33 replies to this topic

[The Wood of the Morning]

So we all know that religions in Westeros seem to actually have some real supernatural powers. The Old Gods have wargs and greenseers, Red R'hllor has fortune telling priests and deadly shadow babies, the Drowned God seems to be all about the dead coming back to life.

What about the Seven?

So far, these New Gods have yet to show that they have any real power at all. Does anyone else feel that that with the Faith Militant coming back we might see the real power of the Seven?  The Warrior's Sons are said to have been holy men, ascetics, sorcerers, dragonslayers and demonhunters.  Will we start seeing the true intent of these Andal gods in Winter or are the Seven just a hollow plastic religion made for the masses?

I'm curious about your thoughts on the Faith.

[Apple Martini]

I don't think the Seven exist. It's just a smokescreen of pageantry with no real oomph behind it.

[Castel]

Apple Martini, on 08 June 2012 - 10:50 PM, said:

I don't think the Seven exist. It's just a smokescreen of pageantry with no real oomph behind it.

This honestly, the fact that their religion doesn't seem to emphasize feats of magic seems to speak to this. If they ever were magical, they lost it long ago. But I doubt that The Faith was ever real.


And I like that, I hate the Dragonlance Good-Neutral-Evil balanced scales bullshit. Not all religions are made equal.

[The Drunkard]

I don't think they exist either. The Old Gods seem to have some backing behind them, and R'hllor definitely has quite a bit, but the Seven? Nope.

[TheRaggedWildling]

I don't know. It seems to me that none of the religions presented in ASOIAF actually exist as one would think of as a deity. The Old Gods turned out to be nothing more than some old people symbiotically linked with some trees, and have no real powers aside from being able to look through the Heart Tree-faces. The only one linked to the Old Gods that we have seen exhibit any actual "miracle"-like power is Bran, and it amounts to a whisper lost in the wind. And the Red Faith seems to be little more than bog-standard pyromancy mixed with blood magic and appropriate pomp and circumstance.

Besides, from what we have seen in the series so far, it appears that the Seven are one of the few religions to actually have some sort of benevolent presence, even if the upper echelons are totally corrupt and morally bankrupt. Septon Meribald's set of speeches from AFFC essentially set aside a little place for the Seven in my heart, and proved that even if the High Septon plays the game of thrones, the poor preachers and the like care about the folk the serve. Can you say that about Rhllor or the Old Gods, who take human sacrifice?

[The Last Reyne]

The Wood of the Morning, on 08 June 2012 - 10:46 PM, said:

So we all know that religions in Westeros seem to actually have some real supernatural powers. The Old Gods have wargs and greenseers, Red R'hllor has fortune telling priests and deadly shadow babies, the Drowned God seems to be all about the dead coming back to life.

What about the Seven?

So far, these New Gods have yet to show that they have any real power at all. Does anyone else feel that that with the Faith Militant coming back we might see the real power of the Seven?  The Warrior's Sons are said to have been holy men, ascetics, sorcerers, dragonslayers and demonhunters.  Will we start seeing the true intent of these Andal gods in Winter or are the Seven just a hollow plastic religion made for the masses?

I'm curious about your thoughts on the Faith.

I think you may be correct about seeing some supernatural powers now that the Warriors' Sons have been reconstituted and there is a more devout following with the ascendence of the new High Septon. I think the reason there have been none thus far is due to the people straying from 'church' now that there is a new High Septon who seems to have true faith and have a large following I think we will begin to see the Seven flex some muscle and not necessarily for the good of Westeros.

[Ser Thomas Derpingham]

The Seven Who Are One, are probably terrifying to behold, and when they appear, people will be falling down on their faces, and crying.

At least, I hope that's what Gurm does.  If they really are fake, I'll be a hundred times frustrated.

[armidil0]

I was going to make another thread, but the search brought me here, and idk when it's ok to forget an old thread and just make a new one, so here I go.

The faith came to Westeros with seven pointed stars carved on their chests. I think this had some magical properties to it, besides being fanatical. This, I propose is the reason why they faired so well against the "hearty" FM that had greenpowers(warging ect) and the CotF, who would have fought with the FM to keep the Pact or just to survive(the Andals wanted nothing to do with them from what we can understand from out kowledge on histroy and other speculations). If the story is to be true about how the CotF flooded the Neck to keep the Andals out, then how did it ever get that bad in the first place? Maesters would claim they came with better weapons, steel. While the FM still had iron. But I think that steel alone wouldn't be enough. Especially against beings that can  cause major natural disasters and warg a bear to maul you. The Andals, imo, most definately had magic. What magic they had?

Magic never really dissappeared from the world, it was just kind of forgotten about. It got weaker, but didn't die. I can prtove this with just one example, R'Hllor. They always have seemed to have a power. The CotF is a more recent example that magic never truly left. So I can assume that the faiths magic was never truly gone too, but merely forgotten about. I propose that their magic is a very behind the scenes magic, unlike the flashy R'Hllor and greenpowers. I think it's a magic based on luck and fate. Slowly moving things around to save them. Almost as if they were being protected. While greenpower and fire magic is straightforward and brutish almost, this would be the only way I can see of stopping it and leveling the field without being over powered. A man is almost dying, with someone standing above them ready to strike down, and *something* happens where the man is saved to fight another day. Or luck just so happened that the opposing army got held back and didn't make it to the hill in time to have a better field advatage. Stuff like that. Very simple, but still garners the attention of fanatics. Like a mericle based system, if you want to call it that.

My Two Cents. Sorry for bringing a dead thread back.

Edited by armidil0, 03 December 2012 - 01:49 PM.

[The Other Others]

The Seven seems to have been created as a alternative religion- There are all those religions in Essos, which all seem to get on fairly well with one-another. Yet the Andals seem like crusaders, zealots and fanatics.
They strike me as a militant faith- they had a order of knights and warriors, few other religions do. They pushed out just about all other religions, which shoes they are intolerant of other religions.

They may have no magic compared to the Red God, but maybe the Seven are more subtle than pyrotechnics.

[jblair]

TheRaggedWildling, on 09 June 2012 - 04:40 AM, said:

I don't know. It seems to me that none of the religions presented in ASOIAF actually exist as one would think of as a deity. The Old Gods turned out to be nothing more than some old people symbiotically linked with some trees, and have no real powers aside from being able to look through the Heart Tree-faces. The only one linked to the Old Gods that we have seen exhibit any actual "miracle"-like power is Bran, and it amounts to a whisper lost in the wind. And the Red Faith seems to be little more than bog-standard pyromancy mixed with blood magic and appropriate pomp and circumstance.

Besides, from what we have seen in the series so far, it appears that the Seven are one of the few religions to actually have some sort of benevolent presence, even if the upper echelons are totally corrupt and morally bankrupt. Septon Meribald's set of speeches from AFFC essentially set aside a little place for the Seven in my heart, and proved that even if the High Septon plays the game of thrones, the poor preachers and the like care about the folk the serve. Can you say that about Rhllor or the Old Gods, who take human sacrifice?

While Mel may certainly be relying on good old blood magic cloaked in faux religion, Thoros was genuinely surprised at his new resurrecting powers...and there's no hint he's ever dabbled in the dark arts (like Mel has). It would seem his power is genuinely clerical.

[cuendillar]

armidil0, on 03 December 2012 - 01:46 PM, said:

I was going to make another thread, but the search brought me here, and idk when it's ok to forget an old thread and just make a new one, so here I go.


Magic never really disappeared from the world, it was just kind of forgotten about. It got weaker, but didn't die. I can prtove this with just one example, R'Hllor. They always have seemed to have a power. The CotF is a more recent example that magic never truly left. So I can assume that the faiths magic was never truly gone too, but merely forgotten about. I propose that their magic is a very behind the scenes magic, unlike the flashy R'Hllor and greenpowers. I think it's a magic based on luck and fate. Slowly moving things around to save them. Almost as if they were being protected. While greenpower and fire magic is straightforward and brutish almost, this would be the only way I can see of stopping it and levelling the field without being over powered. A man is almost dying, with someone standing above them ready to strike down, and *something* happens where the man is saved to fight another day. Or luck just so happened that the opposing army got held back and didn't make it to the hill in time to have a better field advantage. Stuff like that. Very simple, but still garners the attention of fanatics. Like a mericle based system, if you want to call it that.

My Two Cents. Sorry for bringing a dead thread back.

This sounds an awful lot like "religion by selective bias". It's basically attributing favourable surprises to divine intervention and forgetting about all the times matters didn't work out, no matter how devout the praying. Odd things happen, and those are the ones that gets remembered.

It might even be that the Andals weren't the only such attack wave - but all failed ones are long forgotten. They need not have had any actual edge, apart from iron (and maybe numbers) - just to have been the one wave that "got lucky".

[Flig]

I'm still of the opinion that none of the religions are truly real, as in the god(s) they are worship don't actually exist, rather the faiths were created as a way to explain magic.

[Lady Tippy Wolfsbane]

I doubt that any of the religions are 'real'. Some religions just use more magic than others giving them the appearance of being more 'real'/powerful. Whether they believe it comes from a supreme being is unimportant overall, but can become dangerous when taken too far --Mel.  I feel the Faith of the Seven has been intentionally stripped of magic by the Citadel.

[Harald Hard-Ruler]

I'd love it though if the "Seven" or their avatars ended up being the real heroes who saved Westeros.

All the readers are looking to find Azor Ahai, The PTWP, The Stallion that mounts the World, the 3 heads of the dragon etc. But what if Martin decides to never unveil any of those and the heroes end up being:

The Father - Representing justice: Stannis Baratheon
The Mother - Representing motherhood and nurturing: Dany Targaryen
The Warrior - Representing courage and strength in battle: Jon Snow
The Maiden - Representing Innocence and chastity: Sansa Stark
The Smith - Representing crafts and labour: Gendry of the Hollow Hill
The Crone - Representing wisdom: The one character that I can't identify at the moment, maybe Melisandre
The Stranger - Representing death and the unknown: Bran or Arya Stark

[The Other Others]

Harald Hard-Ruler, on 03 December 2012 - 02:52 PM, said:

I'd love it though if the "Seven" or their avatars ended up being the real heroes who saved Westeros.

All the readers are looking to find Azor Ahai, The PTWP, The Stallion that mounts the World, the 3 heads of the dragon etc. But what if Martin decides to never unveil any of those and the heroes end up being:

The Father - Representing justice: Stannis Baratheon
The Mother - Representing motherhood and nurturing: Dany Targaryen
The Warrior - Representing courage and strength in battle: Jon Snow
The Maiden - Representing Innocence and chastity: Sansa Stark
The Smith - Representing crafts and labour: Gendry of the Hollow Hill
The Crone - Representing wisdom: The one character that I can't identify at the moment, maybe Melisandre
The Stranger - Representing death and the unknown: Bran or Arya Stark

It's a intresting concept but what if the three heads of the dragon etc also end up representing a aspect of the seven?

[armidil0]

cuendillar, on 03 December 2012 - 02:19 PM, said:

This sounds an awful lot like "religion by selective bias". It's basically attributing favourable surprises to divine intervention and forgetting about all the times matters didn't work out, no matter how devout the praying. Odd things happen, and those are the ones that gets remembered.

It might even be that the Andals weren't the only such attack wave - but all failed ones are long forgotten. They need not have had any actual edge, apart from iron (and maybe numbers) - just to have been the one wave that "got lucky".

Think of it as having a higher 'luck' stat for a video game or table top rpg. Bad things can happen, people can die, but it gives them something favourable.

I thought the FM had iron (the Kings of Winter had iron swords in their laps in the crypts). And I don't think just a change in weapon material between specifically iron and steel, is significantly better to beat a people that can warg and cause great natural disasters. They must have needed some other kind of edge. (my other theory is that the invasion was right after the LN and the south was weakened too much already, but I don't know if timelines fit, edited: I'm 98% sure they don't).

Edited by armidil0, 03 December 2012 - 03:14 PM.

[The Other Others]

armidil0, on 03 December 2012 - 03:13 PM, said:

Think of it as having a higher 'luck' stat for a video game or table top rpg. Bad things can happen, people can die, but it gives them something favourable.

I thought the FM had iron (the Kings of Winter had iron swords in their laps in the crypts). And I don't think just a change in weapon material between specifically iron and steel, is significantly better to beat a people that can warg and cause great natural disasters. They must have needed some other kind of edge. (my other theory is that the invasion was right after the LN and the south was weakened too much already, but I don't know if timelines fit, edited: I'm 98% sure they don't).

Religious fanaticism can be a serious edge...

[armidil0]

The Other Others, on 03 December 2012 - 03:15 PM, said:

Religious fanaticism can be a serious edge...

I would point to your signature for the opposite.

[Memory Lane]

I think whatever magical forces* actually lie underneath the "masks" of the Seven are more subtle. Think strengthening a warrior's arm at the crucial moment, or granting visions in response to prayer. We know at the very least that they approach people through dreams, since Jaime has had several magical dreams (particularly the one with his mother in AFFC).

* I'm in the camp that believes that there are no real "gods", just faces that people put on a whole host of magical forces. You see some similarities to them, like prophecy, blood magic, and resurrection.

[The Other Others]

armidil0, on 03 December 2012 - 03:18 PM, said:

I would point to your signature for the opposite.

Except in the face of superior technology and numbers. The First Men had neither of these. They were on the defensive through the whole war. It may have not been a quick war though, it sounds more like a gradual migration in which the natives (the First Men) were pushed out by conquerors ( The Andals). Seems a lot like the colonisation of America.