Hey youtubers it’s Charlie, as promised this is going to be my Game of Thrones Religions
video. The show has only explained a couple of them but Martin went to Tokien esque lengths
to develop faiths for a ton of different cultures all over the world of song of ice and fire.
So I’ll start with the gods that the show has done and then dive into the other ones
from the books.
Good news is, we can talk about the gods without addressing too many spoilery things. And if
you’re just finding me for the first time, I’m doing weekly Game of Thrones with a
book giveaway. All you have to do to enter is be a subscriber and leave a comment.
But general spoiler warning for everything through season 4. I’ll wait just a sec...okay,
here we go.
First is R’hollor, the Red God. Thanks to Melisandre and Thoros of Myr we know more
about him or it. Than almost any of the other gods. Very important though. That does not
imply that he’s the most important god.
He’s based on the real world Iranian Manichaeism, this dualistic view of the world where you
have the god of light and goodness on one side and on the other the god of evil and
darkness.
In the books Melisandre calls R’hollor the lord of light and names his enemy The Great
Other. The god of the White Walkers. I tend to think of the two of them as existing in
a yin and yang situation. Nature is all about balance. The show has presented them in more
black and white terms but I’m hoping the future books provide some more context before
we straight up classify who’s the hero and who’s the villain.
George RR Martin adds a lot of flavors from other real world religions into the faith
of the Red God and The Great Other but they exists in a dualistic nature. Diametric opposites
of each other.
There is no known date of origin for the dualistic faith in both gods, but you can consider them
at least as old as the old gods.
His religion is very popular in the east but has only just started to take hold in Westeros.
On the show in season 2 we saw Stannis burning his statues of the Seven as a way to show
his newfound faith in the Red God. Melisandre is the primary conduit for how we learn about
his culture, practices and magic. Most of what we’ve seen so far involves sacrificial
rites to invoke a blessing or birthing shadow creatures. Something offered of high value,
something given in return.
The Clergy in general can be men or women, but not everyone employed by the faith is
a priest. Their church also buys children as slaves called “Slaves of R’hollor”.
Those people go on to serve in the Red Temples. In Volantis there’s a custom to give the
slaves flame tattoos all over their face as a sign of their servitude.
It’s not viewed as a negative thing. The Slaves go on to become priests, temple prostitutes,
servants or Temple Guards. The guards are called The Fiery Hand. Each organized faith
in Westeros has their own form of military, the exception is the Old Gods. When I say
organized I’m talking about the more modern religions.
There are 7 known temples so far. Mostly in the east, the biggest one is in Lys.
The reason Melisandre and Thoros don’t have face tattoos is probably because they didn’t
live in Volantis.
Hopefully in Season 5 we’ll get a look at some of the tattooed priests. Even though
it’s only a custom in volantis that doesn’t mean those clergymen don’t travel around.
There are some really interesting characters but we don’t know if the show will cut them
out. Once they finish filming I’ll talk a little more about them. Of all the religions
in the series. The Red God is one of my favorite.
As the story continues the religions themselves become much bigger characters, there was actually
a scene that the show was trying to film in Dubrovnik near a church. In real life the
local leadership denied them a filming permit because they thought the scene was going to
be too obscene.
That’s a whole other story, it’s a big book scene. So if you have read ahead and
want to talk about it just use spoiler tags in the comments.
But in general we start to see more influence from the various religions, just like the
Iron Bank of Braavos became a big character in Season 4. The religions are all just as
powerful, with the Red God’s church being one of the bigger groups.
So we’ve seen a little of what powers R’hollor grants the priests, like visions in flames,
blessing the outcome of encounters or battles. Shadow puppets and resurrection.
The visions that Melisandre sees aren’t exactly like the visions that Daenerys has
in the house of the undying. Melisandre’s are more like messages from the Red God. Which
are still subject to her interpretation. When she sees something, there is potential for
error.
For instance, she tells Stannis that she has seen he is Azor Ahai, the Red God’s christ-like
figure. But in reality, she’s still searching for him. And the person she actually sees
in the flames when looking for Azor Ahai is someone else. I think it’s just evidence
that the red priests are every bit as normal as any of the other characters. Thoros is
a total drunk to boot.
And Red Priests are known to disagree. So even if Melisandre claims she’s found Azor
Ahai, another priest could name someone totally different.
Next is The Great Other, even though he’s presented as the evil half of dueling gods.
There are theories that he’s not the antagonist of the series. It’s possible that if a final
battle between fire and ice ever comes to pass that the forces of the Red God could
be the villains. I did a whole video on that that I’ll link in the description.
But the only known followers of the Great Other are the White Walkers, they’re also
just called the Others, which Melisandre says they’re his Cold Children. Which makes you
think about the Children of the Forest. There is another rumor that the Three eye Raven,
the person we saw in the finale. Is aligned with the forces of the Great Other. But all
this comes from visions and is subject to interpretation.
The Others are known to have appeared at least 8000 years before Aegon’s Conquest. There
has been no indication that they have any form of hierarchy, but the show supposedly
did the Night’s King. Although there’s some debate as to whether this was an error.
As they have no official organized religion, you can think of them as more of a species.
If you look at what the show presented, it appears that white walkers turn humans to
their power as children and as adults, they simply kill people and reanimate their corpses
to be used as infantry.
Next up are the Old Gods, also known as the Gods of the forest. As similar as a lot of
these deities sound. I think that most of them are distinct. Even though not all of
them might exist.
There isn’t really an organized church for the Old Gods, but there are customs that have
been passed down. The closest thing to clerics and priests they have are the Children of
the Forest and the greenseers who we’ve only just met on the show. We don’t know
how many of them are still alive. But most of the humans who worship the Old Gods are from the north, like the Free Folk and
the Starks.
There aren’t a lot of ceremonies beyond saying prayers to heart trees, which used
to exist in some of the castles in westeros. Heart trees are just weirwoods with the faces
carved on to them. It’s believed that the trees are the old gods who have died and become
part of the greater godswood. Which is the massive interconnected root system.
You kind of get a glimpse at this when they travel into the cave of the three eyed raven
in the finale. The massive root system implies that all of the weirwoods or heart trees are
I don’t know how much of Bran’s story they’re going to show next season but hopefully
those scenes will explain a little bit more about the power of the old gods. Which may
or may not be connected to the great other and r’hollor.
In Westeros, they were the primary faith until the Andals invaded and brought the Faith of
The Seven. I guess you could think of that as being like the catholic crusades. Although
the Andals appear to have been far more successful in taking over and converting the first men
than the catholics were with Islam. Since the Andal invasion, most of the weirwoods
in the south have been cut down and thus the old gods have no power there anymore.
The Faith of the Seven will be very important in Season 5. They just cast the High Septon,
who’s like the Pope of their faith. Imagine the religion as looking like the greek or
roman pantheon of many gods but working more like modern christianity in terms of organized
worship. Since it’s the religion of the crown, most other citizens of westeros practice
it too.
There are seven gods, but people who worship the seven can say prayers to any of them based
on what they’re praying for.
Theres The Father, who represents judgement, he’s depicted as a bearded man carrying
scales. People pray to him for justice.
The Mother, who represents Motherhood and Nurturing. She’s depicted as a woman smiling
with love. People pray to her for fertility or compassion.
The Warrior, who represents strength in battle. He looks like a soldier carrying a sword.
People pray to him for courage and victory.
The Maiden, who represents innocence. People pray to her to protect women’s virginity
and virtue.
The Smith, who represents the crafting arts and manual labor. He looks like a blacksmith
carrying a hammer. He’s prayed to when work is being done or things are being built.
The Crone, who represents wisdom. She looks like an old woman carrying a lantern. People
pray to her for guidance.
and The Stranger, who represents Death and the Unknown. Usually the only people who pray
to him are outcasts of society and assassins.
They have a bible called the Seven pointed star. Seven points for seven gods. It reads
that the seven originally walked on earth in human form and the father brought down
seven stars from the sky and used them to form the crown of Hugor of the Hill. The first
king of the andals. The rest of the gods are all tied to aspects of Hugor the King’s
origin story.
If you examine it really closely it sounds almost like Hugor united the andals and then
people created a religion around him. So of all the gods in a song of ice and fire. The
seven in my opinion, sound the most false. That doesn’t mean they are, but when your
religion is based on a king telling everyone how awesome he is, it sounds a bit fabricated.
The Faith of the Seven rose up just like Christianity in the middle ages and became so powerful
that the resulting civil wars caused the Targaryen Kings to ban them from having their own military.
Internally they have a hierarchy that resembles the catholic church with septas, septons and
the high septon. Their main church is The Great Sept of Baelor in King’s Landing.
It’s the building where Sansa was married to tyrion and Joffrey was married to Margaery.
There are a lot of subgroups that I’ll talk more about when the season gets started. Of
all the religions in the series. The Seven is the most complicated.
The Faith’s military was called the Faith Militant. Which is feature heavily in book
4. So if you want to learn about them before season 5. Be sure to read Feast for Crows.
Again please use spoiler tags if you want to talk about what happens in the books.
I know I just said the Seven sound a little bogus, but the other notable religion in westeros
is the Drowned God. I’m considering the Iron Islands as part of westeros even though
they’re technically separate.
The Drowned God is who they worship in the Iron Islands. Just like the Old Gods, R’hollor
and the Great Other, the Drowned God pre-dated the Andal invasion.
The original Ironborn were a pirate culture, so their worship supports that type of sea
faring life. They believe that the Drowned god wants them to pillage and rape and make
themselves infamous through conquest.
The interesting thing is that the Drowned God also exists in a dualistic nature with
the Storm God. One above the sea, the other below.
Customarily when a new follower is anointed they are forcibly drowned. And once resucitated,
they can go on to become priests, known as drowned men. Or they can just be normal warriors.
Before theon was captured in season 2 he underwent the ritual drowning.
Their saying is ‘what is dead may never die’. As they have literally died during
the ceremony.
The funny thing is that this belief sounds like it developed as a way to cope with sailors
being lost during conquests either by drowning or killed some other way.
The last big religion in westeros is Rhoynar. Their god is the Mother Rhoyne. It’s practiced
mostly in the southmost parts of the kingdom like Dorne. So presumably we’ll see a little
of it when we visit that place in season 5. She’s the deification of the Rhonynar River.
Which brings life to the more desert climate areas near the free cities. The worshippers
their brought the religion to Dorne when they migrated.
There is a famous river flowing through dorne where the goddess is worshipped but it’s
called the Greenblood.
Back in the east Braavos is really famous for having temples and shrines to a ton of
obscure gods. The most infamous one is the many faced god that the faceless men worship.
There’s at least 18 total, but that number includes some of the gods I’ve already talked
about. Some of the more obscure ones include:
Aquan the Red Bull, Bakkalon, the Great Shepherd, the Hooded Wayfarer, the horse god. That’s
the god of the dothraki, the Lady of Spears, that’s who the unsullied worship, the Merling
King, the Moon Pale Maiden, the Pattern, Semosh and Selloso who are twin gods, the Silent
God, the Stone Cow of Faros, Trios and the Weeping Lady of Lys.
They are filming Braavos scenes for season 5, so they might show all the different shrines
to these gods. But the show doesn’t get too deep into the mechanics of each religion.
It’s mostly likely that Arya will get an explainer monologue where someone explains
the logic of the many faced god.
In real life George RR Martin based all these gods and religions on a mish mosh of historical
ones like animism, catholicism, polytheism and norse mythology.
Right now the Red God is my favorite just because he’s presented as benevolent but
he seems very sinister. And his enemy, the Great other is presented as very sinister
but we know almost nothing about him.
I’ll still do a Q&A video for this tomorrow, so please leave me all your questions about
gods and such on the show or in the books. I’ll post that video tomorrow. Be sure to
subscribe to get it.
My next bonus video will probably be a history video about the war between the Faith of the
Seven and The Targaryen Kings.
Right now you can click here for the Q&A, I’ll add the annotation as soon as I post
it. And you can click here to learn all about my favorite Prophecies.
Thanks for watching, see you guys tomorrow. High Fives!