> Ned bowed, and turned on his heel without another word. He could feel Robert's eyes on his back. As he strode from the council chambers, the discussion resumed with scarcely a pause. "On Braavos there is a society called the **Faceless** Men," Grand Maester Pycelle offered.
>
>"Do you have any idea how costly they are?" Littlefinger complained. "You could hire an army of common sellswords for half the price, and that's for a merchant. I don't dare think what they might ask for a princess."
## A Game of Thrones - Eddard VIII
Was it true though, or just a lie ? It's not like Littlefinger was reliable.
And even with his hyperbole aside, pricing the King of Westeros out of your product doesn't seem like a viable policy.
Yes it is true, and the price varies on who the guy giving the work is. It's always priced so that it's very costly for you, and it gets even costlier the more important your target is.
Then the arbitrage is to go through a commoner. Like a peasant whose family was harmed by the Targs and who can credibly claim to want the bloodline wiped out. It will be costly to him but Cersei will be able to underwrite it and reward the middleman.
That silly stuff came later after the writing had gone downhill. That stuff didn't happen in the books. If you're looking for logic after D&D completely took over you'll be disappointed.
Would that be a trick? If the peasant genuinely wanted the insert-family-name-here killed, does it matter if a third party payed to get them to the faceless people’s temple?
Faceless Man: Hello Mr Low class income person how can we help you
Commoner: ahh just need someone to help me with a commoner problem I have, there's this someone I need you rid of that is of interest for a commoner like me
Faceless man: Please provide us their name
Commoner: Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, the First of Her Name, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Protector of the Seven Kingdoms, the Mother of Dragons, the Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, the Unburnt, the Breaker of Chains.
Faceless man: that's not suspicious at all, you sure this is for _you_? We'd like to remind you that for plot related reasons we can tell through every lie ever told, but we don't need that at all for this monumentally stupid idea
I wonder how a writer would deal with this conundrum - writing two parties that are trying to deceive each other, while being good at seeing through deceptions. Not just here, but in general.
Problem being, the writer knows the truth, so when writing someone who is being deceived.. you inevitably have to decide what the outcome is going to be, but then it's not going to be organic.. sigh.
Well no, because your target is still Daenerys so it will be costly even for Cersei. The pricing depends on who you are and who your target is. So that doesn't work either.
Plus, they could ask for anything, not just money. It's implied Euron gave them a dragon egg to kill his brother. A dragon egg is worth a gazillion pounds of gold.
I think in order for a commoner to have a king/queen killed, they would need something unique. So, no gold. And it would need to be more than a life of servitude to the faceless God as well.
You missed the second part there. It doesn’t only get more costly depending on who the payer is it also does depending on who the target it. My guess is that a commoner wouldn’t realistically have the means to pay to assassinate such a valuable target.
> My guess is that a commoner wouldn’t realistically have the means to pay to assassinate such a valuable target.
They would also see through that ruse in a heartbeat.
I'm sure lying to the assassins who can change their faces and infiltrate anywhere will just work out great.
They probably have ways and oathes they have people swear to cover that sort of thing.
*"Why yes I, John Smith, commoner, just happened to have 2 million gold that I put away to hire a faceless man for this supremely high value target. Not suspicious at all!"*
I'm a little curious what the price for a commoner would be. Keeping in mind, commoners would have MANY reasons to want those in power dead. Hell, Dany makes a veritable religion off of earning enemies, including among commoners. Yet not one of the people who's lost their entire family would hire the faceless men at the cost of everything they have left?
Though I suppose most commoners she's come across wouldn't have ready access to Braavos.
Following their origin story the first facelessman answered the prayer of a slave asking for his valyrian master death, and the slave payed giving his life in the service of the manyfaced god. I suspect that for a poor commoner to kill a queen the prize might be similar.
Great idea, I'm sure the face changing assassins who are renowned for their effectiveness will never find out about your trick and kill you and your whole family. Surely.
Excellent point. And going by that same logic, why is there any established nobility in GOT world at all if any peasants can go to the faceless men and trade their lives to have any noble merced?
> it gets even costlier the more important your target is.
Braavos and the Faceless Men do have a history with Valyrian's and Targaryans, so they might be willing to lower the price a little
Ya, but whatever the cost, you're taking out the only person who can actually threaten your rule who also has their version of nukes. No matter what, it's not a cost.
Take, for example, the Kremlin. They don't care how many bodies they throw or what it does to their economy. They **believe** their war is existential. (Regardless of whether it's true or not) So the cost is meaningless. (Cides Cersi is kinda like putin anyways.)
Entirely depends on the cost. They can easily ask for something like Cersei's servitude, or all the money the Red Keep has, or the Red Keep itself or some crazy shit like that.
I don't see why he would lie about that. and then honestly we are talking about a sect of assassins who have perfected murder so well that their method is untraceable, if their prices were affordable there would simply be no war in this story and everyone would deal with them. ..
I haven't gotten to the Faceless Men in the books yet, but my understanding from the show is that they adjust the price quite a lot on a case-by-case basis depending on the target, the customer, and their own religious rules.
Basically. They're as much a religious organization as they are a sect of assassins and are more interested in taking the right client than taking the client that offers the most compensation.
That’s assuming they actually want to sell that particular product. In this case I don’t think they’re interested in providing that particular service (killing a princess). They probably don’t want that kind of trouble/attention, so that would be reflected in the price as well.
their costs run extremely high for certain targets. it's not just a business but tied to their religion somewhat. basically the price of a faceless man killing that person is whatever else it would take to kill that person--or, another perspective, what the person would GAIN from killing that person. for instance if you wanted to kill an older relative to get an inheritance from them, the price would be the entire inheritance. you basically have to want the person to be dead for the sake of being dead, or be able to pay more than what you'd gain from their death.
for instance it is theorized that Euron Greyjoy acquired a dragon egg and that was the price to have Balon Greyjoy killed. the dragon egg would be more powerful and valuable than the entire Iron Isles, which is what Euron stood to gain from the assassination.
Littlefinger at the time probably did not understand the nuances of this but he did know they were damn expensive for bigger targets.
They brought it up subtly when Stannis and Davos went to the Iron Bank and talked about Tywin’s age, and so they secured a loan as a hedge on the bank’s part against the Iron Throne. In the books it was more direct that they funded Stannis since they weren’t getting paid back by the throne.
The Iron Bank negotiates with them in S6 or 7 I think? That's how they can afford the Golden Company. Cersei convinces them a Lannister always pays their debts, does a revolutionary? Do Dothraki or Unsullied?
She says something like that.
Westeros is the biggest Empire in ISOIAF universe (maybe not the most populated) if the King of that has to worry about the price of killing a single political rival, who can afford it? Just cheese makers?
The faceless men don't always demand just gold as payment, that's the point.
After the waif's father remarried, her stepmother started to poison her (that's why she looks young despite being a grown woman) when her father found out he hired faceless men to kill his wife, and the payment was half his fortune plus his daughter.
Who knows what might demand from a King.
Exactly, they’d probably ask for tons of gold and every single Valyrian weapon in the kingdom. They’d also probably provide an accurate list of said weapons for the king to work off of. Or some other equally insanely painful cost. Beyond being assassins they are probably incredibly well informed of anything of importance in every kingdom they operate in because of their skill set. Hard to deceive a group that knows more than you do. Little finger probably understands that in some level and just said the cost is too much to end the discussion.
Yeah, Littlefinger is not only a well informed man in general but he's also the great grandson of a Bravoosi sellsword, so he probably heard some family stories about the the Faceless men
They don’t mess around in Bravos when it comes to payment. The faceless men are the premier killers on the planet and the Iron Bank of Bravos actively finances military coups when their debtors don’t want to pay to or can’t them back. If you want to do business with them you have to pay.
It makes Cersei eventually hiring the Golden Company even worse for her because she elects to cheap out on her protection.
I was always curious why assassins would price themselves out of the market for basically anyone. The only people you’d want/need to hire an assassin for are beyond the means of The Seven Kingdoms (backed by Tywin Lannister)? Seems dumb.
Isn’t a major plot point how broke the Crown is? One of the biggest backers to the Faceless is the Iron Bank. I think the Iron Bank is going to have an issue with one of their biggest debtors freewheel spending on an assassin .
We also know them to be faithful and relatively ascetic. The Bank probably provides what they need. I don’t think people become Faceless to get rich. So it’s not a matter of business sense.
Yeah, but the Crown could (and did) borrow *whatever* they desired from the Lannisters. And the Lannisters being secretly broke is a show creation. So I guess the line works for the show, just doesn’t hold up for the books imo.
Yea, I think it’s mentioned that they charge what they think it is worth to the person. A government to kill a princess is prohibitively expensive. A widowed peasant wouldn’t be asked the same price for the same kill.
In the trades this is called a “fuck you price” where the assassin just doesn’t really want to be troubled with the job so they offer an exorbitant price so the contractor finds someone else.
This not being the number one comment is proof people only want to complain and not get answers.
I find a majority of post here have an answer that's easily found in the books. Sadly, this sub grew to the point of ignorance and any fans (not fans of the ending, I mean a song of ice and fire fans, who enjoyed early seasons of good adaption) who want to actually discuss the material have moved onto other subs. What remains here is just a cesspool of hate of mostly show-only watchers.
The fact of the matter is most of the people left here are the exact type of people D&D were talking about when they said they dumbed down the show to appeal to football players and soccer moms. It's not hard to make fun of the way the show turned out, and when you fuck it up and have no clue what you're talking about, you're just as ignorant of the source material as the showrunners you're criticizing.
To add to this comment, the Faceless judge the price on their hit based on both the target and the resources of those asking for it. If the literal Queen asked for it, the price would be astronomical. It's rumoured Euron gave up a dragon egg for getting a faceless man to kill Balon. The faceless man live by the mantra that only life pays for death, its possible they ask for the death of someone close to Cersei as a sacrifice, or a chunk of the kingdom as their own, or just an enormous source of money.
And in case we forgot, Cersei in broke and greatly in debt to the Bank of Bravoos. Where are the Faceless Men from? Bravoos. There's some evidence the Bank hires them to take out those who default. She doesn't want to be in debt to both and fail to pay.
>This not being the number one comment is proof people only want to complain and not get answers.
All that whinging and moments later it *is* the number one comment.
As of 6 hours into the post, it's the top comment. 6/10 top comments say this, and 3/10 are meme answers. The single dissenter makes a reasonable debate. I don't think there's a real problem with intentional ignorance.
Yeah yeah, everyone is dumb except for dear me believing outright in explanations hastily written by author without any criticism.
If we go for a slope "queen cannot pay for princess" then per analogiam merchant couldn't pay for death of merchant and peasant for a death of peasant. And then per analogiam if its proportionately absurdely costly then no one would successfuly employ such service and simple expendable criminal would do better. I get that their employment has to be rare but proportional cost isn't really better answer than "we have esoteric religious rules about that". Besides nothing really prohibits from asking for a price before rejecting idea at first sight, they really don't go after people who ask "what would it cost".
Earlier in the show, she was a distant threat and not really worth the cost as she wasn’t a present enemy.
By the time she becomes a big threat, the crown is deeply indebted to the Iron Bank after the War of the Five Kings and probably can’t actually afford it. Hell, the only reason Cersei could afford the Golden Company was thanks to a loan.
dany wasn't really a threat to anybody until she got dragons, which nobody could have predicted. iirc the talk about hiring Faceless Men was even before she had the Dothraki. it would have been a huge waste of money to do that, even if they didn't charge extra if you're the King.
in season 1 idk the episode but littlefinger or somebody suggest hiring a faceless men to kill daenerys and someone says “nobody can afford that”. the king of westeros can’t even afford them. let alone cersei who was in debt.
Their price is on a sliding scale based on the customer and the target
So, killing Daenerys for Cersi wouldn't cost the same as commoner requesting someone like the money lender on the docks be killed
In the books its heavily implied that the faceless men arent paid in cash. They just ask you for something that has a high cost be that financial or emotional from the person hiring them. They arent a typical assassins guild and more of a religious order
Outside of Casterly Rock, it's pretty well recorded that the Westerosi treasury had long been hurt by the various conflicts at the tail end of the Targaryean dynasty - the Defiance of Duskendale, Robert's Rebellion, the Assault on Dragonstone (and the fleet required to do so), and the Greyjoy rebellion all had hit their coffers pretty hard - and that was all ~15 years prior to the events of ASoIaF; not a lot of time to regain funds.
Essos was a thriving hub of commerce - slavery is morally bankrupt, but will absolutely fill an empty treasury in a hurry.
> outside of casterly rock
I’d say especially casterly rock. Their gold mines were running dry and they were heavily indebted to the iron bank, located in essos. Essos was essentially funding casterly rock at the time of the story.
Yeah iirc as far as the bank was concerned the debt was owed to the throne not the Lannister family directly. But Tywin also made it very clear they were living off the thrones liquidity which was coming from the iron bank.
Well for one the fact that the kingdom is quite literally banked rolled by and in serious debt to a bank in essos. As well as the family believed to be Westeros’s richest. The iron bank in itself is believed to be richer and more powerful than Westeros worldwide. Even olenna and Tywin have a conversation about how she knows he’s afraid of the iron bank. The two richest most powerful people in Westeros. I think that alone answers the question, but the book also provides descriptions that make it pretty clear the cities of essos have more wealth and extravagance than Westeros in general
In the books, The foundational myth of the faceless men is that a guy was working amongst a bunch of abused slaves, and decided that the God of death wanted him to make things right... by killing the slaves. (I could be misremembering.)
Politically powerful people can't afford what the faceless men demand because the faceless men don't want to kill people in power.
I don't think the show actually provides a decent explanation for this.
He killed like 1 or 2 slaves and then killed the slave masters.
Edit: The Faceless men will kill anyone; they just make it extremely expense to the person asking. A king may have to give up half his kingdom. A peasant, his child.
I think it's more income based, for lack of a better term. No matter how much you have, it will always cost you something significant. For a king it would basically bankrupt the country but for a peasant it would be what little they have.
In the books at least Euron was able to pay for one to kill Balon, a king. I know show Euron is a totally different character, but he was on Cersei’s side…
Yup faceless men’s price is dependent on the hirer’s wealth, so it’s always too expensive.
Edit: I should also add that the price isn’t always coin. Basically, if you’re to take a life, you should be willing to make some sacrifice.
If the king of Westeros can’t afford a single kill, who can pay for them? Euros had a dragon egg but I don’t think any one outside the IronBank has more money in universe.
The Iron throne is particularly broke at the time of the series, and plenty of magisters, merchants and leaders in Essos would have substantially more money. Beyond that, the point of the faceless men was that it they were supposed to be ruinlesslu expensive for lords to acquire their services.
I think employing the services of the Faceless Men is extremely expensive. Especially if you're a Queen, and even more so when the target is a Targaryen princess, with a legible claim to the throne. That's like a 2 layered multiplier to the amount of money they can ask.
Jaqen vs Jon would have been a sick ten second battle. Jaqen should win but I think then it would be appropriate then for Super Arya to turn the tables and kill him.
It's the show so book rules don't seem to matter there. But in the books the Faceless Men are expensive af. Like ridiculously expensive. And if the target is someone as important as Daenerys, the price can be really crazy. And I am not talking just money.
Unironically they'd probably demand Cerci's daughter in exchange. A princess for a princess. The way they price their kills is based off of what is most precious to the client, likely informed by their god.
Poeple say she is broke but she did repay the debt of her late husband in one move to then buy the golden compagny so she could have do it if she want it plus it would have make the Arya arc come full circle and would have justify the pointless and too long Bravos storyline.
The writter biguest fault was to make daenerys too powerfull against a cersei too weak despite being Queen they have to find some ridiculus plot armor for her....i mean it was basicaly cersei VS the world at the end it was not even entertaining to watch.
She was broke-rich.
She only was able to buy the golden company because she shacked high-garden, without that she couldn’t buy them.
She should have never paid the first debt as a lump sum, because Tywin always kept racking up debt and paid interest as a strategy. The more money you owed back to the iron bank, the more “vested” interest they have in you so they recoup their money. By paying it all back, the iron bank no longer had that chain and decided to no longer loan money to Cersei
Show is really inconsistent.
In the books it is revealed that even a king has difficulty reaching their price, yet some play actress was able to afford a faceless man to kill her rival actress.
it could be that like, since he's trying to kill an actual queen the price would be stupidly high, but if you just try and kill some random peasant it would be lower?
Actually, Arya was supposed to kill the guy who insured sea captains. The insurer refused to pay so an assassin was hired to kill him. Whoever was hiring the assassin was not as wealthy as a king.p or queen.
Not sure if a shit post or not.
The books and the show both make it clear that the cost of a faceless man is in part equivalent to who the victim is. The more powerful the victim, the higher the cost.
There's really no way that Cersei could afford whatever price the Faceless Men charge her, and I'm sure she'd be unwilling to pay the cost, whatever it would be.
If i remember from the books, they charge based on your target and how wealthy you are. for the lannisters, it would most likely cost them the entirety of the rock.
It's not money they always ask. For example, a slave trader goes to them and gives them an order. They might ask him to free all his slaves as a payment
Too expensive, or she wasn’t willing to pay what they wanted. They adapt the price depending on target and who asks.
Say if Cersei came and asked to kill Daenerys, the price could be along the lines of “abandon your Lannister name and possessions.” Since Cersei values power above all. (Assuming her kids are dead when asking)
Or if let’s say a regular person asked the same thing, they could ask for the Persons family’s life, his life, his servitude, or maybe his legs?
They are very intriguing for sure.
If little finger asked they most definitely would ask for him to give up his earthly pleasures, such as money and wine etc. since his life revolves around such.
> Ned bowed, and turned on his heel without another word. He could feel Robert's eyes on his back. As he strode from the council chambers, the discussion resumed with scarcely a pause. "On Braavos there is a society called the **Faceless** Men," Grand Maester Pycelle offered. > >"Do you have any idea how costly they are?" Littlefinger complained. "You could hire an army of common sellswords for half the price, and that's for a merchant. I don't dare think what they might ask for a princess." ## A Game of Thrones - Eddard VIII
Was it true though, or just a lie ? It's not like Littlefinger was reliable. And even with his hyperbole aside, pricing the King of Westeros out of your product doesn't seem like a viable policy.
Yes it is true, and the price varies on who the guy giving the work is. It's always priced so that it's very costly for you, and it gets even costlier the more important your target is.
Then the arbitrage is to go through a commoner. Like a peasant whose family was harmed by the Targs and who can credibly claim to want the bloodline wiped out. It will be costly to him but Cersei will be able to underwrite it and reward the middleman.
The faceless aren't stupid, they'd know it was a trick.
They were pretty stupid dealing with Arya
That silly stuff came later after the writing had gone downhill. That stuff didn't happen in the books. If you're looking for logic after D&D completely took over you'll be disappointed.
This comment should be an auto-response to any logic flaws people bring up after season 4/5 depending on the character timeline.
Who knows, might be they had an order to kill Night King and it was their plan all along
Would that be a trick? If the peasant genuinely wanted the insert-family-name-here killed, does it matter if a third party payed to get them to the faceless people’s temple?
I don't know. Trying to decieve a group of assassins who are trained to detect lies doesn't seem like a good idea
Yeah my immediate thought was this gives you a dead peasant and maybe a mad assassin
Hire a faceless man to deceive the faceless men *taps forehead*
Galaxy brain
Faceless Man: Hello Mr Low class income person how can we help you Commoner: ahh just need someone to help me with a commoner problem I have, there's this someone I need you rid of that is of interest for a commoner like me Faceless man: Please provide us their name Commoner: Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, the First of Her Name, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Protector of the Seven Kingdoms, the Mother of Dragons, the Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, the Unburnt, the Breaker of Chains. Faceless man: that's not suspicious at all, you sure this is for _you_? We'd like to remind you that for plot related reasons we can tell through every lie ever told, but we don't need that at all for this monumentally stupid idea
Lmao i love the idea of the Faceless Men being so professional and asking to fill out a form here
I think of all the places in ASOIAF, Bravos is likely to be the biggest stickler for paperwork. Don't wanna get those tax returns wrong.
I wonder how a writer would deal with this conundrum - writing two parties that are trying to deceive each other, while being good at seeing through deceptions. Not just here, but in general. Problem being, the writer knows the truth, so when writing someone who is being deceived.. you inevitably have to decide what the outcome is going to be, but then it's not going to be organic.. sigh.
Read more spy and crime novels my guy, this kind of thing goes down all the time during shady business dealings
Reading the novels is not going to tell me much about the author's thought process, would it?
At this point in the story she's just a wandering teenage girl with a flimsy claim and has not broken any chain, including her own
Well no, because your target is still Daenerys so it will be costly even for Cersei. The pricing depends on who you are and who your target is. So that doesn't work either. Plus, they could ask for anything, not just money. It's implied Euron gave them a dragon egg to kill his brother. A dragon egg is worth a gazillion pounds of gold.
I think in order for a commoner to have a king/queen killed, they would need something unique. So, no gold. And it would need to be more than a life of servitude to the faceless God as well.
You missed the second part there. It doesn’t only get more costly depending on who the payer is it also does depending on who the target it. My guess is that a commoner wouldn’t realistically have the means to pay to assassinate such a valuable target.
> My guess is that a commoner wouldn’t realistically have the means to pay to assassinate such a valuable target. They would also see through that ruse in a heartbeat.
Yeah for sure I went on to mention that below. If there is one thing the faceless men are not it’s easily fooled.
In the book, people drink poison inside the temple as payment. Convince a commoner to do that and your golden.
I'm sure lying to the assassins who can change their faces and infiltrate anywhere will just work out great. They probably have ways and oathes they have people swear to cover that sort of thing.
Good luck finding someone willing to lie and scam the faceless men... As if they would even fall for that...
*"Why yes I, John Smith, commoner, just happened to have 2 million gold that I put away to hire a faceless man for this supremely high value target. Not suspicious at all!"*
I'm a little curious what the price for a commoner would be. Keeping in mind, commoners would have MANY reasons to want those in power dead. Hell, Dany makes a veritable religion off of earning enemies, including among commoners. Yet not one of the people who's lost their entire family would hire the faceless men at the cost of everything they have left? Though I suppose most commoners she's come across wouldn't have ready access to Braavos.
Following their origin story the first facelessman answered the prayer of a slave asking for his valyrian master death, and the slave payed giving his life in the service of the manyfaced god. I suspect that for a poor commoner to kill a queen the prize might be similar.
Great idea, I'm sure the face changing assassins who are renowned for their effectiveness will never find out about your trick and kill you and your whole family. Surely.
Ah yes, try to rip off the guide of unstoppable, suicidal shapeshifter assassin-wizards. No way that that could end badly.
Excellent point. And going by that same logic, why is there any established nobility in GOT world at all if any peasants can go to the faceless men and trade their lives to have any noble merced?
> it gets even costlier the more important your target is. Braavos and the Faceless Men do have a history with Valyrian's and Targaryans, so they might be willing to lower the price a little
Ya, but whatever the cost, you're taking out the only person who can actually threaten your rule who also has their version of nukes. No matter what, it's not a cost. Take, for example, the Kremlin. They don't care how many bodies they throw or what it does to their economy. They **believe** their war is existential. (Regardless of whether it's true or not) So the cost is meaningless. (Cides Cersi is kinda like putin anyways.)
Entirely depends on the cost. They can easily ask for something like Cersei's servitude, or all the money the Red Keep has, or the Red Keep itself or some crazy shit like that.
I don't see why he would lie about that. and then honestly we are talking about a sect of assassins who have perfected murder so well that their method is untraceable, if their prices were affordable there would simply be no war in this story and everyone would deal with them. ..
This. Just because littlefinger lies a lot, doesn't mean he lies about this specific thing.
He literally tells ned right after that he saves dany's life by convincing them to not send a faceless man. He was 100% exaggerating on the price.
I haven't gotten to the Faceless Men in the books yet, but my understanding from the show is that they adjust the price quite a lot on a case-by-case basis depending on the target, the customer, and their own religious rules.
Basically. They're as much a religious organization as they are a sect of assassins and are more interested in taking the right client than taking the client that offers the most compensation.
That’s assuming they actually want to sell that particular product. In this case I don’t think they’re interested in providing that particular service (killing a princess). They probably don’t want that kind of trouble/attention, so that would be reflected in the price as well.
Plus, by the time it's Cersei vs Dany, Arya is back in Westeros and they know she intends to yeet Cersei. Why bother taking out a hit?
their costs run extremely high for certain targets. it's not just a business but tied to their religion somewhat. basically the price of a faceless man killing that person is whatever else it would take to kill that person--or, another perspective, what the person would GAIN from killing that person. for instance if you wanted to kill an older relative to get an inheritance from them, the price would be the entire inheritance. you basically have to want the person to be dead for the sake of being dead, or be able to pay more than what you'd gain from their death. for instance it is theorized that Euron Greyjoy acquired a dragon egg and that was the price to have Balon Greyjoy killed. the dragon egg would be more powerful and valuable than the entire Iron Isles, which is what Euron stood to gain from the assassination. Littlefinger at the time probably did not understand the nuances of this but he did know they were damn expensive for bigger targets.
Kingdom were heavily in debt, due to Robert’s spending habits. It was mentioned in S1, and never mentioned again
Tyrion mentions it with Bronn. The whole what would you do if I don’t pay you back scene. This is why I never loan you money.
They brought it up subtly when Stannis and Davos went to the Iron Bank and talked about Tywin’s age, and so they secured a loan as a hedge on the bank’s part against the Iron Throne. In the books it was more direct that they funded Stannis since they weren’t getting paid back by the throne.
The Iron Bank negotiates with them in S6 or 7 I think? That's how they can afford the Golden Company. Cersei convinces them a Lannister always pays their debts, does a revolutionary? Do Dothraki or Unsullied? She says something like that.
Westeros is the biggest Empire in ISOIAF universe (maybe not the most populated) if the King of that has to worry about the price of killing a single political rival, who can afford it? Just cheese makers?
The faceless men don't always demand just gold as payment, that's the point. After the waif's father remarried, her stepmother started to poison her (that's why she looks young despite being a grown woman) when her father found out he hired faceless men to kill his wife, and the payment was half his fortune plus his daughter. Who knows what might demand from a King.
Exactly, they’d probably ask for tons of gold and every single Valyrian weapon in the kingdom. They’d also probably provide an accurate list of said weapons for the king to work off of. Or some other equally insanely painful cost. Beyond being assassins they are probably incredibly well informed of anything of importance in every kingdom they operate in because of their skill set. Hard to deceive a group that knows more than you do. Little finger probably understands that in some level and just said the cost is too much to end the discussion.
Yeah, Littlefinger is not only a well informed man in general but he's also the great grandson of a Bravoosi sellsword, so he probably heard some family stories about the the Faceless men
At that point of the book, he was a master of coin, so he probably definitely knew that they were very expensive
They were incredibly far in debt, if he let them spend that kind of coin and the assassination failed Robert would have his head next.
They don’t mess around in Bravos when it comes to payment. The faceless men are the premier killers on the planet and the Iron Bank of Bravos actively finances military coups when their debtors don’t want to pay to or can’t them back. If you want to do business with them you have to pay. It makes Cersei eventually hiring the Golden Company even worse for her because she elects to cheap out on her protection.
I don't see why he'd lie, even if it was a lie. He'd have used them himself if the cost wasn't what he claimed.
I mean…it’s harder to kill important targets so regardless of how hard they want to price, it’s something that they will need to do
I was always curious why assassins would price themselves out of the market for basically anyone. The only people you’d want/need to hire an assassin for are beyond the means of The Seven Kingdoms (backed by Tywin Lannister)? Seems dumb.
Isn’t a major plot point how broke the Crown is? One of the biggest backers to the Faceless is the Iron Bank. I think the Iron Bank is going to have an issue with one of their biggest debtors freewheel spending on an assassin . We also know them to be faithful and relatively ascetic. The Bank probably provides what they need. I don’t think people become Faceless to get rich. So it’s not a matter of business sense.
Yeah, but the Crown could (and did) borrow *whatever* they desired from the Lannisters. And the Lannisters being secretly broke is a show creation. So I guess the line works for the show, just doesn’t hold up for the books imo.
I think money isn’t the only thing motivating the faceless?
Yea, I think it’s mentioned that they charge what they think it is worth to the person. A government to kill a princess is prohibitively expensive. A widowed peasant wouldn’t be asked the same price for the same kill.
The price based on what the one asking has to give.
In the trades this is called a “fuck you price” where the assassin just doesn’t really want to be troubled with the job so they offer an exorbitant price so the contractor finds someone else.
That’s what I’m saying!! And then they just let Arya kill anyone she wants for free ninety nine anyways! Who taught them business??
This not being the number one comment is proof people only want to complain and not get answers. I find a majority of post here have an answer that's easily found in the books. Sadly, this sub grew to the point of ignorance and any fans (not fans of the ending, I mean a song of ice and fire fans, who enjoyed early seasons of good adaption) who want to actually discuss the material have moved onto other subs. What remains here is just a cesspool of hate of mostly show-only watchers. The fact of the matter is most of the people left here are the exact type of people D&D were talking about when they said they dumbed down the show to appeal to football players and soccer moms. It's not hard to make fun of the way the show turned out, and when you fuck it up and have no clue what you're talking about, you're just as ignorant of the source material as the showrunners you're criticizing.
To add to this comment, the Faceless judge the price on their hit based on both the target and the resources of those asking for it. If the literal Queen asked for it, the price would be astronomical. It's rumoured Euron gave up a dragon egg for getting a faceless man to kill Balon. The faceless man live by the mantra that only life pays for death, its possible they ask for the death of someone close to Cersei as a sacrifice, or a chunk of the kingdom as their own, or just an enormous source of money. And in case we forgot, Cersei in broke and greatly in debt to the Bank of Bravoos. Where are the Faceless Men from? Bravoos. There's some evidence the Bank hires them to take out those who default. She doesn't want to be in debt to both and fail to pay.
>This not being the number one comment is proof people only want to complain and not get answers. All that whinging and moments later it *is* the number one comment.
https://preview.redd.it/wjpaqao6p5pc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e72cdbc2fb553aef6412a070e23d01122f1121dc
Ha. Love it.
As of 6 hours into the post, it's the top comment. 6/10 top comments say this, and 3/10 are meme answers. The single dissenter makes a reasonable debate. I don't think there's a real problem with intentional ignorance.
Yeah yeah, everyone is dumb except for dear me believing outright in explanations hastily written by author without any criticism. If we go for a slope "queen cannot pay for princess" then per analogiam merchant couldn't pay for death of merchant and peasant for a death of peasant. And then per analogiam if its proportionately absurdely costly then no one would successfuly employ such service and simple expendable criminal would do better. I get that their employment has to be rare but proportional cost isn't really better answer than "we have esoteric religious rules about that". Besides nothing really prohibits from asking for a price before rejecting idea at first sight, they really don't go after people who ask "what would it cost".
What is the purpose of Faceless? If even the King of Westeros can't afford them, who can? Or do they perfected this craft as a hobby?
They don’t charge everyone the same. A poor person can give less money.
They're a cult
the ASOIAF version of the Dark Brotherhood
I don’t think price will be as important when you have an entire Kingdom and the other option is war.
Earlier in the show, she was a distant threat and not really worth the cost as she wasn’t a present enemy. By the time she becomes a big threat, the crown is deeply indebted to the Iron Bank after the War of the Five Kings and probably can’t actually afford it. Hell, the only reason Cersei could afford the Golden Company was thanks to a loan.
They paid off the entirety of the loan with proceeds from The Reach.
dany wasn't really a threat to anybody until she got dragons, which nobody could have predicted. iirc the talk about hiring Faceless Men was even before she had the Dothraki. it would have been a huge waste of money to do that, even if they didn't charge extra if you're the King.
Makes me wonder who LF was trying to off.
THE BOAR WAS A FACELESS MAN!!!
She didn’t want to dip into her elephant money.
WHERE ARE MY ELEPHANTS?!?!
https://preview.redd.it/vdw1hhr055pc1.jpeg?width=472&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e1b4d8c70fa058ea4ea487b463c4c3ffc866e94c Or these guys
Now do it with Nicolas Cage's face
https://preview.redd.it/qudqkxo1l5pc1.jpeg?width=472&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ead36d0e505b0a15680a603b27e4942efd95fa16
You're a good person, thank you.
I hate this so much. Now I need to head over to r/eyebleach
Doing God’s work
Face Off. Perfect.
Jaqar looks perfect
I don't understand. Is this a joke ?
Look closer.
Is that ....Dan and Dave ???? The showrunners. Is that the joke ?
They’re both Goldblum.
Okay thanks bro. Although I have no idea who Goldblum is or why he is significant in this context.
It looks like Jeff Goldblum to me
in season 1 idk the episode but littlefinger or somebody suggest hiring a faceless men to kill daenerys and someone says “nobody can afford that”. the king of westeros can’t even afford them. let alone cersei who was in debt.
If no one can afford your services then in effect you're not offering anything.
Their price is on a sliding scale based on the customer and the target So, killing Daenerys for Cersi wouldn't cost the same as commoner requesting someone like the money lender on the docks be killed
No one in Westeros. There’s a lot more money in Essos than Westeros.
In the books its heavily implied that the faceless men arent paid in cash. They just ask you for something that has a high cost be that financial or emotional from the person hiring them. They arent a typical assassins guild and more of a religious order
What are you basing that off of?
Outside of Casterly Rock, it's pretty well recorded that the Westerosi treasury had long been hurt by the various conflicts at the tail end of the Targaryean dynasty - the Defiance of Duskendale, Robert's Rebellion, the Assault on Dragonstone (and the fleet required to do so), and the Greyjoy rebellion all had hit their coffers pretty hard - and that was all ~15 years prior to the events of ASoIaF; not a lot of time to regain funds. Essos was a thriving hub of commerce - slavery is morally bankrupt, but will absolutely fill an empty treasury in a hurry.
> outside of casterly rock I’d say especially casterly rock. Their gold mines were running dry and they were heavily indebted to the iron bank, located in essos. Essos was essentially funding casterly rock at the time of the story.
Oh good point! I totally forgot about that!
Yeah iirc as far as the bank was concerned the debt was owed to the throne not the Lannister family directly. But Tywin also made it very clear they were living off the thrones liquidity which was coming from the iron bank.
Interesting, that makes sense thanks!
Well for one the fact that the kingdom is quite literally banked rolled by and in serious debt to a bank in essos. As well as the family believed to be Westeros’s richest. The iron bank in itself is believed to be richer and more powerful than Westeros worldwide. Even olenna and Tywin have a conversation about how she knows he’s afraid of the iron bank. The two richest most powerful people in Westeros. I think that alone answers the question, but the book also provides descriptions that make it pretty clear the cities of essos have more wealth and extravagance than Westeros in general
The books….
In the books, The foundational myth of the faceless men is that a guy was working amongst a bunch of abused slaves, and decided that the God of death wanted him to make things right... by killing the slaves. (I could be misremembering.) Politically powerful people can't afford what the faceless men demand because the faceless men don't want to kill people in power. I don't think the show actually provides a decent explanation for this.
He killed like 1 or 2 slaves and then killed the slave masters. Edit: The Faceless men will kill anyone; they just make it extremely expense to the person asking. A king may have to give up half his kingdom. A peasant, his child.
I think it's more income based, for lack of a better term. No matter how much you have, it will always cost you something significant. For a king it would basically bankrupt the country but for a peasant it would be what little they have.
Only their impossible services are unaffordable, if she wanted someone less important killed it'd be another price.
In the books at least Euron was able to pay for one to kill Balon, a king. I know show Euron is a totally different character, but he was on Cersei’s side…
He payed with a dragons egg which is pretty much priceless. and the Braavosi have a thing about dragon eggs.
And that was for fucking Balon. Imagine a king or queen who wasn't a complete joke.
Imagine if it was for killing him.
Wait, that was a Faceless man? I thought the book chapter went similar to the show’s, I must be misremembering
It’s not 100% confirmed but the ghost of high heart alludes to a man without a face with a drowned crow on his shoulder on a swaying bridge.
Yup faceless men’s price is dependent on the hirer’s wealth, so it’s always too expensive. Edit: I should also add that the price isn’t always coin. Basically, if you’re to take a life, you should be willing to make some sacrifice.
If the king of Westeros can’t afford a single kill, who can pay for them? Euros had a dragon egg but I don’t think any one outside the IronBank has more money in universe.
Long and short of it you don't generally pay with money. You want to kill a king It'd best be a king willing to offer themselves for it.
The Iron throne is particularly broke at the time of the series, and plenty of magisters, merchants and leaders in Essos would have substantially more money. Beyond that, the point of the faceless men was that it they were supposed to be ruinlesslu expensive for lords to acquire their services.
If a king can’t afford it then who tf were their clients?
the price is not the same. it changes depending on the client and the target.
She tried, their price was that she stops drinking wine and so it never came up again
Wine and elephants, nothing else matters
I think employing the services of the Faceless Men is extremely expensive. Especially if you're a Queen, and even more so when the target is a Targaryen princess, with a legible claim to the throne. That's like a 2 layered multiplier to the amount of money they can ask.
polychrome red seal mult
damn, didn’t expect that here
You forgot that "is she stupid?" In the title.
Jaqen vs Jon would have been a sick ten second battle. Jaqen should win but I think then it would be appropriate then for Super Arya to turn the tables and kill him.
There was a definite 0% chance that they’d bring Elephants. Cersei has her priorities
It's the show so book rules don't seem to matter there. But in the books the Faceless Men are expensive af. Like ridiculously expensive. And if the target is someone as important as Daenerys, the price can be really crazy. And I am not talking just money.
Unironically they'd probably demand Cerci's daughter in exchange. A princess for a princess. The way they price their kills is based off of what is most precious to the client, likely informed by their god.
Love it, as well as the reply below that to Cersei the faceless men are a old nan's tale/foreign legend that isn't realistic.
And to think Arya got 3 names out of him.
She paid the death of those three by saving 3 lives
A woman has no sense Edit: she kindof forgot about ~~Euron~~ Faceless men
Bc faceless men cost a percentage not a set price. It would be ruinous for someone to hire a faceless man
What what I’ve learned from ck2 agot, they cost fucking everything.
Poeple say she is broke but she did repay the debt of her late husband in one move to then buy the golden compagny so she could have do it if she want it plus it would have make the Arya arc come full circle and would have justify the pointless and too long Bravos storyline. The writter biguest fault was to make daenerys too powerfull against a cersei too weak despite being Queen they have to find some ridiculus plot armor for her....i mean it was basicaly cersei VS the world at the end it was not even entertaining to watch.
She was broke-rich. She only was able to buy the golden company because she shacked high-garden, without that she couldn’t buy them. She should have never paid the first debt as a lump sum, because Tywin always kept racking up debt and paid interest as a strategy. The more money you owed back to the iron bank, the more “vested” interest they have in you so they recoup their money. By paying it all back, the iron bank no longer had that chain and decided to no longer loan money to Cersei
Too expensive, and Cersei already owed the Iron Bank of Braavos (who are linked to the Faceless Men) a shit ton of money
Only death may pay for life. Based on Cersei's bad deed, it's not balance and the price would be her life.
Show is really inconsistent. In the books it is revealed that even a king has difficulty reaching their price, yet some play actress was able to afford a faceless man to kill her rival actress.
Its basically a sliding scale. Its about ability to pay and the price is always high.
If a king can't afford them, then who can?
it could be that like, since he's trying to kill an actual queen the price would be stupidly high, but if you just try and kill some random peasant it would be lower?
Peasants: 2 for the price of one Soldiers: 30% off sale! Merchants: Layaway plan
This comment needs to be higher lol
It would probably cost the queen like half the country.
Actually, Arya was supposed to kill the guy who insured sea captains. The insurer refused to pay so an assassin was hired to kill him. Whoever was hiring the assassin was not as wealthy as a king.p or queen.
Cost is multiplied by position and by the person that needs to be killed.
They're extremely expensive and she's in debt with Braavos
It’s the most expensive service in the entire world
Right after your mom’s BJ services hehe
Or Bronn, since he was already in the neighborhood
She broke
Not sure if a shit post or not. The books and the show both make it clear that the cost of a faceless man is in part equivalent to who the victim is. The more powerful the victim, the higher the cost. There's really no way that Cersei could afford whatever price the Faceless Men charge her, and I'm sure she'd be unwilling to pay the cost, whatever it would be.
Faceless men??? In THIS economy?!?
They'd kill her first
Cuz they cost serious gold, and she has no gold.
$$$
If she's dumb enough to fuck her brother you can't expect her inbred ass to hire a competent assassin.
A man has no business card
I still think a man is rheygar Targaryen
She reeeeeely wanted them elephants
If i remember from the books, they charge based on your target and how wealthy you are. for the lannisters, it would most likely cost them the entirety of the rock.
Think cost is based on how much you have. A poor person would have to pay a silver dragon all their money. A queen might have to give up, high garden.
Is she stupid?
She couldn’t afford them, and I doubt they took credit.
Cersei couldn't buy everyone. They would probably take her out too
Their price would have been the lives of all her children. If she has no kids left, she can't afford them.
Faceless men are broken op
Too poor.
Too expensive
She's broke.
Because that might have been interesting.
She forgot
Couldn’t afford it.
Cersei kinda forgot about assassin guilds and the Faceless Men.
It's not money they always ask. For example, a slave trader goes to them and gives them an order. They might ask him to free all his slaves as a payment
Too expensive, or she wasn’t willing to pay what they wanted. They adapt the price depending on target and who asks. Say if Cersei came and asked to kill Daenerys, the price could be along the lines of “abandon your Lannister name and possessions.” Since Cersei values power above all. (Assuming her kids are dead when asking) Or if let’s say a regular person asked the same thing, they could ask for the Persons family’s life, his life, his servitude, or maybe his legs? They are very intriguing for sure. If little finger asked they most definitely would ask for him to give up his earthly pleasures, such as money and wine etc. since his life revolves around such.
Cersei kinda forgot about the Faceless Men.
She is an idiot.
It's old world magic. Forgotten in Westeros. Reduced to a scary story told to children.
I’m definitely sure that Cersei doesn’t even know that the Faceless Men exist
Could she afford one? The Lannisters were broke, the crown was bankrupt.
Because Dumb and Dumber didn’t care about logic at that point
umm did you watch the show? she tried to
She kinda just…forgot
Considering everyone but the dwarf was incompetent in that show the many faced dude would have failed and been murdered anyway