As we did last season and so far this season, we’ve put together a list of scenes, references, and characters that deserve a special comment or mention. There’s no way we got all the good stuff (and we might be wrong on some of the things we’ve left below)—so please help expand our appendix.
“Valar morghulis.” “Valar dohaeris.”
Among the services provided by the Faceless Men in the House of Black and White is euthanasia: The fountain at the center of the temple is filled with poisoned water, and drinking from it brings a quick and painless death. The Faceless Men then remove the faces from the people who come to die in their temple, and keep them for use in disguises (though one gets the sense they’re death-horny enough that they’d be happy to kill even if creepy masks weren’t in the offing).
“Which one’s the Many-Faced god? I see the Stranger. I see the Drowned God. I see the Wayward Face.”
The Faceless Men, who formed in the early days of Braavos, when it was a colony of escaped slaves from all around the world, believe that each death god or spirit in every religion is simply one face of a single diety. The Stranger, for example, is the avatar of death in the Andal faith of the seven, worshipped by the majority of southerners in Westeros. The Drowned God is the cruel and unforgiving god of the Iron Islands, who takes Ironborn to his watery halls to row for him. The Wayward Face doesn’t appear to have been spoken about in the books or TV show ever before.
[CORRECTION: Arya was actually referring to “the weirwood face,” a reference to the faces carved into trees that represent the Old gods worshipped in the North and beyond the Wall. Max Read apologizes for the error.]
“Do you ever miss Casterly Rock?”
Casterly Rock, a fortress hewn out of an enormous stone to the north of the city of Lannisport on Westeros’ western coast, is the seat of the Lannister Family. With Tywin dead, Jaime a Kingsguard (and therefore ineligible to inherit lands or title), and Tyrion a fugitive, Tywin’s brother Kevan is its lord. Since Kevan’s son Lancel has joined the Sparrows, it seems likely his younger son Martyn will inherit Casterly Rock from Kevan.
“Oh! Forgive me, I haven’t been at court for long; I get so confused. What’s the proper way to address you, now? Queen Mother, or Dowager Queen?”
In most monarchies the proper way to address a queen dowager—that is, a queen consort whose husband has died—is “your majesty.”
“Lord Cerwyn refused to pay. Said the Warden of the North would always be a Stark, and he’d be damned if he’d kiss a traitor’s boot.”
House Cerwyn, whose seat, Castle Cerwyn, is located just southeast of Winterfell, is among House Stark’s closest allies. It’s unclear which Cerwyn Ramsay had flayed—Lord Medger, in the books, died of wounds sustained in the Battle of the Green Fork during the War of the Five Kings, and Lord Cley, his son and heir, was killed by Bolton men trying to free Winterfell from the Ironborn.
“They’ve never once in the history of the Seven Kingdoms sent their army this far north. If you think they will for us, you’re a fool.”
This is an important point: Historically the Lannisters have been generally unwilling to venture their armies much further outside the West. During the War of Conquest, Loren Lannister (the last of the Lannister Kings) took a huge army to the Reach, where he and King Meryn IX of the Reach were defeated in battle by Aegon the Conqueror, his two sisters/wives, and their three dragons. In the so-called “Dance of the Dragons” succession dispute, Lord Jason Lannister sent armies to the Riverlands, but not much farther. Even in Robert’s Rebellion, Tywin held back, refusing to declare until after the decisive defeat of Rhaegar Targaryen at the Trident.
“That’s Moat Cailin.”
Moat Cailin is an ancient, largely ruined, and rarely manned fortress that stands at the edge of the great swamp that covers the “Neck” separating the North from the South. In the books, Moat Cailin is the northern end of the Kingsroad causeway through the Neck; here it appears to be at the south. Though usually empty, it is a possession of House Reed (as in Jojen and Meera Reed, Bran’s companions), and therefore under the power of the Warden of the North—now Roose Bolton.
“You’ve been running all your life. Terrible things happen to your family and you weep. You sit alone in a darkened room mourning their fates. You’ve been a bystander to tragedy from the day they executed your father.”
PREACH
“How do we get through there?” “We don’t. We go around.”
Really? It’s unclear that it’s possible to go “around” the Neck, which spans the continent from coast to coast and through which—if you’re not a bog-born crannogman—the only safe road is the Kingsroad.
“I squired for a knight named Ser Lorimer during the War of the Five Kings.”
Ser Lorimer was a hedge knight (that is, not landed) in the service of Lord Leo Lefford, a bannerman of Tywin Lannister. Podrick fell into Lorimer’s care after the knight he was originally squiring, Ser Cedric Payne, was killed in the War of the Five Kings.
“Lord Tywin heard my family name was Payne, so he pardoned me, and sent me to King’s Landing to squire for his son.”
House Payne are well-known Lannister bannermen—the other Payne you might remember is Ser Ilyn Payne, the tongueless executioner.
“When I was a girl, my father held a ball. I’m his only living child, so he wanted to make a good match for me. He invited dozens of young lords to Tarth.”
Tarth, where Breinne is from, is a large and beautiful island off the eastern coast of Westeros, near Storm’s End, the traditional seat of the Baratheons. Her father, Selwyn, is its lord.
“Just one man’s opinion.”
For more One Man’s Takes, see here.
“Which of the Seven will you worship today?” “The Maiden...and the Stranger.”
Chief among the many cultural imports brought by Andal invaders to the continent of Westeros thousands of years ago is the Faith of the Seven, dominant everywhere in the Seven Kingdoms except the North (where the Old Gods of the weirwood trees are still worshipped) and the Iron Islands (where the Drowned God is paramount). As a power more or less coextensive with the Iron Throne, the Faith of the Seven is similar to most monotheistic religions on earth, with strong prohibitions against extramarital sex, and value placed on humility and asceticism.
Though often mistaken for a polytheistic religion, the Faith of the Seven is monotheistic. The “Seven” aren’t gods but aspects of a single, unnamed deity to which adherents will pray or make offerings: The father, the avatar of judgment; the mother, the avatar of compassion; the warrior, the avatar of strength; the maiden, the avatar of chastity; the smith, the avatar of labor; the crone, the avatar of wisdom; and the stranger, the avatar of death. Clergy (men are called septons and women septas) choose one of the Seven to devote themselves to.
“I am the High Septon”
The High Septon is the leader the Faith of the Seven. High Septons, who have a seat on the Small Council and worship from the Great Sept of Baelor in King’s Landing, renounce their names entirely, and consequently tend to be named like Friends episodes: The One Who Was a Stonemason, etc.
Before Aegon the Conqueror brought Westeros together under his rule, the High Septons presided over the faith from the Starry Sept in Oldtown, in the southwest, but the High Septon at the time of Aegon’s arrival was among the first to accept his claim to the throne, and eventually the seat of power was moved to King’s Landing. A few flare-ups of religious radicalism notwithstanding, the Faith of the Seven has been closely interwoven with the power of the crown since at least Jaehaerys I two centuries ago, and possibly as a consequence, have generally been corrupt and unmemorable.
“Sinner...sinner...sinner...”
The Walk of Atonement is a traditional Andal punishment—usually reserved for women—in which the offender is stripped nude, sometimes shaved, and forced to parade their shame across town.
“The notion that we’re all equal in the eyes of the Seven doesn’t sit well with some, so they belittle me.”
The High Sparrow’s unviersalism is radical for a feudal society, but it’s also unclear how strong his theology is. Each component of the heptarchy has clear roles and duties, relating not just to gender but to position: How does the High Sparrow reconcile this kind of particularism with his catholicism?
“The last time the Lords of the Eyrie formed an alliance with the Lords of the North, they brought down the greatest dynasty the world has ever know.”
This would be Jon Arryn of the Eyrie and Ned Stark of the North. Littlefinger is leaving out that in addition to the North and the Eyrie, the rebel party had a claim to the throne and the Stormlands (in the person of Robert Baratheon), and, eventually the West in the person of Tywin Lannister.
“Look: We are thousands of miles from Westeros.”
Volantis is about 1,200 miles from Sunspear, the closest city on the western coast of Dorne, as the crow flies.
“Slaves.” “Yes. The Volantine masters are very organized. Flies for dung shovelers, hammers for builders. Tears for whores. Lest they forget.”
Of the nine Free Cities, only three have outlawed the slave trade: Braavos, founded by runaway slaves; Pentos, where slavery was outlawed by the terms of a peace treaty with Braavos; and Lorath, founded by a religious cult that did not practice slavery. Volantis, the Free City closest to Slaver’s Bay—and a necessary stop on any trip to or from the slave cities of the east—deals more in slaves than any other city.
“For the night is dark and full of terrors.”
This is another priest of R’hllor, the Lord of Light, called the “Red God” by most Westerosi. Followers of R’hllor, whose cult arose from the far eastern city of Asshai, believe in a war between their god and his enemy, the “Great Other,” that will end with the prophesized return of the great warrior Azor Ahai. Temples of R’hllor take in children at a young age—even buying them from slavery—raising them as priests, or sometimes as warriors or temple prostitues
“The only Red Priest we had in King’s Landing was Thoros of Myr. This one’s much better-looking.”
Thoros of Myr was a Myrish Red Priest sent to King’s Landing in the hopes of converting the Mad King Aerys II, a pyromaniac. By the time of the series, he’d become something of a drunk and layabout, until he joined the Brotherhood Without Banners in the Riverlands.
“Stone Men. Good luck stopping the spread of Greyscale with prayer. You’d have better luck dancing away the plague.”
The Stone Men is a colony of people suffering from Greyscale who congregate in the Sorrows, a foggy area on the Rhoyne river north of Volantis.
“He has sent you a savior! From the fire she was reborn to remake the world! The Dragon Queen!”
The hottest controversy in the world of R’hllor theology is: Who is Azor Azhai reborn? Melisandre thinks it’s Stannis; this woman thinks it’s Daenerys.
Contact the author at max@gawker.com.
