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Why is Jaqen H'Ghar Really in Oldtown? | In Deep Geek | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: Why is Jaqen H'Ghar Really in Oldtown?
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Video Summary
Summary
Core Theme
The central theme explores Jaqen H'ghar's presence in Oldtown, suggesting his mission is not assassination but the acquisition of knowledge related to the existential threat posed by the Others, which contradicts the Faceless Men's core religious tenet.
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why in the books is Jack and Hagar in
Old Town is he there to kill someone or
to learn something if so what or who
let's take a look
hi everyone this is Robert welcome to in
deep geek on this channel we dive deep
into A Song of Ice and Fire as well as
other great fantasy books and TV shows
like the Lord of the Rings and The Witcher
Witcher
this video is the next in my series on
the role of the Faceless Men In A Song
of Ice and Fire because they are a lot
more than just an Assassin's Guild you
can watch this as a standalone video but
it builds on a lot of what we covered
earlier in the series in this video and
the last one coming out soon will be
tying together a lot of threads we
unpicked earlier about what the Faceless
Men actually want so if you want to go
back and watch those videos first and
then come back here feel free
the starting point for this video is
that in the books although not in the
show in the prologue to A Feast for
Crows The Faceless man we know as Jack
and Hagar seems to have arrived in Old
Town the seat of the maesters for
reasons that are initially not entirely
clear as he's a Face Changer we
obviously can't be entirely sure that
this is the same person but George RR
Martin has dropped so many hints and
clues that it seems beyond Reasonable
Doubt scrolling back to the last time we
saw Jack and in roughly August of the
Year 299 AC he took his leave of Aya
after trying to persuade her to go to
braavos with him she decides not to at
that point wanting to go back to her
family so Jack and leaves without her
saying that he has duties to attend to
presumably not hugely time critical
duties as he was willing to take Aya to
braavos First and he changes his face
his Jack and face apparently no longer
useful to him we get a good description
though of his new face his cheeks grew
Fuller his eyes closer his nose hooked a
scar appeared on his right cheek where
no scar had been before and when he
shook his head his long straight hair
half red and half white dissolved away
to reveal a cap of tight black curls
is interesting not just because it's the
first time that Arya sees a faceless man
changing his face but because six months
later someone calling themselves The
Alchemist with that exact description
appears in Old Town in the prologue to A
Feast for Crows for the most part he
keeps to the shadows and doesn't reveal
his face but when he does it is
described like this
ordinary with full cheeks and the shadow
of a beard a scar showed faintly on his
right cheek he had a hooked nose and a
mat of dense black hair that curled
tightly around his ears
full cheeks a scar on his right cheek a
hooked nose and black curly hair cropped
short now this could just be a
coincidence of descriptions but what
happens next seems to suggest that it
isn't the prologue and therefore the
description we have are from the
perspective of Pate a dim and not very
talented novice in the Citadel he is
failing his exams and is obsessed with
taking the maiden head of Rosie a young
woman at a local Tavern but he can't
afford it he needs a gold coin
happily for him an alchemist suddenly
appears and offers to give him a gold
coin in exchange for use of a key to the
Citadel that he is uniquely in a
position to steal we'll come back to
what this key is in a moment Pate thinks
about it for a few days but then decides
to go for it
The Alchemist meets him in a darkened
alley and Pate asks to see his face and
asks who he is
The Alchemist replies that he is no one
as if we need more of a clue and gives
pay to the coin Pate bites it to check
it's genuine like he's seen others do
and he Keels over apparently poisoned
it's a mirror of the assassination we
saw Arya do for the Faceless Men biting
a poisoned Coin pate's Heart seems to
give out
so someone calling themselves no one who
looks exactly like jaquin's last
appearance and kills people using a
classic faceless man trick it's Jack and
or more accurately The Faceless man
formally disguised as Jack and who can
tell what his real name is
jumping forward another few months at
the very end of a feast of crows Pate
reappears in a Sam chapter which should
immediately arouse our suspicions
because Pate seemed to die at the end of
the prologue all characters with POV
chapters in A Song of Ice and Fire
prologues or epilogues die it's a George
RR Martin thing so presumably jaqen has
now stolen pate's face anyway Sam has
just arrived in Old Town and he doesn't
know any of this background and is
ushered into the presence of archmaster
marwin a curious character who has
clearly attained a high status in the
Citadel but feels very differently to
them he cares about magic and glass
candles and prophecy and Dragons unlike
them in fact he's outright opposed to
them and disparaging of them he briefly
questioned Sam hearing that maester
Eamon wanted to go to see Dany and
advise her of the prophecy surrounding
her and then head straight off to the
docks to try to get a ship to meet Dany
for him self as Eamonn is now dead and
he wants to take his place there are
several interesting characters in
marwin's group Leo Tyrell alanas but
right at the end the reader's attention
is drawn to Pate who is also there him
introducing himself to Sam I'm Pate like
the pig boy is actually in the last
sentence of the entire book like Pate
had the first chapter of the entire book
was supposed to make the connection and
if we were in any doubt Paige seems
different to how he came across in that
prologue not in appearance but in character
character
he seems cleverer interjecting with
explanations and proactively tells Sam
that he is called Pate like the pig boy
Pate the pig boy is a well-known comedic
character from westerosey folklore a
comparison that we know from the
prologue that the real Pate hated and
yet now he is proactively embracing it
there are other Clues too whether he
calls Dragon Glass Dragon glass or
obsidian and so on the clear conclusion
from all of this is that The Alchemist
in the prologue was jackan
self-identifying as no one he killed
Pate using the faceless men's poisoned
coin technique that we've seen Arya use
took the key that Pate had and assumed
his appearance so the page that we see
at the end of A Feast for Crows is
jacken in Disguise and he's been in Old
Town for six months
so why take pate's appearance and why
does he want that key well the key is a
master key to the Citadel they are
seemingly held by Arch Masters only and
allow access to all areas of the Citadel
Pate is novice to archmaester woolgrave
who was old very old and seemingly
suffering from something like dementia
he perhaps alone among the archmasters
wouldn't notice it to go missing and
Pate clearly is bribable to steal it
taking on pate's appearance also allows
Jack and a reason to be in the more
secret parts of the Citadel if cornered
he can always claim to be on a task for
his master if all we'd had was that one
prologue then we would probably assume
that jaqen was there for an
several months later and discovered that
jacken is still there and is still
disguised as pate is he still casing The
Joint preparing for an assassination
even for the Faceless Men that seems
like a very long build up so presumably
he either completed his mission and has
found some reason to stay like he hung
around for a while earlier in the story
when he saw Aya's potential or he was
there for some other reason either way
it seems intentional for him to be in
marwin's company because if he were
trying to stay low profile he would have
just stuck to archmaster wolgrave's
rooms so who is marwin and why might
Jack and want to ingratiate himself with him
him
Merwin known as marwin the Mage is a bit
of a rogue maester and the people who
talk highly of him aren't necessarily
the people you would want to earlier in
the series long before we met marwin
qyburn said that he was the only person
in the Citadel to take his work
seriously even earlier than that Miri
mazdur said that she studied under him
we hear that he spent some time in a shy
which is quite a Sinister place and he
wrote a book called The Book of Lost Books
Books
in the book of Lost Books he claims that
he found something of the prophecy of
Denise the dreamer that led to the
targaryens abandoning old valyria before
the doom and perhaps even the precursor
of aegon the conqueror's prophecy that
we learn about in House of the dragon
and got to George RR Martin's Thumbs Up
The Song of Ice and Fire
marwin has also apparently got a glass
candle to work a magical communication
and observation device that had been
long thought to no longer work through
that he has been tracking Sam and
maester Eamonn heading south which
brings us to that last chapter of A
Feast for Crows maester Eamon was also a
student of Prophecy and was convinced
that Dany was the prince that was
promised now Eamonn is dead marwin takes
his place and heads off to tell Dany
about her prophetic role before he goes
though he finds a moment to advise Sam
you should stay and Forge your chain if
I were you I would do it quickly a time
will come when you'll be needed on the wall
wall
it seems like quite a throwaway phrase
but it shows what he thinks is important
Danny is important but so is the wall
Danny's job in his mind seems to be to
embrace her prophetic role and defeat
the others or something like that which
brings us back to jacken given what
marwin is about why is jackan getting
involved in that
well let's assume that jaqen wasn't
there for an assassination or perhaps he
was but then decided to stay because of
what he discovered there it's a
reasonable assumption jaqen has been
there for at least half a year and
perhaps as long as a whole year it's a
long time
so he's there on a mission for The
Faceless Men And as he has ended up
getting close to marwin it must be
connected in some way with what marwin
is up to telling Danny that she's the
prince that was promised and ultimately
defeating the others is there any way
the Faceless Men would be interested in
that well yes there is every way if you
think back to the start of this series
we looked at how The Faceless Men aren't
just the cool Assassin's Guild they are
a religion committed to the god of death
valley mugulis isn't just a cool phrase
it's a statement of faith all men must die
die
what if that religious order discovered
a threat to the whole world that spat in
the face of their core belief that all
men must die
by making zombies humans no longer die
they get raised again as whites
The Faceless Men will be absolutely and
fundamentally 100 opposed to the others
on theological grounds as well as the
obvious practical ones but perhaps Jack
and only discovered about all this while
in the Citadel his quarters with
wolgrave are right next to marwin's and
Pate seems to hang around socially with
wolgrave's novices so perhaps or perhaps
he was sent to Old Town in the first
place in order to learn more about this
threat that they've heard about getting
the key from Pate could just as easily
be about getting access to ancient
Scrolls of wisdom as it is about getting
access to an assassination Target if
anywhere has knowledge about how the
others were defeated the first time
around or how they could this time it's
Old Town just to pick a few random
examples of what we know or suspect is
there there's blood and fire the classic
text about dragons and unnatural history
septum baths seminal work on the same
subject tomes about the Stark Kings of
winter histories of valyria banned and
lost texts prophecies and much more that
is why jaqen is an Old Town or has
stayed in Old Town not for an
assassination but for knowledge there is
an existential threat looming for
Westeros and essos and a heresy in the
eyes of the priests of the many-faced
god of death all men must die and the
others threaten that natural Order of Things
Things
in the final video in this series I will
set out how all of this fits together in
the whole Faceless Men master plan
but what do you think why do you think
jaqen is an old town let me know in the
comments section if you'd like to see
more videos in this series please click
on the link on the left of your screen
or to support this channel the best way
to do that is by clicking on the link to
my patreon page on the right of your screen
screen
that's all for this time thanks for
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