Crazy solution for why Jaqen was in the Black Cells

[The hairy bear]

1 minute ago, DutchArya said:

So you're say the FM can't fight? 

No, I say that we have no reason to believe they will be stronger than the average man.

[a black swan]

12 minutes ago, The hairy bear said:

No, I say that we have no reason to believe they will be stronger than the average man.

I mean...

Quote

Only one of the guards managed to get a blade out. Jaqen danced away from his slash, drew his own sword, drove the man back into a corner with a flurry of blows, and killed him with a thrust to the heart. The Lorathi brought the blade to Arya still red with heart's blood and wiped it clean on the front of her shift. "A girl should be bloody too. This is her work." - ACoK

 

[The hairy bear]

@DutchArya

Those guards had been taken by surprise, and they had just been thrown boiling water in the face. This is very, very painful. Slaying some guards that are twisting up in pain, and managing to beat the hell out of the only one that can draw his blade out is not, at least as I see it, a sign of extraordinary strength.

On the contrary: I'd say that the very same fact that he had to resort to the hot broth deception, that he had to recruit despicable men such as Rorge and Biter, and that he hurried to kill the guards that were down, indicate that he was not some kind of superhuman. 

[BalerionTheCat]

Speaking of crazy...

Just for fun, I imagined a crazy "Ned is alive" theory. Jaqen would get incarcerated in the Black Cells with Ned. For whatever crime. He then changes face with Ned. Ned leaves the BC with Jaquen's face. While Jaquen goes to Ned's execution with Ned's face. He then uses some tricks to avoid death: a "Headless man" rather than a "Faceless Man". Just the step above. Later he changes again with Ned. Aria will meet Jaquen, not her father. Ned is sent somewhere and is prevented, some way, to react to the following events.

Just for the fun of the theory, not that I believe it.

[black_hart]

I believe he was there just because he needed a good and plausible place to appear from and even the best writer needs to start somewhere.

However, if he was hired vs. Ned it is oddly suspicious that he was scheduled to be transported to the wall together with Ned. Who would do that? (Littlefinger had edged on Joffrey to kill Ned already. On the other hand LF is a person commenting on how expensive FM are.)

[OtherFromAnotherMother]

6 hours ago, The hairy bear said:

Yes. From AFFC, we are told that: "The black cells are little used. Before [Tyrion] was sent down, we had Grand Maester Pycelle for a time, and before him Lord Stark the traitor. There were three others, common men, but Lord Stark gave them to the Night’s Watch." So Jaqen was already a prisoner before Eddard's downfall.

 

We will be wrong if we assume that the Faceless Man are superhuman assassins. Arya is learning to be one of them, and besides the ability to change faces, it does not seem to be anything else there. If they are caught doing something illegal and the City Watch tries to catch them, we have no reason to believe that they will be able to outrun them, or defeat them in a fight.

I hope you aren't assuming that I believe "the FM are superhuman assassins". I was only stating that JH is good at what he does (HH). This makes me want an explanation to his "capture". Not that we need one or will get one.

[Macgregor of the North]

11 hours ago, black_hart said:

I believe he was there just because he needed a good and plausible place to appear from and even the best writer needs to start somewhere.

This.

If there is any other secret amazing backstory idea that GRRM is yet to hit us with i imagine it would be to do with the FM Guild recruiting Arya, or a Stark due to them maybe having fore knowledge of the new generation of Starks being Wargs and having the power to skinchange. Because if we are honest with ourselves, what is the only thing that was 100% caused by Jaqen being part of the story.

Arya Stark was helped to safety and set on her path to the House of Black and white to begin training under the Faceless men.

Nothing else came about from Jaqen being part of the story, no high profile highborn targets were killed as part of any contract and no high profile highborn contract with the FM has ever came to light.

Basically, GRRM wrote him there, and what came from it was that Arya eventually ended up in Braavos. End of Jaqen's role in the story. "Jaqen is as dead as Arry or Weasel", he was simply a short term guise of a very skilled FM.

If we notice, when Jaqen "dies", and the man waves his hand down his face and becomes the new character with the tight black curls the scar and the golden tooth, the Lorathi accent and speech stops. This leads me to wonder, that as much as Jaqen is a loveable character, he was just no one, just a guise used for a short time by a very clever FM and may never ever be seen again.

Or, maybe the real identity of the person is indeed the Lorathi and he simply changes his appearance at will and applies different accents but i wont hold my breath for the return of Jaqen. This is the books after all.

[cyberdirectorfreedom]

I really don't think that there's anything to Jaqen being in the Black Cells. There could be any number of reasons that he'd be there. The very fact that he's in a Black Cell, rather than just in prison, points to the fact that they know how dangerous he is. Maybe they saw him change his face, maybe whoever he was in King's Landing to kill died a bit louder than he expected, alerting guards to his presence, perhaps he tripped on a rug while fleeing from some guards. Could be any number of reasons, and I would say "he wanted to be down there" is rather low on the list.

Plus, he's hardly some god. I'm sure he's very proficient in combat, but so was, say, Arthur Dayne. You can't fight many, many times your number, by yourself, and expect to win. So, if something went wrong, he can hardly just fight his way out of anything. Sure, he can change his face. But he can't change his clothes quite as fast. Changing your face is all well and good, but not so useful if the people chasing you barely saw your face (you know, because you're running away). And if he's seen changing his face, well that's one very good reason to lock him away in one of the Black Cells.

So yeah. I don't think there's more to it. "He was caught doing something, perhaps because of some mistake on his part," makes more sense to me than "oh, he wanted to recruit Arya, so he conspired to get himself into the Black Cells, because he somehow knew that Arya would be leaving with the people going to the Wall, and...". When you see someone imprisoned by guards, the most likely reason they'd be there is that they were captured by the guards for some crime.

 

[BalerionTheCat]

On 23/11/2016 at 6:15 PM, The hairy bear said:

So Jaqen was already a prisoner before Eddard's downfall

Possibly he could have taken the identity of one ordinary prisoner after Ned's imprisonment.

The idea of JH going to the BC, to later assist Arya is tempting, but very unlikely. It supposes, well in advance, JH knew Ned would die and Arya would be caught by Yoren. Much simpler to go to Yoren at any time, and ask to take the Black. Same for whatever purpose to go to CB.

Given how the prisoners were dangerous, Yoren probably received them just before leaving. And was expecting 4, not 3.

[SFDanny]

On 11/23/2016 at 10:56 AM, The hairy bear said:

Those guards had been taken by surprise, and they had just been thrown boiling water in the face. This is very, very painful. Slaying some guards that are twisting up in pain, and managing to beat the hell out of the only one that can draw his blade out is not, at least as I see it, a sign of extraordinary strength.

On the contrary: I'd say that the very same fact that he had to resort to the hot broth deception, that he had to recruit despicable men such as Rorge and Biter, and that he hurried to kill the guards that were down, indicate that he was not some kind of superhuman. 

With the exception of the use of magic in the art of disguise, I absolutely agree.The Faceless Men are extremely well trained assassins, but there is no reason to believe that means they have other magical abilities than what we have been shown. Can they be overpowered and arrested? I think so. Can they be detained against their will. Again, yes. And if any one can detect a Faceless Man, and throw him is the black cells, it is Varys with the aid of his network of spies.

[Jon Fossoway]

I wonder what was Yoren thinking when he carried Jaqen along? He's a lorathi and even the brutes that were with him were afraid of him. I don't think Yoren's dumb enough to miss the hairdo. But oh well, plot.

 

[BalerionTheCat]

2 hours ago, King Merrett I Frey said:

I wonder what was Yoren thinking when he carried Jaqen along? He's a lorathi and even the brutes that were with him were afraid of him. I don't think Yoren's dumb enough to miss the hairdo. But oh well, plot.

Yes. The whole idea of freaks like Biter and Rorge joining the Night Watch seems ludicrous. At least JH looked reasonable. But ... well, the NW is already made of so many worthless people ...

[Lost Melnibonean]

4 hours ago, King Merrett I Frey said:

I wonder what was Yoren thinking when he carried Jaqen along? He's a lorathi and even the brutes that were with him were afraid of him. I don't think Yoren's dumb enough to miss the hairdo. But oh well, plot.

 

There was at least one other Essosi on the wall. Why wouldn't he be allowed to take the Black? 

[Lost Melnibonean]

2 hours ago, BalerionTheCat said:

Yes. The whole idea of freaks like Biter and Rorge joining the Night Watch seems ludicrous. At least JH looked reasonable. But ... well, the NW is already made of so many worthless people ...

Maybe they could have been chained to an oar out of Eastwatch?

[Jon Fossoway]

5 hours ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

There was at least one other Essosi on the wall. Why wouldn't he be allowed to take the Black? 

I'm squeezing my head out here but I can't remember who is an essosi and it's in the Wall?

[Scootaloo Stark]

7 hours ago, King Merrett I Frey said:

I'm squeezing my head out here but I can't remember who is an essosi and it's in the Wall?

Ollo Lophand is from Tyrosh. He's one of the mutineers. Chett thinks his language sounds girly, and he wants to return to Tyrosh after the mutiny.

As far as I know, he's the only example of an Essosi in the NW we're given, at least the only explicit, confirmed one. Some guys do have names that sound Free City-ish though.

And by "as far as I know" I mean I checked the wiki.

[Damon_Tor]

On 11/21/2016 at 10:04 AM, Sigella said:

I always thought that he was Syrio Forel, with the explanation that he changed his face while in the dungeons.

The problem here is that everything Syrio says and teaches Arya seems to directly contradict Faceless Man ideology, but I'm not the first person to make note of this. I agree there would be a certain pleasing continuity of Jaquen teaching Arya first as Syrio, then as Jaquen, then again as the Kindly Man, but I don't think that's what's happening.

[Damon_Tor]

On 11/22/2016 at 9:41 AM, aryagonnakill#2 said:

Arya has successfully lied to the FM after only like a year of training, they are not perfect.

You assume she successfully lied to them. SHE believes she successfully lied to them. She is not a reliable narrator. The fact is, we have no idea what the FM's motives are concerning Arya or what they really want with her. I'm inclined to believe that they are getting exactly the results they want from her; she hasn't fooled them at all.

[aryagonnakill#2]

On November 26, 2016 at 10:10 AM, Damon_Tor said:

You assume she successfully lied to them. SHE believes she successfully lied to them. She is not a reliable narrator. The fact is, we have no idea what the FM's motives are concerning Arya or what they really want with her. I'm inclined to believe that they are getting exactly the results they want from her; she hasn't fooled them at all.

Arya clearly made the kindly man believe she was giving up her identity as Arya Stark when she told him no one killed the insurance man.  She also beat him with sticks while blind by using the cat, something the fm have no idea of.

She has beat them twice in the course of the year.  

[Howlin' Howland]

I read a theory a couple years ago that the FM accepted a contract to kill Ned Stark but that Jaqen arrived in KL after Ned was arrested.  Jaqen learned that Ned was going to be sent to the NW and that the prisoners in the black cells were going to given to Yoren to take to the Watch.  Jaqen committed a crime and allowed himself to be caught in order to either kill Ned during the voyage or after they'd both joined the watch.

Half the court wanted Ned dead before he was arrested and I'm not sure if there is a way to cancel a contract with the FM so quite a few people might have hired them.