History Characters / ASongOfIceAndFireTheFaithOfTheSeven

* KnightTemplar: As an organization, they are somewhat inspired by the real KnightsTemplar, though their practice of trials, use of torture to provide confessions, borrows from the latter-day Spanish Inquisition.

[[folder: Septon Barth]]
!!Septon Barth, Hand of the King

Barth was a septon who served as Hand of the King for Jaehaerys I Targaryen. He was appointed the Hand of the King and sat in that position for forty years. Rumored to delve in sorcery.

* TheHeretic: To the eyes of Baelor the Blessed, who burned his books on dragon lore, and some of the Faith. Though as per Maester Yandel, there was nothing immoral or against the faith in his writings, simply curiosity about magic.

* IgnoredExpert: Maester Yandel in ''The World of Ice and Fire'' dismisses Barth's ideas that the Children of the Forest were the ones who trained ravens to deliver messages. This [[spoiler:was proven true when Bran met the Children and confirmed it in Literature/ADanceWithDragons]]. Likewise Maester Aemon noted that a grammatical error concering the Prince Who Was Promised prophecy could have been avoided if they remembered what Barth said about dragons not being "male and female" but "both".

!!!The lackwit High Septon

!!!The boy High Septon

* SpeaksFluentAnimal: Not only Baelor saw him speaking to dove, the doves talked bakc to him in human voices.

* ThousandYearReign: The only thing most closely resembling a united monarchy in Westeros for a thousand years until the Targaryens.

* LightIsNotGood: You'd think that the bright rainbow cloaks they wear would be a sure sign of goodness, but not so much.

* CreateYourOwnVillain: The revival of the Poor Fellows and the Sun and Stars is a direct result of the Lannister regime's corruption, atrocities of blasphemy like the Red Wedding and poor management. Cersei paving the way for his rise to power by killing the previous High Septon and then slowly increasing the powers of the High Sparrow for a petty scheme ultimately leads [[spoiler:the Sparrow turning her and humiliating her far worse than any of her imagined enemies ever planned to]].

* TalkingAnimales: Not only Baelor saw him speaking to dove, the doves talked bakc to him in human voices.

* FromNobodyToNightmare: Went from a wandering holy man to head of the Faith [[spoiler: to toppling the Lannister-controlled regime, succeeding where Robb Stark and the Baratheon brothers had failed, not mention being a major threat to the Tyrells]].

* CorruptChruch: Subverted. While he's clearly in the Lannisters' pocket, this High Septon is more genuinely religious that the last one. Lancel, who takes religion very seriously, calls him a good man.

[[folder: High Septon III a.k.a. the High Sparrow]]

!!!The Most Devout

* CrystalDragonJesus: The Faith of the Seven strongly resembles medieval Catholic Christianity. Politically they resemble the Avignon Papacy, since as a Church they are entirely dependent on the Crown and are directly appointed by the Royal Court, which resembles that infamous period of Church corruption where the French Crown moved the Papacy to France from the Vatican.

!!!The Faith Militant

[[folder: In General]]
!!The Faith Militant

The military wing of the Faith of the Seven. Many pilgrims take up weapons to protect themselves and other victims of the war, which results in a massive ChurchMilitant. They answer only to the High Septon, an {{Expy}} of the medieval Pope.

* ChurchMilitant: The Warrior's Sons and the Poor Fellows, referred to collectively as the Swords and Stars. The Warrior's Sons was made up of noblemen, and the Poor Fellows were commoners (women were allowed to join this order as well). They rose against House Targaryen during the rule of Aenys I. The uprising continued until the reign of Jaeherys the Conciliator, who convinced them to disband by granting amnesty to all members of the two orders and vowing that House Targaryen would always defend the Faith of the Seven. [[spoiler: As of ''A Feast For Crows'' this has been revived]].
* ColdBloodedTorture: They use this to elicit "confessions".
* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: A militant fundamentalist religious organization that arose out of the collapse of law and order during a devastating war. Is this the Taliban or the Faith Militant?
* TheFundamentalist
* KnightTemplar: As an organization, they are somewhat inspired by the real KnightsTemplar, though their practice of trials, use of torture to provide confessions, borrows from the latter-day Spanish Inquisition.
* OrderReborn: They were originally founded before the Targaryens arrived in Westeros. After Aegon took over, his successor was to be his son Aenys, but the Faith opposed this because Aenys was the product of an incestuous marriage (Aegon married his sister, Rhaenys). The Faith Militant organized a rebellion which lasted into the reign of Jaehaerys I, who was able to strike a deal with them: the order would disband and the Targaryens would swear to always be the guardians of the Faith of the Seven. During Tommen's reign in ''A Feast for Crows'', the new High Septon is able to convince Cersei, acting as regent, to allow them to re-form the order if he cancels the debt the crown owes the Faith and if he publicly blesses King Tommen's reign, a traditional rite he had yet to perform.
* WarriorMonk

[[folder:Ser Theodan Wells]]
!!Ser Theodan Wells
!!!The True

A pious knight who becomes commander of the Warrior's Sons after the Faith Militant is revived.

* ChurchMilitant: He is among the very first knights who join the Warrior's Sons after they are reformed and becomes its new leader.
* TheFundamentalist: All of the Warrior's Sons are fundamentalists and fanatics to some degree.
* InSeriesNickname: Ser Theodan the True.
* TheLeader: Of the Warrior's Sons, placing him in charge of defending the Faith. Among the tasks this entails is leading honor guards for members of the Most Devout when they meet with the Royal Court and leading [[spoiler:Cersei's escort when she undergoes the penance walk through King's Landing]].
* MeaningfulName: "Theo" is Greek in origin and relates to the gods. Fitting for a pious character.

[[folder: Ser Lancel Lannister]]
!!Ser Lancel Lannister
[[quoteright:300:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lancel_lannister_ffg_4210.png]]

The teenaged eldest son of Kevan Lannister and his wife Dorna Swyft, and younger cousin to Jaime, Cersei and Tyrion. One of Robert Baratheon's squires. Initially described as something of a wannabe Jaime, he becomes more religious over the course of the series, and begins to become at odds with some members of his family. After the Faith Militant is reborn, Lancel is among the first knights to join the Warrior's Sons.

* AlliterativeName: '''Lan'''cel '''Lan'''nister.
* ArrangedMarriage: In ''A Feast For Crows'', the Lannisters marry him off to Amerei Frey, a female line descendant of House Darry, all the male members of which died during the War of the Five Kings, so the Lannisters can claim the Darry lands for themselves. This causes problems with the now devoutly religious Lancel, and the fact that Ami has a reputation as being very promiscuous does not help matters.
* TheAtoner: Ends up becoming TheFundamentalist in an attempt to make up for his earlier behavior.
* BrainlessBeauty[=/=]DumbBlonde: A subtly deconstructed and male example. Played straight enough that when he gets sent on a SnipeHunt for a breastplate stretcher by Robert, he never seems to realize it isn't real -- for all he makes for a ''very'' courtly, decorative squire on the surface. Deconstructed in that he's shown constantly trying to find templates to model himself on (first picking [[{{Badass}} his cousin]] who he had no chance of coming close to, then picking the idealised version of what [[KnightInShiningArmor a knight should be]], seeing as that is what [[AntiRoleModel Jaime]] isn't... then picking the ideal of what a [[TheAtoner penitent knight]] should be, since he messed KnightInShiningArmor up, too). This all strongly suggests that he feels that he's lacking ''something''; but, he can never manage to pinpoint exactly ''what'' thanks to his own limitations, so he only ever succeeds at digging himself into [[ButtMonkey ever-deeper holes]] as a result. Also, thanks to people writing him off as a [[TheMillstone waste of space]], he never exactly gets any real help in pointing him in any direction that'd be more right for him.
* BreakTheHaughty: The Battle of the Blackwater finishes what Tyrion started. During his recovery, he develops a HeelFaithTurn.
* ButtMonkey: Robert mocks and dislikes him. Cersei manipulates him. Tyrion blackmails him. He's nearly killed [[spoiler:during the battle for King's Landing]]. Then he's forced into an ArrangedMarriage so that the Lannisters can get their paws on a castle whose male heirs got killed off during the war. Finally, he just gives up and [[spoiler:becomes a member of the Faith Militant]], making his father practically disown him.
* DiseaseBleach: His wounds during the Battle of the Blackwater did a real number on his health.
* [[DeadpanSnarker Deadpan Snark-- ]]: [[AvertedTrope No]]. A ''very'' rare Lannister beastie, this boy: hence worth noting. Insipid, servile and emotional ''whiner'', more like. When he eventually does try attacking? with words, it... decidedly lacks by most standards (heck, it's hard to make out if it's merely a complaint, a winge, a dig ''or'' even remotely funny: forget simply aiming for ''dry''). Compare and contrast with the high bar the rest of the family has.
* TheDilbertPrinciple: He's utterly useless in any role that requires wit and subtlety. Yet, he keeps rising. Mainly because he's seen as a useful placeholder unable to cause direct harm to the real movers and shakers in the House. This bites a lot of people. Including him.
* TheDogBitesBack: Given Robert's abusive treatment of him, it probably didn't take much for [[spoiler:Cersei to convince him to help kill Robert. It's inverted however, Lancel totally regrets his action and feels very guilty about it]].
* TheFundamentalist: Becomes this in ''A Feast for Crows''.
* HeelFaithTurn: Totally and genuinely so (and tooth-grindingly so, as far as his family is concerned). But, it's not really changed him much, otherwise.
* IJustWantToBeYou: Greatly admires his cousin Jaime and wants to emulate him (ironically he appears unaware that Jaime is sleeping with Cersei too). [[spoiler:He later realizes his own kingslaying is nothing to be proud of. "The brave man kills with a sword, the coward a wineskin."]]
* KissingCousins: During a period in which she is separated from Jaime, Cersei uses Lancel as a replacement.
* TheMillstone: Is treated as a joke, is put in positions that could easily damage him without impacting what other people consider more important... and, [[DeconstructedTrope may not actually be quite as horrendously stupid as he is judged to be]], if others would just give him a chance to actually do something he is better suited for, instead of plunking him in plots and positions he is eminently unsuited to make work. He might have made a happier up-scale entertainer and social butterfly the family could have used as a social ice-breaker with the right training, rather than a knight or lord with responsibilities he couldn't deal with, for example. Fat chance of ''that'' happening in House Lannister.
* TheMole: Forced to spy on Cersei by Tyrion, who blackmails him with knowledge of Lancel sleeping with her.
* PrettyBoy: Described as very fair-haired and looking slightly like a younger, less manly Jaime. The [[Series/GameOfThrones TV series]] picked this description up and ran with it, making him look positively girly. However, during the Battle of Blackwater and his recovery afterwards, he loses quite a bit of his looks and even has early gray hair.
* ReplacementGoldfish: He essentially becomes this to Cersei after she's separated from Jaime, and he's explicitly said to resemble Jaime in his youth. However, Tyrion's thoughts go along the line of PoorMansSubstitute.
* ShoutOut: Lancel sounds like Lancelot. In ''Literature/TheMistsOfAvalon'', Lancelot is Arthur and Morgaine's cousin. Arthur and Morgaine are siblings who end up engaging in [[spoiler: incestuous intercourse]] just like Jaime and Cersei.
* SmugSnake: Gets a little too big for his britches after [[spoiler:doing his part in Robert's death, not to mention replacing Jaime in Cersei's bed]]. Tyrion rapidly shows him otherwise and battle cures him even further.
* TheSquire: One of two Lannisters who serve Robert as squires, putting him in an ideal position to [[spoiler:give Robert extra-strength alcohol while hunting in order to cause an "accident"]]. He is knighted for this service.

!!!Other Septons and Septas

[[folder: Septa Mordane]]
!!Septa Mordane
-->See the [[Characters/ASongOfIceAndFireHouseStarkHousehold House Stark Household]] character page.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Septon Meribald]]
!!Septon Meribald

A wandering Septon in the Riverlands who travels from town to town to hear the confessions of sinners. He encounters Brienne of Tarth during her search for Sansa Stark.

* TheAtoner: For having once used his experience and status as a Septon to trick village girls into sleeping with him.
* CoolOldGuy: By the time Brienne meets him, he is a truly good man who offers forgiveness and advice to many villages throughout the Riverlands.
* DarkAndTroubledPast: Has some suppressed trauma after fighting in the War of the Ninepenny Kings and having his life turned upside down.
* DoesNotLikeShoes: He goes barefoot in penance for his past as a DirtyOldMonk.
* DirtyOldMonk: Formerly. He used to talk village girls into having sex with him while hearing their confessions.
* GoodShepherd
* NonHumanSidekick[=/=]ADogNamedDog: Meribald insists Dog does not belong to him, but they stick together.
* WalkingTheEarth: Goes around the Riverlands offering food and religious service to anyone in need. Each trip takes him roughly half a year.
* WarIsHell: Gives perhaps the single best speech reflecting this, and is one of George RR Martin's favorite moments in the book:
-->'''Meribald:''' Brothers march with brothers, sons with fathers, friends with friends. They’ve heard the songs and stories, so they go off with eager hearts, dreaming of the wonders they will see, of the wealth and glory they will win. War seems a fine adventure, the greatest most of them will ever know...Then they get a taste of battle...For some, that one taste is enough to break them. Others go on for years, until they lose count of all the battles they have fought in, but even a man who has survived a hundred fights can break in his hundred-and-first. Brothers watch their brothers die, fathers lose their sons, friends see their friends trying to hold their entrails in after they’ve been gutted by an axe.

[[folder: Elder Brother]]
!!Elder Brother

Leader of the penitent brothers on the Quiet Isle, a religious refuge on an island at the mouth of the Trident.

* TheAtoner: For rapes he committed while a knight.
* BirdsOfAFeather: Like the Hound, he was a brutal killer whose social station was too low for him to marry the woman he desired, and who drowned his sorrows in alcohol and violence.
* TheConfidant: Both Sandor Clegane and Brienne of Tarth end up pouring out their stories to him.
* DarkAndTroubledPast
* {{Foil}}: In contrast to Brienne who chose to be a knight and still has her romantic idealism, he never chose the role.
* FromACertainPointOfView: [[spoiler:He tells Brienne the Hound died in his arms, but it's implied he means the brutish killer who was the Hound has died, while Sandor lives as a penitent gravedigger on the Quiet Isle.]]
* GeniusBruiser: Brienne notes his strong build and shrewd eyes before we discover his past as a knight.
* HeelFaithTurn: After being injured, stripped of his arms and armor and pushed into the Trident, he [[NakedOnArrival washed up naked]] on the Quiet Isle, where he became a penitent brother.
* HealingHands
* LeaveYourQuestTest: Tries to convince Brienne to give up her quest to find Sansa Stark and return to her father in Tarth.
* TheNameless
* PunchClockVillain: He was a knight because every male member of his family was a knight, and fought for House Targaryen at the Battle of the Trident because the high lord of his liege did so, not out of any belief in their cause.
* RedShirt: Lampshaded; he's one of the thousands of soldiers that fought at the Battle of the Trident whose stories no singer will ever bother telling.
* SkewedPriorities: After being impaled twice by arrows and having his horse killed under him, he fought on because he was desperate to find another horse, as he couldn't afford to buy another and without a horse he would not be a knight.

!!!Important Members of the Faith in history

[[folder:Septon Murmison]]
!!Septon Murmison, Hand of the King

A reputed miracle-worker, made Hand by King Aenys to make amends with the Faith after exiling his brother Prince Maegor.

* CruelAndUnusualDeath: [[spoiler:Hacked to pieces by the Poor Fellows.]]
* NumberTwo: As Hand of the King.
* ReplacementGoldfish: To replace the exiled Maegor.
* TooDumbToLive: Despite the Faith abhorring incest, he married Prince Aegon and Princess Rhaenys, which led to the High Septon expelling him from the Faith and the Poor Fellows targeting him.

[[folder: Septon Barth]]
!!Septon Barth, Hand of the King

Barth was a septon who served as Hand of the King for Jaehaerys I Targaryen. He was appointed the Hand of the King and sat in that position for forty years. Rumored to delve in sorcery.

* CourtMage: If the rumors about him being a practicing sorcerer were true.
* GreatBigBookOfEverything: His book "Unnatural History" of which only fragments survive had this status among Westerosi scholars and is regarded as the most interesting book on magic lore. It is constantly referred to in ''Literature/TheWorldOfIceAndFire'' and invoked by the likes of [[TheSmartGuy Tyrion, Maester Aemon, Marwyn and Rodrik Harlaw]].
* TheHeretic: To the eyes of Baelor the Blessed, who burned his books on dragon lore, and some of the Faith. Though as per Maester Yandel, there was nothing immoral or against the faith in his writings, simply curiosity about magic.
* HeterosexualLifePartners: If Alysanne was the love of Jaehaerys' life, Barth was his best friend.
* HypercompetentSidekick: His tenure as Hand was considered one of the best, he served as Hand for forty years, a Westerosi record.
* IgnoredExpert: Maester Yandel in ''The World of Ice and Fire'' dismisses Barth's ideas that the Children of the Forest were the ones who trained ravens to deliver messages. This [[spoiler:was proven true when Bran met the Children and confirmed it in Literature/ADanceWithDragons]]. Likewise Maester Aemon noted that a grammatical error concering the Prince Who Was Promised prophecy could have been avoided if they remembered what Barth said about dragons not being "male and female" but "both".
* LostForever: Everyone laments the fact that Baelor burned the full copy of "Unnatural History", with only fragments surviving. Other works of his oeuvre have also been lost to time.
* NumberTwo: Served Jaehaerys as Hand of the King, making him the second most powerful man in Westeros (and probably third most influential person, after Queen Alysanne).
* TheSmartGuy: Regarded as one of the most brilliant scholars in the history of Westeros.
* WorkingClassHero: According to Maester Yandel, "No man of humble birth ever rose so high as the plainspoken but brilliant septon." The son of a blacksmith who became a librarian at the Red Keep, his brilliance was recognized by Jaehaerys, his lifelong friend.

-->See the [[Characters/ASongOfIceAndFireHouseStark House Stark]] character page.

The Faith is mainly headquartered in Oldtown like the [[Characters/ASongOfIceAndFireTheOrderOfTheMaesters Maesters]], and similarly they have close-knit ties with [[Characters/ASongOfIceAndFireHouseHightower House Hightower]]. [[spoiler:The Faith of the Seven, much like the Maesters, might have also had a hand initially in the extermination of the Targaryen dragons and later in the demise of the Targaryens themselves.]]

** According to ''The Princess And The Queen'', the Faith [[spoiler:might have caused the riots of King's Landing against Rhaenyra Targaryen which led to the Storming of the Dragonpit, where a number of the Blacks' dragons were exterminated. The manner in which [[Characters/ASongOfIceAndFireIndependentCharacters The Shepherd]] roused the common folk of the city and the way the dragonslayers killed the dragons suggest a religious element.]]

** The Faith of Seven's relationship with House Hightower and the Order of the Maesters suggest various implications, specially since the latter two have a penchant toward the study of magic:
*** The High Septon at the time of the War of Conquest sequestered himself in the Starry Sept to determine the course that Oldtown would take in the eve of Aegon Targaryen's eventual coming. He determined through prophecy that Oldtown must never raise in arms against the Targaryens, lest the city would be destroyed. As such, the Hightowers bent the knee to Aegon. [[spoiler:Due to the ambiguity of the prophecy, the Hightowers never rose against any Targaryen king henceforth, nor they participated in Robert's Rebellion. They were even hesitant in participating in any war since the ruin that the Dance of The Dragons brought to them.]]
*** The Faith is very much against the Targaryen practices of incest and polygamy and suffered a great deal of mistreatment from Maegor the Cruel. Though Jahaerys the Conciliator brought peace to both parties, the Faith was always uneasy with these continuing practices and to having been undermined in authority due to the Targaryen's use of dragons. An instigator only known by the moniker The Shepherd roused the common folk of King's Landing to riot against the authority of Rhaenyra Targaryen, which later led to the Storming of the Dragonpit, where several of the dragons were slain. Though the common folk are described to be sparsely armed, [[spoiler:the men that stormed the Dragonpit were remarkably well armored, armed to the teeth and aware of the way of killing dragons. The manner in which The Shepherd instigated the riots and the dragonslayers invoked the Seven when killing the beasts suggest that the Faith had taken part in the incidents.]]
*** Aemon Targaryen, son of King Maekar, was not allowed to become an Archmaester due to him being a Targaryen. Though the Order of Maesters was not outspoken against the Targaryens, the knowledge that would have been imparted to him in the Citadel was not for the Crown's ears, suggesting that they refused him for political and religious reasons.

* SigilSpam: The 7 sided star if The Faith n is everywhere.

*** The Faith was crucial in the Rebel's victory over the Targaryens in the Battle of the Bells, alerting the Rebels of the presence of Targaryen forces in the vicinity. This was the turning point of Robert's Rebellion.

!!High Septon III, "the High Sparrow"

* BrainlessBeauty/ DumbBlonde: A subtly deconstructed and male example. Played straight enough that when he gets sent on a SnipeHunt for a breastplate stretcher by Robert, he never seems to realize it isn't real -- for all he makes for a ''very'' courtly, decorative squire on the surface. Deconstructed in that he's shown constantly trying to find templates to model himself on (first picking [[{{Badass}} his cousin]] who he had no chance of coming close to, then picking the idealised version of what [[KnightInShiningArmor a knight should be]], seeing as that is what [[AntiRoleModel Jaime]] isn't... then picking the ideal of what a [[TheAtoner penitent knight]] should be, since he messed KnightInShiningArmor up, too). This all strongly suggests that he feels that he's lacking ''something''; but, he can never manage to pinpoint exactly ''what'' thanks to his own limitations, so he only ever succeeds at digging himself into [[ButtMonkey ever-deeper holes]] as a result. Also, thanks to people writing him off as a [[TheMillstone waste of space]], he never exactly gets any real help in pointing him in any direction that'd be more right for him.

!!! Important Members of the Faith in history

* WorkingClassHero: According to Maester Yandel, "No man of humble birth ever rose so high as the plainspoken but brilliant septon." The son of a blacksmith who became a librarian at the Red Keep, his brilliance was recognized by Jaehaerys, his lifelong friend

[[folder: High Septon III a.k.a. The High Sparrow]]

[[folder: High Septon III]]

!!!Other Priests