John Doe

I think it's weid to suggest that the faith is united in the story when we literally have the opposite in the main series- the High Septon gets violently deposed in what basically amounts to a coup. So even though they are not the focus of the story, we do get hints of religious disagreements in the margins- it's the same with the Red Priests, who seem pretty united (there don't seem to be different churches of R'hollor, at least), but despite this Mel goes pretty much rogue when she seeks out Stannis. And the whole stability thing is a general problem- if one wants to treat it as such-  in the story. All the great houses are ridiculously old, for example, the faith being "the faith" is no less believable than there being a Stark in Winterfall since the Dawn Age. 

I think the similarity to the catholic church is only superficial. While all the talk about heaven and hell does remind us of christianity, it seems in-universe to be much more connected to believes like those in the drowned god/storm god or R'hollor/the great other- it's probably an offshoot of the Church of Starry Wisdom, after all, and as much an offshoot of the Dawn Age as pretty much every other religion. 

As such I'm also not sure if the faith is connected to Ice Magic, per se. It seems to follow the same dualistic worldview as the R'hollorists and Drowned Priests. Now, as they are probably an offshoot of the CoSW that seems to worship the Bloodstone Emperor it may be the case that they are on the opposing site of the conflict, but they may also not be- there are theories that legends of Azor Ahai and the Bloodstone Emperor are alluding to the same person, after all. It's very questionable that Ice and Fire even represent opposing factions in the grand scheme of things. 

What really sets the faith apart to me doesn't seem to be the alignment on the ice to fire chart, but the outwardly opposition to magic. It's probably not a coincidence that they are close to the Citadel, which seems to be opposed to magic as well. But what does it mean? Or does the Faith also have some Glass Candles stored away somewhere? There is a at least one prophecy attributed to a High Septon, after all, when Oldtown submitted to Aegon, so maybe there are some magical roots there still to be explored. But there's probably a reason why Oldtown seems to be so opposed to it while pretty much every other faith is so deeply connected to it. If you subscribe to the theory the faith is related to the CoSW (I do) it's even weirder, since that faith seems to be deeply connected to magic, at least in origin. 

What's also weird are a few things about the backstory, like when exactly did the Andals leave for Westeros, where exactly did they come from, how are the CoSW and the FotS related. 

On 11/22/2023 at 6:25 AM, SaffronLady said:

... And Theories

Anyone with a basic understanding of religious history's first question about the Faith should be "why is it so stable?" Leaving aside the admittedly attractive and easy response that "GRRM is writing a medieval fantasy, of course there would be an evil church," I believe GRRM wouldn't pile so many pages onto a caricature and an overused trope. The Fot7 has its own part to play in the Song of Ice and Fire, and unlike the obvious "balance & cooperation" theme of the Rhoynar (thank you, water magic, being melted ice and a very obvious link between ice and fire), this part may be as difficult to parse out properly like House Stark in general.

As Lenin concisely stated,"the goal of" the Fot7 "is to ensure its own survival", but we aren't looking at that in particular. People tend to get themselves into other things once the belly is no longer growling, such as reading a book. So, what "book does the Faith read", what further goals does the Faith attempt to accomplish when its survival is secure? We must try to decipher their origin myth for clues. From the myth of Hugor of the Hill we could extract certain elements: falling stars, blue-eyed maiden, king and sons. Of course, these elements alone aren't enough to build a theory off of, but let us look a little further into the Faith's practices.

Not only do members of the Faith liken lives to flame, they also remove bowels and organs and drain corpses of blood. The Faith - the silent sisters, specifically - reduces corpses to empty husks. As an add-on, the Seven-Pointed Star mentions wights too, specifically "It is stated in The Seven-Pointed Star that spirits, wights, and revenants cannot harm a pious man, so long as he is armored in his faith".

We could derive a theory based on these, and it is connected to some collective memory of the Others and wights. We need to comb through the elements of this collective memory though:

The 13th Lord Commander of the Night's Watch's actions (corpse queen stunt, among others) had repercussions so serious even the Andals remember him. Yet for some reason, instead of remembering him as a villain, the Andals revere him, and called him ancestor. I think GRRM intends for us to make this connection by letting Tyrion visit the Wall then travel to Essos, taking up the pseudonym of ... Hugor Hill. 

Folks who have done theory-crafting often enough probably would have noticed I have not explained the "falling stars" part. To me it could be one of two things:

1. A mangled Andal collective memory of the fall of the "bloodstones", which caused the Long Night;

2. That the 13th LC was trying to "call down the stars" again, and it was included in the warnings sent out to other peoples by Starks & co.

I don't have enough facts to disprove either (I don't even have enough facts to tell if the Andals knew these were different events), so I'll leave both here for folks.

GRRM clearly wants us to connect the Fot7 to the Long Night too, to the "king crowned by stars called down" - the Bloodstone Emperor, instigator of the Long Night, by making a parallel character in Hugor of the Hill. But of course there is more than that to unpack. The sons, or more importantly, we are given a specific number (44) of Hugor's sons. Now, numbers in mythology ... aren't an exact thing. For the most well-known example, archaeology does not support the notion of 12 tribes of Israel, but that has not stopped "the ten lost tribes" becoming so popular with latter-day myth-makers. But Mormon reworking of Jewish numeral symbology is beyond the scope of this thread. The point is, by mentioning specifc numbers in a religious text, it becomes a symbol. Exhibit A: John who wrote Apocalypse (or Revelations, depending on the version of your Bible). He mentions in Apoc 7 and Apoc 14 "one hundred and forty-four thousand" men inscribed with the name of god on their foreheads, which equals 12 times 12 times 1000, or twelve thousand from each of the twelve tribes.

I will wrap up the actual theory of the Fot7's ultimate goal and what it tries to do after the age of myths in a later post.

Just concerning the fire/ice-alignment: 

- There is a theory that the Night's King was a Stark himself. So I don't really see how you can put the Starks and the Faith as opposing forces with such certainty. 

- Hugor of the Hill seems to be connected to an Azor/Ahai figure (seems etymologically connected to Hyrkoon the Hero and Huzr Amai, after all), which lends credence to the theory that the prophecised hero may not be so different from the villain. 

- The faith likening lives to flame and draining corpses of blood could just as easily be related to fire magic. R'hollorists liken lives to flames, after all. The same can go for the draining- we know that fire and blood magic seem connected (or rather, that blood magic seems to be used all over where magical rituals are concerned), so that custom might be related to magic use as well. Or, perhaps more interestingly, it's done to avoid using a corpse for magical rituals, which would mean the Faith has been opposed to magic, specifically blood magic, for a very long time indeed. 

The point about wights would apply to all kinds of magic- there are fire wights, after all, and drowned people that seem to have been resurrected as well. 

 I like how the books refute Fire Eater's theories as they progress. 

Saying Lysono Maar is a transvestite is like saying Arya is one for wearing pants. 

2 minutes ago, aryagonnakill#2 said:

Since that's exactly what Ramsay did, and since Jon Con would probably not want to alienate Rowan since he is a Targ sympathizer I have theorized that they will send in a ship disguised as a smuggler just like Davos, and take the castle that way.

How is Rowan a Targ sympathizer?

How do you think Storm's End was taken? Did they just say they were Stannis' men and the garrison should let them in?

They easily could have introduced Tysha back when Tyrion was in his coma after the Battle of the Blackwater.

Also lol at D&D saying they wouldn't introduce Tyha because it would need flashbacks and then starting season 5 with a flashback.

You're in the book spoiler thread, you fucking asshats. Go to the show thread if you don't wanna see book parallels being drawn up.

Agreed.

"I'm not a politician. I'm a queen." Compromise is a dirty word to Dany.

Yeah she's kinda dumb

Also Kevan is awesome.

Maybe the wine to wash his hands?

Or we just found out the reason why his beard is so dark.

Could have done without knowing the details of Tyrion's bathroom arrangements on that ship...

I wonder how his hands are still clean.