Game Of Thrones: 10 Things That Make No Sense About The Many-Faced God

The addition of the Many-Faced God in Game Of Thrones lent an intriguing yet confusing element to the already complex series. Much of the time, it is difficult to tell whether we want to root for the faceless men or for someone to come along and lay their establishment bare.

What keeps us curious about the Many-Faced God and its disciples is the fact that Arya Stark is so determined to join them. Whether we like them or not, they are never boring—although this doesn’t mean that they always make sense.

10 The Faceless Man Was Trapped

Once we get to know the faceless man better, he quickly becomes nearly invincible. The reason we meet him in the first place is because he is trapped in a cage and needs Arya’s help to get out. By the time he is about to return to his home of Braavos, he reveals himself to have the capability of changing faces. If he’s so clever, how did he manage to get caught in the first place?

9 He Lead Arya Astray

Before he leaves for Braavos, the faceless man tells Arya that, if ever she needs a place to go, she need only come to Braavos and show people the coin he gives her.

Arya eventually does this, embarking on a long, difficult journey to get to him. But, when she gets there, she is no so much welcomed and cared for as pulled into a cult where she is treated like she has to earn her place there, something that was never mentioned to her.

8 Is The God The Waif?

The waif is a regular antagonist of Arya. At one point, the faceless man enters the room to find the waif beating Arya, and he demands to know what’s going on. At other times, when the waif is in a scene, she will turn out to have been the faceless man the whole time—or is the many-faced god always using these two faces to interact with Arya?

7 Arya Is Punished

Arya is told to go to the docks and see what is to be seen there. When she asks the faceless man what it is she should look for, he tells her he doesn’t know, that only she can know. She finds the “thin man,” and they ultimately decide they are intended to kill him, but she later sees visitors from Westeros, one of them being a man who she witnesses abusing young girls. When she chooses to kill this man, the faceless man reprimands her for it, but who is to say that this isn’t what she was meant to see at the docks, not the “thin man?”

6 He Drinks The Poison

In response to Arya’s rogue assassination, the faceless man says a life must be paid for it. He holds a vial of poison up as if to give it to Arya, then downs it himself. Arya laments his death, but she discovers his face becomes the waif—then pulls away several faces, to finally reveal hers, at which point she goes blind. So, who drank the poison? The many-faced god?

5 How The Faces Work

The faceless man switches between faces as if by magic. It does not appear that he is wearing any kind of actual, physical face or mask on top of an actual face, but rather changing forms.

The hall of faces holds actual faces as if the disciples of the many-faced god are only to borrow these and place them over their own face. Arya does just this when she steals a face to use for her own purposes—but her use of it looks nothing like that of the faceless man, and more like she’s wearing a mask.

4 Arya Is Struck When She Isn’t Lying

There are many times that the faceless man, working for the faceless god, strikes Arya for her responses to questions. It’s made evident that she is meant to be struck when she is not being completely honest with herself in her answers, but, for many responses, there is no farce to be found in her answers, such as when she describes stabbing a stable boy-this actually happened.

3 Why Do They Kill People?

The purpose of the many-faced god seems to be to deal out deaths where appropriate. In order to do this, they collect human faces that they can use do disguise themselves while doing the work of the god. If the Many-Faced God is working to eradicate people who need to be killed, why is it also killing innocents in order to do this?

2 The God Values Honesty, But Lies

Arya is regularly beaten as a way of training her to be completely honest, implying that honesty is something vitally important to the many-faced god. This is ironic, considering the god lies to people in order to steal their faces. It’s also greatly ironic for the obvious fact of the name of the god itself; to have many faces is a way of calling someone dishonest.

1 Arya Must Become Honest In Order To Become A Master Liar

If what the god needs is for Arya to become a great liar, why discipline her into being completely honest? Is this merely for the audience appeal of having a Karate Kid-esque portion of the show? In order to become nobody, the faceless man works to strip Arya of any personal biases she may hold. This is an interesting exploration of the effects of bias on a person, allowing the audience to consider why it is that so many of the characters of the show fall prey to their biases, thought it confuses the subject of the many-faced god.