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The portrayal of the Sparrows


C.T. Phipps

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I'm not really a big complainer about changes.

Some are good.

Some are bad.

Still, this one rankles. I'm a big fan of the Book Sparrows because I like seeing George R.R. Martin subvert the royalist and aristocracy narrative by having the peasantry rise up and take their place at the top of the food chain. The shows version dumbs them down considerably, ignoring the countless war crimes and exploitation to focus on the nobility's sex addiction.

Kind of irritating.

It also makes the Faith more one-dimensional.

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I agree, I believe that if a group just upstarts and runs through the town destroying brothels and wine barrels in a single day the nobles would say and do something. They aren't just gonna let happen and go oh well they high sparrow has spoken. The book did it gradually and with a little more tact. Which how you get change to happen, do too much too soon and you will meet nothing but resistance.


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They have totally changed the Father. Father is now god rendering their religon pointless, who needs seven when they have one?



The trial seven with seven is a plothole. Because anybody with power would manipulate the other six. Away from source, trials are concluded in combat and truth. Not absolved by confession if the sin isn't evil



How was Mr sparrow chosen, through revolt, with six other septons to stake their claims



The whole thing sinks, they have even called Baelor an idiot as well, to support this inquisition



Showing now they can be easily dismantled because Cersei gave the decree now she is jailed, meaning Tommen just gets another Septon to remove the heretic


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I'm not really a big complainer about changes.

Some are good.

Some are bad.

Still, this one rankles. I'm a big fan of the Book Sparrows because I like seeing George R.R. Martin subvert the royalist and aristocracy narrative by having the peasantry rise up and take their place at the top of the food chain. The shows version dumbs them down considerably, ignoring the countless war crimes and exploitation to focus on the nobility's sex addiction.

Kind of irritating.

It also makes the Faith more one-dimensional.

The peasants have never had a place at the top of the food chain and never will. The purpose of the Faith is to move the story on, not establish a right-on Westerosi political agenda. They are bad guys. If anything, it should be the biggest signal yet that the story no longer requires the Boltons. Next season will be about reclaiming KL and environs from these nutjobs. I imagine fire will be heavily involved.

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I think the High Sparrow is pretty well portrayed and Jonathon Pryce is doing a great job making him seem like a lovely old guy but with a side you wouldn't mess with and get away with. He's fair, he's honest and he's incorruptible. But at the same time he has unshakable faith in the Seven and he is still a religious zealot.



The Faith Militant on the other hand seem to be some sort of Nazi storm-troopers crossed with IS style organisation who just go round smashing up anyone and everything they have a prejudice against. Whereas in the books they were much more of a peasant's uprising for good reasons in the show they just seem to be more like religious fundamentalists. The whole point of them is that the smallfolk have been beaten around a lot and they want things to improve, a religious leader rises up to fight their cause and bring the 7K's back to the right ways.


They are not interested in going round bashing gays or smashing up brothels, or what some fancy lords get up to! They are interested in stopping the raiding going on in the coutryside, the food shortages, the raping and pillaging and buring of septs! They just seem so far removed from what the HS portrays it's almost like they don't belong in the same story.


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I think the High Sparrow is pretty well portrayed and Jonathon Pryce is doing a great job making him seem like a lovely old guy but with a side you wouldn't mess with and get away with. He's fair, he's honest and he's incorruptible. But at the same time he has unshakable faith in the Seven and he is still a religious zealot.

The Faith Militant on the other hand seem to be some sort of Nazi storm-troopers crossed with IS style organisation who just go round smashing up anyone and everything they have a prejudice against. Whereas in the books they were much more of a peasant's uprising for good reasons in the show they just seem to be more like religious fundamentalists. The whole point of them is that the smallfolk have been beaten around a lot and they want things to improve, a religious leader rises up to fight their cause and bring the 7K's back to the right ways.

They are not interested in going round bashing gays or smashing up brothels, or what some fancy lords get up to! They are interested in stopping the raiding going on in the coutryside, the food shortages, the raping and pillaging and buring of septs! They just seem so far removed from what the HS portrays it's almost like they don't belong in the same story.

Likewise, I think he's very well done. He's an ayatollah-level religious maniac who is unquestionably the one sending out his fanatical hit squads to cleanse one and all. Yet one-on-one we see him as a kindly sort of bloke who wouldn't hurt a fly. Very good performance by Jonathan Pryce. The Faith Militant only need to come across as being zealots... what better way tha to cut down on the show's boob count?

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The father represented nobilities prayers being justice. He doesn't collect the dead to a higher ethreal plain. That was the Stranger because nobody wanted to die which is why few would pray to death. Being the father hearing nobilities prayer as justice how does he now represent the poor? Because the father takes their souls. Funny. Now all the other six are redundant, hail the one true god. Which is exactly why the stranger had no form being death representing the dead. Their aint no souls in this pagan religion.



Futher considering this new justice judged by seven, unless he has personally appointed them they can still be bought, bribed, controlled by promised wealth and greater power. He would have had to chose them from other septs. Now that there are more people their own entities, anybody with a brain would simply destory this heresy from within.



The seven represented specific prayers. The father was the male equiv of justice equaling nobilities prayer. The smith was the poor working form, the warrior, knights squires men at arms. Although many would pray to all depending upon their prayers, example Davos because he wasn't devout.



Dunno much about the females, sorry, I wasn't paying to much attention in that class: The maiden, mother, crone



What we have seen is one big plot hole, trying to explain and failing at modern religion, not somethiing medievally pagan and separate from the charch


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Is there any evidence in the books (or the show, for that matter) that "The Seven" have any real power? There's plenty of evidence that the "Lord of Light" is real -- we've got Melisandre and her visions, the Shadow Baby, the resurrection stuff, etc. And there's evidence that the "Old Gods" have power (including Bran's visions, the warging stuff, the Children of the Forest, etc.). But I can't remember anything -- in the books or the show -- suggesting that The Seven are real.



When I read the books, I saw the Faith (and the High Sparrow) as crazy zealots. The show portrays the High Sparrow as a true believer who is following the dictates of The Seven (although Cersei's question to him -- "How do the gods communicate with you?" -- is valid). But it's difficult to see any religious group as virtuous if its goal is to destroy, arrest, and punish.


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Jonathan Pryce is great.

But the sparrows are not convincing. They just sort of pop up.

It helps in the books to read through AFFC see the devastation of war and hearing about the sparrows and meeting septons on the road, then see the movement taking shape in ADWD.

Would have been good to mention them a bit last season. Maybe just having more poor people in the background somewhere. Actually they could have been hinting at a looming peasant revolt ever since the riot in KL when Sansa was almost raped.

Actually the sparrows are very realistic. Peasant revolts in medieval europe were very often religious, even apocalyptic in nature.

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Is there any evidence in the books (or the show, for that matter) that "The Seven" have any real power? There's plenty of evidence that the "Lord of Light" is real -- we've got Melisandre and her visions, the Shadow Baby, the resurrection stuff, etc. And there's evidence that the "Old Gods" have power (including Bran's visions, the warging stuff, the Children of the Forest, etc.). But I can't remember anything -- in the books or the show -- suggesting that The Seven are real.

When I read the books, I saw the Faith (and the High Sparrow) as crazy zealots. The show portrays the High Sparrow as a true believer who is following the dictates of The Seven (although Cersei's question to him -- "How do the gods communicate with you?" -- is valid). But it's difficult to see any religious group as virtuous if its goal is to destroy, arrest, and punish.

There is no evidence that the Lord of Light or the old Gods are real so much as there is evidence that the magic associated with the religions are real. Just because the magic is there doesn't mean the deity is.

As for magic with the faith... Some people will point to Davos hearing the Mothers voice in Storm of Swords, others (my self included) put that to a very dehydrated man hallucinating.

IMO no the Seven isn't based around any real god or even real magic.

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Jonathan Pryce is great.

But the sparrows are not convincing. They just sort of pop up.

It helps in the books to read through AFFC see the devastation of war and hearing about the sparrows and meeting septons on the road, then see the movement taking shape in ADWD.

Would have been good to mention them a bit last season. Maybe just having more poor people in the background somewhere. Actually they could have been hinting at a looming peasant revolt ever since the riot in KL when Sansa was almost raped.

Actually the sparrows are very realistic. Peasant revolts in medieval europe were very often religious, even apocalyptic in nature.

Strongly agree with the prep work in past seasons would have helped. Something they aren't great at on the show.

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Pryce is great, though I'm worried we're going to see a reveal where he's shown to be bat shit crazy later on, but so far, he's an excellent low key guy who sees the world in black and white, no exceptions.



The portrayal of the Sparrows is totally over the top, with the face branding, and the crazy eyed violence as well as them appearing now to control KL.



And yes, this aspect was very poorly set up by the show.


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I agree not showing their grassroots growth in the Riverlands is a mistake, but we've already seen a similar theme with the Brotherhood of Banners turning to the Lord of Light, so maybe the writers thought it would be redundant to show it again. As for the homosexuality angel, well that's already been established re Loras, so saves some time rather than Cersei trying to find if Queen Margeary is unfaithful. And it makes sense to compare them to the ISS. When reading the books I got a definite Taliban vibe, in that the Sparrows are a fundamentalist religious organization that grew out of the breakdown of law and order after a devastating civil war.


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It is shown as a contradiction to the Seven Religion undermining the very themes they are based upon.



Instead we have this convulted attempt protraying modern zealotry based upon Fundamentalism, the church is the law, bow before us nations. As we have today the church still dictates our very cultures across the globe in most types of religion. Until we break those roots, civilizations will never find freedom. You are your own god, nobody, needs to tell you that much instituationally. Let them keep their covens privately, if it makes them happy, just don't let me hear about it publicly.



Having the Braavosi worshipping one of the Seven the Stranger death. Shown when keeping and preparing their dead in certain rituals through their faith based upon the Stranger, they call him the one true god.



Yet in Westeros the Father is claiming all the souls of the dead because he has judged them prior. They must righteously go to heaven flying in the sky into the Fathers arms. So that must mean the Stranger is now hell.



Meanwhile sevens judges, have somehow absolved homosexuality via Olyvar, but have condemned Loras


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