Faceless Men

This page is about the guild of assassins. For the short, see: The Faceless Men

Faceless Men
Information
Type	Religious cult Assassin guild
Status	Active
Center	House of Black and White, Braavos Valyria (before the Doom)
Religion	Many-Faced God
Founded	by a {slave}

Jaqen H'ghar, a "criminal of Lorath"...

... revealed to be a "Faceless Man"

""Valar Dohaeris". All men must serve. Faceless Men most of all."

―"Jaqen H'ghar"

The Faceless Men are a guild of assassin-priests based in the Free City of Braavos, though their members range far and wide across both Essos and Westeros. They command exorbitant fees, but have a reputation for success that is unparalleled by any comparable organization.

They consider themselves servants of the Many-Faced God, a god of death who is unknowingly worshipped by all religions in the world, in the form of one god or another. The weirwood face for the Old Gods and the Stranger of the Faith of the Seven are two such deities. Faceless Men are trained to relinquish their former identities and become "no one", which allows them to become entirely different people, all in service to the Many-Faced God. They also believe that, as servants of death, they must serve above all else and that they must deliver upon certain people the "gift" of death.

The Faceless Men possess the ability to physically change their faces, shapeshifting so that they appear as an entirely new person.

Their headquarters are located in the House of Black and White, a temple dedicated to the Many-Faced God.

Beliefs

The Faceless Men are a cult of religious assassins that worship the Many-Faced God, and they believe that death is a merciful end to suffering. For a price, they will grant the "gift" of death to anyone in the world, considering the assassination a sacrament to their god. In their temple - the House of Black and White - those who seek an end to suffering may drink poisoned water which grants a painless death.

Killing for personal gain or out of anger or hate are forbidden to Faceless Men.

As the Faceless Men forsake their identities in the service of the Many-Faced God, they only assassinate targets they have been hired to kill and may not choose who is worthy of the 'gift' by themselves.

Known members

"I've seen a man who could change his face, the way that other men change their clothes."

―Doreah

• "Jaqen H'ghar", a Faceless Man that took the identity of a Lorathi criminal.
• {"The Waif"}, a Faceless Man that appears as a young woman. Killed by Arya.
• Arya Stark, (formerly) an acolyte in early training. Completed her training after killing the Waif, but quickly abandoned the guild afterwards, as Jaqen ordered the Waif to kill her and she was unwilling to surrender her identity. She still uses other faces as a technique to kill her enemies.

Behind the scenes

George R.R. Martin was asked about his inspiration for the Faceless Men. He replied "I don't know, that's largely a fantasy trope there's not much evidence for that in history, the one evidence you did actually have a group called the assassins who were in the Middle East and there was a guy called the Old Man in the Mountain who would send forth his assassins to kill people in the Middle East where they'd been killing people for many centuries but they were not like fantasy guilds of assassins."

The Order of Assassins is a Nizari Islamic secret society that was active in the Middle East during the 11th to 13th centuries.

In the books

In the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, the Faceless Men are based at the House of Black and White, a temple in Braavos dedicated to the "Many-Faced God" that everyone will face, a reference to death. While they are indeed a guild of assassins, they have philosophical and religious motivations that will lead them to rejecting commissions that clash with those motivations.

The Faceless Men are a fairly old organization, predating even the Doom of Valyria. Their founders were slaves who worked in the mines under the Fourteen Flames, the great volcanic mountain chain whose eruption destroyed the Valyrian Freehold four centuries ago. The thousands of slaves from a hundred different lands faced death on a daily basis, and over time, the belief developed among some of them that while they came from many different lands and followed many different religions, all of these religions were fundamentally the same, because they all worshiped death in some fashion. They were either polytheistic religions that had a god devoted to death, or monotheistic religions with a deity that had dominion over death. In time this turned into a syncretic belief system worshiping the Many-Faced God of Death, holding that Death has appeared to humans under many different faces as many different gods, but they are all fundamentally one god.

The organization actually predates Braavos itself. They started out by giving the "gift" of death to slaves who were suffering particularly horribly in the mines, to ease their pain, and in time they learned to surreptitiously give the "gift" to some of their Valyrian masters as well, becoming skilled assassins. Many centuries later, the surviving Faceless Men relocated to Braavos, which was founded by ex-slaves who had escaped from Valyria (though whether this was after or slightly before the Doom is unclear).

The Faceless Men charge exorbitant fees, but their reputation for success is unmatched. The cost increases relative to the importance of the target and the difficulty of the objective. In the first book it is said that hiring a Faceless Man to kill Daenerys Targaryen would cost more than it would to hire an entire army. Further, the Faceless Men will reject a contract if killing the target clashes with their strange, and at times inscrutable, religious beliefs. Conversely, sometimes they choose bizarre "payments" according to what they feel is due. Sometimes, if a powerful lord asks them to kill the child of one of his enemies, the Faceless Men give as their "price" that in return they will kill the lord's own child (the lord can reject this, but it also means rejecting the entire contract).

Their fee is for a precise assassination, and the death of anyone other than the intended target is avoided whenever possible. They usually go so far as to try to make their assassinations look like accidents, adding to the mystery surrounding their order. For example, in the TV series, Jaqen kills the Tickler by sneaking up, snapping his neck, and then throwing him off a castle wall and then slipping away, leaving witnesses unsure if he was actually murdered. Jaqen did kill Amory Lorch with a poison dart, but only because he was pressed for time to kill him immediately.

Faceless Men are not complete shapeshifters; they cannot grow drastically taller or shorter, though they can dramatically change their appearance within their own physical limitations. Either men or women can become "Faceless Men". The abilities of Faceless Men are not genetic or limited to a specific race: anyone can become a Faceless Man with the proper training in the arcane knowledge of their order. It is debatable whether the abilities of the Faceless Men could be considered "magic": They use a variety of tools, potions, and special training to shapeshift, rather than outright incantations and spells.

In the novels, it is implied that Euron Greyjoy hired a Faceless Man to kill his brother Balon. In "The Forsaken" sample chapter of the sixth novel, Euron admits that he had Balon killed, not by his own hands, but does not specify who did.

External links

• Faceless Men on A Wiki of Ice and Fire