Hello, everyone! Just wanted to get out a quick post before people stateside (including myself) head off for their Labor Day holiday. So what do we have in store?
- Why do the hill clans of the North and the mountain clans of the Vale have such different sociopolitical situations?
- More thoughts on the Vale clans.
- A couple of population questions. And some debate about my guesses.
- What if Tywin joined the loyalists post-Trident?
- Why mercenaries in Essos?
- How long to build the Mander-Blackwater canal?
- The Iron Bank, the Faceless Men, and the Sealord
Race for the Iron Throne 
On magic and Essos, it’s worth noting that even in Braavos the Faceless Men make up just one tool (if they can really be considered that*) that Braavos uses, their trade power and fleets being very powerful and reliable ways of pushing their goals.
*Their exact relationship with everyone is still uncertain, but I’d think it was likely that the Faceless Men pay attention to the more public Braavos institutions and will occasionally do work for them rather than being a power that Braavos uses to force others to obey.
Yeah, I think it’s a pretty hands-off relationship. Clearly the Faceless Men have an attachment to their anti-slavery republic, since they believe they helped create it in no small part, but it’s not like they’re an arm of the state.
Yeah, I likewise think people GREATLY overestimate the connection between the two–I don’t think even the strongest Sealord can compel the Faceless Men to move when they don’t feel the cause of good and just deaths is furthered by an action.
Same here.
I also get the feeling that some of the Faceless Men’s kills are done on a pro bono basis, for those people they think have a legitimate gripe. (Like those defrauded by the Thin Man for instance.) That’s why they can be so prohibitively expensive for use as royal assassins yet seemingly come be so active elsewhere.
Now to be clear, I suspect that they’d be more than happy to kill anyone out there who constituted a threat to *Braavos* in any way-just that they won’t kill for the specific benefit of one Braavosi Sealord. So they won’t kill over regular trade competition but if they heard of someone who’d been kidnapping Braavosi to trade them into slavery or had engaged in piracy against a Braavosi ship or anything of that sort, the Faceless Men would damn well be on it.
And I for one wouldn’t be at ALL surprised if the Faceless Men, took it on themselves to do something about Qyborn and Frankengregor on the grounds that they considered it an affront to the Many Faced God.
Oh, I don’t think the Faceless Men ever kill for free, based on the simple laws of their religion. It’s just that they’re willing to take what looks like us like very odd fees.
Remember all those people killing themselves at the House of Black and White?
Yeah, maybe ‘pro bono’ shouldn’t have been the word I used, but rather say they use a sliding scale when it comes to figuring out payment.
And yeah, suicide may be one payment type they ALWAYS accept..
Precisely. What matters is the sincerity of the prayer as measured by the sacrifice.
Could be your life, your service, owing them a favor, etc.
The way I understand the Faceless Men, it’s not the absolute monetary value of the offering that matters at all. It’s how much of a sacrifice it is to the person offering it. A few gold coins is nothing to the Sealord, but to some street vender, it might be enough to ruin them. If the sacrifice is enough to really hurt, then it’s important enough to for them to pay attention. How much it’s got to hurt? That I can’t say.
Precisely.