Faith of the Seven political activity facts and theories thread (drafts dump; new p1 tbd)

[SaffronLady]

4 hours ago, John Doe said:

High Septon gets violently deposed in what basically amounts to a coup.

You mean which instance exactly? The bread riots before the Battle of Blackwater Bay?

4 hours ago, John Doe said:

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 cannot formulate a theory on which every thing is GRRM's sleight of hand and all elements are moving parts. Since he has not revealed the misdirection, if there exist such a misdirection, then I could only base my theory on the Fot7 having existed for the general margin of time GRRM has given, in the given form.

4 hours ago, John Doe said:

it's probably an offshoot of the Church of Starry Wisdom

The Church of Starry Wisdom probably has influenced the Fot7 in some way, though I won't say it is an outright offshoot.

4 hours ago, John Doe said:

As such I'm also not sure if the faith is connected to Ice Magic

The origin myth of the Faith connecting them to 13th LCNW is a far cry from whether they are still connected to the Ice faction's major players (Others etc.) in 300 AC.

4 hours ago, John Doe said:

It's probably not a coincidence that they are close to the Citadel, which seems to be opposed to magic as well.

Physically close institutions tend to build up some sort of connections, and both the Citadel and the Starry Sept sit in Oldtown. With one being the former heart of state religion of the continental empire and the other its main source of men of the pen, possibilities are raised.

4 hours ago, John Doe said:

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.

If the 13th LCNW was a Stark, he supports my classification by virtue of making the campaign to take him down a house-cleaning operation. If my theory is correct, the Faith in Andalos naturally stands in opposition to the Starks.

The situation is quite different in 300 AC, which is why I still haven't updated anything.

4 hours ago, John Doe said:

Hugor of the Hill seems to be connected to an Azor Ahai figure

Yes, but we have no mention of Nissa Nissa's eyes, or do we have new supplementary material now? Based on wife eye color description, Hugor is more closely connected to 13th LCNW than (directly to) Azor Ahai.

5 hours ago, John Doe said:

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. 

Thank you for reminding of how much the theorized connection rests on the Fot7's origin myth.

5 hours ago, Gilbert Green said:

I'm not sure what this is about.

Then just leave it at "I have been exceedingly polite". If you don't know about that particular debacle, then you haven't had your sanity frayed for 11 pages straight, and I consider that good.

[Gilbert Green]

11 hours ago, SaffronLady said:

Then just leave it at "I have been exceedingly polite". If you don't know about that particular debacle, then you haven't had your sanity frayed for 11 pages straight, and I consider that good.

The only thing I ever wanted to talk about was the books.

[SaffronLady]

20 minutes ago, Gilbert Green said:

The only thing I ever wanted to talk about was the books.

Which just so happen to contain 2 separate instances of a king marrying a blue-eyed maiden myth.

[SaffronLady]

Fot7 Interim Era Theories - The Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men

This is less theories and more me trying to makes sense of how the Faith does not make sense and attempting to make sense out of no sense. Warning: Wall of Text

Unless Westeros actually is just the size of Ireland, the Faith is spread out across impossibly huge distances to form a coherent organization. Even (if we use South America as a standard for Westeros' size) on a smaller scale, real-life churches have spread out and then split up, and on a greater scale ... well, Islam as practiced by the Berbers is quite different in terms of ritual and custom when compared to Islam practiced by Malaysians. I only have first-hand experience with the latter though, feel free to correct me regarding the Berber aspect.

Yet some fucking how, the Faith ... is still coherent enough to connect almost all of Westeros south of the Neck, and probably beyond that (post-exile Manderlys). I guess having Harun al-Rashid's pigeon mail as a permanent institution is an advantage great enough to get over petty issues such as geographical distances and mountains. 

Let me put why the Fot7 is strangely coherent this way:

• Ravens are the maesters' thing, right? And the maesters are based in Oldtown, right? On the western side of the continent, with limited and possibly no prior contact with Andalos, right (unlike Aegon)? So how did the Fot7 even remain a singular structure when the Andals began a full frontal assault along the eastern seaboard of the continent? They should have lost contact with each other for years, even decades, diverging into different beliefs already.
• When House Hightower embraced the Faith and the Starry Sept in Oldtown became the center of the Fot7, some sort of conflict should have risen with the Gardeners, either claiming some spiritual and ritual precedence over the Reach by virtue of earlier conversion (cf. Kings of Galicia used this argument against the Kings of the Franks); a struggle of precedence between the Starry Sept and the Sept of Highgarden (cf. Alexandria-Constantinople conflict, Rome-Constantinople conflict); or just a Kaiser-und-Papst situation. In canon material, we see none of these, nor any combination of these, the Gardener kings just ... rolled over and let their vassals fuck them. Not a wonder the Hightowers became "overmighty" bannermen for House Tyrell, they were already powerful enough against the Gardeners, after all.
• And come to think of it, why on earth is the Faith's HQ in Oldtown, one of the furthest possible locations from Andalos in Westeros, instead of the Vale, which is closest? If you insist on a city, Gulltown is in the Vale, in Andal-occupied sections of the Vale to be precise. Perfectly available for all intents and purposes.
• We barely hear of regional primates acting. I mean, there is probably a mention or two here and there - I think there was a mention of the septon of King's Landing aggressively wanting the position of High Septon at some point - but it's so toned down. We don't see the regional septons attending, sending delegates to, receiving orders from or interact with the Most Devout. They don't sponsor poor but bright minds to attend the Citadel, they don't protest tyrannical tax raises by the king or regional lords, they are just wedding dressing - they aren't even funeral dressing, since that is the province of the Silent Sisters. The story could work still perfectly if all scenes requiring the presence of septons (excluding the High Septon, since he usually exists to be killed or die conveniently) are replaced by a crystal cut to reflect rainbow light effects. The followers of the old gods say their vows before trees, the followers of the new before pretty rocks.
• Who form the Most Devout anyway? The Most Hightower-spittle licking pretty rocks?
• The entire hierarchy of the Fot7 is missing, despite we all knowing it is organized, knowing it has members on the ground and down to earth, knowing the top hierarch has powers of some sort. But the entire top-bottom chain is missing. I don't think this is because GRRM is intentionally stopping people from writing fanfics about rising to High Septon from the lowest echelons of the Faith, though. He dislikes fanfics in general.
• Yet despite the Faith being organized in an unclear way, exerting power to enforce a fairly uniform set of morals across its entire zone of control, which include shunning and condemning bastards and adultery, Dorne merrily ignores these tenets, and even have semi-public paramours. If this was an Orphans-only trait, it is good worldbuilding, but I really need help on how it meshes with the next point, since this attitude has somehow spread to ALL OF DORNE.
• Despite the Faith's lax(er) control over Dorne, as demonstrated by the above point, apparently this weak moral control over Dorne has not weakened their political ... representation (?) of Dorne, since they could crown Aegon the Conqueror as King of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men. Aegon lacked the military success to make good his claim, but the point is the Fot7 could give it, while its organization stretches across both the realm of the Iron Throne and Dorne during their two hundred years of war, while not being able to enforce its own moral judgements upon the Dornish. Thinking about how exactly the Faith and House Martell interacted is giving me a headache. The Martells don't banish the Faith, they don't force the septons of Dorne to "break communion" (whatever the Fot7 equivalent is) with Oldtown, they don't get the septons of Dorne to declare "the party of Oldtown" "traitors to the community" and call upon Dornish for "holy struggle", they just ... coexist. With a religion. Whose headquarters. Sits within and is controlled by. A hostile power. The height of medieval political folly.
• Couldn't the Faith just try to proselytize the North? Why is it not working? If they could turn caricature vikings into semi-civilized folks who pay the Seven lip service, why were there no converted Kings of Winter?

[Gilbert Green]

On 11/29/2023 at 9:59 AM, SaffronLady said:

Which just so happen to contain 2 separate instances of a king marrying a blue-eyed maiden myth.

Okay.  It's a reasonable justification for a brainstorming thread.  But it is also a bit tenuous to me.  Blue eyes are somewhat remarkable but not that much so.  Lots of people have blue eyes.  And the vast majority of kings have brides.

There's also Val, blue-eyed bride of King-Beyond-The-Wall Mance.  Not a myth nor necessarily a maiden when she married Mance, but then again, the corpse queen is never said to have been a maiden either, IIRC.

People made other/ice-wight theories about Val too IIRC, mainly because her eyes first appeared grey  when we first met her (in dim light).  I think that's just another  clue that apparent eye color can change depending on lighting conditions, pupil dilation, and emotions (for another example, when Euron gets angry his eye seems more black than blue).GRRM may use this to trick us about characters whose eye color they think they know.  When we next see Sandor, his eyes may appear blue.  The only time we ever saw Sandor's eyes as grey, he was drunk and enraged and in dim light.

And now Sandor has joined the Faith; if you think something can be made of that. 

The Corpse Queen story and the Hugor story seem separate to me.  One takes place in the Hills of Andalos; the other takes place at the Wall.   The timing could match (but who knows).  The Night's King story is roughly 7800 years ago (but who knows), and the Hugor story takes place some unknown time before the Andal invasion of Westeros, which maybe occurred 4000 years ago (but who knows).

The brides also seem more opposite than similar - one an embodiment of death, the other an embodiment of abundant life.  Hugor's bride has many children (a ridiculous number, but it is a myth).  The Corpse Queen is a corpse, and is never said to have borne children, presumably because she cannot, being dead and all.  Instead of granting life, she takes it away and maybe feeds on it, as under her influence the Night's King practices human sacrifice.

The blue eyes of Hugor's bride are compared to deep pools.  Which implies they reflect light, as deep pools tend to do (shallow pools not so much).  And which, however poetic, is fairly normal for living eyes.  The Corpse Queen's eyes are compared to blue stars.  Which imply they glow with their own light.  Which is eerie and weird.  And fits what we already know about ice wights.

 

 

 

[kissdbyfire]

Val wasn’t “Mance’s bride”, her sister Dalla was Mance’s partner.

[Gilbert Green]

20 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

Val wasn’t “Mance’s bride”, her sister Dalla was Mance’s partner.

You are correct.  Thanks.

[SaffronLady]

16 hours ago, Gilbert Green said:

But it is also a bit tenuous to me.  Blue eyes are somewhat remarkable but not that much so.  Lots of people have blue eyes.  And the vast majority of kings have brides.

I haven't done this particular exercise before, but if you have, do you know how many mythological kings in ASOIAF have their wives' eye color specifically mentioned?

16 hours ago, Gilbert Green said:

I think that's just another clue that apparent eye color can change depending on lighting conditions, pupil dilation, and emotions

Indeed. @Nadden has extended this to cover the point that what you see in general depends on the same factors. I don't accept his final conclusion that the Others don't exist, though.

16 hours ago, Gilbert Green said:

The Corpse Queen story and the Hugor story seem separate to me.  One takes place in the Hills of Andalos; the other takes place at the Wall.   The timing could match (but who knows).  The Night's King story is roughly 7800 years ago (but who knows), and the Hugor story takes place some unknown time before the Andal invasion of Westeros, which maybe occurred 4000 years ago (but who knows).

This actually counts as a support for my theory, given the relative time of events fit the framework I propose. If the estimated timings fell within the same century, it would in fact take the entire theory down.

Geographical distance instead of setting those stories firmly apart, counts as a very good explanation for the margin of time in between.

16 hours ago, Gilbert Green said:

The brides also seem more opposite than similar - one an embodiment of death, the other an embodiment of abundant life.

The Night's King was already commander of his army of brothers, while I propse his surviving followers were proselytizing. You can't exactly convert entire ethnics to your faith if you reveal you are a death cult from the get-go. At least, I don't think any death cult has manage to grasp an entire people, but it may just be my knowledge of world history being lacking in the death cult department.

[Gilbert Green]

11 hours ago, SaffronLady said:

I haven't done this particular exercise before, but if you have, do you know how many mythological kings in ASOIAF have their wives' eye color specifically mentioned?

No, I don't.   So this is a reasonable excuse for a brainstorming session.  But then again, this is GRRM, and he does like to talk about eye color.  Maybe his only point is that, in his world, blue eyes originated in the Axe and moved south with the Andals, and the recessive trait spread widely because kings liked to marry blue-eyed brides which they thought a sign of divine blessing.

11 hours ago, SaffronLady said:

Indeed. @Nadden has extended this to cover the point that what you see in general depends on the same factors. I don't accept his final conclusion that the Others don't exist, though.

.I have not read Nadden.  I assume the Others, and their Ice Wights, as well as natural normal blue eyed people, exist.

11 hours ago, SaffronLady said:

This actually counts as a support for my theory, given the relative time of events fit the framework I propose. If the estimated timings fell within the same century, it would in fact take the entire theory down.

Geographical distance instead of setting those stories firmly apart, counts as a very good explanation for the margin of time in between.

Timing is vague and flexible enough that it neither disproves your theory, nor provides much support for it, IMHO.

I am also unclear on the details of your theory, which may be my fault for not paying enough attention.  Is one idea that maybe the Night's King founded the Fot7, which then migrated to Andalos, and then migrated back to Westeros (transformed?  Intact?) with the Andal invasion?  Is Hugor's bride another corpse queen?  Or does Hugor merely choose a blue eyed bride because of some ancestral memory of a particular reverence for corpse queens?

It could simply be that GRRM, though he has broadly based the Fot7 on the medieval Catholic Church, has also tweaked it considerably, and that one of those tweaks is that its distant origins lie not among Semitic tribes of the Middle East (or analogous Essosi groups), but among a people more analogous to the Scandinavians.

11 hours ago, SaffronLady said:

The Night's King was already commander of his army of brothers, while I propose his surviving followers were proselytizing. You can't exactly convert entire ethnics to your faith if you reveal you are a death cult from the get-go. At least, I don't think any death cult has manage to grasp an entire people, but it may just be my knowledge of world history being lacking in the death cult department.

If a death-cult pretends not to be a death-cult in order to win converts, then at what point to does it cease to be a death cult?  The converts will tend to take over the religion with passage of generations.

Secret cultists can always use another religion as a cover for their occult activities.  That is perfectly plausible.

[Alester Florent]

On 12/2/2023 at 3:20 PM, Gilbert Green said:

Okay.  It's a reasonable justification for a brainstorming thread.  But it is also a bit tenuous to me.  Blue eyes are somewhat remarkable but not that much so.  Lots of people have blue eyes.  And the vast majority of kings have brides.

Gilbert accusing a theory of being tenuous? Now I've really seen it all...

[Gilbert Green]

7 minutes ago, Alester Florent said:

Gilbert accusing a theory of being tenuous? Now I've really seen it all...

I'm not opposed to tenuous theories.  But surely if a theory is tenuous, it is tenuous no matter who says so. 

Are you trying to change the topic of the thread?

 

[Evolett]

There’s plenty to unpack here, interesting ideas, some of which resonate with me and others which I have a different opinion on.

The Faith’s present level of organization is what we might expect for the period the story is set in. Though I don’t recall any info on how holy men and women are ordained, there’s a hierarchy ranging from the High Septon to begging brothers, each fulfilling a distinct role. GRRM has not divulged much on the Most Devout but since they are responsible for electing the High Septon, we can assume they correspond to cardinals of the Catholic Church. As such, besides electing, their duties probably include counseling the High Septon, playing a part in governance of the church and perhaps acting as envoys when necessary.

I could not find a mention of the Faith funding the building of septs throughout the realm. Affluent lords erect septs on their lands and premises and employ septons, while poorer communities make do with simple structures and have their religious needs catered to by wandering septons such as Meribald. In fact, this appears to have been the case from the very beginning and hints at a lack of stringent organisation at the time. 

 

On 11/30/2023 at 3:20 PM, SaffronLady said:

When House Hightower embraced the Faith and the Starry Sept in Oldtown became the center of the Fot7, some sort of conflict should have risen with the Gardeners, either claiming some spiritual and ritual precedence over the Reach by virtue of earlier conversion (cf. Kings of Galicia used this argument against the Kings of the Franks); a struggle of precedence between the Starry Sept and the Sept of Highgarden (cf. Alexandria-Constantinople conflict, Rome-Constantinople conflict); or just a Kaiser-und-Papst situation. In canon material, we see none of these, nor any combination of these, the Gardener kings just ... rolled over and let their vassals fuck them.

The World Book makes mention of the “Three Sage Kings” of Highgarden in particular. They followed a policy of assimilation rather than resistance, building septs, funding the construction of motherhouses and septries all over the Reach as well as inviting Andal craftsmen to teach the art of blacksmithing. With their maxim of “war is bad for trade,” the Hightowers / Oldtown followed a similar strategy right up to the building of the Starry Sept so the Gardeners and Hightowers appear to have been on the same page in this regard. And importantly, the Hightower's tight relationship with the Faith meant the Gardeners probably just let it be, rather than contend with the Faith Militant as well. 

 

On 11/30/2023 at 3:20 PM, SaffronLady said:

And come to think of it, why on earth is the Faith's HQ in Oldtown, one of the furthest possible locations from Andalos in Westeros, instead of the Vale, which is closest? If you insist on a city, Gulltown is in the Vale, in Andal-occupied sections of the Vale to be precise. Perfectly available for all intents and purposes

It's not so odd that the Andals took so long to reach Oldtown, or that the Starry Sept was built there, imo. Regarding the former, they spent centuries battling the first men, fighting for dominance over the FM and each other, acquiring lands etc. The sea-route to the west was originally blocked to them by the fleets of Oldtown and the Arbor:

Quote

The Andals came late to the Reach. Crossing the narrow sea in longships, they landed first upon the shores of the Vale, then later all along the eastern coasts. The fleets of Oldtown and the Arbor barred them from the Redwyne Straits and the Sunset Sea. 

tWoIaF

  

With the exception of the Faith Militant, I doubt the Andals were particularly organized at the time of their arrival in Westeros, nor did they have a spiritual leader who would commission and organize the building of a major sept anywhere. It’s evident that the Faith itself evolved further after the arrival of the Andals. While formerly two symbols appear to have been in use, the Seven-Pointed-Star took precedence over the double-bladed axe as the main symbol (in fact, the existence of two different symbols suggests the Andals may have arrived with differing religious beliefs – the schism that was sorted out somewhere along the line, so to speak).

The hierarchy of the clergy was extended with the naming of the first High Septon, possibly also creating the position of Most Devout at the same time:

Quote

When the Andals came, the Hightowers were amongst the first lords of Westeros to welcome them. “Wars are bad for trade,” said Lord Dorian Hightower, when he set aside his wife of twenty years, the mother of his children, to take an Andal princess as his bride. His grandson Lord Damon (the Devout) was the first to accept the Faith. To honor the new gods, he built the first sept in Oldtown and six more elsewhere in his realm. When he died prematurely of a bad belly, Septon Robeson became regent for his newborn son, ruling Oldtown in all but name for the next twenty years and ultimately becoming the first High Septon. The boy he raised and trained, Lord Triston Hightower, raised the Starry Sept in his honor after his passing.

 

So Septon Robeson was probably the first official leader of the Faith in Westeros invested with all the relevant power and duties (including enhancing the organization of religion). Perhaps the title of Most Devout was originally bestowed upon particularly fervent, important, or useful FM-converts to the Faith who with time then also acted as counselors and electors.

We see converted FM-lords prioritizing the building of septs, not so the Andals themselves. Oldtown was already a large port city at the time, larger and more important than Gulltown, prospering on trade, with the Hightowers profiting from local and overseas commerce. And once converted, they proved their faith, building first a number of smaller septs and then the Starry Sept. I think the point is the Hightowers simply had the financial means to do this, recognized the advantages of being closely affiliated with Faith and consolidating their relationship with a clearly more powerful adversary.

A thriving port city such as Oldtown would also have been the perfect location for a major sept and of course we can speculate on the parallel between the Starry Sept and branches of the Church of Starry Wisdom which are also located at port cities around the world.

 

On 11/30/2023 at 3:20 PM, SaffronLady said:

We barely hear of regional primates acting. I mean, there is probably a mention or two here and there - I think there was a mention of the septon of King's Landing aggressively wanting the position of High Septon at some point - but it's so toned down. We don't see the regional septons attending, sending delegates to, receiving orders from or interact with the Most Devout.

I agree. These aspects aren't well fleshed out.

 

 

The purpose of the Faith?

From what we can gather from his short bio, Hugor of the Hill was probably a religious leader as well as King of the Andals, but this circumstance does not seem to have been repeated during their history. Qarlon the Great’s ambition was to conquer and crown himself “King of the Andals,” but his endeavor was crushed by Valyria. Their arrival in Westeros did not lead to a unification of the continent under one ruler either, instead, the overlords carved out kingdoms for themselves. It took Aegon the Conqueror to unify the continent more or less into one nation or political unit. However, I think the Faith as a unifying religious principle is very important to the fight against the “big bad,” be that Euron, the Others or both. This is where my view differs from yours. IMO, the author has highlighted certain important aspects of the relationship between the Targs and the Faith strongly suggestive of forging cooperation between the two sides over the centuries. I think many of the examples you’ve put forward in support of possible heinous motives by a faction of the Faith actually point to the opposite:

-        Aegon I is crowned by and accepts the Faith.

-        Jaehaerys I and Septon Barth forge an unlikely but fruitful partnership and friendship.

-        After the disbanding of the Faith Militant, the Crown promises to defend and protect the Faith.

-        Faith agreed to accept justice from the Iron Throne instead of trying the faithful themselves.

-        The Doctrine of Exceptionalism, approved by the Faith, allows the Targs to continue their magical bloodline, a factor essential to the coming conflict.

-        The High Septon moves to the Great Sept of Balor in King’s Landing, close to the Iron Throne, the Targs, the seat of power.

-        The Faith turning a blind eye to the practices in Dorne is important to retaining Dorne within the alliance – remember “unbowed, unbent, unbroken ”  - the Dornish would never give up their special traditions. Better to ignore the circumstances and keep them in the kingdom without a fight.

-        My guess is the North must be mainly “Faith free” to enable certain magics but even here we have the Manderlys representing the Faith and of course Ned built a sept right on the grounds of Winterfell for Catelyn, with a septon on premises as well as Septa Mordane as governess to the children. The children are also brought up in the Faith. Here we have a demonstration of integration.

 

What role exactly the Faith will play is up for speculation. Fact is, the realm Aegon forged has fallen to pieces politically at the worst possible time. The Fot7 is the only overriding unifying principle much of the population can believe in and relate to, something to bind them together and this may even come to include some current non-believers. People will literally need to be “armoured in faith.”

 

There's so much more to comment on. Perhaps I'll find time over the next few days.

[SaffronLady]

On 12/4/2023 at 3:23 AM, Gilbert Green said:

Maybe his only point is that, in his world, blue eyes originated in the Axe and moved south with the Andals, and the recessive trait spread widely because kings liked to marry blue-eyed brides which they thought a sign of divine blessing.

Well, I cannot deny mayhaps that is the only purpose of that mention. Myths in the world of Ice and Fire aren't real-world myths, after all.

On 12/4/2023 at 3:23 AM, Gilbert Green said:

Timing is vague and flexible enough that it neither disproves your theory, nor provides much support for it, IMHO.

Why thank you. That is all I intend it to be, though I tend to exaggerate. I should have said it leaves the possibility my theory is correct open.

On 12/4/2023 at 3:23 AM, Gilbert Green said:

Is one idea that maybe the Night's King founded the Fot7, which then migrated to Andalos

No, my theory is he died (well, as dead as undead could be), and his surviving followers went to win the Andals over.

On 12/4/2023 at 3:23 AM, Gilbert Green said:

Is Hugor's bride another corpse queen?

And my theory for this is Hugor and his bride is a garbled memory of Night's King and his corpse bride among the Andals.

On 12/4/2023 at 3:23 AM, Gilbert Green said:

The converts will tend to take over the religion with passage of generations.

IIRC many religions practice a division of inner circles and outer circles, so that provides a way for the core tenets to survive.

7 hours ago, Evolett said:

There’s plenty to unpack here, interesting ideas, some of which resonate with me and others which I have a different opinion on.

I hope to hear from you again soon. Some of your ideas inspired me to start this thread, though by this point I can't recall what exactly.

7 hours ago, Evolett said:

The Faith’s present level of organization is what we might expect for the period the story is set in.

I think I specified what I thought abnormal, though.

Quote

it has no schisms, no heresies

Something the Catholic Church and Christianity in general was quite famous for.

7 hours ago, Evolett said:

And importantly, the Hightower's tight relationship with the Faith meant the Gardeners probably just let it be, rather than contend with the Faith Militant as well. 

I doubt how useful the Faith Militant under the control of the "Kingdom of Oldtown" would be against the Gardeners.

But I digress. That particular quoted section is me ranting about why the center of the Faith is in Oldtown, when the Kings of the Reach sat in Highgarden, and on top of that no mention of establishing the supremacy of Highgarden exists.

I know this isn't quite significant to the casual history hobbyist, but look at the stunt the primate of Rome pulled when Lombards overwhelmed the East Romans. The entire term "Byzantine Empire" was an extension of the stunt. Stuff like this is actually quite important for the time period in question. And to a lesser degree, the Kaisers of Germany and their conflict with the later primates of Rome.

That is what I think was missing in the Highgarden-Oldtown relationship.

7 hours ago, Evolett said:

It's not so odd that the Andals took so long to reach Oldtown, or that the Starry Sept was built there, imo.

I think you misundestand my question. I agree with you, the Andals taking a couple millennia to reach Oldtown is well within the margin of possibility. Which is why the center of their Faith not being closer to home but at Oldtown all the more odd.

7 hours ago, Evolett said:

Oldtown was already a large port city at the time, larger and more important than Gulltown

Well, fair point. The Church of the Roman Empire moving its HQ from Old Rome to New Rome happened for many reasons, and you just mentioned one of them. Constantinople was already a larger and more important city than Rome by the late 5th century.

7 hours ago, Evolett said:

I think many of the examples you’ve put forward in support of possible heinous motives by a faction of the Faith actually point to the opposite

To clarify, I did not list those actions as a "crime exhibit". I was merely chucking every instance of political action by the Faith I knew into the opening post.

7 hours ago, Evolett said:

The High Septon moves to the Great Sept of Balor in King’s Landing, close to the Iron Throne, the Targs, the seat of power.

I do think the Targs put significant political pressure behind their move, though.

[Craving Peaches]

I like the work that went into this, but I don't think the Faith is supposed to be evil. I think having the Faith be on the side of the Others is not the sort of twist that would happen in the story because it would undercut the nuanced morality of religion in the series. Also, there are multiple religions that practice human sacrifice, which are worse than the Faith.

But also it conflicts with the Seven are Aliens theory.

[SaffronLady]

10 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

I don't think the Faith is supposed to be evil

Personally, I don't think so either. They are just human. The Catholic Church as the example, we have the very respectable and knowledgable Thomas Aquinas, and we have bishops that rape little choir boys.

11 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

I think having the Faith be on the side of the Others

Ok, let me be a little direct here:

I do not think the Others are evil.

[Gilbert Green]

On 11/30/2023 at 9:20 AM, SaffronLady said:

And come to think of it, why on earth is the Faith's HQ in Oldtown, one of the furthest possible locations from Andalos in Westeros, instead of the Vale, which is closest? If you insist on a city, Gulltown is in the Vale, in Andal-occupied sections of the Vale to be precise. Perfectly available for all intents and purposes

It has been observed that Westeros is a mirror-reversed, enlarged England.  And, once you make those allowances, Oldtown is more-or-less where you would find Canterbury, which is and has been the HQ of the Archbishop of Canterbury since the 6th or 7th Century.

If you want an in-universe explanation for why the Faith's main HQ is so far from the continent (which could be a consequence of the morror-reversal), I suppose GRRM could think up all kinds of explanations.

For instance, the seas bordering the Stormlands are wracked by storms.  The route along the south coast may be safer (and with the right winds in the right seasons) faster.  It is an age which does not generally favor sailing out of sight of land, making the Stepstones the most logical place for most ships to cross.

[Gilbert Green]

10 hours ago, Craving Peaches said:

I like the work that went into this, but I don't think the Faith is supposed to be evil. I think having the Faith be on the side of the Others is not the sort of twist that would happen in the story because it would undercut the nuanced morality of religion in the series. Also, there are multiple religions that practice human sacrifice, which are worse than the Faith.

The Faith actually seems to oppose human sacrifice, from the little evidence we have.  Davos, as agent of the Mother, tries to protect Edric Storm from Melisandre.  The septons on the Three Sister stood between the dwarfs who would have been thrown to a watery god.  The proper role of the True Knight of Westeros, in story and in legend, is to stand between the maiden and the monster, mirroring the English legend of St. George and the Dragon, which was basically the tale of a wandering Christian warrior objecting to a woman being offered as sacrifice to a local god.

The Others or The Great Other seem to be associated with human sacrifice, when we hear of humans associating with then at all.  Craster offers his sons to them.  The Night's King and his Corpse Queen offered human sacrifice to them.  Certain wildings offer human sacrifice to them, or so we hear.  And their practice toward those who do not pay this kind of tribute seems to be simply to kill them and turn them into ice zombies.

9 hours ago, SaffronLady said:

Ok, let me be a little direct here:

I do not think the Others are evil.

Okay.  But I don't think you can stop other people from calling them evil.

[SaffronLady]

2 hours ago, Gilbert Green said:

For instance, the seas bordering the Stormlands are wracked by storms.

But the Vale

1. is closer to Andalos
2. has fairly calm waters
3. has a big city

when compared to the stormlands. And when compared to the Reach, it still has a big city, just not as big as Oldtown.

36 minutes ago, Gilbert Green said:

Okay.  But I don't think you can stop other people from calling them evil.

I thought Peaches meant I was grouping the "evil guys" together. Which is why I specified this was not the reason.

When ancient cultures share a myth element - a "mytheme", if you will - this is usually a sign of a shared factor in their collective memories. The most famous example would be, of course, flood myth studies and the global flood theory. Besides Noah, we have other myths in the region (Gilgamesh, Atrahasis) and far beyond (Yu) that also speak of a flood.

My reasons for grouping the Fot7 with the Others follows the same train of thought: the stories associated with them share mythemes. A specific set of mythemes - the king and a queen with blue eyes, quite similar to the Fertile Cresent flood myths sharing the flood and the life-saving ship. 

I remember you taking apart the combination, but I do want to say, in response, that shared mytheme combinations are even rarer than shared mythemes. Dissection into individual mythemes does not weaken the correlation of the combination.

[Gilbert Green]

2 hours ago, SaffronLady said:

But the Vale

1. is closer to Andalos
2. has fairly calm waters
3. has a big city

when compared to the stormlands. And when compared to the Reach, it still has a big city, just not as big as Oldtown.

Proximity to Andalos scarcely matters at this stage, since Andalos has long since ceased to be a Fot7 center.  Perhaps the Archbishop of Canterbury benefited slightly from being closer to France or even to Rome, but I doubt he ever benefited much from being closer to Egypt and Palestine.

Anyway, the Vale is NOT closer to Andalos from the perspective of one who does not try to sail far from land, as tended to be the practice for most ancient ships.

The Vale does not as far as I know have "fairly calm waters", unless you are referring to its adjoining bays such as the Bay of Crabs, the Bite, and other inlets, which are presumably somewhat sheltered.

Oldtown is not only bigger.  It is also, as its name implies, very old.  Which means it was more likely to have been in existence thousands of years ago when the Faith first chose it as a HQ in Westeros.

[SaffronLady]

15 minutes ago, Gilbert Green said:

The Vale does not as far as I know have "fairly calm waters"

The standard measured against was Shipbreaker Bay.