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So whenever Arya uses the face of a man...


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I see what you mean. This is big magic. It is not just some rubber mask on the face. And faking the voice. You become completely the person.

But I believe it is HBO cheaper version. Use the real actor rather than costly makeup-visual effects. Can do anything. Like Bran can know anything. Lazy way for D&D for writing the story. In GRRM books, I don't think you can change too much your appearance. I don't think Arya could be something else than a girl/woman about her size.

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40 minutes ago, BalerionTheCat said:

I see what you mean. This is big magic. It is not just some rubber mask on the face. And faking the voice. You become completely the person.

But I believe it is HBO cheaper version. Use the real actor rather than costly makeup-visual effects. Can do anything. Like Bran can know anything. Lazy way for D&D for writing the story. In GRRM books, I don't think you can change too much your appearance. I don't think Arya could be something else than a girl/woman about her size.

:agree:Or it could be that they combined face magic with glamor magic thrown into one: as in "if you use face magic it automatically includes a glamor". Book-HoBaW does have glamor magic at its disposal but looks down on it as a cheap trick.

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1 hour ago, BalerionTheCat said:

I see what you mean. This is big magic. It is not just some rubber mask on the face. And faking the voice. You become completely the person.

But I believe it is HBO cheaper version. Use the real actor rather than costly makeup-visual effects. Can do anything. Like Bran can know anything. Lazy way for D&D for writing the story. In GRRM books, I don't think you can change too much your appearance. I don't think Arya could be something else than a girl/woman about her size.

C'mon, how on earth is it cheaper or lazy? It's maybe different (and you don't even know that for sure). What's really lazy is the way that word gets thrown around at the drop of a hat!

But I agree that it is a whole body & voice change in the show. You only get the physical change, you don't get any inside knowledge of what the person knows. It is a glamour, and once active is not that different to Mel's magic.

I think the idea is that when the face is taken from the victim, presumably cut off, it is done in a magical way so as to include the physical essence of the victim and preserves the face from decaying. The faceless man needs to carry around the faces to access each individual glamour. To do so means putting on the face physically and it will then magically morph the body into that person, and removing the face removes the glamour. Jaqen would have had to do a bit of slight of hand to change faces when he first says goodbye to Arya, but that's fine. Whether the atoms in the body physically re-arrange or whether the viewer just sees something else is kind of irrelevant as we are talking about magic, but it sort of needs to be the former, other wise they wouldn't be able to realistically physically interact with other objects/people.

 

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3 hours ago, BalerionTheCat said:

I see what you mean. This is big magic. It is not just some rubber mask on the face. And faking the voice. You become completely the person.

But I believe it is HBO cheaper version. Use the real actor rather than costly makeup-visual effects. Can do anything. Like Bran can know anything. Lazy way for D&D for writing the story. 

Haters gonna hate. :rolleyes:
Why on earth wouldn't they just use the real actor instead of making some strange makup/visual effects?

I agree with Daske above, it's some sort of glamour-spell/magic.
The wearers appearance and stature changes, but the wearer doesn't get the memories/personality of the face of the person she/he is wearing. 

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1 hour ago, Daske said:

 To do so means putting on the face physically and it will then magically morph the body into that person, and removing the face removes the glamour. Jaqen would have had to do a bit of slight of hand to change faces when he first says goodbye to Arya, but that's fine.

 

Well, no, that's not fine at all to me…

If Jaquen's appearance had completely changed when he said goodbye to Arya, the whole Arya/Walder Frey scene would have been much more credible…

The "magic morphing" (size, corpulence, clothes, etc.) appears to be the result of a last-minute decision, to make the Frey killing possible…

Another inconsistency in my opinion…

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Honestly, i  liked the faceless men when it was more of a face swap deal. Like Jaqen could become other men, but couldn't become a 12 year old girl. It made sense for Arya to become that girl for that pedo dude. But to become lord Frey? Gtfo of here. 

This is probably the biggest use of magic in the show. More so even than dragons. At the end of the day, a dragon is a dinosaur that somehow breaths fire. But Arya literally becoming someone else by putting on a mask, body voice and all, is absurd. 

Imagine someone as big as Hodor face swapping with a 12 year old girl. And people thought Jaqen was face swapping with Arya. Not even sure how that first scene (when she went blind) actually worked. 

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2 hours ago, MinscS2 said:

Haters gonna hate. :rolleyes:
Why on earth wouldn't they just use the real actor instead of making some strange makup/visual effects?

I agree with Daske above, it's some sort of glamour-spell/magic.
The wearers appearance and stature changes, but the wearer doesn't get the memories/personality of the face of the person she/he is wearing. 

Yes, it looks more illusion than real. But cutting the faces and preparing the masks, the FM trade, it suggests a transformation more real than an illusion.

And yes, I'm tired of Bran joining the bits and ends with his visions. I liked "chaos is a ladder". But there are people who should know things, like Meera's father and Benjen, about Lyanna & Rhaegar. IMO, people's stories should matter more than superpowers.

1 hour ago, MrJay said:

Honestly, i  liked the faceless men when it was more of a face swap deal. Like Jaqen could become other men, but couldn't become a 12 year old girl. It made sense for Arya to become that girl for that pedo dude. But to become lord Frey? Gtfo of here.

Yes. It's a "game changer". Beyond what we knew the limits were. I don't like when it's done in fantasy.

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9 hours ago, MrJay said:

Honestly, i  liked the faceless men when it was more of a face swap deal. Like Jaqen could become other men, but couldn't become a 12 year old girl. It made sense for Arya to become that girl for that pedo dude. But to become lord Frey? Gtfo of here. 

This is probably the biggest use of magic in the show. More so even than dragons. At the end of the day, a dragon is a dinosaur that somehow breaths fire. But Arya literally becoming someone else by putting on a mask, body voice and all, is absurd. 

Imagine someone as big as Hodor face swapping with a 12 year old girl. And people thought Jaqen was face swapping with Arya. Not even sure how that first scene (when she went blind) actually worked. 

I fully agree with everything you wrote here.  People have been posting many threads about would GoT or ASOIAF be better without magic and my take is the magic is fine with the exception of the faceless men (I don't mind the HoBaW so much as a cult of assassins, but I hate the face changing both show and books), the extreme glamour powers of the Mance/Rattleshirt swap, Bran being able to time travel, and Daenerys having all of the dragons (dragons are cool but it makes her a heavy favorite to win whatever once she can control them).  Yes, I realize that is most of the magic lol.

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17 minutes ago, Lucius Lovejoy said:

my take is the magic is fine with the exception of the faceless men (I don't mind the HoBaW so much as a cult of assassins, but I hate the face changing both show and books), the extreme glamour powers of the Mance/Rattleshirt swap, Bran being able to time travel, and Daenerys having all of the dragons (dragons are cool but it makes her a heavy favorite to win whatever once she can control them).

I'm perfectly ok with the face-changing of the HoBaW in the books. It's no more than a face, and the assassin experiences the death experience of the face. It's likely why a faceless man has to be "no one". But an assassin still has to make the face believable, so age and gender appropriate.

The glamor requires bones, a ruby or moonstone. And it requires someone to do the spell and maintain it. It has its drawbacks and limitations. And someone familiar with glamors might see through it.

Both are still magical mummery. Better than make-up, but still doesn't beat plastic surgery ;)

Totally agree on the dragon control. Book limits control to one dragon, giving other people with dragonblood or with a dragonhorn a chance to bond with one of the other two, and she better makes sure that the dragonrider is on her side.

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On 9/9/2017 at 6:41 AM, BalerionTheCat said:

I see what you mean. This is big magic. It is not just some rubber mask on the face. And faking the voice. You become completely the person.

But I believe it is HBO cheaper version. Use the real actor rather than costly makeup-visual effects. Can do anything. Like Bran can know anything. Lazy way for D&D for writing the story. In GRRM books, I don't think you can change too much your appearance. I don't think Arya could be something else than a girl/woman about her size.

We know that when Melisandre used glamors to change peoples' appearances (e.g. Mance - Rattleshirt), the entire physique appeared different to others, not just the face. The Faceless Men's magic is probably similar. You put on a face, but a full-body glamor results.

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20 hours ago, Khorkalba said:

I laughed out loud when Sansa opened up the bag of rubber halloween masks. The idea that a girl like Arya can put these masks on and literally become a fully grown man - voice and all - is just beyond ridiculous, not to mention overpowered. It's trash tier fantasy.

It's consistent with how glamors work in GRRM's books. Is ASoIaF trash-tier fantasy, too?

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1 hour ago, A Bong of Ice and Fire said:

It's consistent with how glamors work in GRRM's books. Is ASoIaF trash-tier fantasy, too?

I've maintained the opinion for quite a while now that GRRM has very little talent for writing fantasy. All of the fantasy elements in ASoIaF are shallow, derivative, and poorly thought out.

GRRM himself has said in an interview that he's only really interested in writing about conflict of the human heart. He's also said that he considers the fantasy elements of his books to be little more than furniture. This is almost the complete opposite approach to a genuinely talented fantasy writer like Tolkien.

Please don't mistake this as me suggesting that GRRM is a bad writer in general though. If you remove the "furniture" as he puts it, what you're left with is a very compelling story about the conflicts between characters. I certainly think that his talent for writing characters is far beyond that of a lot of fantasy writers.

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1 hour ago, Khorkalba said:

I've maintained the opinion for quite a while now that GRRM has very little talent for writing fantasy. All of the fantasy elements in ASoIaF are shallow, derivative, and poorly thought out.

GRRM himself has said in an interview that he's only really interested in writing about conflict of the human heart. He's also said that he considers the fantasy elements of his books to be little more than furniture. This is almost the complete opposite approach to a genuinely talented fantasy writer like Tolkien.

Please don't mistake this as me suggesting that GRRM is a bad writer in general though. If you remove the "furniture" as he puts it, what you're left with is a very compelling story about the conflicts between characters. I certainly think that his talent for writing characters is far beyond that of a lot of fantasy writers.

I think maybe you were the one who said this to me, but ever since hearing it's made me reconsider. 

I'm not gonna say what is "trash" especially when books like twilight make a killing and my book will most likely never sell 5 copies, but I see where you are coming from. 

In his first book he had Tyrion doing flips and he says he regrets that. But that should have given hint to his story telling. I think his prose is wonderful honestly. The story... Not so much. 

The stuff we seem to like about this tale most are the non fantasy elements. When he dives into fantasy, it kinda takes away for me. And I fear that the show and the books may not be too far removed as we get close to the end. 

Take his recent books. Like them or not, the quality has fallen. He's even stopped to using cheap cliff hangers (Brienne and LSH for example). 

While I still feel his first 3 books are among the best, I can't honestly say that he is that much different than generic fantasy writers. He just has a skill for writing prose and its easy to read as well as flows so well, that we often overlook the small flaws. 

He's an excellent writer. As you said, his characters are wonderful. Bit the overall story is kind of mediocre and beginning to suffer. 

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On 9/9/2017 at 10:40 AM, Khorkalba said:

I laughed out loud when Sansa opened up the bag of rubber halloween masks. The idea that a girl like Arya can put these masks on and literally become a fully grown man - voice and all - is just beyond ridiculous, not to mention overpowered. It's trash tier fantasy.

I took the bag full of faces to mean that the magic or glamor used by the faceless men requires some body part (maybe face in particular) of the person who the faceless man becomes.

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On 9/9/2017 at 8:15 AM, MrJay said:

Honestly, i  liked the faceless men when it was more of a face swap deal. Like Jaqen could become other men, but couldn't become a 12 year old girl.

But the Waif is a full-grown woman, who's able to become a small preteen girl. And a 5'10" man at one point.

I'm not sure if this is quite as well established on the show as it is in the novels—and Shona doesn't look nearly as small and young as book!Waif is described—but if the worst thing you can say is that the show has faithfully adapted face-changing from the novels even though you thought they weren't going to, it's hard to call D&D cheap hacks for that.

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Bran the omniscient Tree God and Arya the Magical rubber masked shapeshifter are the two elements of the story I could definitely have done without. I find both rather jarring and take me out of the story somewhat. I'm fine with the rest of the fantasy elements...other than resurreciton perhaps. 

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On ‎09‎/‎09‎/‎2017 at 3:25 PM, Nowy Tends said:

Well, no, that's not fine at all to me…

If Jaquen's appearance had completely changed when he said goodbye to Arya, the whole Arya/Walder Frey scene would have been much more credible…

The "magic morphing" (size, corpulence, clothes, etc.) appears to be the result of a last-minute decision, to make the Frey killing possible…

Another inconsistency in my opinion…

I was referring to the slight of hand in particular being fine. You would expect that skill from someone like Jaqen.

More generally, how can full body morphing be inconsistent if there has been nothing in show to contradict this being possible?

Dragons aside, we have zombies, magical elves, evil creatures made of magical ice, magical swords, resurrections, magical walls, magical horns, immunity to fire and what the heck super-power Bran has got in both show and book - yet full body glamour is too fantastical? That's an odd place to draw the line!

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