Arya and The Powers of Faceless Men

Published May 9, 2019 · Updated July 6, 2022

Hey Guys,

In some recent ‘casts Big D has raised the idea that Arya can disguise herself as anyone. In the deep dive for “Last of the Starks” he hypothesized that Arya could have been Qyburn negotiating with Tyrion at the gates of King’s Landing, I believe after “The Long Night” Big D expressed happiness that she wasn’t in Bran’s chair and pulled off Bran’s face at the last moment to surprise the Night King.

That’s a good thing. To my, possibly erroneous, understanding of how this works, that would have defeated the purpose since it would have meant Arya killed Bran to take his face. I believe the show has established that in order to disguise themselves as someone else the Faceless Men need that someone’s face, presumably after they are done using it. They are not shapeshifters or Face Dancers from the Dune universe, They can only transform themselves into someone whose face they have taken. Hence Arya’s traveling bag of faces that Sansa discovered last season, or perhaps more to the point, the great hall of faces stored in the House of Black and White. Why do these if you could assume the guise of anyone when you needed to?

Am I missing something? I’m quite open to being educated.

Arya may indeed adopt the appearance of someone else get into King’s Landing and perhaps close enough to make an attempt on Cersei. But I think if she does, she’s wearing a dead person’s face.

Tony Watson

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