Characters / A Song of Ice and Fire - Faceless Men

This is a listing of Faceless Men, their religion, and the Many-Faced God, in A Song of Ice and Fire.

For the main character index, see here

For the main Deities and Religions entry, see here

The Many-Faced God

Him of Many Faces

"Valar morghulis."
"Valar dohaeris."

A deity worshiped in Braavos, particularly by the Faceless Men, he is a god of death that is believed to be the one true god, with all other deities (especially those connected with death) being aspects/avatars of him.

The Many-Faced God

• Ambiguous Gender: Gets called a "god" and many chronicles default to using male pronouns when referring to "him", but a lot of "his" faces are actually hers, and at least a few are known its. This leaves the question of gender (or lack thereof) wide open.
• Crossover Cosmology: The whole idea that all deities, specifically those dealing with the varying concepts of death, are his various "faces". However, the text suggests (and Martin has supported) that he's specifically a different take on the Stranger of The Seven — note how the Stranger's salient traits (e.g. cloak wearing and with something odd about his/her/its face) are reflected in the priests of the Many-Faced God.
• Don't Fear the Reaper: After all, all men must eventually die. And, as many of his/her/its followers would point out, there are times when a quick, relatively easy death trumps a prolonged life of agonising pain. One aspect of worship is to grant the means of both euthanasia and suicide, depending on the means and circumstances of those who request it.
• Eldritch Abomination: Think about it for a minute: any shape of death-god, some of which seem to cross time, place and maybe even the Fourth Wall...
• God of the Dead: Death is worshipped in many forms, from the Black Goat of Qohor to the Stranger from the Faith of the Seven. A cult of assassins known as the Faceless Men believe all of these to be the same being, whom they call the Many-Faced God.
• Shout-Out: One of his avatars is Bakkalon the Pale Child, a deity who appears in George RR Martin's earlier sci-fi stories.

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The Guild of the Faceless Men

"On the morrow, at the turn of the moon, a year from this day, it will come. A man does not fly like a bird, but one foot moves and then another and one day a man is there, and a king dies."

A religious society of assassins who worship the Many-Faced God, a god of death. Their headquarters is the House of Black and White in the Free City of Braavos. Their history stretches back to before the Doom of Valyria, originating in the volcanic mines of that ancient city. They now act as the top assassin guild in the known world, whose services are very hard to come by.

Faceless Men

• Affably Evil: They seem a pretty decent bunch to live with, considering what they, you know, do. Just as long as you don't wind up on one of their lists.
• Ambiguously Evil: At least until their true agenda (if any) is exposed, it's hard to classify them as good or evil.
• Ancient Tradition: Their origins predate the Doom of Valyria.
• Blood Magic: Fresh blood is involved in the ritual that helps a Faceless Man don a face that is not his own.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Their worship of death is expressed in an unusual moral system which will readily provide this "gift" to anyone who truly desires it for themselves (although there are more than a few hints that they do subject the various petitions to at least some scrutiny: they have a "guard" hanging around the poison pool at all times so anybody who drinks it doesn't do it by complete accident, they also have meetings regarding tricky "petitions" and members of the order are monitored and vetted at every step of their training when it comes to using their own yardsticks for judging if a petitioner's request passes muster), but is very expensive when it comes to providing it to others (although it's implied that the price paid doesn't have to be financial, and varies according to motive, the degree of desire and the ability to pay). For instance, while the original Faceless Men lead Valyrian slaves to freedom, the initial action of the first Faceless Man was to Mercy Kill a slave rather than, say, killing an abusive master for said slave.
  • The second action was to help another slave kill his master, because it was the one thing he desired more than anything else; but, afterwards, the very first Faceless Man told the slave that he must now serve the Many Faced God until his dying day, and thus the slave became the second Faceless Man.
• Creepy Souvenir: They keep the faces of all those who come to die in their temple, to use as masks.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Arguably an example of this (their white-and-black outfits indicate a tendency to think of themselves as both dark and light), as a shadowy group of death-worshipping assassins who provide free, painless euthanasia to those who truly are in pain enough to wish for death. They also commit assassinations, but they only kill those who have driven others to pray (or pay) for their deaths, prefer not to kill someone they personally know, never kill sadistically or take any enjoyment in killing, and are very strict about avoiding collateral damage.
• The Dreaded: The scariest assassins in the known world. Other assassination and death cults exist, but none come close to the amount of dread the Faceless generate, with even the Targaryens fearing them despite all their power and their dragons. When there were tensions between Jaehaerys I and the Sealord of Braavos over three dragon eggs stolen from the Targaryens that had been sold in Braavos, Jaehaerys threatened the Sealord with dragonfire until the Sealord replied that he would hire the Faceless Men to kill the Targaryens in retaliation causing him to back down.
• Face Stealer: Their means of a more potent disguise: they take the faces off corpses of those who drank from the poisonous waters and use some sort of magic to take their appearances.
• Gender Is No Object: Downplayed — women can become Faceless Men, but only a few have done so through the centuries.
  Kindly man: Many have served Him of Many Faces through the centuries, but only a few of His servants have been women. Women bring life into the world. We bring the gift of death. No one can do both.
• Glamour: One means of disguise. Aided and abetted with a lot of practice with roleplay.
• Individuality Is Illegal: You can't become one of them unless you totally forsake your identity.
  Plague face: We took your eyes and gave them back. Next, we will take your ears, and you will walk in silence. You will give us your legs and crawl. You will be no one's daughter, no one's wife, no one's mother. Your name will be a lie, and the very face you wear will not be your own.
• It's Personal: They go out of their way to defy this trope. A Faceless Man will only kill someone they have no personal connection to. Killing someone out of revenge goes against their principle of only killing in the service of the Many-Faced God.
• Latex Perfection: The Faceless Men literally wear the faces of those who have died in the House of Black and White as masks. How they preserve these faces so perfectly and how they wear them so convincingly is left unexplained, though arcane methods cannot be ruled out.
• Living Lie Detector: The training of a Faceless Man involves learning to read someone's face to tell if they are lying.
• Make It Look Like an Accident: Their preferred method of operation when they need to arrange for someone to be given "the gift" is to make it look natural or the result of an unfortunate circumstance, without any obvious signs of malice or aforethought. An example of a Faceless Man-style killing is getting a poisoned coin to a target, who then bites it to test its value, only to drop dead later.
• Master Actor: They have to be to even get halfway through their training. Heck, they even learn using mummers' shows.
• Master Poisoner: Poison is one of their favorite tools for killing, one of the simplest ways of making a death look non-suspicious.
• Mentor Archetype: Jaqen and the Kindly Man are both this to Arya. The latter's persona could be viewed as a conscious invocation of this trope.
• Mercy Kill: Will gladly provide this to anyone who desires it. Their temple has a poisonous spring that the suffering can drink from to receive painless euthanasia. However, there is a surreptitious gatekeeper hanging near it at all times: no accidental or stupid drinking is permitted — your reasons must be heard, first, however quietly you whisper. Part of this mercy, though, includes scented candles that are designed to give comfort through some (possibly mind-invasive/ mind-altering?) means (Arya got all sorts of scent-memories of Winterfell). This could be interpreted as giving people a little of the "peace and courage" they need to choose suicide with after weighing their reasons. When they might otherwise not choose to do that by having scared second thoughts and back away to continue on with living. Which, isn't exactly moral by most of our standards, but could be conceived of as... helping people come to terms with what they have already decided to do when in a calmer, contemplative and more rational state of mind. You decide.
• Murder, Inc.: They are a religious order of assassins whose two main functions are the providing of painless euthanasia and assassinations for hire which they consider a sacred rite.
• Never Hurt an Innocent: By their definition, yes; they will not kill someone whose name has not been offered to the God of Many Faces.
• No Historical Figures Were Harmed: A Mystery Cult of a religious order of assassins with a particular brand of ethics and whose rituals and initiations are highly secret, they derive a lot of inspiration from The Hashshashin.
• No Name Given: None of them have names other than Jaqen H'ghar (which is a fake persona anyway) and Arya identifies them by physical descriptors.
• Oxymoronic Being: A female Faceless Man is considered to be one, because a woman brings life into the world while their job is to take life.
• Religion of Evil: Maybe. Of death, most certainly.
• Shrouded in Myth: The first Faceless Man, who lived in Valyria, is variously said to have been a slave himself, a nobleman's son, or an overseer who came to pity his charges. He watched countless slaves pray to their gods in hundreds of different languages for freedom, but no god ever answered. Then one day, he decided he must become god's instrument and killed the slave who had suffered the most, freeing him. He then heard another slave praying for his master's death and granted the wish, with the price that said slave must then become the second Faceless Man.
• Stealth Expert: Thanks to their almost supernatural skills as assassins, mastery of acting and ability to change faces Faceless Men are able of effortlessly sneaking into any place and of killing anybody without being ever detected, and it's almost impossible to ever know if someone's death was their doing. This is one of the reasons of why they are feared so much, even by the Targaryens.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Their powers include a form of face/identity stealing. Although they do also mix in more mundane means like cosmetics, roleplay and acting, too.
• Weird Trade Union: An assassins' guild religion.
• Would Not Shoot a Civilian: They only kill the person they're meant to kill, not bodyguards or bystanders. Not because they're a Hitman with a Heart, but due to their religious beliefs; only the target's name was offered up to the Many Faced God.

Jaqen H'ghar

"A man sees. A man hears. A man knows."

A Faceless Man introduced as a Lorathi criminal and prisoner being taken as "recruit" to the Wall, he ends up owing a debt to Arya during A Clash Of Kings and serves as an important mentor figure to Arya/impetus for her later decisions. He more than likely appears with a different face and identity in A Feast For Crows.

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• Affably Evil: He's polite and charming and while he is a professional killer, he displays no signs of sadism.
• Beware the Quiet Ones: Rorge and Biter are both sadistic murderers. Both of them are utterly terrified of dulcet, soft-spoken Jaqen.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Because of his identity as a Faceless Man, he believes that saving lives necessitates Balancing Death's Books, and can't really be classified as good or evil.
• Beneath the Mask: On the surface, a Lorathi down on his luck after having made bad choices. Underneath? A Faceless Man from Braavos doing a job of work.
• Dead Person Impersonation: In A Feast For Crows, he's heavily implied to be a character calling himself the Alchemist and in this identity, ends up killing and taking the identity of a Citadel student, Pate.
• Evil Mentor: Or, Morally Ambiguous Mentor.
• Hitman with a Heart: Has some shades of this, as he seems to have some genuine affection for Arya.
• Horrifying the Horror: It's unknown how he met with Rorge and Biter and found himself in the same convoy as them, but whatever happened, the fact that these barbaric and sadistic monsters are utterly terrified by Jaqen and stay away as much as possible from him.
• I Cannot Self-Terminate: Played with. He can, but when Arya names him as the third person he must kill (see Three Wishes below), he asks her to 'unsay' it. The strong hint is that, because he is actively serving the Many-Faced on a specific mission, it's not an option until he's done: "all men must serve".
• Make It Look Like an Accident: Generally kills in this manner, which appears to be a Faceless Man trademark.
• Master of Disguise/Voluntary Shapeshifting: Comes with the Faceless Man package.
• Only Known by His Undercover Name: Jaqen H'ghar is almost definitely not the man's real name.
• Punctuation Shaker: Possibly the oddest and most "fantasy" name in the series. However, this kind of name is, apparently, common enough in Lorath.
• Professional Killer: He is a scarily effective master assassin.
• Third-Person Person: He always refers to himself in a detached way as "A Man" rather than saying "I". Likewise, he speaks of Arya in third person as "A girl" rather than saying "You". This is also part of his cover as Jaqen, as he doesn't speak this way in his "Alchemist" persona. The World of Ice & Fire reveals that this manner of speech is typical of all the people of Lorath.
• Three Wishes: After Arya saves him, Rorge, and Biter, he offers her the lives of any three people in exchange as a kind of Balancing Death's Books.
• Villainous Gold Tooth: He has a gold tooth, and the Guild of the Faceless Men being a league of assassins, he's at best a Morally Ambiguous Mentor to Arya in A Clash Of Kings.
• Villainy Discretion Shot: Fridge Logic would suggest that he must have done something pretty horrible to end up in the Black Cells/inspire the respect and fear of monsters like Rorge and Biter.

The Kindly Man

"Kiss me, child."

A priest in charge of the House of Black and White in Braavos. He guides Arya Stark along the path to becoming a Faceless Man.

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• The Adjectival Man: The Kindly Man.
• Affably Evil: As his sobriquet suggests, he's a quite pleasant guy, and behaves in a friendly, grandfatherly manner to Arya, and treats her better than anyone has in a long while. He's also clearly brainwashing her into a merciless, identity-less assassin.
• Beneath the Mask: Cool, old dude on the surface; gods alone know who underneath. The whole problem with the Faceless is that they both are the persona they're wearing while they wear it, yet also aren't.
• Consummate Liar: He tells Arya that the basis for disguise is learning to exercise total control over one's emotions, and that he can consciously choose to display any (seemingly sincere) emotion he wants.
• Cool Old Guy: Well, as cool as an enigmatic Ambiguously Evil assassin training a child can be.
• Corruption of a Minor: Downplayed. Yes, he is training Arya into becoming an identity-less assassin, but he has repeatedly suggested she do something else with her life, rather than learn the trade. He has backed it up by offering numerous well-thought-through alternatives appropriate to aspects of her personality and skill-set that he would be happy to arrange for her, some of them rather high class lifestyles, at that (heck, it's even easy to think there could be political mileage down the line for the order to have somebody deeply indebted to them in some of those roles — so, it seems very likely that any strings attached would be the "price" for those lives). That he is training Arya is as much her and her trauma's fault as it is his: if he is deliberately love-bombing her, it's a very oddly hands-off kind.
• Evil Mentor: He is training Arya to be an assassin and teaching her that she is "no one" in a attempt to remove much of her previous personality and attachments. Yet, subverted by the fact that, brutal though his mentorship occasionally is, it's the most carefully structured and caring experience she's had in ages; and he does repeatedly offer her alternate futures rather than sticking with the training.
• Nightmare Face: When initially trying to recruit Arya, he turns his face into a rotting skull with worms and maggots crawling around on it. Arya is completely unaffected, and actually tries to eat one of the worms on his face. The Kindly Man is extremely amused by this.
  The Kindly Man: No one has ever tried to eat my worm before.
• Only Known By His Nickname: Like all members of the Faceless Men, he does not go by his name, but rather a descriptive moniker.
• Troll: When Arya first asks him if he can teach her to change her face, he tells her to puff her cheeks and stick out her tongue, and when she does, tells her, "There, your face has changed." She is not amused.

The Waif

"The one you call waif is a woman grown who has spent her life serving Him of Many Faces. She gave Him all she was, all she ever might have been, all the lives that were within her."

— The Kindly Man

A member of the Faceless Men who also teaches Arya how to become a Faceless Man.

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• Beneath the Mask: On the surface, a strange girl somewhere between six and nine. Beneath it, a Master Poisoner of thirty-six, and who knows how many kills.
• Consummate Liar: Like other Faceless Men, this is an ability she has developed through training, and plays a "game" with Arya to teach her this, wherein she tells her own history and challenges Arya to spot the lies.
• Creepy Child: Comes across as one, mainly because she's not really a child. In a death cult.
• Master Poisoner: She specializes in crafting poisons to kill her targets. Some of her concoctions are so toxic that handling them causes Arya to be ill for days.
• Mysterious Waif: Nothing is known about her, and she's described as a waif.
• Older Than They Look: The waif is a Faceless Man (Faceless Woman?) who is thirty-six years old but looks close to Arya's age. As a child, she barely survived being poisoned, which severely stunted her growth, and the face she has probably isn't her real one, anyway, even if it matches her height.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: She and Arya occasionally give each other grief, but also do a lot together and teach each other new skills, so there is a definite sense of loyalty between them.
• You Remind Me of X: Her gaunt face reminds Arya of Weasel, an orphaned toddler she met in the Riverlands.

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