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