What’s under His many faces?

[Blackwater Revenant]

1 hour ago, The Fattest Leech said:

My fault as I did not mean you were in any way inaccurate. It only added that quote because it seemed to add on to yours, of which I agree with. I actually thought I was supporting your idea.... but maybe I need another milkshake???

Not at all, I just meant in the terminology I used, which I appreciate the clarification on. And I always appreciate the knowledge you share, the Norse connections I often see you shed light on is always fascinating to me!  

How about another "milkshake" on me?  

[The Sunland Lord]

It crossed my mind that the concept of being Cat Of The Canals, or some person adopting some other random identity-makes all the theories about secret parentages, someone being two individuals at the same time, etc.-irrelevant. Not only the fact that some of them are quite impossible to be true. It's that unimportant, so the people are truly No Ones.

This is because, even if they are true, one should not care too much. The important thing is the purpose (the serving, "Valar Dohaeris") this person is carrying out at the moment. Sam may know or don't know who Cat was. I mean, that one looked like any other situation when our POV characters encountered some smallfolk with humble names such as Cat. It doesn't matter that Arya provided Sam with info about where Dareon is. It matters the info. Arya is a means to an end. The information being "served" matters, not the teller. He or she is no one anyways. Individuals are in fact, means to an end for the Faceless Men.

I mean these people worship Death. But they are actually taking the whole thing to another level.

They are already settling themselves up for an Eternal Oblivion while being alive-what a relief it actually is not to have connection between the acts and the person. For they're gonna need the Eternal Oblivion. And I say that many people in ASOIAF would need it too. Whether it would be to kill off their huge egos or to ease/erase their conscience. 

That being said, if the author thought that it's very important for the readers to conclude something someone has done-he would've make sure they do. The whole picture is fine to have, but if we can't have it, then the most important piece of it is enough. Sometimes it doesn't matter. What matters is the act itself-Valar dohaeris. And to die-Valar morghulis. 

So everyone must serve and die. Who they were-that doesn't matter. They are no ones, for all the Faceless Men care.

 

[Lady Dacey]

On 31/01/2018 at 9:58 PM, Curled Finger said:

Are the Faceless Men priests or some separate entity of this religion?  Really all the MFG has to offer is death, for mercy or convenience, it's still just death.   Maybe that is the point?   MFG or Faceless Men can offer an end to resurrection?  MFG seems pretty neutral, neither Ice nor Fire, but that's where I hit a wall--is MFG an absence or sum? 

Oh my, I was rereading the thread and I realized I didn't register a lot of great stuff people shared here! These are some great questions. We know everyone in the temple is refered to as a "servent of the MFG", and that there are novices and acolytes, which are two different stages of training... to become a faceless man? Not sure. The two people Arya calls the Waif and the Kindly Man are residents of the temple, together with "long with three acolytes, two serving men, and a cook called Umma." I always wonder about Umma, what is she doing there?? She has a name, therefore she definetely isn't trying to become 'no-one'. These two serving men, are they in the initial stages of training, like Arya (who get's a servents garb) before she becomes a novice? It's funny that this takes place in Arya II, AFFC. Many months later, in Blind Girl, ADWD, we get: "Besides her, the House of Black and White was home to two serving men, three acolytes, Umma the cook, and the two priests that she called the waif and the kindly man." so no changes there. None of the people who lived there got "promoted". The Kindly Man and the Waif are both priests: "There were no services, no songs, no paeans of praise to please the god. The temple was never full. From time to time, a worshiper would ask to see a priest, and the kindly man or the waif would take him down into the sanctum, but that did not happen often." 

All the men that come and go with different faces are called priests too: "The priests used the language of Braavos, though once for several minutes three spoke heatedly in High Valyrian. The girl understood the words, mostly, but they spoke in soft voices, and she could not always hear. "I know this man," she did hear a priest with the face of a plague victim say. "I know this man," the fat fellow echoed, as she was pouring for him. But the handsome man said, "I will give this man the gift, I know him not." Later the squinter said the same thing, of someone else."

I like the idea of the worship of the MFG being related to an end to ressurection. I'm sure they aren't cool with the whole "bringing people back from death" idea. It would be a good point in our story. About ice and fire... Absence or the sum? I'd go with absence. I don't think everything in the books can be described in a "ice-to-fire scale", for I believe there are other elements at play. But I agree that death is pretty neuthral. It's the greatest equalizer of men, right?  

On 31/01/2018 at 11:14 PM, Curled Finger said:

So this final death of yours is a fine fine way to look at the MFG.  Maybe the cycle of resurrection was broken for a while.  The wights don't seem to suffer.  Their reanimation seems to be just energy infused in dead husks of skeleton and skin.   At this point, any way.   We talk quite a bit about Jon's birth being the thing that caused the Others to become apparent.   We know they've always been around, as well as magic as seen in the Wildlings and their stories.  Reading your post makes me wonder if it isn't actually Dany's birth that caused the forces of ice to gear up.   

Great stuff here. What has caused the upsurge in magic/dragons coming back/others becoming apparent is one of the central questions of the books and I do hope we get some answers on page! 

On 01/02/2018 at 2:51 PM, LiveFirstDieLater said:

What are he Faceless Men but the executioners of a god? 

 

If you are going to kill someone you should look them in the eyes, hear their last words, and pass judgement.

 

Anyway, it’s interesting, and I would propose that like a king who hides behind an executioner forgers what death looks like, an executioner who never has to judge soon forgets who deserves the sentence.

Thematically the FM represent a great inflexion in Arya's arc. Their way of seeing things is diametically opposite to all westerosi nobles think is 'honourable'. We see Arya judging the people she feels entitled to kill (the Tickler, Dareon, the merchant whose hands move to much), and we see her feel bad for the people that died at her hands without a 'just sentance' (the stable boy, the lannister squire that was together with the Tickler and Polliver). The more I think about the FM, the more I realize how little we know about them... But we do know they believe that those who are instruments of the MFG should be only that: instruments. The point is not "forgetting who deserves the sentence" because (1) it's not the instrument's concern to judge, only to act and (2) death is not a punishment, it has nothing to do with what one deserves otherwise the just would live forever. That is why I called them the "House of Orange and Blue", we are much more prone to feel aligned with Ned Stark than with the FM. Arya doesn't agree with them either, and that's why we are all eagerly waiting to see how she'll leave the HoBaW! 

[Lady Dacey]

On 30/01/2018 at 11:49 PM, Lucius Lovejoy said:

I had a post on the parallels between R'hllorism and the Drowned religion a few months back where I equated R'hllor and the Storm King against the Great Other and the Drowned God.  I could see the Many Faced God being another incarnation of the Great Other.

Har! I think R'hllor is more closely related to the MFG than the Great Other...

On 30/01/2018 at 11:49 PM, Lucius Lovejoy said:

So I would say their is a mundane biological explanation, but isn't that explanation possibly the method through which God worked his miracle?  This is where my religious scientist side kicks in.  I think it is beautiful and awesome when we discover truths about our world and ourselves.  When people try to put scientific explanations to miracles I am like "great, we know God a little better now!" 

Personally, I 100% agree with this. 

On 30/01/2018 at 11:49 PM, Lucius Lovejoy said:

I suppose "no one" would have no use for other gods because they have no concern about judgment, pleasure, fortune, etc, so that can make the Faceless Men consistent.  Yet before they are "no one" they must have been "someone," and that someone had to have some sort of motivation to become "no one"... perhaps thinking they would be rewarded for service in the after life?  Or perhaps just because, like Arya, they had no where else to go.  In this way "someone" may be thought of as having sold their soul for temporal gain.  That is easier for me to accept and understand as it aligns with what I know from real world tradition.

Oh I like that! Selling the soul? There is a lot of emphasis on what Arya has to give up to become a "servent of him of many faces". The faceless men have been associated with "deals" from the beggining of the books, first when Littlefinger talks about hiring them, but more importantly in Jaqen's interactions with Arya, which are full of mysticism and related to 'tricky bussiness' by Arya herself. 

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Jaqen still owed her one death. In Old Nan's stories about men who were given magic wishes by a grumkin, you had to be especially careful with the third wish

We know Arya wants to be able to change her face. She says as much to the Kindly Man. He tells her there is a price. Is she being tricked into a deal - selling her soul, so to speak? 

[Lady Dacey]

On 01/02/2018 at 5:59 PM, LiveFirstDieLater said:

I think I see what you mean, but just to clarify how I’m seeing the comparison between these two... because in many ways they are inverse’s of one another.

The Red Preists of Rhllor preach and prothlestize, they hold public displays and seek followers.

The Faceless Men are a secret society who are shrouded in mystery.

Rhllor - Servants are slaves, from the 1000 flames to the red priests like Mel and Benerro.

Faceless- Founded by setting slaves “free”, and even the second Faceless man was compensated for serving the many faced god the rest of his life. Arya is free to leave the house of white and black.

Rhllor- Is a jealous god, all others are false or servants of darkness. Burning the seven in sacrifice to him for example.

Faceless- The house of white and black is full of other gods (aspects of death) and he kindly man seems to acknowledge the existence of other pantheons and doesn’t seem to have anything against them.

Rhllor- passes judgement

Faceless- gives his gift to all, and doesn’t judge

Fire consumes and dominates. War Red War! Kingdoms forged through conquest and cities built on the backs of slaves.

Ice preserves, but inaction can also kill. Hopelessness and drifting off into sleep/oblivion. There also appears to be an association with corruption. 

 

I could see GRRM writting these two religions as foil to each other, as you eloquently put it. But I don't think they antagonize each other - because the FM antagonize no religion at all, and R'hllorism antagonizes all of them. Actually, we could come up with a list of differeces like that for many pair of religions presented in the books. I didn't understand what you tried to say with the Ned quote though... 

[Lady Dacey]

On 01/02/2018 at 11:54 PM, The Fattest Leech said:

I have killed countless times, have done many terrible things, but I am not evil. I did not choose to be the way I was. Without choice, there can be no good nor evil. My people have never had that choice. The red thirst has ruled us, condemned us, robbed us of all we might have been. But your people, Abner—they have no such compulsion.

This is a personal obsession of our beloved author isn't it? How come do people do so much nasty stuff? Why does war seem to be so much more abundant than peace? 

[LiveFirstDieLater]

18 hours ago, Lady Dacey said:

I could see GRRM writting these two religions as foil to each other, as you eloquently put it. But I don't think they antagonize each other - because the FM antagonize no religion at all, and R'hllorism antagonizes all of them. Actually, we could come up with a list of differeces like that for many pair of religions presented in the books. I didn't understand what you tried to say with the Ned quote though... 

So I see this through my own lens as much as the next reader, but I see Ned’s lessons as a sort of good man’s guide to being.

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You are an honest and honorable man, Lord Eddard. Ofttimes I forget that. I have met so few of them in my life." He glanced around the cell. "When I see what honesty and honor have won you, I understand why."

As Varys points out above, there are very few men of Ned’s caliber in the series (and in life) but Varys focuses on the results this has gotten Ned (at least the short term results for Ned himself). I would argues that this is one end of the spectrum I’m trying to illuminate. He’s not condemning Ned’s judgement, only the repercussions.

If I’m picking an example of the opposite side, it would be Stannis, who will do what he believes is right, consequences be damned.

Quote

Quote

"I know that," Stannis said, unhappily. "I have spent hours speaking with the man. He knows much and more of our true enemy, and there is cunning in him, I'll grant you. Even if he were to renounce his kingship, though, the man remains an oathbreaker. Suffer one deserter to live, and you encourage others to desert. No. Laws should be made of iron, not of pudding. Mance Rayder's life is forfeit by every law of the Seven Kingdoms."

 

I believe the overriding message of the series is how we should strive to find a middle way. That both the means and the ends matter. 

The Faceless Men are a group which refuses to judge, simply delivering the same result regardless of the target. 

The faith of Rhllor meanwhile is all righteousness and cares less for the harm they cause than they do following the tenets of their faith.

Both parts seem to be missing a significant portion of Ned’s first lesson: look them in the eyes, pass judgment, and swing the sword.

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we hold to the belief that the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man's life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die.

The right way, the good way, isn’t easy or clear or sure, but imperfect men in an imperfect world ought to thoughtfully consider their difficult choices and be the ones to cast the sentence and swing the sword. There is no promise of success, and we won’t always be right, but it is the honest and honorable way.

While there is a specific target of each lesson, in this case Arya and Sansa being different but ultimately on the same side, as family. I believe it comes back to this central tenent of the series. It could as well be about mankind as it could be about sisters. Or even about the heart of a single man split by indecision.

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You may be as different as the sun and the moon, but the same blood flows through both your hearts. You need her, as she needs you … and I need both of you, gods help me.

Seek peace through the middle way

[Rufus Snow]

On 2/5/2018 at 9:35 PM, Lady Dacey said:

Har! I think R'hllor is more closely related to the MFG than the Great Other...

This bit keeps going round and round in my head... certainly R'hllor seems a 'hungry' god and likes his meals well roasted (a bit like dragons), yet there is also this business of the Final Kiss where his flames seem to spit lives BACK into the world. What does the MFG make of that, do you think? Do the same rules that govern blood magic also hold sway over fire magic - that only death can pay for life? Does that mean that the Final Kiss is a way that R'hllor refuses payment? Is R'hllor stealing deaths from the MFG, or is he one of the Many Faces, and has the 'right' to make judgement and send the souls back into the recently-departed husk?

Of course all that overlooks another point - MFG and R'hllor are gods of different traditions. Traditions are made by men (and women, of course...) and are under no obligation to be consistent with each other. Are we actually on a fool's errand in trying to reconcile the irreconcileable? I guess what I mean by this, is that GRRM may be saying, 'this is all made-up guff, so don't expect to find any great truths in it'?

As I mentioned above, it is a given that magic is real in this world - but the gods are all open to question. I think from what I've read, the 'realest' gods are the Old Gods, and that could really be little more than than a merging of the consciousness of the (dead?) Singers (and maybe some chosen humans) into the weirwood web, very much like some Transhumanists believe one day we'll all upload our 'minds' into a Singularitarian 'Matrix'-heaven.

 

OK, so that above was bit of a diversion: I originally came here to drop this quote, which really emphasises how few followers the MFG has, compared to the teeming hordes of R'hllorists, in Essos at least.

 

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A Dance with Dragons - The Ugly Little Girl

Eleven servants of the Many-Faced God gathered that night beneath the temple, more than she had ever seen together at one time. Only the lordling and the fat fellow arrived by the front door; the rest came by secret ways, through tunnels and hidden passages. They wore their robes of black and white, but as they took their seats each man pulled his cowl down to show the face he had chosen to wear that day. Their tall chairs were carved of ebony and weirwood, like the doors of the temple above. The ebon chairs had weirwood faces on their backs, the weirwood chairs faces of carved ebony.

 

 

[The Chequered Raven]

On 30.1.2018 at 5:11 AM, PrettyPig said:

In a nutshell, I think what GRRM is trying to tell us about the Faceless Men as a death cult religion is that it isn't really a religion at all - it's an organized sociopathic power trip masquerading as a religion.     They put forth these sacred and altruistic motives, but it really boils down to a bunch of people who get off on watching/making other people die.  They claim to worship the God of Many Faces (or family of Many Colors) but in reality they only worship the faceless Stranger known as the Self.

Yes!

That goes well with my personal point of view about religion:

Faith is a way for poeple to explain things they did not or can not understand. This is quite natural - every sociaty develops some god to explain the unknown.
Religion is the abuse of faith for only one reason - control the believers for personal benefit.

 

[Lady Dacey]

13 hours ago, Rufus Snow said:

MFG and R'hllor are gods of different traditions. Traditions are made by men (and women, of course...) and are under no obligation to be consistent with each other.

I think this is a very, very, very important aspect of thinking religions many readers don't attent to. All those theories that connect all religions as one big thing... I don't think that's were Martin is going at all.

13 hours ago, Rufus Snow said:

Are we actually on a fool's errand in trying to reconcile the irreconcileable?

Uh... I truly never attempted it. My point about R'hllor is not that he is a god of death, but that the Faceless Men see him as such. The difference between this two concepts is not subtle - I'm not trying to asses the "true nature" of any god at any moment, I'm constantly trying to anderstand how religious people interpret the world in-universe. And of course, in a world where magic is so palpable, that's a big deal. I don't think we can reconciled everything into one "unified theory of magic" or anything like that. 

13 hours ago, Rufus Snow said:

I guess what I mean by this, is that GRRM may be saying, 'this is all made-up guff, so don't expect to find any great truths in it'?

I don't think "it's all made-up guff"... of course it's all made up, sure, and I don't think there is a one great truth (about gods and deities that is). But it's not guff either. I know the author is not religious, but he writes with great respect for it. There are a lot of things for us to think about... and some truths to be inferred about it all as well, I think. 

13 hours ago, Rufus Snow said:

As I mentioned above, it is a given that magic is real in this world - but the gods are all open to question.

I absolutely agree with that - and it actually makes the world of ice and fire very similar to our own. Martin has stated that he incorporated religion into his writing because he could not imagine a world without it. It is a force with a lot of political a cultural influence, and it functions as motivation for many characters. It's more than that as well: It's a way to be connected to and (try to) manipulate a higher power men don't understand. This is undoubtedly true in asoiaf, where kisses bring people back to life, the future can be seen in the flames and in dreams (specially if one happens to sleep around weirwoods, it seems), and people can slip into the bodies of animals. Magic is real alright, and people that "yield it" have their special rituals to do so - and beliefs about those rituals. Are the rituals all that's necessary, or is believing in them important? Thoros wasn't particularly faithful when he brought Beric back to life, but the attributed his miracle to the red god nonetheless. Victarion thinks he can use the red god's prowess without forsaking his belief in the Drowned God at all. What does it all mean? Is religion irrelevant to magic? Is the way people worship irrelevant to the gods/God? Is it necessary for everyone else to be wrong for one belief to be right? Or do all religions simply represent culturally different ways for people to establish a relationship with 'the unknown' which includes death, magic, and god? 

Let's go back to the OP: are the Faceless Men pious? Are they true believers of their god, or is it all a smoke screen to a guild of assasins? I read them as true believers, but I'm swinging back and forth about being sympathetic to their cause. How do their beliefs influence our story? That's what I'm most interested in. 

[Rufus Snow]

On 2/8/2018 at 3:10 PM, Lady Dacey said:

Are the rituals all that's necessary, or is believing in them important? Thoros wasn't particularly faithful when he brought Beric back to life, but the attributed his miracle to the red god nonetheless. Victarion thinks he can use the red god's prowess without forsaking his belief in the Drowned God at all. What does it all mean? Is religion irrelevant to magic? Is the way people worship irrelevant to the gods/God? Is it necessary for everyone else to be wrong for one belief to be right? Or do all religions simply represent culturally different ways for people to establish a relationship with 'the unknown' which includes death, magic, and god? 

Oh, Lady D, you do ask such questions ... and they are just as pertinent in our own world. I think there's only one of those questions I'd even hazard a reply to: "Is religion irrelevant to magic?" My own feeeling is yes, it is irrelevant, same as religion is irrelevant to engineering. Because in ASoIaF magic is clearly real, it also clearly follows rules - now, those rules may not be easy to divine (probably a poor choice of words, but I love those double meanings....) - but believing one thing or another will not change them, any more than worshipping Ganesh instead of the Rainbow Serpent will alter the thermal expansion co-efficient of steel, or the compressive strength of concrete. I would rather cross a bridge built by an 'infidel' who understands the properties of materials than one built by a co-religionist who does not. I realise that viewpoint is not universal, but this world contains things far more distressing than zealots plunging into an abyss.

"Is it necessary for everyone else to be wrong for one belief to be right?" I'm already on record here, I think - all traditions have some truths, but they also have some falsehoods. They all purport to explain the inexplicable, or as you express it, a way to establish a relationship with 'the unknown'. Alas, relationships can be consensual or controlling or abusive, equal or unbalanced, healthy or pathological, and usually the worst place to be to decide which is which, is inside that relationship - that's why we see the motes and not the beams, as one past master expressed it. GRRM has granted us the boon of being outside all of the relationships between gods and men in ASoIaF, and yet it's still a veritable Gordian knot!

On 2/8/2018 at 3:10 PM, Lady Dacey said:

Let's go back to the OP: are the Faceless Men pious? Are they true believers of their god, or is it all a smoke screen to a guild of assasins? I read them as true believers, but I'm swinging back and forth about being sympathetic to their cause. How do their beliefs influence our story? That's what I'm most interested in. 

I'm swinging with you on this - I get sucked in and totally accept their piety, and then someone (PoV character) gives me an outside view and I recoil from it. I think I agree they are true believers, or at least they believe themselves to be - which is common to all 'true believers' who feel moved to deal out death. There is a definite conflict in my own beliefs over this, and it relates to real world dilemmas: on one hand they are (at times) giving genuine 'mercy deaths' - those who come to the temple because life has become unbearable for them are given the cup and and a painless death. This I can sympathise with, for I can foresee in my own life there might be circumstances where I'd wish to make this choice. But it's quite another thing to request the death of another. It has been one of my touchstones that any belief (and I hold some very strong beliefs) that 'justifies' death of, or even violence against, another has gone beyond the bounds. But of course, my own beliefs are outside the universe of ASoIaF.

The big conflict we see in the HoB&W is within Arya - she comes from the traditions of the First Men, as expressed by her father - death is a result of judgement, yet the FM profess not to judge. When Eddard performs an execution, he not only applies the law as it is laid down, he also forces himself to make an ethical judgement:
 

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A Game of Thrones - Bran I

Bran had no answer for that. "King Robert has a headsman," he said, uncertainly.

"He does," his father admitted. "As did the Targaryen kings before him. Yet our way is the older way. The blood of the First Men still flows in the veins of the Starks, and we hold to the belief that the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man's life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die.

"One day, Bran, you will be Robb's bannerman, holding a keep of your own for your brother and your king, and justice will fall to you. When that day comes, you must take no pleasure in the task, but neither must you look away. A ruler who hides behind paid executioners soon forgets what death is."

 

And really, when the FM have a name whispered in their ears, they are being little more than paid executioners, no matter how they dress up the payment as a 'sacrifice' on the part of their client. They are enabling others to 'forget what death is', even though they claim to be acting in the service of death. What true priest would wish to conceal the nature of their god???