I'm not buying this Faith Militant

[Sullen]

The way some of you speak about the Faith, it looks like they are angels in the books :dunno:

The Faith is really not that bad in the books, they are, along with the Brotherhood Without Banners, the only ones that truly seem to care for the people of the Realm.

[Winter Rose Crown]

To be fair, Lancels fanaticism wasn't really built up to in the books, either. He was injured and then sleeping in his Sept in his mini-castle and then abdicated and moved to KL. I thought it was quick.

[acosta]

It all happened quickly, but let's be real. A lot happens off-screen. I'm guessing when we finally see Rickon again, he'll have changed a lot and we're not ever going to get much of an explanation of why or how. I actually thought they kind of beat us over the head for a while with how bad war is for the common-folk with Beric and Talisa's sermonizing in seasons two and three, but it's been a while. It actually felt like they came out of nowhere a bit in the books, too, to be honest, but it is made obvious there's a major religious undercurrent to the society waiting to come to the surface. Same stuff in Volantis with the followers of the R'hlorr.

Completely agree the ease of their takeover makes no sense, though. In the books, the Tyrell and Lannister armies were elsewhere, siegeing Dragonstone, defending the Reach, subduing the Riverlands, and the Faith Militant seems much better armed and has some fairly professional soldiers leading them. I get how in, say, actual medieval Europe, the Church could do whatever the heck it wanted, even with inferior military forces, but I've never gotten the impression that it's the same in Westeros on this show. The people at the top barely seem to care about religion and the High Septon is a joke, not the might power the actual Pope was.

[Lord Damian]

Tommen is a simpleton in the show as he was never expected to be anything but a little prince, momma's boy. He is not evil or even bad, he is just ouf of his league because no training ever went into him as there were never any expectations of any responsibility for him. His book counterpart is just a small, cute and pudgy child who likes to play with his cats and the royal seal/stamp.

[ummester]

Show Tommen is stuck between a bitch of a mother and a bitch of a wife. he was probably secretly happy when Margery got taken away :D He'll probably be happy when Cersie is taken away also.

Imagine if the Faith releases Margery and Tommen finally acts, going, 'Are you sure there isn't something you can pin on her?'

[dannyk65]

Lest we forget Tommen's awesome training regimen with PopPop Tywin for 90 seconds in the sept after Joffrey died...it appears to have really paid off

[The One And Only]

Tommen will either die a coward or completely overcompensate and do something beyond irrational. That is typically how people like him in power end....

[ummester]

Lest we forget Tommen's awesome training regimen with PopPop Tywin for 90 seconds in the sept after Joffrey died...it appears to have really paid off

Even though Tywin was making sure that he was Tommens most trusted in that scene, I think Tywin would have made a good King out of Tommen. Unlike Joffrey, Tommen seems to be humble, watch the world around him and listen to advice.

It's funny, when you think about, Tyrion was the one who really fucked up the Lannister chances of ruling Westeros well.

[The One And Only]

Talk about a plot hole in the books...

How could Tommen not have been trained to rule from birth? He was the backup to the thrown and also potentially could have been heir to Casterly Rock.

It makes no sense that a control freak like Tywin Lannister would have left his legacy to his daughter who he had no real faith in.

[Farwynds Oceanseer]

They wrote themselves into a wall and to escape they took the path of least resistance.

They didn't bother to show the effects of the wars on Westeros except for maybe one scene during Arya/Sandor's journey where you can see burning homes out in the distance.

Without the war as a backdrop they have no way to introduce the faith being a populous movement other than to say "They're here because Joffrey was cruel to the people." Actually, even that wouldn't be possible because while they showed Joffrey being extremely sick and extremely cruel, it was only to other named characters and not the general populous of King's Landing.

So in comes D&D's version of events from their narrow minded perspective, because it's quite obvious to them the average viewer is too dumb to pick up anything not colored distinctly black or white. White wash it or make it evil as all hell, hey, it's for the viewers.

This. D&D have almost completely ignored the suffering of the small folk since the KL riot in season 2. Instead of starving and being preyed on by soldiers and aristocrats, they endure a few fires in the river lands (as Arya and the Hound leave the inn in S04 E01), and fear the highway men mentioned by the yeoman robbed by the Hound. In season 2, we never got to see Arya discover that the lords thought of her as a piece of furniture while she posed as a commoner.

The Sparrows come mostly from the North and the Riverlands, the areas most devastated by the war, as a direct consequence of the ongoing predations of soldiers foraging for the nobility's armies. Since Jaime went to Dorne to make a B-movie with the Sandsnakes, he doesn't tour the Riverlands or show us the failure of the Lannister-Tyrell alliance to end the war there. Without Brienne's book journey, we don't hear about the broken men, the slaughter in the Salt Pans, or the rape and plunder in the Septs. Since the Tyrells are supposedly providing bread, if not circuses, there is nothing left for the Faith Militant to stand for but sexual purity.

A believable medieval peasant movement would have emphasized the feeding and protection of the common people (though it might well retain the misogyny of the book's High Sparrow, who says among other things that the depravity of widows is well known and presides over the Walk of Shame). The show gives us a caricature of a modern fundamentalist movement. The repression of sex and taboo on homosexuality were nowhere near as important in the Middle Ages as they became after the Reformation, when sexual "purity" became one way of establishing one's social identity in contrast to various other Christian sects as well as less religious people. The FM on the show suffers from being both a caricature and an anachronism. (Maybe the show's FM arises in response to the Red Priests or the Old Gods? But we never hear anything about that).

If D&D wanted to be really clever, they could have had Brienne/Pod or Sansa/Littlefinger cross paths with ragged, barefoot sparrows in a wasted landscape before Moat Cailin. Extra points if they had the little "rabbit stew" girl from Arya and the Hound's journey, newly orphaned, traveling with the Sparrows to become a Sparrow-Septa. That way, we see the Sparrows as the direct result of the Lannisters' failure to restore the peaceful rule of law and fitting nemesis for Circe.

Oh, well. For three seasons, when the show stayed close to the text, it retained many of the books' layers of psychological and political complexity. Now it is quickly devolving into a soap opera with magic spells and the occasional dragon.

I'll still watch it, but I've resigned myself to the characters being much less intelligent, the setting being more filled with anachronisms, and the political scheming being much more rife with television cliches.

[Young Nan]

Did anyone else notice how the faith militant enforcer guys look a lot like the Thenns? They're all bald with ritual scarring and dark robes.

[JonCon's Red Beard]

Talk about a plot hole in the books...

How could Tommen not have been trained to rule from birth? He was the backup to the thrown and also potentially could have been heir to Casterly Rock.

It makes no sense that a control freak like Tywin Lannister would have left his legacy to his daughter who he had no real faith in.

Because Cersei was a terrible mother and Robert was a negligent father. That's the reason. Joffrey was never taught to rule either, by none of them. He wasn't even allowed to squire, while it was something many princes and Kings did. There is no plot hole, that's the whole point of having Joff and Tommen having weak rulings.

[JonCon's Red Beard]

Speaking of the Faith, I think GRRM has done well in portraying them accurately. As a catholic, I can relate. Yes, there is a lot of corruption in the Church, there is no denial of that. But that's a little number compared with the hundreds of men and women who are all over the world trying to help others in Missions or in local communities. They are compassionate people who care little for power or titles and they just want to do exactly what God and Jesus wanted them to do: make a change in the world. That's something Martin got right about the church.

For example, a priest of my city told us during mass that families should be in charge of how many children they should have and decided how on their own. He didn't say the words but he was telling us that he was ok with contraceptives and we shouldn't feel bad about that. And that's because he's not in some throne in Rome, but he walks with people and he sees their problems: many families just cannot afford to have all the children God would want them to have.

Men like him are portrayed in septons like Meribald. He's a good man who has seen life for what it is and has compassion. The High Septon has good intentions but he doesn't have a compassionate approach to people, specially to women (or maybe just Cersei). People, even religious people, have more layers than "crazy misogynistic fanatic".

[Kobayashi Maru]

Usually with changes from the book posters here get divided and half is saying bad half is saying logical. To me what best shows if the change was good or silly is how people who haven't red the books react. My hubby beeing one of them. He thinks sparrows make no sense too. Not because it's different from the books but because acording to him it makes no sense they can just charge in the palace and overpower the gourds and take one of the best fighters there who was just practicing, so he's armed with something. He thinks it's stupid since in the show the faith were all peasants who got armed like yesterday and now they just take on the gold cloaks and some knights.

[Ser Quork]

The Faith Militant in the books has a lot in common with the Dominicans and Franciscans. Whilst the Dominicans are commonly associated with the inquisition, both were attempts to reform aspects of early medieval monasticism, they were also populist movements that caused an upswell of piety amongst lay people.

They also have this fascinating correlation with the early capitalism, the beginnings of a middle class/wealth that was associated with trade rather than the feudal order*, whilst members of both these orders made significant contributions to science and philosophy.

They also seemed to have commissioned more cutting edge art.

All of the nuance or fascinating aspects of actual medieval movements that they could've drawn on are erased into the Faith ISIS.

Which is ridiculous because GRRM wrote AFFC and ADWD during the 2nd Iraq War. If the show runners had wanted to include the ISIS they could've used them in the Sons of the Harpy plotline (seriously ISIS even inslaves people, how could they miss that golden oppurtunity). It would've made them less cartoonish, but much more evil.

Instead they have a religion that is clearly based off the Roman Catholic Church (with it's drinking of wine during mass and liberal use of religious art and idols) and they have some how turn them into Fantasy ISIS.

Whilst turning the Sons of the Harpy (probably led by the Green Grace-a great role for an older, Moroccan actress which is where they are filming Meereen) that can actually mount arguments (as can ISIS, apparently since even well educated girls with the benefit of a western education elope with their fighters) against Valyrian incursions and Daenerys's cultural imperialism (the Sons of the Harpy is still more sympathetic than ISIS**) into something completely ridiculous and lame (with the silly masks worn everywhere)

*St Francis's parents were merchants rather than nobility.

**Which is an achievement, given that GRRM makes the Ghiscari people who, like metaphorical pigs, wallow in the mud of stupid evil.

Excellent post. Whereas GRRM writes for nuance and with multiple layers of motivation, D&D give us cartoon religious insurgency.

For a TV series that supposed to be high quality (although I think season 4 and this season are disabusing us of that notion), theirs is really a facile portrayal of a grassroots movement as Faith Militant Smash.

Third ideas: First, the High Sparrow is doing a power grasp, slowly beheading the government of the realm. I wouldn't put it past him to be trying to install a theocracy to rule the Seven Kingdom. He takes both Tyrell heirs as hostages and, once that front is somewhat clear, he'll seize Cersei. Who would rule while that happens? Kevan Lannister, who left the city and none without access to his mind can see as a regent? Tommen, who's a coward? Crap, for all we know, the HS one of Varys agents.

The other reason is far simpler: hostages to have leverage once the Tyrell army leaves Gendry's boat and returns to the show. He can still negotiate to release one of them and keep the other one as a warranty that he will not be executed. Or he can threaten to end the main Tyrell line.

Third idea: the HS remembers the Tyrells starved King's Landing before their charitable work, and is taking vengeance

I shouldn't like the bolded part to be correct. Not everything can be planned and schemed to the smallest detail. Life has a way of throwing schemes out of whack, and I like the idea that the Sparrow movement is one such thing.

This. D&D have almost completely ignored the suffering of the small folk since the KL riot in season 2. Instead of starving and being preyed on by soldiers and aristocrats, they endure a few fires in the river lands (as Arya and the Hound leave the inn in S04 E01), and fear the highway men mentioned by the yeoman robbed by the Hound. In season 2, we never got to see Arya discover that the lords thought of her as a piece of furniture while she posed as a commoner.

The Sparrows come mostly from the North and the Riverlands, the areas most devastated by the war, as a direct consequence of the ongoing predations of soldiers foraging for the nobility's armies. Since Jaime went to Dorne to make a B-movie with the Sandsnakes, he doesn't tour the Riverlands or show us the failure of the Lannister-Tyrell alliance to end the war there. Without Brienne's book journey, we don't hear about the broken men, the slaughter in the Salt Pans, or the rape and plunder in the Septs. Since the Tyrells are supposedly providing bread, if not circuses, there is nothing left for the Faith Militant to stand for but sexual purity.

A believable medieval peasant movement would have emphasized the feeding and protection of the common people (though it might well retain the misogyny of the book's High Sparrow, who says among other things that the depravity of widows is well known and presides over the Walk of Shame). The show gives us a caricature of a modern fundamentalist movement. The repression of sex and taboo on homosexuality were nowhere near as important in the Middle Ages as they became after the Reformation, when sexual "purity" became one way of establishing one's social identity in contrast to various other Christian sects as well as less religious people. The FM on the show suffers from being both a caricature and an anachronism. (Maybe the show's FM arises in response to the Red Priests or the Old Gods? But we never hear anything about that).

If D&D wanted to be really clever, they could have had Brienne/Pod or Sansa/Littlefinger cross paths with ragged, barefoot sparrows in a wasted landscape before Moat Cailin. Extra points if they had the little "rabbit stew" girl from Arya and the Hound's journey, newly orphaned, traveling with the Sparrows to become a Sparrow-Septa. That way, we see the Sparrows as the direct result of the Lannisters' failure to restore the peaceful rule of law and fitting nemesis for Circe.

Oh, well. For three seasons, when the show stayed close to the text, it retained many of the books' layers of psychological and political complexity. Now it is quickly devolving into a soap opera with magic spells and the occasional dragon.

I'll still watch it, but I've resigned myself to the characters being much less intelligent, the setting being more filled with anachronisms, and the political scheming being much more rife with television cliches.

:agree: :bowdown:

Speaking of the Faith, I think GRRM has done well in portraying them accurately. As a catholic, I can relate. Yes, there is a lot of corruption in the Church, there is no denial of that. But that's a little number compared with the hundreds of men and women who are all over the world trying to help others in Missions or in local communities. They are compassionate people who care little for power or titles and they just want to do exactly what God and Jesus wanted them to do: make a change in the world. That's something Martin got right about the church.

For example, a priest of my city told us during mass that families should be in charge of how many children they should have and decided how on their own. He didn't say the words but he was telling us that he was ok with contraceptives and we shouldn't feel bad about that. And that's because he's not in some throne in Rome, but he walks with people and he sees their problems: many families just cannot afford to have all the children God would want them to have.

Men like him are portrayed in septons like Meribald. He's a good man who has seen life for what it is and has compassion. The High Septon has good intentions but he doesn't have a compassionate approach to people, specially to women (or maybe just Cersei). People, even religious people, have more layers than "crazy misogynistic fanatic".

Well said.

[Gargarax]

Third ideas: First, the High Sparrow is doing a power grasp, slowly beheading the government of the realm. I wouldn't put it past him to be trying to install a theocracy to rule the Seven Kingdom. He takes both Tyrell heirs as hostages and, once that front is somewhat clear, he'll seize Cersei. Who would rule while that happens? Kevan Lannister, who left the city and none without access to his mind can see as a regent? Tommen, who's a coward? Crap, for all we know, the HS one of Varys agents.

The other reason is far simpler: hostages to have leverage once the Tyrell army leaves Gendry's boat and returns to the show. He can still negotiate to release one of them and keep the other one as a warranty that he will not be executed. Or he can threaten to end the main Tyrell line.

Third idea: the HS remembers the Tyrells starved King's Landing before their charitable work, and is taking vengeance.

I don't think those are plausible ideas, the show really doesn't think that far. However, if HS would prove to be Varys' agent and the FM to be agents of chaos as part of Varys' plan, that would indeed be a nice twist and suddenly make that storyline make more sense, if only in hindsight. I don't believe it for one minute though.

[Gargarax]

They need to show the High Sparrow's rise of power and also show how weak of a ruler Tommen is at the same time. Makes perfect sense the way the show portrays it.

What a strange argument. This is not how good storytelling works - you can't justify weak plots by saying they are necessary for the main plot. A story is good if the subplots support the main plot organically. There are so many better ways to establish Tommen's weakness and the rise of the HS. Like putting Marge on trial for not being a virgin. But oh, wait, that is no longer possible, because they sacrificed this whole plot in order to have a sex scene with Tommen and Margaery ...

Let's also add the following: KL is a stinking city in which most people live in the gutter. Hygienic conditions are absolutely terrible, clean water must be very difficult to get. Therefore, people would drink beer and wine, because those don't contain the dangerous germs drinking water would contain. Drinking alcohol was never considered a vice in medieval times for those reasons - even monks would drink wine and beer most of the time. Therefore, destroying wine and beer barrels is the most illogical thing the FM could do. It would most likely lead to a fast spread of diseases especially with the poor that the FM are trying to help. Again, such lazy writing - destroyig the idols of the fire god and harassing brothel-goers would have achieved the same narrative effect, here was no reason to portray them as ISIS.

[House Soprano]

Can the FM replace the Iron Throne if they know that Joffrey is a product of incest? Or will they put Stannis, the 'one true king'?

[Daniel Tarly]

First of all, I recommend we stop calling the Faith Militant FM. Because FM is also the Faceless Men.

Second of all, D&D doesn't care about the series being "logical". They haven't cared for 2 seasons. They are just here to make money, and lets face it, none of us are going to stop watching now. They don't care if the plot doesn't make sense, they're going to do what they want, screw the stupidity of it.

So none of what the Faith Militant (or the FaM) is going to do will make sense.

[Primalsplit]

I agree with the FM part. I always read it first as Faceless Men and then have to correct myself. Can't we call them ISIS militants, or just IM instead? They act more like muslim zealots rather than catholic zealots anywa, smashing kegs of wine and ale.