Thoughts on Game of Thrones Season 6 Part Six

Clearly, my geekery knows no bounds.
This almost didn't get posted tonight because our internet has been out for five hours.
Also, Game of Thrones spoilers.

Faith and Identity
Part Four
Feeding the Faithful

My roommate and I have had this ongoing discussion about the lack of agrarian magic in most gaming systems. When I started thinking about the Faith of the Seven in Game of Thrones, I realized they have no farming gods. They don't have a god of hunting. I mean, sure they have the Smith, but while he's supposed to cover 'various skills that people have,' the emphasis always seems to be the ones that supply things for war. I'm actually pretty sure the Faith of the Seven doesn't care if anyone actually eats.

The Seven are the only gods we've never seen manifest any power. Well, okay, I'll add the Drowned God to that, kind of . . . his followers think he brings people back from the dead but it's really just the priests have figured out how to do CPR.  Still, even the Ironborn have more substantial reasons to believe in their gods than anyone who follows the Seven.

What the Seven DO have (and this seems to be lacking with the other religions) are guild books. Apparently, every one of the Seven gods has a book concerning the philosophies of that certain god. From everything we've been told, though, these seem to be more about ways people should act. Even the gods themselves seem to be more about models of behavior.

The Father is the model for leaders (of the family, of nations), the Mother is the model for mothers. The Maiden is the model for unmarried women. The Crone is the model for older women. The Warrior is the model for knights and other honorable warriors. The Smith is the model for how trades should be conducted and how to have good quality work. The Stranger is about how to handle death. In fact, the Stranger seems to have the only USEFUL followers. The Silent Sisters follow the Stranger and prepare the dead for burial.

So the big conflict with the Seven is that they have become the dominant religion in the Seven Kingdoms, but display no power compared to other gods. The people who follow them follow purely on faith. They guild books, but we have to remember this is a culture where very few people can read. This means the majority of the followers of the Faith are dependent on the clergy for guidance. This, of course, gives the clergy massive levels of power. This is Game of Thrones, though, so there is always more power to be had.

This season, we see two examples of people who lead the Faith. The first is the High Sparrow, a man who appears to be humble, but is clearly looking to gain as much power as possible. He slides his way into King's Landing and manages to get into the most powerful position he can. As I mentioned in the earlier essay about the HP and Cersei, SOME power is not enough for him. He has to have more. He uses religion as a weapon to gain what he wants.

In contrast to this is Septon Ray, a character who only appears in one episode. Like the High Sparrow, Ray came to his calling late in life. He found faith because he knew it was the only way to keep him sane. He makes it clear he was an angry man before, but in this humble man, we see someone who has clearly experienced transformation. He is patient. He is kind. He goes out of his way to befriend people who no one else wants to talk to. Instead of trying to gain power or manipulate royalty, he and his band of people retreat from society, intent on building something that is peaceful and new.

Ray is clearly the better of the two men. It's easy to see that his heart is in the right place. It's easy to see that nothing he does is for show, nothing is calculated or planned as part of a greater scheme. Even when we first see Ray, we see evidence of someone who cares about people on a very basic level. His followers are building a Sept, but they're also preparing food. He makes sure everyone has enough, including Sandor.

Seeing to the needs of his people is at the core of where Ray differs from the High Sparrow. The HS may dress humbly and hang out in that ancient alter area under the Sept of Baelor, but he isn't tending to anyone's needs. In fact, withholding water and food are some of his favorite tactics for making people come to his side. This manifests in how he presents the gods to the people. In the High Sparrow's world, the gods want obedience first. Ray presents the gods as wanting people to be good to each other first.

By the end of the season, both men are dead. Their actions have ended, but the legacies of their actions will progress as the story does. In “The World Was Wide Enough” (Hamilton), Miranda goes through the thoughts Alexander is having just before he dies. At one point he says, “What is a legacy? It's planting seeds in a garden you never get to see.” The High Sparrow's only legacy will be the poison he fed to Cersei. It kills him, everyone who followed him, and everything he built.

Ray also looses what he built, his followers, and his life. This is Game of Thrones, after all. Being a good person isn't a shield However, he also planted a lot of seeds in the Hound. He talked to him, person to person, about a lot of things. He accepted Sandor's past without question or judgment. He was unwavering in his belief that Sandor could be a good man and serve the world in a positive way. He fed his people, physically and spiritually. That could make all the difference in the world.

As a side note, I would also like to say that this season's interiors of the Sept of Baelor were magnificent. I loved the way they showed the bases of the massive statues to the gods. It's all gone now, but it was nice while it lasted.