An evil girl's dark heart

[AlaskanSandman]

Sorry, soooo many great responses to go through and respond to. Still processing everything and also going a lil bonkers going over the new snippet from Blood and Fire that dropped hahah works got me a lil busy but will definitely get back to every one  

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

On 9/29/2018 at 9:22 AM, Rufus Snow said:

If you really want to probe this idea, just sit down with a good conspiracy theorist, a bottle of your favourite beverage and whisper 'Freemasons' in their ear

I think the Faceless Men are modeled on Freemasonry.  Look at this image of the Freemason Royal Arch.  It has  black and white columns (if it is the same black and white columns from Tarot, then the white column is named Jachin), black and white checkerboard.  The masonic symbol of the compass and square is the sigil of the Iron Bank of Braavos.

"Monotheism is the sole dogma of Freemasonry. Belief in one God is required of every initiate, but his conception of the Supreme Being is left to his own interpretation. Freemasonry is not concerned with theological distinctions."  The HoBW has many altars to various gods, but it is understood that they are all really worshiping the Many-faced god. 

On 9/29/2018 at 6:40 PM, kissdbyfire said:

But there are two things that places them firmly on  the "good guys" camp for me. One, their firm anti slavery stand. Two, Valar Morghulis. The former naturally allies them w/ Dany, despite her heritage. I do think they will be smart enough to realise she is nothing like her Valyrian forebears. And the latter puts them in the same camp w/ the OG. 

Slavery has merely taken a different form in Braavos: debt-slavery. 

"The Iron Bank will have its due, it is said. Those who borrow from the Braavosi and fail to repay their debts oft have cause to rue such folly, for the Bank has been known to topple lords and princes and has also been rumored to send assassins against those it cannot remove (though this has never been conclusively proved)."

That sounds like the Rothschild's maxim "Let us control the money of a nation, and we care not who makes its laws."

Also, the HoBW is clearly a death cult, and are training Arya as a child soldier/assassin.  "All men must die" does not mean "we are all mortal" it means "our mission is to kill all men."  They have a basement full of human faces that they have peeled off of people!  They are not the good guys. 

 

 

[elipride]

15 hours ago, hiemal said:

I, personally, believe that the Seven are distortions of pre-history, misremembered legends of the Great Empire of the Dawn and that the cycle of prophecy is rolling around once again to a chance for fulfillment (the original Stranger being an amalgam of the Amethyst Empress and the Bloodstone Emperor).  So technically, I suppose, she would be a Stranger-Hades/Persephone analog rather than the Stranger itsownself. I don't see her as being more than sentimentally attached to the Old Gods- her relationship with skinchanging is presented differently enough from both Bran and Jon in a way that makes it seem less central to her story arc even when she makes use of those abilities. Her wolf dreams are presented simply as dreams and she glosses over using cat's eyes to see while blind.

 I also don't think that Arya wants to BE a boy, just that she will become one for some particular task. The transformative power of the masks is never really mapped out, but I wonder to what extant they alter things beyond the face? The Kindly Man at one point wears a death's head mask which begs the question of how you make a Faceless Man face that has no Face so I'm optimistic about this one. Beyond the Moonsinger/Braavos stuff mentioned in my 1st post I think it's mostly just hunches and spitballs about what I think the narrative structure is building to and how it relates to the history and myth and GRRM's habits of interweaving both to form something newish.

The gender-swapping was kind of a spur-of-the-moment spitball building on other ideas, in other words. In retrospect it was probably too fresh to post without my usual "spitball" caveat but I do have a reputation for crazy to uphold.

 

What you said about her skinchanging is plain wrong, her wolf dreams are her source of confort, what stops her from truly succeding in the Faceless Men's training, the thing that makes her hold on to her identity, and considering her story so far and the situation she is right now, identity is a huge theme in her arc. I would say that, like Bran, she embraces warging much more than Jon even if she doesn't really understand what's happening. 

I don't know if the Faceless Men can alter more than their face, but so far they've treated Arya only as a girl. Maybe you're right about them and I'm sure that there're a lot of secrets about them that will be revealed, but personally, I don't see why gender swapping would be important in their founding.

And about the gods, she might say she doesn't believe in them from time to time, but Arya definitely shows more attachment to the the Old Gods than any other:

Quote

The old gods of the north must have been guiding her steps.

Quote

In the godswood she found her broomstick sword where she had left it, and carried it to the heart tree. There she knelt. Red leaves rustled. Red eyes peered inside her. The eyes of the gods. "Tell me what to do, you gods," she prayed.

For a long moment there was no sound but the wind and the water and the creak of leaf and limb. And then, far far off, beyond the godswood and the haunted towers and the immense stone walls of Harrenhal, from somewhere out in the world, came the long lonely howl of a wolf. Gooseprickles rose on Arya's skin, and for an instant she felt dizzy. Then, so faintly, it seemed as if she heard her father's voice. "When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives," he said.

"But there is no pack," she whispered to the weirwood. Bran and Rickon were dead, the Lannisters had Sansa, Jon had gone to the Wall. "I'm not even me now, I'm Nan."

"You are Arya of Winterfell, daughter of the north. You told me you could be strong. You have the wolf blood in you."

Quote

Needle was Robb and Bran and Rickon, her mother and her father, even Sansa. Needle was Winterfell's grey walls, and the laughter of its people. Needle was the summer snows, Old Nan's stories, the heart tree with its red leaves and scary face, the warm earthy smell of the glass gardens, the sound of the north wind rattling the shutters of her room. Needle was Jon Snow's smile. He used to mess my hair and call me "little sister," she remembered, and suddenly there were tears in her eyes.

Polliver had stolen the sword from her when the Mountain's men took her captive, but when she and the Hound walked into the inn at the crossroads, there it was. The gods wanted me to have it. Not the Seven, nor Him of Many Faces, but her father's gods, the old gods of the north. The Many-Faced God can have the rest, she thought, but he can't have this.

[Varysblackfyre321]

16 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

They do. But wouldn't the longer term be to ally w/ someone who is very powerful and is against slavery? I mean, the old enmities haven't helped anyone, and haven't achieved fuck all. Perhaps it's time for a new approach. 

Where are their movements to quash slavery? We hear of dragon-riders in Valyria being assasinated but its’ not really claimed this was due out of disgust to the very institution and the people who held it up. Slaves were willing to make the appropriate sacrifices to the many-faced god. Where are you getting the impression the topic of abolishing slavery really holds much import as of now in the order? If it was wouldn’t we hear of how the FM never take a contact from slavery or scurriging slavers in the free-cities at the very least?Their history in regards to slavery doesn’t necessarily make them an ally of whoever may be trying to stop it(as with the case Daenerys one could see her, giving this mission). The iron-bank are largely made up of the descendants of slaves-they still do business with slavers, and they have yet to show any inclination to alighn  with or give any aid Daenerys off the fact she’s try to abolish slavery in slavers’ bay.

[hiemal]

2 hours ago, elipride said:

What you said about her skinchanging is plain wrong, her wolf dreams are her source of confort, what stops her from truly succeding in the Faceless Men's training, the thing that makes her hold on to her identity, and considering her story so far and the situation she is right now, identity is a huge theme in her arc. I would say that, like Bran, she embraces warging much more than Jon even if she doesn't really understand what's happening. 

 

Do you think so? While it is true that she does cycle through a list of names as though she were an evolutionary chart of skinchanging (squab to cat, etc...) I feel that there is a kind of mental divide between her waking and dreaming self that prevents her from truly embracing her connection with the Old Gods. Part of her shifting identity is due to the wolfdreams but she is also reveiving psychic imprints from the Faceless Men faces so I think it is more complicated than that. Doesn't she lament the OGs uselessness on more than one occasion? Her identity is still in flux, and she is of many faces right now so I'm not sure I agree with you here.

2 hours ago, elipride said:

And about the gods, she might say she doesn't believe in them from time to time, but Arya definitely shows more attachment to the the Old Gods than any other:

But is that genuine attachment or clinging sentiment? I suppose the Winds will blow us the answer eventually, but:

Spoiler

I find it interesting that the next step in her evolution is to the much-strained and obviously ironic quality of "Mercy".

 

[Varysblackfyre321]

On 10/1/2018 at 10:19 AM, elipride said:

I think you're underestimating the fact that she has nobody she can rely on and that this is the first place in a long time where she had some sense safety, it's true that she believed the interpretation that made the killing easy for her and that's a very questionable choice, but it also makes sense that she wants to rationalize staying there.

If justice was at forefront on her mind, she would have tried to actually tried to verify her suspicion. It makes sense for her to immediately latch on to the interpertation(with no real question or ponderamce of any other meaning)that makes murderering  the guy a righteous act if she prioritized her own ambitions, comfort and ego; she gets to stay and does not have to feel bad or ask herself how exactly is what she did better than all the killings the hound or Ilyn Payne did for their interests, any pIt is an ultimately a selfish decision

I pity Arya; truly. I do not need to sanitize all of her actions, just because she’s had it rough(to say the very least). 

On 10/1/2018 at 10:19 AM, elipride said:

The things thing they offer her at first is to basically be a courtesan or to be married off to someone, it makes sense that she's put off by it,

Point is she clearly given the impression she has places she could go, alternative if she wanted to. She would rather be apart of a murder cult to which could teach her to kill more efficiently than ask for a pampered life. 

On 10/1/2018 at 10:19 AM, elipride said:

Besides, even if she does want to learn some of the things they teach and she isn't being actually forced, Arya herself thinks that she has nowhere else to go. If learning how to kill is the only thing she cares about, why does she consider asking Dareon to take her away from there?

I did not claim learning to kill was the only thing she cared about. She is given the impression having  other places she could go should she ask, but she chooses to stay at the house of Black and white because it seems the best place to learn to kill

On 10/1/2018 at 10:19 AM, elipride said:

They are supposed to kill their targets without judgement and Arya couldn't go though with it. Why not just kick her out if she can commit to them? Why did he tell her something that he knew would relate to her sense of justice and push her to do it when it went against their ideology?

I earlier lamented I could see no other reason to keep her around than her having to be some paramount to some great prophecy.

On 10/1/2018 at 10:19 AM, elipride said:

When did Arya ever think of herself as a hero? 

She does not literally say “I’m a hero” but she is clearly is trying to frame the murder of the insurance man to be a totally righteous act. She makes him the bad-guy in the situation and herself the good guy-when in actuality neither can be true even if the insurance man is guilty of the crimes Arya wants him to be.

[Nevets]

24 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

If justice was at forefront on her mind, she would have tried to actually tried to verify her suspicion. It makes sense for her to immediately latch on to the interpertation that makes killing the guy a righteous act if she prioritized her own ambitions, comfort and ego. It is an ultimately a selfish decision.

I pity Arya; truly. I do not need to sanitize all of her actions, just because she’s had it rough(to say the very least). 

I think pleasing the FM, or at least staying on their good side, is at the forefront of her mind at that time.  Although she does have enough of a conscience that she doesn't want to kill someone she believes to be an innocent, so she uses the FM's statements about him to rationalize her acts.  It is useful to remember that she is only 11 years old, which likely makes her comparatively easy to manipulate in this fashion.  Certainly easier than an adult would be.

24 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Point is she clearly given the impression she has places she could go, alternative if she wanted to. She would rather be apart of a murder cult to which could teach her to kill more efficiently than ask for a pampered life. 

The choices she was given were ones that clearly did not appeal to her.  I wouldn't be surprised if the FM knew that they wouldn't; giving her options without really giving her options.  I'll bet if they had offered her passage to Eastwatch or even White Harbour, she would have jumped at it.  

24 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

I did not claim learning to kill was the only thing she cared about. She does have other places she could go, but she chooses to stay at the house of Black and white because it seems the best place to learn to kill

Harrenhal and the journey there destroyed her.  For most of that time, she was helpless and afraid for probably the first time in her life.  She felt like a mouse, and is absolutely determined to never feel that way again and to never be at the mercy of others.  I think she feels that learning to kill will accomplish her goal of feeling safe and not helpless.

24 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

I earlier lamented I could see no other reason to keep her around than her having to be some paramount to some great prophecy.

I have long believed that their intention is for her to become an agent for them in Westeros, providing them with intel, shelter, and whatever other assistance might be required.   Her training certainly seems to be aimed in this direction ( investigation and undercover work) than assassinations.  As a scion of a Great House, she would be in an excellent position to do so.  I think they will find an excuse to push her out, but the price for doing so without adverse consequence will be to help them at need.    IN other words, she is more valuable to them as "Arya Stark of Winterfell"than as "no one".

[Varysblackfyre321]

1 hour ago, Nevets said:

I have long believed that their intention is for her to become an agent for them in Westeros, providing them with intel, shelter, and whatever other assistance might be required.  As a scion of a Great House, she would be in an excellent position to do so.  I think they will find an excuse to push her out, but the price for doing so without adverse consequence will be to help them at need.    IN other words, she is more valuable to them as "Arya Stark of Winterfell"than as "no one".

Meh, they can merely kill her and take her face for her repeated infractions if her noble-lineage was the only thing to which was keeping her around. I mean they don’t need her to have Arya Stark. They can have a better Arya Stark-one completely loyal to them and doesn’t have a set of ethics to which won’t make her reluctant to do whatever they want.

1 hour ago, Nevets said:

The choices she was given were ones that clearly did not appeal to her.  I wouldn't be surprised if the FM knew that they wouldn't; giving her options without really giving her options.  I'll bet if they had offered her passage to Eastwatch or even White Harbour, she would have jumped at it.  

The propositions they initially offered her were not perfect; they were there. 

This isn’t a case where she has no option but to stay there; she chose to stay with them and rejected the alternatives. Hell the possibility of even asking/demanding merely to be given over to a noble family without having to be married until/if she wished was an option she never even thinks. 

1 hour ago, Nevets said:

It is useful to remember that she is only 11 years old, which likely makes her comparatively easy to manipulate in this fashion.  Certainly easier than an adult would be.

She’s not an average 12 year-old. Her experiences have made it so that it a necessity that she’d be harder to fool than than a lot of people years beyond her age. If she wasn’t dead set on wanting the insurance sellman to be guilty of something, I think it likely she would have tried to verify her suspicion and/or ask herself why the kindly old man would say such a thing.

[elipride]

15 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Point is she clearly given the impression she has places she could go, alternative if she wanted to. She would rather be apart of a murder cult to which could teach her to kill more efficiently than ask for a pampered life.

I did not claim learning to kill was the only thing she cared about. She is given the impression having  other places she could go should she ask, but she chooses to stay at the house of Black and white because it seems the best place to learn to kill

 

So you say she is with the FM because she truly wants to, but at the same time she laments to herself she has nowhere else to go and wanted to ask a man from the Nightwatch to take her away. Isn't that pretty contradictory? It's true she wants to learn from the FM thinking it might be useful to kill someone if needed or to feel stronger, but I think those situations make it pretty clear that she would jump at the opportunity of going somewhere better if she was given the choice. And the FM are not giving her a choice that appeals to her, and when they do they add the not so subtle implication that she's too weak to stay with them. She seems much more obsessed with proving she's not weak or a victim anymore than she is with revenge to be honest.

You have to look at this from the point of view of the character, you claim she has the option of going somewhere better and you're probably right, but Arya clearly doesn't think the same, and characters make choices based on their perception, not yours.

16 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

If justice was at forefront on her mind, she would have tried to actually tried to verify her suspicion. It makes sense for her to immediately latch on to the interpertation(with no real question or ponderamce of any other meaning)that makes murderering  the guy a righteous act if she prioritized her own ambitions, comfort and ego; she gets to stay and does not have to feel bad or ask herself how exactly is what she did better than all the killings the hound or Ilyn Payne did for their interests, any pIt is an ultimately a selfish decision

I pity Arya; truly. I do not need to sanitize all of her actions, just because she’s had it rough(to say the very least). 

She does not literally say “I’m a hero” but she is clearly is trying to frame the murder of the insurance man to be a totally righteous act. She makes him the bad-guy in the situation and herself the good guy-when in actuality neither can be true even if the insurance man is guilty of the crimes Arya wants him to be.

I am not sanitizing her actions, I acknowledged it was a very questionable choice and that she should have checked for herself, but don't be ridiculous, you can't possibly compare Arya with Ilyn Payne. The point of that moments was to show that she can't kill a person if she feels they don't deserve it, the opposite of what Payne does. Again, look at things from the point of view of the character, she believed the kindly man. Was that not the wisest decision? Was it driven by her selfish desire to stay in the only place that offered her some safety? Probably, but at the end of the day she really belived the insurance guy was a bad person who deserved to die. As hardened and smart as she is, she still 11, these people are taking advantage of the fact that she sees no other options and has a very extreme sense of justice to push her further into a very dangerous path. Arya is definitely pretty messed up and has done really dark things and has her share of the blame for those things, but I find the adults who are trying to manipulate a child to become an assasin much more selfish than her. Whatever their motives are. 

[Rufus Snow]

On 10/1/2018 at 12:46 AM, kissdbyfire said:

AFfC, Arya II

“Some did,” he said. “Revolts were common in the mines, but few accomplished much. The dragonlords of the old Freehold were strong in sorcery, and lesser men defied them at their peril. The first Faceless Man was one who did.”
“Who was he?” Arya blurted, before she stopped to think.
“No one,” he answered. “Some say he was a slave himself. Others insist he was a freeholder’s son, born of noble stock. Some will even tell you he was an overseer who took pity on his charges. The truth is, no one knows.”

And what if the very first FM was not only a freeholder's son, but a Targaryen? Would tie in nicely w/ Dany's storyline. 

 

Hmmm... shiny I hadn't considered that, but put it together with those rumours about FM causing the Doom, and you gotta ask 'Daenys the Dreamer' or 'Daenys the Plotter'?

 

One other question we should ponder when trying to assess what the FM/HoBaW are up to: what happens to all the money?

Think about it - everyone assumes the FM are knocking off big targets left, right and centre, and that these hits are supposedly ruinously expensive, even for states to commission. If all this is true, then by now most of the portable wealth of the known world should have found its way into the HoBaW. The order should be fabulously wealthy, yet there's no real evidence of this. They cannot require huge sums to run things, there's only a handful of priests and acolytes, and when they're out 'in the field' the agents seem to support themselves as part of their cover. So where's all the money?

[Varysblackfyre321]

6 hours ago, elipride said:

you say she is with the FM because she truly wants to, but at the same time she laments to herself she has nowhere else to go and wanted to ask a man from the Nightwatch to take her away. I

I say she chooses to stay there because the house of Black and white because it’s the best place to learn to kill true. I did not say she only cares about killing as you claimed. I never once said she wants to be with the FM forever. 

 

6 hours ago, elipride said:

It's true she wants to learn from the FM thinking it might be useful to kill someone if needed or to feel stronger, but I think those situations make it pretty clear that she would jump at the opportunity of going somewhere better if she was given the choice

It’s pretty clear she has places she is explicitly told she could go and had shown no inclination towards thinking the promises being by the kindly man are false. Her not liking the initial offers don’t mean they aren’t there. This isn’t either stay with the FM or go on the streets and probably die.

6 hours ago, elipride said:

And the FM are not giving her a choice that appeals to her, and when they do they add the not so subtle implication that she's too weak to stay with them.

A choice is being given, her pride doesn’t make it less of one.

6 hours ago, elipride said:

ou have to look at this from the point of view of the character, you claim she has the option of going somewhere better and you're probably right, but Arya clearly doesn't think the same, and characters make choices based on their perception, not yours.

You have to understand just because a character doesn’t like the choices being given doesn’t mean they have no choice. For instance, Daenerys Targaryen chose to try to convince Drogo to bring his Dothraki horde to Westeroes to rape and pillage the land to get her son the IT; it was either that or give up the country her country built; the latter did not appeal to her it was still an option that was open to her.

6 hours ago, elipride said:

I am not sanitizing her actions, I acknowledged it was a very questionable choice and that she should have checked for herself, but don't be ridiculous, you can't possibly compare Arya with Ilyn Payne. The point of that moments was to show that she can't kill a person if she feels they don't deserve it, the opposite of what Payne does.

The point was without the interpretation of the kindly old man’s words, if Arya still chose(to which I neither claim she would or wouldn’t) to murder the insurance it’d hard for her to justify  in wanting to kill Payne or and leaving hound to suffer an agonizing deathfor their killing; hell harder in the case for Payne given he hasn’t actually been shown to committed any real egregious crime; He lifted ICE from Ned when Ned but that’s not nearly as bad as murdering someone at the behest of a literal death cult.

I don’t know if Arya will keep her ethics. The whole affair doesn’t seem to have shaken her resolve to continue in the organization even though, the kindly old man makes very clear the FM kill “innocent and the “guilty” alike. 

Shes was titering on the brink imo. There was a real chance she’d opt to simply fail, and if she is paramount to some great prophecy that could justify the little nudge the kindly old man gives.

 

7 hours ago, elipride said:

Again, look at things from the point of view of the character, she believed the kindly man. Was that not the wisest decision? Was it driven by her selfish desire to stay in the only place that offered her some safety? Probably, but at the end of the day she really belived the insurance guy was a bad person who deserved to di

It was not the only place, and it wasn’t just a desire to stay in a place to offer safety; her choosing to accept the one interpretation reeks of egotism; she does not want to lower herself in her eyes. 

7 hours ago, elipride said:

Arya is definitely pretty messed up and has done really dark things and has her share of the blame for those things, but I find the adults who are trying to manipulate a child to become an assasin much more selfish than her. Whatever their motives are. 

Motives are literally the only real way to determine if an action was selfish or not; if the FM are manipulating Arya for instance because they genuinely they it would save a lot more lives than it’d be quite utilitarian. If not and they’re just doing to get a new lackey, sure quite selfish.

[Nevets]

1 hour ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

I say she chooses to stay there because the house of Black and white because it’s the best place to learn to kill true. I did not say she only cares about killing as you claimed. I never once said she wants to be with the FM forever. 

 

It’s pretty clear she has places she is explicitly told she could go and had shown no inclination towards thinking the promises being by the kindly man are false. Her not liking the initial offers don’t mean they aren’t there. This isn’t either stay with the FM or go on the streets and probably die.

A choice is being given, her pride doesn’t make it less of one.

You have to understand just because a character doesn’t like the choices being given doesn’t mean they have no choice. For instance, Daenerys Targaryen chose to try to convince Drogo to bring his Dothraki horde to Westeroes to rape and pillage the land to get her son the IT; it was either that or give up the country her country built; the latter did not appeal to her it was still an option that was open to her.

The point was without the interpretation of the kindly old man’s words, if Arya still chose(to which I neither claim she would or wouldn’t) to murder the insurance it’d hard for her to justify  in wanting to kill Payne or and leaving hound to suffer an agonizing deathfor their killing; hell harder in the case for Payne given he hasn’t actually been shown to committed any real egregious crime; He lifted ICE from Ned when Ned but that’s not nearly as bad as murdering someone at the behest of a literal death cult.

I don’t know if Arya will keep her ethics. The whole affair doesn’t seem to have shaken her resolve to continue in the organization even though, the kindly old man makes very clear the FM kill “innocent and the “guilty” alike. 

Shes was titering on the brink imo. There was a real chance she’d opt to simply fail, and if she is paramount to some great prophecy that could justify the little nudge the kindly old man gives.

 

It was not the only place, and it wasn’t just a desire to stay in a place to offer safety; her choosing to accept the one interpretation reeks of egotism; she does not want to lower herself in her eyes. 

Motives are literally the only real way to determine if an action was selfish or not; if the FM are manipulating Arya for instance because they genuinely they it would save a lot more lives than it’d be quite utilitarian. If not and they’re just doing to get a new lackey, sure quite selfish.

You are treating Arya as if she is a sensible, clear-thinking, well-balanced adult.  She is none of those things.  She is an insecure, traumatized child desperate for someplace to belong.  Any analysis of her characters and actions that doesn't take this into account is going to be seriously flawed.

That doesn't mean I am not seriously troubled by some of her actions; I am.  Her willingness to kill people that aren't a threat to her is worrisome, and I think that, at this point, the FM are a very bad influence on her.  But I have faith that George won't let her fall off the edge, so to say.  Although she is creeping closer and closer to it.

[kissdbyfire]

6 hours ago, Rufus Snow said:

Hmmm... shiny I hadn't considered that, but put it together with those rumours about FM causing the Doom, and you gotta ask 'Daenys the Dreamer' or 'Daenys the Plotter'?

Yes, been thinking about Daenys as well. Was just too lazy to add it before, and am just too knackered to get into it now. Will come back when I'm not comatose. 

6 hours ago, Rufus Snow said:

One other question we should ponder when trying to assess what the FM/HoBaW are up to: what happens to all the money?

Think about it - everyone assumes the FM are knocking off big targets left, right and centre, and that these hits are supposedly ruinously expensive, even for states to commission. If all this is true, then by now most of the portable wealth of the known world should have found its way into the HoBaW. The order should be fabulously wealthy, yet there's no real evidence of this. They cannot require huge sums to run things, there's only a handful of priests and acolytes, and when they're out 'in the field' the agents seem to support themselves as part of their cover. So where's all the money?

Very interesting points here. Hmmm. 

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

9 hours ago, Rufus Snow said:

So where's all the money?

I kinda assumed the Iron Bank and the Faceless Men were sort of a joint venture, and the money gets handled by the bank and is then used to buy off governments or whatever they are up to.

 

On 10/2/2018 at 4:44 PM, Nevets said:

On 10/2/2018 at 4:20 PM, Varysblackfyre321 said:

I earlier lamented I could see no other reason to keep her around than her having to be some paramount to some great prophecy.

I have long believed that their intention is for her to become an agent for them in Westeros,

I think so too.  But who is the target?  In Egyptian mythology a cat goddess--or Ra in the form of a cat--defeats Apep the Lord of Chaos and darkness, a world encircling serpent, and brings the dawn.  

"Great Other whose name may not be spoken, the Lord of Darkness, the Soul of Ice, the God of Night and Terror"

So Arya will go up against the Great Other.

"The dark recedes again … for a little while. But beyond the Wall, the enemy grows stronger, and should he win the dawn will never come again. She wondered if it had been his face that she had seen, staring out at her from the flames. No. Surely not. His visage would be more frightening than that, cold and black and too terrible for any man to gaze upon and live. The wooden man she had glimpsed, though, and the boy with the wolf's face … they were his servants, surely"

I think Bran is the Great Other, and Arya will attempt to assassinate him.  But in Bran's weirwood montage in ADwD he says "Arya never beat me playing swords" and in ADwD, Theon thinks to himself "The gods could not kill Bran" (suggesting that Bran's fall was an assassination attempt by the Old Gods)

I think that is foreshadowing that she will not succeed.  Bran is a ghost in the weirwood and cannot be killed because it would create a time-travel causality paradox.  Bran, in the future, messes up the timeline, and the story up to this point has been the result of his meddling, so he cannot be killed yet because then he would not be able to set the events in motion, he has literal plot armor.

[Rufus Snow]

6 hours ago, By Odin's Beard said:

I kinda assumed the Iron Bank and the Faceless Men were sort of a joint venture, and the money gets handled by the bank and is then used to buy off governments or whatever they are up to.

Bingo - that's precisely what I was suggesting. I think the FM probably provided the seed capital to get the Bank going, and recycle their 'fees' back that way. I can't help drawing connections between the Bank's vaults being in abandoned mine workings, and all those tunnels under the HoBaW, too.

Just another plank in my notion of the Braavosi state being a tripod in which the three legs are the IB, FM and the Sealord.

It raises the question of whether the religion cloaks the state, or the state cloaks the religion, though.... and by extension whether Arya is being groomed as a vessel of prophecy or a tool of state power.

[elipride]

14 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

I say she chooses to stay there because the house of Black and white because it’s the best place to learn to kill true. I did not say she only cares about killing as you claimed. I never once said she wants to be with the FM forever. 

But you are saying that learning to kill is her main priority and the reason she stays with the FM, I'm saying learning to kill is secondary to having a safe place.

14 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

It’s pretty clear she has places she is explicitly told she could go and had shown no inclination towards thinking the promises being by the kindly man are false. Her not liking the initial offers don’t mean they aren’t there. This isn’t either stay with the FM or go on the streets and probably die.

A choice is being given, her pride doesn’t make it less of one.

You have to understand just because a character doesn’t like the choices being given doesn’t mean they have no choice. For instance, Daenerys Targaryen chose to try to convince Drogo to bring his Dothraki horde to Westeroes to rape and pillage the land to get her son the IT; it was either that or give up the country her country built; the latter did not appeal to her it was still an option that was open to her.

Of course she does have other options but you are not getting the part about looking at things frome the perspective of the characters. If Arya is explicitly thinking she has nowhere else to go, there's no reason to doubt that's what she actually believes.

15 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

The point was without the interpretation of the kindly old man’s words, if Arya still chose(to which I neither claim she would or wouldn’t) to murder the insurance it’d hard for her to justify  in wanting to kill Payne or and leaving hound to suffer an agonizing deathfor their killing; hell harder in the case for Payne given he hasn’t actually been shown to committed any real egregious crime; He lifted ICE from Ned when Ned but that’s not nearly as bad as murdering someone at the behest of a literal death cult.

Without the kindly man's word she wasn't being able to kill the guy, so comparing her with Payne based on the hypothetical situation that she did carry out the murder without question doesn't make any sense. Neither does the example of the hound, she took him out of her list some tie before and he saved her life, leaving him to agonize might've been cruel, but she also had no reason to kill him. Arya didn't kill the insurance guy at the behest of a death cult, otherwise she wouldn't have needed the kindly man's words, she did it at the behest of her moral code, and it's true that there were some really questionable ideas behind that choice, but it is what she's convinced of.

15 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

I don’t know if Arya will keep her ethics. The whole affair doesn’t seem to have shaken her resolve to continue in the organization even though, the kindly old man makes very clear the FM kill “innocent and the “guilty” alike. 

Shes was titering on the brink imo. There was a real chance she’d opt to simply fail, and if she is paramount to some great prophecy that could justify the little nudge the kindly old man gives.

Her TWOW chapter shows that she still doesn't give a damn about the FM ideology. I'm not denying that she's on a really dark path and that she is responsible for her actions, but there're reasons to think that they're manipulating her to stay, and I don't think its fair to put the whole blame on the 11 year old orphaned, traumatized girl with for staying instead of in the adults who are taking advantage of that.  

15 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

It was not the only place, and it wasn’t just a desire to stay in a place to offer safety; her choosing to accept the one interpretation reeks of egotism; she does not want to lower herself in her eyes.

I'm not even denying there was some selfish desire behind her choice but seriously, try to think for a minute from the perspective of a little girl who was hungry, abused, enslaved and lost her home and her whole family. I doubt many people would describe someone who was constantly victimized being desperate to not go back to that as "reeking of egotism".

15 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Motives are literally the only real way to determine if an action was selfish or not; if the FM are manipulating Arya for instance because they genuinely they it would save a lot more lives than it’d be quite utilitarian. If not and they’re just doing to get a new lackey, sure quite selfish.

And again, while not denying her desire to stay safe, Arya's motives, as far as she understands, were to punish a person who did bad things. And I disagree about the FM being justified in ther actions if they have some superior good in mind. I don't know their motives but I have my doubts about the good intentions of people who murder for a living and are willing to use other people as puppets.