This one may be a stretch by nevertheless it's a connection my mind made while watching the show. I'll make it quick:
This guy is a Red Prist (like Milassandra) who can revive the dead at will:
But reviving the dead won't necessarily heal any wounds, atleast it leaves a nasty scar:
This guy revives the hound, becomes his only friend, and convinces him to fight for a worthy cause:
Brother Ray gets murdered along with all of the villagers The Hound was growing to love. But Brother Ray is the only one that is killed by hanging:
When The Hound is on a his revenge he finds that the perpetraitors of the murder (fourd men who massacred an entire village before the hound could run to rescue them at an ear shot) are about to be hang:
When the hound wants to cut a limb off he's stopped, and told they're not butchers.
It's rather odd that the reason that The Hound joins the brotherhood is due to the advice from Brother Ray. It's also odd that Brother Ray got hanged. When The Hound wanted to wound the perpetrators he wasn't allowed to. If these men were choked to death, they could be revived by the red priest without any signs of injury. If they receive a wound, this won't be healed. If The Hound cuts off a hand, it won't grow again.
It may be possible that it was all a con game (the villagers did legitimately die) between the brotherhood and brother ray to get the Hound to join the fight along the brotherhood.
Last year when watching episode eight of season six titled "no one." When I finished watching it I was in shock since I was under the impression that Arya Stark had just been murdered. I go online to view the reactions of the fans and I can't seem to find anyone who believes in it. The top "Game of Thrones" critics on YouTube who do complex analysis of the show claim that this was the worst episode in the shows history due to its many plot holes. There is one article I found that mentions this theory, but doesn't give an explanation as to why it's possible: https://www.wired.com/2016/06/crazy-game-thrones-theory-ill-bet-right/
I'll go one to give reasons as to why it only makes sense that Arya has been killed.
Some of the critics claimed that the conversation with Jaqen and Arya at the end made no sense:
Also, how can Arya be walking around after the battle with the waif despite her many wounds?
Why the she go back to the temple of black and white?
Why does she mount the face of the Waif on the wall?
Why does Jaqen tell her she's "no one," but smiles when she says she's Arya and walks away without a care in the world?
The critics on Youtube that I've seen so far have said that Game of Thrones dropped the ball. There are many plot holes and none of it makes sense. My belief is that they didn't. The Waif killed Arya and is wearing her face and I'll attempt to prove it.
If you go back and rewatch the "training" of Arya you'll realize that Arya opens up to the Waif and reveals everything about her. In this scene Arya tells her not only her childhood, but also her deepest secrets and motives for her kill list:
If you read the books it goes into a bit more detail as to how being a faceless man is much deeper than simply acting. It reminded me the testimonies from undercover cops. After years of playing a role you start to believe that's who you are, develop really emotional attachments to people, but yet retain the knowledge that you're pretending in order to carry out a mission. But it is said that the faceless men use acting techniques when impersonating someone.
“Years of prayer and sacrifice and study are required to work a proper glamor.” “Years?” she said, dismayed. “If it were easy all men would do it. You must walk before you run. Why use a spell, where mummer’s tricks will serve?” (FFC Arya II)
So we know for a fact the faceless men use acting techniques when impersonating someone. If you look at the video again, you must ask why the hell would the Waif be wanting Arya to tell her such private information about her past, her list, her motives. The Waif presses on to understand Aryas psychology and attempts to uncover her motives. Based on the information provided by Arya to the Waif, the Waif could realistically "roleplay Arya."
Now, lets look at the next scene. The Waif tells Arya "You'll never be one of us, Lady Stark" to which Jaquen tells Arya that the Waif "she has a point"
Jaqen then walks her to the room with all the faces, and he tells Arya a little about the history of the faceless men. He says that the faces on the wall are the original faces of past faceless men before they started wearing other faces. "These were the faces they wore in life, when they were not wearing others." Jaqen explains.
Let me repeat. The faces on the wall are the original faces the faceless men were born with, which were put in the wall when they started taking the faces of others aka became "no one."
They can't wear their original face and that of another at the same time, they must first become "no one" (Arya became blind from wearing a face when not being "no one"for some reason). But it's stated very clear that the faces on the wall are the original faces of the faceless men, which were placed on the wall when they were wearing the faces of others.
Therefore we have now a completely logical explanation for the face of the Waif in the wall:
Why did Arya return to the temple of black and white? Why did Arya lay the face of the Waif into the wall? Why the Jaqen congratulate Arya for becoming "no one"? What happened to her wounds? None of this makes sense if it's Arya who we expect to have won the fight.
In the other hand, based on the information provided by the show, it makes complete sense that the face of the Waif is hanging in the wall because the Waif is now wearing the face of another. Why did Jaqen tell "Arya" she's finally become "no one."? It's the Waif he's talking to (who was also in training) who has placed her original face in the wall because she's now wearing the face of Arya Stark.
The Waif knows all of Aryas deepest motivations, secrets and past, and therefore would realistically "play the role of Arya Stark." Based on information provided by the show, we have an explanation as to why why Waifs original face is in the wall, and why Jaqen congratulated "Arya" into being "no one."
There's a new book I'm reading Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization by Parag Khanna. While I don't agree with many of the conclusions of the book, it is one of the most thought provoking works I've come across in a while.
Parag has a concept called "functional geography" where he states that world maps should be redrawn to represent the infrastructure that allow supply chains (and the default trade) to take place. Here's an example of his "functional" map of the US:
The basic concept is that the maps would make more sense if we represent the infrastructure that allows trade to be carried out instead of national or state boundaries. This is somewhat accurate, since some industries have regulations that change across state lines (not to mention taxes).
One of the arguments he proposes is the elimination of the nation states, which would allow the free flow of migration globally. This he argues is the best way to take advantage of supply and demand in terms of human resources. Therefore movements such as Brexit should be shunned.
His arguments reminded me to the mechanical views of society popular in the 19th and 20th century. While it's not necessarily social atomism it does does has a smell to it since he seems to reduce human societies to a level of economic outputs. Cogs in a wheel that can be transplanted from one geography to another interchangeably. An example explaining this idea further is the Pandoras Box series from the 90's:
While there are different variations of the philosophy, his views are utilitarian. What is useful must be good, therefore the concept of "functional geography" prevails over national sovereignty and regional cultures, which is standing in the way of mass migrations to the West or the exploration of resourced in the third world by Western corporations.
What struck me as odd in the book is that he makes the argument for the mass immigration to the West as a competitive necessity against Asian countries such as China and India, yet praises China as the leader of for functional geography through their infrastructure buildup. China isn't taking in massive amounts of immigration (hardly any) but this isn't addressed at all.
There is much evidence that the culture of a society will determine its success. Authors have credibly addressed the issues of culture in the past, while it's been on obsession of leaders such as Peter the Great of Russia and Mao Tse Tung in an attempt to drive their society to supremacy.
The topic of massive immigration as a means to enhance or destroy a society has been discussed in the past. Niccolo Machiavelli is famously known to his book The Prince, but in my opinion his masterpiece was Discourses of Levy. In the book he gives three examples on the effects of immigration in society. I'll create a very brief summery:
The Greek city states such as Sparta declined due to low birth rates while at the same time refusing immigrants. A contemporary example of this would be the right wing parties in European nations.
The Republic of Venice was ruined due to immigration that didn't assimilate into the Venetian culture. He explains that immigrants created social bubbles and didn't assimilate or intermarried with the Venetians. These pockets of foreigners eventually grew in numbers, and thus power. They had no respect for the Venetian laws and customs, and the Venetians were abolished when these unassimilated immigrants grew in numbers. A contemporary example of this would be the left wings in both Europe and the US and their worship for multiculturalism as moral supremacy.
The Republic of Rome is the successful example provided. Rome would take in massive amounts of immigrants, but only after they've assured that the immigrants had been assimilated into Roman culture. They've in effect became "Romanized." The contemporary example for this would be the right wing in the USA.
In my opinion the idea that culture has no impact on either a company or nation is absurd. The argument so far seems to be between Machiavellis first and second example, while discarding the necessity of the Roman way and its need to have immigrants assimilate. There have been books that have studied the impact of culture in smaller scales:
Lets not forget that the Germans and English lived in mud houses before the Romans appeared.
While Connectography is very thought provoking and rises some very good points on the need to map our infrastructure and supply chains, it fails to be a complete treaty on geopolitics by reducing the human into simply cogs in a machine and the true impact of massive immigration without assimilation would have on the first world. Again: China is supposedly the leader in "connectography," yet don't practice multiculturalism.
There seems to be a point of diminishing return in writing. The struggle for skill acquisition in writing needs to rely on increasing your knowledge, and if you go too deep into a subject you'll become esoteric, your readers won't understand what you're referring too and you are now unable to communicate to them.
This might also be the case for subcultures also. Mass media in the 20th century worked to standardize our entertainment experience, so we could all more or less relate to each other. Today we belong to a small tribes that have been brought together through the internet. Our reference experience from the information we consume if now highly individualized, making it necessary to market as subgroups. This is also seen when trying to read literature from past centuries also, an example of this is Don Juan by Byron. It's filled with references that contemporary readers aren't familiar with but would have made sense at the time it was written.
Therefore if the goal in writing is to target the quantity of readers the content by nature must become superficial, and attempting to improve will drive you to specialized into a smaller audience (which isn't necessary a bad thing). This content therefore has to be oversimplified, not because the audience is stupid, but because but they're just not acquainted with the library of information an expert had to acquire in order to understand his deeper ideas, which can only be shared with colleagues that have been exposed to more or less the same supporting content from their field.
