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The Hall of Faces


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When I read the book, I never really thought that they told how they get the faces, preserve the faces, and then use them. Obviously, magic is involved. One of the little snippets that HBO released this week is GRRM discussing the Hall of Faces. His exact words are "The faceless men have a sorcerer's procedure for changing your face.. they use the faces of the dead which they skin off their victims... and hang up to dry... when they want to become that person they hold the skin over their own face". This was never revealed in the book, correct? I mean, when a FM changes, they aren't really literally hanging the dead persons skin on their own face like a mask, right? A skinned face would obviously dry out and rot and not remain preserved as they looked on the show. How do they preserve them? Perhaps they use a spell in which they touch the face that they want to use and then touch their own face and the change happens? When Jaquen changes his face back in season 2 when he says goodbye to Arya after Harrenhall, he obviously was not anywhere near the Hall of Faces, so how would he have done it? I just don't remember the book really giving any explanation, or am I wrong?


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When I read the book, I never really thought that they told how they get the faces, preserve the faces, and then use them. Obviously, magic is involved. One of the little snippets that HBO released this week is GRRM discussing the Hall of Faces. His exact words are "The faceless men have a sorcerer's procedure for changing your face.. they use the faces of the dead which they skin off their victims... and hang up to dry... when they want to become that person they hold the skin over their own face". This was never revealed in the book, correct? I mean, when a FM changes, they aren't really literally hanging the dead persons skin on their own face like a mask, right? A skinned face would obviously dry out and rot and not remain preserved as they looked on the show. How do they preserve them? Perhaps they use a spell in which they touch the face that they want to use and then touch their own face and the change happens? When Jaquen changes his face back in season 2 when he says goodbye to Arya after Harrenhall, he obviously was not anywhere near the Hall of Faces, so how would he have done it? I just don't remember the book really giving any explanation, or am I wrong?

In episode 2, if you look carefully you can see Jacquen peel off his face.

But it looked liked turning over a page :lol:

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It must be some damn fine sorcery if it can make a rotten old floppy skin mask look good pulled over someones face, otherwise all faceless men would like like Leatherhead from Texas Chainsaw when they are in disguise :D



In the books, I thought they cut Arya's face also - I thought they were actually removing her skin so they could replace it with new skin and this is something the faceless men had somehow perfected - a combination of some sort of bizarre cosmetic surgery and blood magic, or something.



I found this quote elsewhere on the forum



Mummers change their faces with artifice, and sorcerers use glamors, weaving light and shadow and desire to make illusions that trick the eye. These arts you shall learn, but what we do here goes deeper. Wise men can see through artifice, and glamors dissolve before sharp eyes, but the face you are about to don will be as true and solid as that face you were born with.


So it seems a full faceless man transformation is both physical and magical. A bit more research on the Wiki and it seems that they used Arya's blood to magically bond the flesh of the removed face to hers. The flesh of the removed face must keep some of the memories of the person it belonged to - so all the hanging faces must be magical somehow.



This could come off looking really dumb in the show if they don't do it right. it only works in the books because it isn't explained. But I am hoping they remove some skin, as part of the transformation - they don't have to show it all, can leave some mystery - but it would be nice to see that it is a frightening and painful looking procedure the first time.


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Regarding Jaqen in season 2, he was either walking around with a dude's face in his pocket the whole time, or the

Alchemist's face that he wears when he kills Pate

is his true face.

Or he took that face from some poor sod at Harrenhal. I guess that's also a possibility..

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Some very interesting responses... I wonder if they will show more on the show when Arya finally changes her face for the first time, or if she will just turn around and it will already be changed?


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Some very interesting responses... I wonder if they will show more on the show when Arya finally changes her face for the first time, or if she will just turn around and it will already be changed?

I was wondering the same. My guess is that she will just turn around with a new face

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I could see her / Jaqen picking out a girls face, her holding it in her palms and putting it on, then a cut away to Jaqen pressing it against her face and when he pulls his hands away the new face is there.


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She will probably end up with the face of that little girl she poisoned in episode 5, its fresh and about the right age after all.



They need to do the cutting though, I always felt like the blood from those cuts is what invigorates the face and makes it lifelike.


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I thought I saw an image of the girl Arya changes into....it wasn't the girl she 'helped' in the temple.



In other news, it was a strikingly hot looking girl, so I'd bet D&D can't wait to show her bewbs


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The, "supernatural" aspect of this tale is what makes it Fantasy, Dragons, Shadow Babies, White Walkers, etc. outside of that is is just historical fiction.



I think because it doesn't have some of the overt Fantasy images in the story and definitely not on the show, folks forget that is what is.

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The technique for switching faces is typical GRRM - at its core, it can't be anything other than magic (facial transplant that is apparently flawless? WE can't do that still!), but it's described in a way that's almost mechanical. It almost follows a medical procedure that might generally work that way if it were real (surgical cut around the existing face, etc).



So you end up with the minimal amount of magic possible on page when describing it, even for something that is just pure fantasy.


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