Jaqen H'ghar is probably the most confusing
Game of Thrones character. Like, first he’s in a cage, then he’s
a soldier, and he kills people for Arya, then gives her a coin, and changes his face, and
goes away. Then three seasons later, in Braavos, there's
this old guy who’s actually Jaqen, but he says he’s not Jaqen , then he dies, then
he's still alive, then he's like you are now no one . In the books, things are different
again – Jaqen isn't at the House of Black and White in Braavos, but he does turn up
at the Citadel at Oldtown, disguised as an “alchemist”. And there’re all these theories, all these
connections Jaqen and the Faceless Men have with Euron Greyjoy, dragons and Valyria. Some people even think that Jaqen may be Syrio
Forel. So let’s work this stuff out – what’s
going on with Jaqen H'ghar? In Book and Season 2, Arya joins a group of
Night’s Watch recruits led by Yoren. Most of them are prisoners from the dungeons
of King’s Landing, and three of these are considered so dangerous that they’re kept
chained up “in the back of a wagon” – there’s Biter, a monstrous man with pointed teeth,
Rorge, a brute with no nose, and then there’s Jaqen H’ghar , a “handsome” , “smiling”,
“polite” man who says he’s from the city of Lorath . Jaqen is nice to Arya, asks
her for beer, tells her she could make a friend . Later, when the group is attacked, Jaqen,
Rorge and Biter’s wagon catches fire, and Arya saves them from the flames by bringing
an axe to break their chains. When Arya is taken to Harrenhal, Jaqen turns
up again – apparently having joined under the Lannisters as a mercenary . Jaqen tells
Arya that since she saved him and Rorge and Biter from the fire, the “Red God” is
owed three lives – so Jaqen offers to kill three people for her . Once this death debt
is paid, Jaqen says his time is done. He magically changes his face into another
man’s, taking on a whole new identity . The name Jaqen, the face, his manner of speech,
the whole personality, is revealed to be “a lie” – the truth is that this person is
an assassin of the Faceless Men. The Faceless Men are a “secretive society
of assassins” – you pay them, and they’ll kill someone for you. They’re said to be very “expensive”
, but very effective . When Arya joins the Faceless Men at their base at the House of
Black and White, in Braavos, we learn that the Faceless Men aren’t just assassins,
they’re also priests who worship death . They believe that every different religion has
some figure that represents death, and so they call death the Many-Faced God. When Jaqen was talking about the Red God before,
he was talking about the Lord of Light as a face of the Many-Faced God – one of many
aspects of death. The Faceless often speak of death as a gift,
a mercy, a release from the suffering of life, so the assassinations they carry out seem
sacred to them. As assassins, Faceless Men are trained to
use deception, perception, poisons and– sticks to kill their targets. They use human faces to magically disguise
themselves as other people. And they’re trained to give up their identities
– their “hopes and dreams”, “loves and hates”, everything that makes them who
they are. To become a Faceless Man, you must become
“no one” . Which makes things confusing – it means that when we talk about Jaqen
H’ghar, we’re actually talking about a Faceless Man who happens to wear “Jaqen”’s
face, but apparently any Faceless Man can wear that face – there’s this stuff in
the show where a Man who appears to be Jaqen drinks poison and dies, and “the waif”
wears Jaqen’s face, and another Man turns up as Jaqen later – so the Faceless Men
seem interchangeable, almost like a hive mind, any of them can be any one because they’re
all “no one” – so it’s probably best to think of Jaqen as just an extension of
the Faceless Men, a servant of the Many-Faced God. But what’s he actually up to? Jaqen makes a big effort to recruit Arya to
the Faceless Men. He turns up just when she’s feeling weak
and afraid , and shows her that killing can make her feel strong and brave . By letting
her pick three of her enemies to kill, Jaqen gives her a taste of the power of being a
Faceless assassin – never mind that a real Faceless assassin doesn’t get to pick their
own targets . He shows off by changing his face in front of her, and that’s when he
tells her to come with him to Braavos to learn the same magic , as though the House of Black
and White was more Hogwarts than death cult. He fails to mention all the downsides of being
with the Faceless – living in a dark stone temple, scrubbing corpses, daily beatings,
and, y’know, completely giving up your identity to become “no one”. Jaqen’s like some slimy army recruiter,
he manipulates Arya into joining the Faceless Men, and some fans believe this was his mission
all along, maybe that the manipulation begins with Syrio Forel. Syrio Forel is the Braavosi swordsman who
trains Arya in King’s Landing, and he teaches her many of the same things that Jaqen and
the Faceless Men teach. How to be sneaky . How to stand very still
. To see things as they truly are . And that violence can make her feel strong. Syrio’s training is like the perfect introduction
to her later training with the Faceless Men, like, a How To Be A Badass 101, before the
more Advanced Badassery at the House of Black and White. In the show, Syrio tells Arya “There is
only one god. And his name is death” , which lines up
with what Jaqen says later – “There is only one god. A girl knows his name” . So the theory here
is that the reason for these connections and similarities between Syrio and Jaqen is that
Syrio is Jaqen, another false face of a Faceless Man who came to King’s Landing specifically
to train Arya and recruit her as a Faceless assassin. Which could maybe be possible – the last
time we see Syrio, it looks like he’s about to be killed by Meryn Trant, but maybe he
actually escapes, and somehow ends up in the black cells with the face of Jaqen H’ghar,
in time to be recruited to the Night’s Watch in the group with Arya. But why would Syrio-slash-Jaqen deliberately
get himself locked up in the black cells, and in that cage – that almost got him killed. Surely he could have found another way to
stick with Arya. And if it wasn’t deliberate, and he got
locked up by mistake, it’s a pretty crazy coincidence that he just happened to be recruited
into the same group Arya was travelling with. So either way, this doesn’t make much sense. And what about Syrio himself, like, did the
Faceless Men seriously secretly kill and replace the First Sword of Braavos just so they could
train a random Westerosi nine-year old? Is Arya really such an amazing potential assassin
to be worth all this hassle? And how would the Faceless Men even know about
her, do they have spies at Winterfell? The more you think about it, the less sense
it makes for Syrio to be Jaqen. The more likely explanation is that the reason
why that Syrio’s training fits well with Jaqen’s is cause this is a story, and it
needs to fit, it needs to have a flow to it. Arya’s arc explores themes of violence and
loss of identity, so naturally she meets mentors who gradually guide her down that path. Not every character has a secret identity
– but some of them do. “the alchemist” is a mysterious character
we see in Feast, at Oldtown. He makes a deal with a guy named Pate – a
novice at the Citadel, where maesters are trained. “the alchemist” gives Pate a gold piece
in return for a certain key, a key said to be able to unlock every door in the Citadel. We’re told almost nothing about “the alchemist”,
but we do get a description of his face – a description that happens to perfectly match
the new face that Jaqen wears after he leaves Harrenhal – full cheeks, a hooked nose,
a scar on the right cheek, and curly black hair . This “alchemist” is another a false
identity of the Faceless Men, probably the same Man as Jaqen. So in Feast, this “alchemist” gets his
key, and then he appears to kill Pate. But later, when Sam arrives in Oldtown, he
meets Pate alive and well – but there are some weird things about him . The clues suggest
that this Pate is actually “the alchemist” in disguise, who is probably actually Jaqen
in disguise, who is actually a Faceless Man in disguise. And now this babushka assassin is bunking
with Sam Tarly in Oldtown, holding a key said to be able to unlock every door in the Citadel. But why? What do the Faceless Men want in the Citadel? We’re given one clue. In Dance, Tyrion mentions a book, a “fragmentary,
anonymous, blood-soaked tome” called Blood and Fire or The Death of Dragons, “the only
surviving copy of which [is] supposedly hidden away in a locked vault beneath the Citadel”
. When Pate gives “the alchemist” the key, he specifically wonders if “the alchemist”
might want a book locked down in the vaults of the Citadel . So the clues suggest that
the Faceless Man wants this book. But what have the Faceless Men got to do with
dragons? In Feast, “the kindly man” tells Arya
how the Faceless Men began. His story goes back thousands of years, to
the Valyrian Freehold, the empire of the original “dragonlords”, who ruled most of the known
world through the power of their dragons and their slaves. “the kindly man” tells of the slaves who
worked in the mines beneath volcanic mountains called the Fourteen Flames. These mines were so hot and the work so hard
that slaves would pray for “an end to [their] pain” , and the first Faceless Man was someone
who gave them that gift, who killed the slaves who suffered the most . Arya says they should
have killed the slave masters, not the slaves, and “the kindly man” says “He would
bring the gift to them as well … but that is a tale for another day” . So “the kindly
man” is suggesting that the Faceless Men brought the gift of death to the slave masters
of Valyria, and some readers believe this refers to the Doom of Valyria, the massive
fiery catastrophe that suddenly destroyed the Empire four hundred years ago . The Doom
is mysterious, no one really knows what caused it, but maybe the Faceless Men were behind
it, killing all the slave masters, their slaves, and the entire empire in one huge terrible
sacrament to the Many-Faced God of death. There’s no strong evidence for this, but
it totally could fit and it could maybe explain why the Faceless Men now want this book about
dragons, because of course, there were survivors of the Doom – the Targaryen family and their
dragons escaped Valyria and went on to conquer Westeros, ruling the Seven Kingdoms for centuries
until their overthrow by Robert, eventually leaving Daenerys the last of the dragonlords. And she’s rising as a queen, conquering
cities across Slaver’s Bay, and unlike the Targaryens of the last hundred or so years,
Dany has dragons. Given their history with Valyria, the Faceless
Men are probably not too keen for a new dragon queen with “the blood of old Valyria”
, so maybe they want to stop her, maybe they want to kill her dragons, and maybe that’s
why Jaqen is stealing a book called The Death of Dragons. There are a lot of maybes here, and there
are problems with the idea – for one thing, Dany is ending slavery in the cities she captures,
and it seems like slavery is kinda the main problem the Faceless Men had with Valyria. Also, if the Faceless are so against Valyrians,
and Targaryens, you’d think they would have moved against them sometime in the last three
hundred years of Targaryen rule in Westeros? Maybe they did, somehow. At this point, we just don’t know, but this
history with Valyria seems important either way. Another big thing is that in Book 3, we hear
that Balon Greyjoy, father of Theon and Asha, has died, fallen from a bridge at Pyke during
a storm. In the show, we see Balon’s brother Euron
is the one to kill him, attacking him, and pushing him off the bridge – but in the
books, it’s different. In a sample chapter of Winds, Euron admits
to killing Balon, but says he didn’t do the deed himself , so who did? Well, earlier in Book 3, “the ghost of High
Heart” has a “dream” “of a man without a face, waiting on a bridge that [sways] and
[swings]. On his shoulder perche[s] a drowned crow with
seaweed hanging from his wings” . The “drowned crow” sounds like Euron “Crow’s Eye”,
and the “man without a face” sounds like a Faceless Man. So it sounds like Euron hired a Faceless Man
to kill Balon. Maybe Jaqen was the one to do it, after Harrenhal. But there’s another complication, because,
remember, “The Faceless Men are expensive” , and George Martin says that the cost of
hiring a Faceless assassin depends on how important and hard to kill the target is . So
if Euron hired a Faceless Man to kill King Balon Greyjoy, it must have cost a lot, what
could he have paid them? Well, in Feast, Euron says that he once had
a dragon egg, but he couldn’t make it hatch, so he “threw it in the sea”. If Euron did have a dragon egg, would he really
be stupid enough to throw away something so valuable ? Maybe he actually used it as payment
for a Faceless assassin to kill Balon. And maybe the Faceless have plans for this
egg. Because dragon eggs seem to be powerful magical
fiery objects. They were involved in the mysterious Tragedy
of Summerhall, where a fire got out of control and killed a bunch of Targaryens forty years
ago . Fans speculate they may have been involved in other fiery catastrophes, like the destruction
of Hardhome , and maybe the Doom of Valyria. We don’t know how this would work, and there’s
no strong evidence, but the point is that there definitely are connections between the
Faceless Men and Valyria, and dragons, and Euron, especially when you look at the most
recent sample chapter of Winds, the Forsaken. In this chapter, which was a reading by George
Martin transcribed by fans, we learn that Euron Greyjoy is even more evil than he seemed,
in the books he was always creepy and cruel and manipulative, but in this chapter, we
see an even darker side to the Crow’s Eye. Euron has imprisoned his brother Aeron, along
with a bunch of other priests from different religions on his ship, and he’s torturing
them, physically and psychologically in horrifically creative ways involving fire and dismemberment
and talk of past childhood abuse, and Euron drugs Aeron and he has these nightmares of
dragons and krakens and skulls and dead gods, and we learn Euron’s planning something,
some kind of sacrifice, he’s using the blood of priests and warlocks and pregnant women,
on the eve of a naval battle , to cause something terrible , there’s imagery of a boiling
bloody sea , of a monstrous Cthulu-like Euron, we’re told that “blood is power”, and
that “These are the last days, when the world shall be broken and remade. A new god shall be born from the graves and
charnel pits” . So this is vague but terrifying and it could possibly connect to the Faceless
Men, who are after all, a literal death-cult, killing and blood is kind of their jam, and
there some real connections here, like the use of priests from all different religions
is kinda like the Many-Faced God, and also this is all happening just off the coast near
Oldtown, which is where the Faceless “alchemist” is. We already know the Faceless Men worked for
Euron to kill Balon. So maybe they’re also conspiring with him
to create this great sacrifice, this terrible orgy of death and blood which, may, like the
Doom of Valyria, have cataclysmic consequences. There could be dragon eggs involved, The Death
of Dragons may be related, or maybe the Faceless Men have nothing to do with it. We can’t say for sure. But here’s what we do know. Jaqen H’ghar is the false identity of a
Faceless Man. He somehow ended up in the black cells of
King’s Landing, and then met Arya and led her to join the Faceless Men. It’s possible that he was working with Arya
all along as Syrio Forel, but that doesn’t seem likely. We do know “the alchemist”, now Pate,
is a Faceless Man, probably the same one as Jaqen, and he seems to be planning to steal
a book about dragons from the Citadel. We know the Faceless Men have bad blood with
Valyria, which might explain their interest in The Death of Dragons. And it seems likely, that a Faceless Man killed
Balon Greyjoy for Euron, which may have involved a dragon egg that may relate back to the Doom. Lastly we know that Euron’s planning a terrible
sacrifice, which could also somehow relate to Jaqen, the Faceless Men, and their Many-Faced
God. So that probably raised more questions than
it answered, but that’s kind of the fun of the character – comment below what you
think Jaqen H’ghar and the Faceless are up to, and make sure to subscribe if you haven’t
already. Thanks for watching. This video draws a lot from the ideas of the
Song of Ice and Fire fan community, so there are links in the description to some really
great essays and forum posts if you’d like to have a look. Thanks to all supporters on Patreon, including
Katie Murphy, Jeremy Cashen, Amy McCracken, Thomas McIlroy, Elijah Roseberry, Cybill Starr,
Elyse Harpur, Gregory Folk, Decoy Octopod, Teddy, Ronjan, and Spike. Cheers.
