Faceless Men: who is Jaqen H'ghar?

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