Is the Great Other worshipped at the House of Black and White?

[Lady-Nymeria]

Hi. I'm asking this because in the description of the temple it says that every god of death had a statue there, and people prayed to them, even the Stranger was there. So, was in the House place for R'hllor's eternal enemy too? Was he a god of death?

[kandake]

I wondered the same thing. But maybe the great other is worse than death like being a wight

[TheReal_Rebel]

The Great Other, at least as Melisandre comprehends & describes him, is not necessarily a God but a force of Darkness in opposition to R'llor, much like the Devil.

A force of Darkness which can animate the dead is not a representation of the end of life which can also mean the beginning of eternity, peace and the joining of a worshiper to the God of their faith. It is more like Hell, with a trapped spirit animating it's corpse. Remember the dead who rise return & remember, pursue & slay those they knew. (which is why I hope the Walkers make it down to the Twins just so Rob's corpse with GreyWind's head gets vengeance on Walder Frey, but that's just me ;-)

The Great Other is quite different then mere Death. So there would be no place for the Great Other in the House of Black and White.

[kandake]

Agreed. And the whole Robb/grey wind postmortem vengeance hell ya!

[TheReal_Rebel]

Agreed. And the whole Robb/grey wind postmortem vengeance hell ya!

I have my fingers crossed. ;-D

[Man of Many Faces]

Just imagine if the Robb/Greywind being help Nymeria lead the great wolf pack across Westeros seeking vengeance for all the wrong committed against their family!

Anyway, I don't think that will happen but one can dream.

I've always thought of the great Other as a being of evil and darkness, not necessarily a god of death so I don't believe that it would be prayed to in the house of black and white.

[Cold-King]

Hahaha the Robb/Greywind idea is fairly amazing to think about :D what a beast!!

[McWheezy]

Hahaha the Robb/Greywind idea is fairly amazing to think about :D what a beast!!

Wouldnt they be a skeleton by that time? Is the northern river lands that cold at this point?

Although I guess we've seen skeletal horses, so why not. Grey winds head would probably fall off at that point though.

[King Pellinore]

Melisandre speaks of the Great Other as if it were a singular entity. She seems to believe it a god but, I am beginning to believe it may be an entity like the Last Greenseer only on the darker side.

[Cold-King]

Wouldnt they be a skeleton by that time? Is the northern river lands that cold at this point?

Although I guess we've seen skeletal horses, so why not. Grey winds head would probably fall off at that point though.

Oh i have no doubt that Robb/Greywind would be a decayed mess, im merely toying with the idea of a wolf headed man, with vengeance in his heart and mind reeking havoc around the twins! That is all, i have no delusions that he will make a come back!

[The Kinkslayer]

The only Stark I expect to come back as a walker is Benjen, but Melissandre saw a boy with a wolf's head as the champion of the Great Other.

So, was in the House place for R'hllor's eternal enemy too? Was he a god of death?

Well, R'hllor could itself be a god of death (It kills with leaches and shadows and likes human sacrifices), but the Great Other may as well have a shrine in the house of B&W, as it is never mentioned that R'hllor has a place in the house (but its temple is relatively close to the house).

Thirty different gods stood along the walls, surrounded by their little lights. The Weeping Woman was the favorite of old women, Arya saw; rich men preferred the Lion of Night, poor men the Hooded Wayfarer. Soldiers lit candles to Bakkalon, the Pale Child, sailors to the Moon-Pale Maiden and the Merlin King. The Stranger had his shrine as well
…
“Him of Many Faces and many names,” the kindly man had said. “In Qohor he is the Black Goat, in Yi Ti the Lion of Night, in Westeros the Stranger. All men must bow to him in the end, no matter if they worship the Seven or the Lord of Light, the Moon Mother or the Drowned God or the Great Shepherd. All mankind belongs to him... else somewhere in the world would be a folk who lived forever. Do you know of any folk who live forever?” -“No,” she would answer. “All men must die.”

But Arya actually knew a lightning lord that couldn't be killed

[Nymeria Stone]

The lightning lord died though

[Sam Huxley]

You'd presume that the House of Black and White would have somewhere that the Great Other is worshipped in their temple, but if they did wouldn't the red priests burn it and the temple for worshipping such evil, their followers do seem a little radical

[Ser Lepus]

You'd presume that the House of Black and White would have somewhere that the Great Other is worshipped in their temple, but if they did wouldn't the red priests burn it and the temple for worshipping such evil, their followers do seem a little radical

Everybody knows that the FM worship all the Death Gods as a single entity. Even if they don't openly claim that the Great Other is just another of those faces of their god, I'm quite sure both the Red Priests and the FM consider the FM's God of Death and the RP's Great Other as one and the same entity.

As for why the Red Priests don't attack the House of Black and White...R'hllor isn't the main deity in Braavos, and may not even make it to third place, so they don't have the strength, and if they tried anyway, the Sealord would probably stop them out of fear of the FM.

[Noneofyourbusiness]

R'hllor is worshipped at the House of Black and White, because he has followers who want him to take them when they die. As far as we know, the Great Other does not.

[Ser Lepus]

R'hllor is worshipped at the House of Black and White, because he has followers who want him to take them when they die. As far as we know, the Great Other does not.

I'm not so sure of that. The gods worshipped in the House of Black and White are gods of death or close enough that the FM interpret them as gods of death; notice that the Stranger is there, but not the Father, Mother, Maid...etc, despite the Westerosi expecting to meet all of them in their afterlife.

R'hllor is a god of life, so I'm not sure he would fit well into the FM's philosophy. And I have no doubt that the Red Priests hate all gods of death as manifestations of the Great Other, so they must hate the House of Black and White.

[Noneofyourbusiness]

R'hllor is a god of both life and death, to an extent. Jaqen referred to him ("the red god") in regards to Arya saving him and the other two prisoners from the fire, because he's a god of fire. The House of Black and White encompasses all the gods that govern their worshippers' prayed-for afterlives. As the only god of his religion (the only permissable god, anyway, as the Great Other is reviled), that of course includes R'hllor. A follower of R'hllor who seeks an easy death prays to R'hllor. A follower of the Seven who seeks an easy death prays to the Stranger. The Drowned God would be in there too.

[Ser Lepus]

The religion is based on a dualistic, manichean view of the world: R'hllor, the god of light, heat, and life, and R'hllor's antithesis the Great Other, the god of ice and death.[2] (from the Wiki)

"The way the world is made. The truth is all around you, plain to behold. The night is dark and full of terrors, the day bright and beautiful and full of hope. One is black, the other white. There is ice and there is fire. Hate and love. Bitter and sweet. Male and female. Pain and pleasure. Winter and summer. Evil and good." She took a step toward him. "Death and life. Everywhere, opposites. Everywhere, the war."

"The war?" asked Davos.

"The war," she affirmed. "There are two, Onion Knight. Not seven, not one, not a hundred or a thousand. Two! Do you think I crossed half the world to put yet another vain king on yet another empty throne? The war has been waged since time began, and before it is done, all men must choose where they will stand.

On one side is R'hllor, the Lord of Light, the Heart of Fire, the God of Flame and Shadow. Against him stands the Great Other whose name may not be spoken, the Lord of Darkness, the Soul of Ice, the God of Night and Terror. Ours is not a choice between Baratheon and Lannister, between Greyjoy and Stark. It is death we choose, or life. Darkness, or light."

I think that at least his/its worshippers see him/it as a God of Life, and the Other as a God of Death.

[Noneofyourbusiness]

R'hllor represents the continuance of life in the natural order, the Great Other represents an all-encompassing death for the world. It's R'hllor that followers of R'hllor would pray to when they're dying or want release, because they want him to receive them. So R'hllor is represented in the House of Black and White. For the Great Other to be represented, there would have to be people who would seek him to pray to when they are dying or want to die. As The Real Rebel said, the Great Other is not so much a god as an anti-god. From the Faceless Men's perspective, "the god of death" encompasses every god that people ask to take their souls. That's a different definition than the ones Melisandre is using there, and they shouldn't be confused with each other.

The reason the Stanger is represented and the rest of the Seven are not is because the Stranger is the god that followers of the Seven pray to when they're dying or want to die. That is, as far as we know, not true of the Great Other. The House of Black and White only has altars that people will actually want to use. It is conceivable that the Great Other does have cults devoted to it and that the House of Black and White is open to them and has a Great Other altar tucked away somewhere secret, but there's no evidence yet in the text that Great Other worshipers exist.

[Jon Snow the Omniscient]

I wondered the same thing. But maybe the great other is worse than death like being a wight

How do we know that being a wight is worse than death? For all we know, the wights look at the world as if it's all sunshine and rainbows, and instead of strangling people they think they're hugging long lost teddy bears.