Hey youtubers, it's Charlie.
So new episode of Game of Thrones tonight, and I thought we talk about someone who's
notably absent from the first episode: Arya, who is on her way to Bravos the last time we saw her
This is mostly going to be about the Faceless Men in the house a black-and-white the
place that Arya going to. The place that she's using Jaqen H'ghar's coin to get to
just careful for spoilers on everything that's happened on the show so far
right now our point of entry to the Faceless Men is Jaqen H'ghar
someone we haven't seen a long time. Arya Stark spent most of season 3
and season 4 massaging that coin that he gave her, the Braavosi coin
his instructions to her were that she could give that coin to any Braavosi captain
and it would secure her passage to Braavos if she wanted
not of a whole lot of explaining beyond that but it's a really big deal
which is why when she gave the coin to the captain at the end a season 4 he pooped
his pants a little bit
for the most part you can think of the Faceless Men as a quasi religious order
of assassins that's headquartered in Braavos. Their home base is the house of black white
which is a temple of worship
so they serve a lot of functions beyond just killing people
like all religious orders they do worship a god: the Many Faced God
but inside the temple of black and white there are altars
to many many many gods. It's a nice twist on the idea of the Many Faced God
but the Many Faced God is a single deity with many different aspects
a lot of people think that the Many Faced God is also the stranger
one of the Andals seven gods. George RR Martin hasn't confirmed or denied this
so it's still open to speculation
the reason why the Faceless Men are so cool is because they
you know, for all intents and purposes are the best assassins in the world the
most highly trained assassins
they're also the most expensive. If you remember way back in season one
during the small council meeting they're trying to figure out what to do with
Daenerys Targaryen
when they first heard that she was marrying Khal Drogo someone tossed out
that they should just hire a Faceless Man to take care of her
but they decided that it was way too expensive. Way too expensive for Robert Baratheon
he's obviously in a lot of debt so in order to hire a Faceless Man
you have to be incredibly rich. That's why any time a Faceless Man pops up in the books
you know, people always wonder if one of the lords of Westeros or
like the Martells or the Iron Bank of Braavos hired them
just because there are only a handful of people that could legitimately afford them
the takeaway is that if there's
an assassination plot going on somewhere in the world there's probably someone
incredibly rich behind it. They don't just kill people on whim, they have very specific rules
it's unclear how the show is going to change this. Typically whenever the show does
like a really big group from the books it simplifies things
so they might just hit a really big signpost. The Faceless Man actually have a
really interesting history that go
way back to the time of the Valyrians they actually they started out
in the Valyrian slave mines. I know a lot of people theorized that the Valyrian doom
is tied to over mining in the Valyrian Peninsula
a big part of the Valyrians MO is that they converted conquered peoples
into slave workers to work in their mines
the volcanoes that eventually went nuclear around Valyria were just really
rich in minerals
so in the slave mines you had people speaking all kinds of different languages
because the
the Valyrians had conquered so many different lands. As really put upon slaves or want
to do they prayed for deliverance from death
from each of their gods they worshipped. Other slaves heard these whispers to all these
different gods and decided
all these different slaves were praying to the same god. That became the basis of
the Many Faced God
so what you have is, you know, many gods many faces becoming one God
with many faces, many aspects. The slaves essentially started
giving gifts of mercy or deliverance
to people that ask for it. The Faceless Men's gift of mercy is essentially the
gift of death, the gift of deliverance from the burden of life
you can think of is as assisted suicide so the Faceless Men don't kill with
malice
they kill to help people. So now you have an idea of why Jaqen H'ghar is so zen
about killing all those people at Harrenhal for Arya
the circumstances for those events were slightly different. He was paying a
debt to Arya
like I said they do work as mercenaries so you can pay them
and name someone to be killed. After the doom in Valyria though they establish
themselves as a proper order in Braavos
and created the temple of black and white I did do a video about about the map of
Braavos and where
you know big locations were inside the city. So I might do an update of that
just because that video is
super old. Technically inside their order Faceless Man
is just one of many functions so not all people
that work inside the temple of black and white that joined their order
become Faceless Men. And there are also women too so, you know, tetechnically you would be a
Faceless Woman in that case
I'm expecting the show to cut out
a bunch of stuff so don't worry whenever we see them I'll explain some of the changes they
made from the books
I know a lot of people are wondering how Jaqen H'ghar changed his face
you can think of it as more of a technique than magic
like glamouring. Just to make the distinction between the two
you know, in both cases you're changing your appearance but glamouring is full on
magic like you change your entire
appearance. Faceless Men just change their faces but they can change their facial
structure too
so one is magic the other is just a practical technique
but it does involve using someone else's face
as in like a mask. Sometimes when people die
especially at their temple they'll take their faces they'll take the dead people's
faces
so that they can use them later as disguises what I'm hoping is that we'll get to see
them do this
on the show. I know it sounds like a really gruesome practice but it's actually
pretty cool
inside the house of black and white there is a series a sub levels you know with
specific functions being performed on each. There are a number of different people you
might bump into inside the house of black and white. You have priests, acolytes
Faceless Men and then you have people who come to worship
or people who come to die. A lot people come to the Faceless Men to receive the
gift of death
the temple of black and white though is most famous for its Faceless Men
and, you know, depending on who the target is
their price goes up although, you know, there's always the question as to what they do
with the money that they earn
the interesting thing though is that there is no target that is too big
you can ask them to kill anyone as long as you can meet their price
so for instance if you ask them to kill just like a street thug they might not
charge you a lot of money
but if you wanted them to kill Daenerys Targaryen they would probably charge you
enough to buy a small kingdom. Everybody knows about the two big Valyrians
sayings on the show
Valar Morghulis: "all men must die" and Valar Dohaeris:
"all men must serve". I actually I think you know the Faceless Men
is somewhat of a combination of that like the idea behind them. All men
must serve death. Arya is on this really interesting path
we see her recite her prayer all the time she keeps adding names to the list so
the tease is that hopefully at some point she will gain the skills
of the Faceless Men and take revenge on all these people but
revenge isn't part of the Faceless Men MO so it's a bit of a paradox
if she becomes a Faceless Man she won't be able to get revenge on these people
unless someone else hires her to kill them Jaqen H'ghar for instance
in the previous seasons he doesn't just go around killing whoever he wants
he has very specific targets that are given to him. He gets sent on missions just
like any other mercenary
so the really big question for Arya is if she's going to be able to let go
of her desire for revenge to become this new person that she's trying to be
this new faceless person
that's actually good jumping-off point, so here's my big question for you guys: do you
think that Arya if she wants to become a faceless person
is going to be able to put aside her desire to kill
all these people back in Westeros ultimately, you know, thinking forward to like books 6, 7
you know, whatever beyond that, I don't think she's going to be able to do it.
A good sidestep is Jon Snow and his vows to the Night's Watch
thinking about all the things that he did when he was on the side mission in
season 3
when he was trying to infiltrate the wildlings. He broke a lot of his vows
even though it was for a good reason
I think the same thing is gonna happen Arya. She's gonna end up breaking
whatever vows she ends up making whatever new vow she makes
in the name of justice. That's one of the most fun things to watch in the show
is this like, you know, can these characters especially the younger characters
commit to really elaborate plans and set aside, you know, the things that they
really want
so everybody get really pumped to see Braavos tonight and don't forget: new
round of the giveaway starts whenever I post my episode two review
I'll post that after the episode airs. Be sure to subscribe to get it if you are just
finding me for the first time
just in case you guys are confused too I name the giveaway winners in my Q&A
videos that I post on Monday night
so while you guys wait for all that stuff to post you can click here for my episode 1 video
and you can click here to learn all
about the Sons of the Harpy, that group inside Meereen. Thank you so much for
watching. Everybody, let's high five! I'll see you guys tonight