with any face anywhere doesn't like a productive activity

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  It's not even certain that the recruits will ever even advance past novices.


Because surely the FM won't expect anything back from them?

No they expect something back.  The same way Jon expected something back when he sent Dareon with Sam and Gilly.  Expecting something and getting something are two different things though.  Every Black Brother, doesn't run away from the wall.  Some enjoy being there more than they ever enjoyed being a lord's son, like Sam.  Some stay out of a sense of duty.  Some stay because they have no where else to go.  Some break the rules but remain within the order and the those in charge look the other way or are unaware.  Like, Jon, who broke his vows and had to be dragged back by his brothers.  And some wander off never to be heard from again.  A process that would be infinitely easier for them if they didn't wear uniforms and could change their face.

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They're just training, you know, so they can all sit around Braavos telling everyone what a blast being blind is.



Given that they're hundreds of years old, likely trained thousands

Again, please stop makign things up we have no idea how few or how many of them there are.

[Lord Littlefinger's Lash]

ManyFacedOne, on 22 April 2012 - 02:42 AM, said:

(or a lot more even) followers, I'm sure hat people have managed to break away. But the percentage of that is probably very small.

The precentage who even want to is probably small.  As I said. Its a great gig. Who would quit?

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For one, the extreme training they all go through weeds out the ones who aren't up to the commitment -- while they're going through it, they're constantly being told of the hard sacrifices they have to make, that it's for life, and constantly given chances to leave if that doesn't sound good to them -- so the ones that do make it through have already decided that this is what they want. There's the fear factor to consider as well. The FM might not ever outright say they will try and hunt down those that abandon them, but their influence, all they know, and how deadly and effecient they are, might be enough to give most members pause considering that course.

One would think it would give them pause.  But of course, that makes it no different than the allies who turn their cloaks during war. or any of the other people way risks and rewards of changing allegances.  Of course, the faceless men have the added advantage of being able to change their face. They don't have to go back to Hagsmire like Chett with giant wen on his neck and be instantly recognized. They have an incredibly valuable skill set and can change their apperance at will. The could go litterally anywhere in the world.

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The fact that they have rules is evidence that they would have a mechanism to enforce those rules, else their rules would be meaningless.

No its not. Knights have rules that no one enforces. The Black Brothers head down to moles town to the dig for buried treasure.  Many a kingsguard knight has soiled his cloak and laid with women....or men.  The Maesters as well have such rules and yet the Grand Maester Pycelle and many of those in old town, ignore it.  There are lots of people who have lots of rules in Westeros and Essos and absolutely no way to enforce and as such the rules are promptly ignored.

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Unless Arya is special, everyone voluntarily becomes a FM.


He already recognized their religion; he was praying to the MFG for their death. He will serve by helping them kill, so yes; he worked as an assassin.

again not clear.  you know for someone with your screen name you seem to have a surprising lack of knowledge about the Faceless Men and the Many Faced God.

Whoever he was, he moved amongst the slaves and would hear them at their prayers. Men of a hundred different nations labored in the mines, and each prayed to his own god in his own tongue, yet all were praying for the same thing. It was release they asked for, an end to pain. A small thing, and simple. Yet their gods made no answer, and their suffering went on. Are their gods all deaf? he wondered... until a realization came upon him, one night in the red darkness.



I have told you of the founding of our order, of how the first of us answered the prayers of slaves who wished for death. The gift was given only to those who yearned for it, in the beginning … but one day, the first of us heard a slave praying not for his own death but for his master’s. So fervently did he desire this that he offered all he had, that his prayer might be answered.

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Uhh, context. He's still giving her the story of their origins here. This is the story about how the original FM got it's first recruit. Of course they have more than two members now, which we've seen.

But ignored the rest of my question

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Does that mean that this slave worked as an assassin for the Faceless Men for the rest of his life? Even if he was old and gouty and could not walk? Or does it mean he converted to their religion?
And from that moment, we were two.

Is this supposed to mean there are only two Faceless Men? Didn't Arya see more than two sitting around the table? So maybe he's not being 100% literal? Maybe when he says two he means two or more? And maybe the slave, wasn't an assassin when he was 90, but by the time either of the original two had left the order (by death or by choice) they'd added more members so the faceless men had more than two members?

The Point was, if "And from that moment, we were two" is not meant literally what makes you think "That is what the god desires of you. For the rest of your days on earth, you will serve him." is meant literally?

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Then you're not very good at making your points. If you want to say something, don't skirt around it, just come out and say it.  

I'M TRYING. HERE.  is it possible you're just obtuse?  

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By the way, it is relevant, because you originally said it had nothing to do with the FM, when in fact, it's the exact same with the FM, but even more extreme.

What? It doesn't have anything to with them. They happen to be a religous organization. Its irrelevant. You haven't  explained why its not irrelevant.  And I can't see why it is relevant.

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Who said the two are separate? A lot of major religions are involved in politics pushing their doctrines, trying to gain influence, and what not. Why should the FM be any different?

Because in order to have interests. You have to have an identity. Otherwise how do you decide what is in your interest?

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So because they both kill people that makes them the same? Well apparently the US military is made up of a bunch of Nazis, because, you know, they both killed people, so they're the same.

Well they're the same in some says and different in some ways. The Nazis were a political party that were elected into power in germany.  The U.S. Miltary is not a political party.

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The Navy doesn't take contracts for murder, no, sorry. I don't care how much I try and bribe them with, they're not going to be killing babies for cash any time soon.

No but they'll kill them and call it colateral damage. In the meantime, dead is dead.

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The FM have no morals in essence. All Men Must Die, so they'll kill anyone if the price is right.

Is that your complaint?  You do a bad job of making your points.  I don't care if the Faceless Men kill children. I didn't care when Jamie pushed Bran out the window. It was the smart thing to do. I don't believe in morality. Or rather objective morality. The fact that the Faceless Men "have no morals" is irrelevant to me.  

Stannis and Ned Stark have plenty of morals and their combined stubborness gets tens of thousands of people killed.  Probably more than every Faceless Man in the history of no-faces.

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They do for targeted killings.

No they do not. You can't violate another countries sovereign territory just because you decided its "ok".  Unless by "rules" you mean whatever the fuck We unilaterally decide is ok.  

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Can the SEALS kill children? I don't think so. Having the power to excute killings does not mean they can kill anyone they want.

Can faceless men execute people they know?   I don't think so. Having the power to excute killings does not mean they can kill anyone they want.  

And you think the United States Military has never killed children?

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Do any of these groups wear the faces of people? Knowing how to do that successfully is a pretty big secret.

Greensers know how to control other people.  Melisandre knows how to change her own apperance and the apperance of others.  Shadowbinds know how to send shadows to assassinate people. ect. ect.

I don't think the whole changing faces thing, is really the greatest skill of the Faceless Men.  Melisandre and Bloodraven have far more interesting abilities and I would think the Faceless Men do as well, given their infiltration of the Citadel and Marwyn's inter circle.

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That they instruct their members in their doctrines is no surprise. It's the principles themselves that matter.

So what goign on about indoctrination for? If you don't like that Faceless Men kill people that's fine. I don't have a problem with it, I think its a good place for Arya.

Edited by Lord Littlefinger's Lash, 23 April 2012 - 06:38 AM.

[Lord Littlefinger's Lash]

Jayce, on 23 April 2012 - 05:08 AM, said:

I'm wary of getting involved but this statement brings a question to mind. Did she think that?
I ask because the quoted text seems more of a description from the writer then something Arya thought.

Yeah it depends on how you interpret POV writing. I've never been inside someone else's head. But it seems to be the intent that everything in a POV chapter is something experienced by that person.  A description may not be what the person is thinking, but it is what they are seeing.

[Lord Littlefinger's Lash]

Morrigan, on 22 April 2012 - 02:49 AM, said:

Wayyyyy too much quoting frenzy and tl;dr nerdrage here, so I'll just say:

Good for you. But it's far more likely that a 10 year old child would be oblivious to politics, rather than merely aware-but-indifferent.

Arya doesn't appear to be an average 10 year old.  And she's certainly aware that they're talking about Sansa's sister being married.

[Caddrel]

Bear in mind Arya has often been oblivious and dismissive of the larger context when it comes to other people talking about her or her family.

At Harrenhal her betrothed spent several evenings talking to Arya (disguised as Arry at the time) about how much he was looking forward to their marriage. Arya never realised for a moment the Frey was talking about her.

Arya was equally dismissive when the boy was telling her about Wylla.

Edited by Caddrel, 23 April 2012 - 06:59 AM.

[Patchface12]

Probably nothing since she's a Faceless Man. Maybe she'll identify with Jeyne since she has to be somebody else (assuming she even knows its her) but just wave it off. "She's Arya, I'm not"