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Hey Youtubers It’s charlie, this week I thought it would be fun to talk about all
of the classes of magic on game of thrones. Even if the show hasn’t really explained
them all that much we’ve seen everything from the old gods to the seven to the red
god to the great other to the three eyed crow. So let’s drown ourselves in the grimoire
of george rr martin.
The really cool thing about game of thrones is that all higher beings and schools of magic
bestow some form of power no matter how obscure they are. A really good example of old magic
clashing with new magic is in season 2 when melisandre and ser davos unleash the smoke
baby on Renly.
It’s explained that melisandre has to pass inside the walls of storm’s end for her
smoke baby to work right. And boy does it! That moment wasn’t just big because of wtf
baby, it was a subtle reminder that even though we never see any of the gods, they exist and
the have very real power. Melisandre’s red god can’t affect Renly as long as they’re
outside the protective barrier of the seven gods.
What’s still unclear is whether or not any of the god’s power is dependent on prayer.
That is to say it’s unclear as to whether they’re astral beings/demon/angelic/elemental
or if they obey the laws of what I like to call Neil Gaiman logic.
In his book American Gods he poses the idea that a god’s power exist in direct relation
to the amount of prayer received. I’ll be talking more about that book in a future video
because HBO is turning it into a tv series like they did with A Song of Ice and Fire.
Be sure to subscribe to get it. But now let’s talk specifically about each of the types
of magic on game of thrones starting with the old gods.
The old gods are directly related to the three-eyed crow so be careful for a few potential spoilers
of what might be in store for Bran. In case you want to skip this part mute the audio
now and I’ll flash an ‘unmute’ text on the screen when I get to the next type
of magic. Annd begin.
You can think of the old gods as being like the gods of nature and the physical earth.
Their most obvious physical expression on the show are the heart trees that exist in
all the castles of westeros as well as beyond the wall. You can tell it’s a heart tree
because they’re all white and they have faces.
During the opening credits the heart tree grows in winterfell and even though winterfell
was burned by ramsay snow the heart tree still exists there. The trees are supposedly as
old as the earth, making them the oldest living things on the show.
Although other gods like the great other and the red god have active priests like melisandre
and thoros, the old gods closest equivalent are the greenseers. We get to meet 1 greenseer,
I won’t say when or where but he is presented to us as THE greenseer as if he’s the only
one currently living.
The old gods grant greenseers the ability to commune with any natural living being.
Think of it like warging into anything that’s alive anywhere on the earth. Remember when
someone wargs into an animal or a person they also gain access to their memories. It’s
like accessing a hard drive. So because the greenseers can warg into the heart trees that
have been alive since the dawn of man in westeros the greenseers can effectively see across
time and space. Time travel high fives!
Currently on the show the only people who still worship the old gods are house blackwood
in the riverlands, the people of the north like the starks and everything that lives
beyond the wall. That’s the end of potential spoilers so you can turn the volume back up
now. (flash text).
Next is the seven, they replaced the old gods in westeros when the andals came from the
east and conquered what would become the seven kingdoms. See what they did there, they sound
more superstitious than the freemasons.
Think of the seven like christianity. It’s the dominant religion in westeros but it came
from the east. Like Christianity the seven are actually all the same god. That is to
say it’s really monotheistic but the term ‘the seven’ refers to the seven different
aspects of the one god. They are The Father, The Mother, The Warrior, The Maiden, The Smith,
The Crone and The Stranger.
As you can guess the people of westeros gravitate toward each aspect based on their outlook,
so you would expect someone like robert baratheon to worship the warrior and a blacksmith to
worship the smith. Here’s a potential spoiler for arya so mute the audio for just a second
if you don’t want to hear it. Mute now....
The faceless ones are the order of assassins in bravos that arya will end up using her
valar morghulis coin to join. They worship death, who is represented in the pantheon
of the seven as the stranger. So arya basically worships the stranger. You can unmute now
(text)
Unlike the old gods, the seven actually have a bible called the seven pointed star and
like christians the faith has been heavily integrated into modern culture and law. They
also have religious orders including the high septon, a clergy which has it’s own army
called the faith militant. You can find them in one of the books I won’t say which but
they become a big thing in king’s landing. Next up is the drowned god, he’s an off-shoot
of the seven. The andals that conquered the iron islands converted to the local religion
rather than convert everyone to the seven. Although they baptise new followers by drowning
them, their priests, called the drowned men, get drowned twice then resuscitated. Seriously
they’re actually drowned and die for a few minutes.
Just like the red god’s enemy is the great other, the drowned god’s enemy is the storm
god. You start to see the pattern don’t you. A lot of these gods share a lot of similarities,
leading you to wonder if all their myths descend from the same two gods. Or if in reality there
is only one god with many different aspects like the idea behind the seven. What a mind
*** that would be. let’s call it the Game of thrones davinci code. High fives to anyone
that can solve it.
There’s also the Many-Faced God. Worshiped by the faceless ones. Technically he’s just
a different interpretation of the stranger. But the faceless ones believe that the stranger
is the one god with many different aspects. That’s kind of where the idea of the seven
and the idea of the god of death blend and get a little meta.
Although the priests of the faceless ones are really assassins I do believe that there
is a supernatural quality to the way they change their physical appearance. Remember
the scene in season 2 where arya says goodbye to jacken hagar and he goes all odo from deep
space nine shifting his face.
The cool thing about their order is that for them death is actually a gift that they offer
to people as a mercy. As opposed to revenge killing or the traditional idea of ***.
If you can’t tell we’ve been slowly traveling east, which leads us to the final two gods
rhollor the red god and the great other. Those two gods exist in this very dualistic relationship,
like a constant battle for the world that will supposedly only end when azor ah hi this
jesus like figure rises on a stone dragon wielding the flaming sword lightbringer.
The religious practices that george rr martin based these two gods on are referred to as
wisdom or illumination versus destruction. So think of rhollor as the bringer of wisdom
and the great other as the bringer of destruction.
Based on what we’ve seen the priests of the red god have a measure of resurrection,
the ability to raise astral beings, enchanted objects that provide physical protection and
a measure of vision using open flames.
The great other is thought of as the god of darkness and death. He’s also referred to
as he whose name is never spoken. He’s starting to sound a lot like voldemort. Wouldn’t
it be hilarious if his name was an anagram too. Big spoilers coming up for dance with
dragons so mute the audio really quickly and i’ll tell you when to turn it back on.
It’s really cool but Melisandre has a vision wherein she sees what she thinks are the champions
of the great other which include a wooden face, corpse white, a thousand red eyes and
a boy with a wolf’s head.
What she’s really seeing is Bran. He’s on the path to becoming a greenseer. He is
all three of those things she sees. The wooden face is the face of the weirwood trees, the
thousand red eyes are the eyes of the weirwood. Remember the trees eyes are red. and Bran/direwolf/wolf’s
head imagery. It’s pretty cool right?
Let me know in the comments if you think this means that Bran is actually going to become
the champion of the great other in winds of winter and dream of spring. Personally I don’t
think so, like she has said before, her visions are subject to human interpretation. Just
because she has special powers, doesn’t mean that she’s a genius.
I think that she’s just seeing into the future in a time after Bran is able to use
his greenseer powers to commune with the weirwood trees beyond the wall. I do think that that
power will play into the battle with the white walkers eventually. So get excited!
Let me know what you’re interpretation is of all these religions. Are they all separate
gods, or do they all represent different aspects of the same god?
As events on the show unfold I’ll try to target specific gods and go into a little
more detail about their magic. But I’ll be doing another game of thrones video in
two weeks so let me know what you want to talk about and I’ll try and include it.
I just hit five thousand subscribers too so I posted a thank you video to all you guys
for subscribing and being so awesome. you can watch it by clicking here. and you can
click here to watch my first legend of korra season 2 preview video.
Thanks for watching. High fives for magic!