Is Syrio dead?

[Reggie]

somehow i don't think he is. i think he may have some connection to the place Arya is being trained and those two may meet again. she may also meet up again with the guy that gave her the coin. i forget his name.

[the innkeeper]

I'm with you on this one - Syrio is Jaqen is "the faceless man with a crow on his shoulder" is the alchemist and is PATE at the citadel(with the real pates key)......I origionally thought he was the mentor at the monastary, but I don't know about that one......

[Dementia]

I think he is dead.

[Errant Bard]

If you want some reference on that discussion:

Syrio==Jaqen

The mysterious Jaqen H'ghar

Jaqen=Syrio

Syrio Forel, the neverdending fight

Syrio Forel (not dead)

Jaqen H'ghar

Is Syrio dead

Syrio Forel =/= Jaqen

Syrio neither dead nor Jaqen

Syrio Forel = Jaqen H'ghar?

Jaqen D'hghar

Syrio Forel = Meryn Trant

Consensus is that Jaqen is everyone, everywhere, and is also a Targaryen. And a warg.

[csharpminor]

What's 'the faceless man with a crow on his shoulder'? I don't remember this.

And that basically saved affc for me. The book was already awesome, but the very last few statements really helped seal the 'oh shit' factor, for me.

[Errant Bard]

It's the man who killed Balon Greyjoy in the ghost of High Hearth dreams. Visibly a faceless man hired by Euron.

"The old gods stir and will not let me sleep," she heard the woman say. "I dreamt I saw a shadow with a burning heart butchering a golden stag, aye.

I dreamt of a man without a face, waiting on a bridge that swayed and swung

. On his shoulder perched a drowned crow with seaweed hanging from his wings. [...]

I doubt it's Jaqen. It makes for a pathetic organisation to only have a single agent for a continent the size of westeros, especially when that agent does not teleport. Plus, it doesn't fit the time contraints well.

[Dragonstar]

Ha! I don't think Syrio is Ja'qen, but I do think he is alive. His last fight was left deliberately ambiguous in the book and in the GoT episode (that particular episode was penned by GRRM himself).

[Zoren]

He either died and his body was amongst those not considered important enough to be beheaded and impaled on the gates of the Red Keep (such as Ned's and the Septa's) or he managed to escape and Ser Meryn Trant was so ashamed that he lied about killing Syrio in order to avoid looking bad (This also explains why there were no further attempts to pursue Syrio).

He *could* have fled to Bravoos and he *could* encounter Arya in future books. But somehow I doubt it. His "death" is as ambiguous as Sandor's. Dead or alive, his role in the story of ASOIAF is done for.

[Dementia]

I think if Syrio was alive he would have found Arya already. I know, I know everyone is looking for her and they can't seem to track her...but I think Syrio would have found her, if might just be wishful thinking. It is also one of the reasons I don't think he is Jaqen...if S=J he wouldn't have left her to fend for herself.

[Todd Sand bastard of AZ]

Syrio survived his fight and began plotting the deaths of Joffrey, Littlefinger and Cersei with his Faceless Men. It's a new scene included in season 2, here's a leaked clip:

[csharpminor]

Rofl. There isn't any reason to think Euron hired specifically Jaqen is there?

And besides that, I just think Syrio is alive because the death wasn't clear cut at all, though the problem for me lies in how he is to return.

Syrio being Jaqen seems super unlikely to me, for reasons discussed in other threads.

And if he just came back somehow, after being gone for 3, possibly and most likely 4 novels...I just would hope that the return would work. Though, I will say there's no reason to think it couldn't work, if anybody could make Syrio's long awaited return fit into the story, it's GRRM. Looking forward to reading the rest of them.

Same hopes with Sandor Clegane's situation also, though he's not been supposedly dead but for one book I guess.

[Swift]

I liked Syrio quite a bit in the first book, but it seemed pretty clear cut to me that he was killed. I don't see how he could have gotten away from Ser Trant. If I remember correctly, Trant was in heavy mail and the tourney sword that Syrio using got destroyed. So Syrio would have been unarmed facing a main in heavy plate armed with steel. I would need a lot of convincing to change my mind on Syrio.

[Todd Sand bastard of AZ]

While I agree that Syrio's survival is unlikely, remember that he didn't become First Sword of Braavos for his sword skills alone. Even if his past is a lie, he is obviously a resourceful, cunning man.

[csharpminor]

While I agree that Syrio's survival is unlikely, remember that he didn't become First Sword of Braavos for his sword skills alone. Even if his past is a lie, he is obviously a resourceful, cunning man.

Ive missed something. His past was a lie? What do you mean by this? I may have missed something in the story.

And also, that thought gets me too. Yeah, he was left against a knight in full armor with the hilt of a wooden sword, but if anybody in the series could beat the odds for that situation, it's probably Syrio.

[The Anti-Targ]

Ha! I don't think Syrio is Ja'qen, but I do think he is alive. His last fight was left deliberately ambiguous in the book and in the GoT episode (that particular episode was penned by GRRM himself).

Trant seems to be none the worse for wear after his encounter with Syrio. So either Syrio yielded and Trant got a sudden case of knight's honour and took him to the dungeons, or Syrio is dead. I suspect Trant wouldn't want to waste any time on Syrio, so if Syrio yielded he woulda just stuck a sword through him and carried on with trying to achieve his actual mission which was to get Arya. Syrio had to delay Trant long enough for Arya to disappear, which means he had to fight for as long as he possibly could.

If anything, Trant being the picture of health in the TV show lends weight to the Syrio is dead conclusion.

[Ivy Snow]

I think Syrio might be Jaquen H'gar... maybe he escaped, and Trant didn't say that to Cersie our of shame. Or he was caught, sent to he dungeons, and changed his appearance there to protect himself as well or play another role. Maybe he took Syrio's identity like how he took Pate's.

[Roi Woodt]

I recently started some rereading of A feast for Crows, and during all discussions I never heard about the thing Arya says when entering the House of Black and White. Surely it is mentioned already somewhere in some thread, nevertheless, the grmmenesque kind of giving hints about something struck me instantly (but, that's probably because I am a believer, I see in the flames what I want to see, I know).

She said somehting along the lines of, I wonder if Syrio also climbed this stairs [if someone could provide her real thoughts, that would be handy for the discussion, I don't have her exact words]. She said it in the context of Syrio also coming from Braavos, but looking from the writer's perspective. Grrm knew this stairs would lead to the house of black and white, he knew climbing this stairs would lead to their door, he knew it was the entrance to the faceless men "guild". And then he has Arya wondering if Syrio climbed this stair before her. That is, imho, too much coincequence. I know, storywise, it means nothing. But imagine that Syrio would really be a faceless man, this kind of offhand remark is exactly the thing I expect from GrrM to add some flavour to it.

Either that, or he knew about the speculation and wanted to mislead us a little further.

Or... but this seems unlikely, he didn't want to make some connection between Syrio and the faceless man, but he just put this remark upon their stairs because for other reasons, just because it felt like the right thing to do, or something.

[Which Tyler]

I'm happy to buy the Syrio lives theory; but not that he's a faceless man.

The training for 1st sword, and for faceless man is just too specialised, and too disparate. Everything Syrio does is flamboyant, open and toe to toe. Everything the faceless men do is understated, secretive and stealthy. I just don't see a faceless man lasting long on his own against 5-6 armed and armoured guards (and kingsguard); I don't see Syrio tip-toing around in the dark killing someone in a way that appears to not even be murder. I don't see a life's worth of training to become as skilled and specialised as Syrio is being compatible with a decade's worth (guestimate) of training to become a faceless man.

Syrio's training is absolutely perfect for taking on an armoured knight mano-a-mano; so I can see him surviving. I can even see him having a plot point later on with Arya (recognising her in Baarvos, possibly even kidnapping her and returning her to herself/Westeros). I think it's unlikely, and I suspect that even if he is supposed to have survived, that he's out of the story now, and at best, will be mentioned in passing, just for fun; but I can buy it. I can't buy that he's a faceless man.

[mormont]

Syrio's training is absolutely perfect for taking on an armoured knight mano-a-mano

Actually, it's not. Quite the reverse. Syrio is absolutely perfect for fighting lightly-armed and armoured opponents like himself: an armoured knight would, in real life, make mincemeat of him. There is a reason that medieval European battlefields did not feature water dancers, but did feature lots and lots of men wearing the heaviest armour they could afford. ;)

But that's real-life, of course: if GRRM decided that Syrio could beat Trant, then he would. There's no indication that he did, though.

[csharpminor]

I'm happy to buy the Syrio lives theory; but not that he's a faceless man.

The training for 1st sword, and for faceless man is just too specialised, and too disparate. Everything Syrio does is flamboyant, open and toe to toe. Everything the faceless men do is understated, secretive and stealthy. I just don't see a faceless man lasting long on his own against 5-6 armed and armoured guards (and kingsguard); I don't see Syrio tip-toing around in the dark killing someone in a way that appears to not even be murder. I don't see a life's worth of training to become as skilled and specialised as Syrio is being compatible with a decade's worth (guestimate) of training to become a faceless man.

Syrio's training is absolutely perfect for taking on an armoured knight mano-a-mano; so I can see him surviving. I can even see him having a plot point later on with Arya (recognising her in Baarvos, possibly even kidnapping her and returning her to herself/Westeros). I think it's unlikely, and I suspect that even if he is supposed to have survived, that he's out of the story now, and at best, will be mentioned in passing, just for fun; but I can buy it. I can't buy that he's a faceless man.

^This. .. I think the thing that was most interesting in thinking about if Arya would run into Syrio again now is, that she's blind.. so people she may run into from her PoV, she may not be able to know who some or most people are. It'd make for quite an interesting arc if she ran into Syrio while being blind and didn't know it was him.. Just a thought, I'd never thought of it before, but the idea struck me as an attempt to have Syrio back in an interesting way. Arya's POV being blind now makes it alot more interesting if she can't exactly tell who she's around now, because it might leave the reader to start analyzing who the hell she's interacting with. Just a thought, no idea at all if GRRM will approach it like this.

And I disagree about the water dancers vs knights thing. I think a bunch of water dancers vs a bunch of knights, the knights would obviously roll over them due to them being specifically suited for brute open field battle. If it's one on one, there's not a reason to think a 'water dancer' couldn't pull a bronn and out maneuver him, then stab him through a joint or the throat. In real life, that armor is going to be heavy as shit, especially if you're wanting to close in on somebody who isn't wearing any. And it's not like it's 'a water dancer' we're talking about. it's Syrio. And Syrio wasn't exactly fighting Gregor Clegane either.

I will agree that having studied martial arts before, I know realistically it's silly to think of one guy taking on 5 of anybody, even if you have a sword. But it's a book, so obviously you don't want to get too realism on it or it'll really bog down the experience. ;/ Besides, I'm sure Musashi did something like that before, I thought that guy supposedly fought a few normally armed guys with just a wooden stick or sword.